Vacina do sapo is not truly a vaccine, as it does not vaccinate against any specific illness or germ.  But, as a cure for ailments ranging from chronic fatigue to malaria, or simply as a "booster shot" for the immune system, the slimy secretions of the phyllomedusa bicolor tree frog are an Amazonian household remedy. 

In the 1980s, during one of his visits to the Matses Indians in Peru, investigative journalist Peter Gorman documented the first first-hand experience of a human taking an animal substance directly into the blood stream for medicinal purposes (see Frog Sweat - Matses Rainforest Medicine ).     

Times have changed since then.  Throughout the Amazon, sapo, can now be purchased, without prescription, in markets and apothecaries, or administered by traditional healers and herbalists as a natural household remedy. 

 

The Controversy over Frog Slime

Not surprisingly, the global pharmaceutical industry is now taking keen interest in the medicinal properties of frog slime.  In an International Herald Tribune article dated May 31, 2006, an alliance between the Katukina tribe and the Brazilian government aims to ensure that profits generated from the development of drugs from the phyllomedusa bicolor's secretions, will stay in the country and benefit the Katukinas.

Scientists say that peptides from the frog's slime has great potential in treating hypertension, stroke and other illnesses.  The Brazilian government hopes to use frog slime as a way to advance its own research and development in pharmaceuticals, an area dominated by Western multinationals.  As well, Brazil's government hopes to take advantage of the traditional knowledge of the indigenous shamans who have long used frog slime for healing a variety of illnesses.
 
The article states that, "The indigenous dimension is also crucial because Brazil, like other developing nations, is trying to fight back against what it perceives as biopiracy, the theft of biological resources from the country's native habitats for commercial use. Though the project is still in early stages, about 20 scientists are seeking start-up financing of close to $1 million from more than a dozen universities, state governments, and federal agencies."
 
The initiative, known as Project Kambô was started last year after Marina Silva, Brazil's environment minister, received a letter from Katukina, the tribal chief, denouncing the growing use of kambô poison by outsiders. Its perceived benefits in recent years fueled a pirate trade in the poison in cities across Brazil.
 
The poison, Katukina warned, if administered wrongly, could be dangerous. And its use, the letter added, is nothing less than biopiracy; if economic gain is generated by the remedy, then the chief's tribe, which is called the Katukina, should share the revenue.
 
"The vaccine belongs to us," he said. "Science might help us develop it, but kambô knowledge is Katukina."

But is it?

In a lazy afternoon at the beautiful home of Mariana Pantoja Franco, an anthropologist who works with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), I played chess with a young man, while our friends barbequed 2 large, plump river fish, stuffed with herbs.  He told me that he was on a government-sponsored project that was exploring how a revenue sharing model could be created between pharmaceutical companies and indigenous tribes regarding the development of medicines derived for kambô.  He said that royalties must go back to the indigenous communities from where the frog vaccine originated.

"But don't many tribes use kambô?" I asked.  "Which tribe gets the royalties - who gets to decide that?  How can the Brazilian government ensure that the royalties be divided fairly among all tribes?"

"Yes," he said, "that could be a problem."

Taking Kampú in Brazil

I first came across vacina do sapo in Rio Branco, Acre.  Banê, a young shaman of the Kaxinawá tribe administered it to me.  He brought me to his home, which was in a poorer part of the city, where sewers were open, the streets were unpaved, and lined with stilt houses made of wooden slats.  

"When the river is full, the water rises up to here", he said, pointing to the corner of his house.  He had me sit down on a log underneath his house, while he went inside to find his stash of dried frog milk.  His wife, petite and lovely, with almond eyes like a china doll, and holding a sleeping child, came down the ladder to gaze at me with curiosity, then disappeared back into the house.  

Banê had warned me what was going to happen - that I might have difficulty breathing, perhaps my face would swell up like a frog, I'd experience hallucinations, and I would likely vomit and shit.

"But, will I vomit and shit...uncontrollably?"

He nodded, "Sometimes people cannot control themselves."

I wondered what I was getting myself into. Where would I vomit?  More importantly, where, oh where, would I defecate?  I scanned my surroundings, but there was no cover - not even a bush - and we were in full view of the neighbors.

"Where's your toilet?" I asked.  He pointed, across his barren, dirt yard to an outhouse 40 feet away.    

I looked balefully at the toilet, which was nothing more than a doorless,  ramshackle wooden shack, covering a dirty ceramic bowl, perched above a fetid open sewer lined with reeds.

"Please God, don't make me shit."

With a lighter, Banê lit the tip of a bamboo stick and proceeded to burn points into my left arm, which he scraped with his not-so-clean fingernails in order to remove the top layer of skin.   He then spat on the dried frog milk, in order to soften it into a paste, and dabbed this on my open burns. I wondered if I would get sick from this, or get some kind of skin infection.

He stepped back and watched me.  I waited.  Not much happened.  

"Do you feel anything?"

"No."

He gobbed some more saliva on the dried frog milk and slathered some more on my arm.   We waited.  This time, I did feel something.  My heart beat faster, I vision was mildly distorted, but after five minutes, I was back to normal.  I don't know whether I was disappointed or relieved, but I did feel somewhat more confident, more aware, more alive. It definitely put a spring in my step.  I thanked him, paid him 30 reis (about $10) and went back to my hotel.

Weeks later, on a 5-day boat ride to visit a remote Kaxinawá village called Chico Kurumim to film a festival and dance of Mariri. I was having a chat with Terri Valle de Aquino, anthropologist and director of Acre's Comissão Pro-Indio .  

I told him about my experience with sapo, and that lamentably, or perhaps fortunately, the effects were very mild.  He tilted his head, looked at me with a sparkle in his eyes and hand-rolled cigarette hanging out of his lips, and said, "Well, that's because you did it all wrong!"

He took a drag from his cigarette and gestured widely with his hand.  "When you take vacina do sapo, you need to fill your belly up with caiçuma, first.  If not caiçuma, than at least water.  You must drink and drink until your belly is so full you can't possibly drink any more.  And then you do administer the vacina do sapo."

"Caiçuma, what's caiçuma?"  Struggling to comprehend Portuguese, which sounds nothing like Spanish, was taxing enough on my brain, but communication was further complicated by the fact that out here, in the Amazon, locals had their own words, ways of saying things, that were not in my battered traveler's dictionary.

"Caiçuma is drink that the Indians make.  It's made out of corn, macaxeira (mandioc, yucca) and sometimes they add ground peanuts. They grind up all the ingredients, and boil it in water to make drink, like a soup.  You will need to drink bowl after bowl of it, and after the vacina do sapo, it all comes out.  You will vomit until you can't vomit any more, and, in the end, it comes out yellow - that's your bile."

How vile, I thought.

"How many times have you taken the vacina do sapo?"  

"Oh many, many times.  You see, out here, we have malaria.  I've gotten it, oh, nine, ten times, maybe more.  But what's worse than the malaria are the drugs used to cure malaria.  Malaria drugs are toxic - they are terrible, but you need to use them to get rid of the malaria.  And then the drugs stay in your liver.  Only the vacina do sapo helps me cure myself of the antimalarial drugs."

So on the long boat ride into the Amazon jungle, the monotonous hum of the motorboard broken by rounds of guitar strumming, tambourine shaking and singing, and much cigarette rolling and smoking, I learned a glimmer of what the sapo means to the Kaxinawá people.

Stories that My Grandfather Told

The Kaxinawá people call the sapo kampú.  As in most indigenous cultures of Amazon Basin, the Kaxinawás attribute their vast medicinal knowledge to come from the teachings of plants, animals and spirits of the forest, with whom their  shamans, or pajés, can communicate.  They have many legends as to powers and teachings that this frog can bestow.

Of the many species of frogs that exist, Kampú is a frog that is most shrouded by mystery and knowledge, and strongly related to healing and the secrets of hunting.  Kaxinawás know of 3 types of Kampú.  The áwá kampú, or tapir kampú, is the largest and lives in the ground.  An injection from this frog gives the hunter luck in tracking and hunting tapirs.  The issú kampú, or black monkey kampú, lives high up in the trees.  An injection from this frog gives the hunter the ability to kill all kinds of monkeys, especially the black monkey. The txaxú kampú, or kampú of the deer, lives and sings at the edges of ponds and lakes.  After taking an injection from the this frog, it is much easier to kill a deer.

In the old days, when there were no modern medicines, this was the best remedy that the Indians had for all kinds of illnesses, like fever, pain, parasites and fatigue.  As a strong purgative, it helps to eliminate all kinds of illnesses from the body.  After taking capturing the kampú and extracting all the milk it could give, they would kill the kampú.  Because, if you don't kill the kampú, it will hang around and spy on you, watching what you intend to do with its milk - use it for hunting, or use it as a remedy.

Kampú can be used to make snuff - the Indians would take scrape off some of the dried milk with a stick and mix it into tobacco. Just before going into the forest, they would take some of the snuff, and then go hunt.

Some say its bad luck let the kampú go after taking its milk.  So they skin it, and dry the skin on the stove, to save as a remedy for later.  Also, some people take the meat of the kampú and make a soup out of it with finely-ground corn meal.   

Bon Apetit!

Sources

"Estórias que meu avô contava", Papo de Indio, Rio Branco, Ac., 29.10 a 04.11.95
Publication of Comissão Pro-Indio, of Acre, Brazil
 

Brazil Sees Profit in Frog Slime

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