Sapo/Kambo questions and answers

An interesting exchange on FB recently:

ORIGINAL POSTER: Anyone knows for sure milking the frog repeatedly does not make him more prone to infections and attacks by predators?


ME: Unfortunately, the frogs have two primary predators: birds of prey and tree snakes--nearly all of them constrictors. For parasites and infections, I have never seen a frog milked by the Matses that later developed them, and you see the same frogs all the time on the river where you live; you know they are the same because they will have burn marks on wrists and ankles where they were temporarily tied up, and you do not recollect until those marks disappear. That said, their sudor, sweat, is what protects them from those predators: The moment the frog enters the mouth of a snake it gets frightened and releases its sudor, which instantly freezes the snake, preventing it from closing its mouth and allowing the frog a few seconds to back out of the mouth and make its escape. And yes, again unfortunately, when you collect that sudor, that frog sweat, that frog will take several days to rebuild its protective sweat, leaving it considerably more vulnerable to those snakes and birds of prey during that time. It's similar to a poisonous snake's vulnerability for several days after envenomating prey and using up it's supply of potent venom. Everyone working with the medicine has to own up to that being a reality.


 IYA: In other words, back off from the frogs
??? Stop mystifying the frog; they have they own life quite separate from you humans stealing its bodily substances,. enough,... its really quite sick seeing how you colonial people have latched onto this for your own ends,.. it will be hunted out if you will not stop being materialistic;
Enough
When will you people stop?
When the frog is extinct???

ME:  If people are careful and allow the indigenous to collect them and return them to their creeks and trees, there is no reason to think anything bad will happen to these beautiful frogs. If people collect recklessly and hurt the frogs, or keep them in captivity thinking--wrongly--that the frog will produce medicine in captivity (they don't; they've been for sale in aquariums as house pets for 100 years and produce nothing out of their environment), well, then things could go bad. But generally speaking, the frog is with humans for half-an-hour to a couple of hours, then released, generally to a lot of joyful thanks. That is my experience, anyway, and I would not allow anyone near me to do it differently.

IYA: People are not careful; you know this is happening right now and its being exploited; hundreds or thousands of non-indigenous peopke are flocking to this and its simply not sustainable; the same is happening with ayahuasca and fbe vines are becoming rarer, and you are naive to pretend its not happening; i am not wlling to recommend kambo anymore, its becoming too destructive to local people and frogs; i blame the western practioners for their unthinking uncritcal awareness and naivety,...
As usual they do not give a f*** about what the repercussions of how the latest ‘treatment’ for alienated westerner europeans, americans and asians will impact local indigenous communities,..


ME: Given that I'm the guy who brought this medicine out of the jungle 33 years ago, you must know how many sleepless nights I have had in my responsibility for doing that. If I hadn't, someone else would have 3-5 years later, but that is not how it happened. I was it. Yes, too many people want the medicine. they are layering its use with all sorts of mystic bullshit. But when you use the word "exploiting", I can't quite agree with you. If you have the frog in captivity, it will not produce medicine. If you hurt the frog, it will no longer produce medicine. It only produces medicine in its own environment: No one yet knows whether the frog is responding to the leaves and trees it is walking on; if it is responding to the insects that attack it; if it makes its medicine based on its particular diet; if it makes its medicine out of fear of its environment; or if it is some combination of those things. (No one has ever given me the lousy $10 grand I would need to nail that down, dammit!!!!!) But we do know that if you collect medicine twice, the second medicine will be very weak. It will not produce anything but simple sudor, sweat with no medicine, if you keep it to collect three times. You cannot put it in a cage, move it out if its environment, hurt it, or it will not produce medicine--which is why so many people selling the medicine on the internet are putting poisonous egg whites or yolks on sticks and selling it as medicine, or putting candle wax. You can kill this frog, but you cannot, yet, at least, force it to produce medicine. Which keeps it safe: The people who want the medicine want real medicine, and that only happens if the frog is released and allowed to recuperate for a couple of weeks. THAT'S the frog's best protection from humans.