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The Panoan tribes that practice the poison frog ritual call it kambo or
kampo in their language. The tree frog is stretched by strings tied to its
limbs. Tree frogs are referred to as “sapos,” in spanish hence the term sapo
as sometimes used to refer to the indigenous medicine, kambo. As painful as
it may look, the tree frog is not harmed during the process in which the
poison is harvested from its skin. Traditionally, older men scrape the
epidermis of the frog with a wooden stick to remove the toxin. After
harvesting the poison, the frog is released unharmed. To the Matses, harming
the frog could offend animal spirits and resulting in severe misfortune.
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