Ancient Amazonian Healing Tradition

Ancient indigenous tribal cultures have long-regarded plants as sacred medicines and healers. The art and practice of working with plants for their medicinal, psychoactive, spiritual, and transformative properties have been going on cross-culturally for millennia. Tobacco is one such plant that we don’t tend to see as “sacred” or “medicinal” in our modern world. On the contrary, most people believe tobacco to be an addictive, harmful substance that can lead to life-threatening diseases like cancer. But long before Marlboro or Camel cigarettes came around, tribal cultures were utilizing tobacco for sacred, ceremonial, shamanic, and medicinal functions. The sacred shamanic snuff known as Rome Poto (Rapeh) has been used by tribal cultures in the South American region for ritual, medicinal and recreational purposes for thousands of years. These indigenous tribes rarely used tobacco for smoking. They used tobacco in ceremonies to predict good, harvest, for spiritual or weather, fishing healing purposes