- Region
- South America
- Origin
- Northern Brazil, south-eastern Colombia and Venezuela
- Traditions
- Herbal knowledge of the Amazon, Tukano medicine
South America · Herb · № 908
Virola theiodora (en verwante Virola-soorten)
Herb · South America
Epena (virola)
Virola theiodora (en verwante Virola-soorten)
A tree of the nutmeg family with blood-red resin in its bark. The resin contains a lot of 5-MeO-DMT and DMT, and also beta-carbolines. As snuff it brings excitement, numb limbs, nausea and visions within minutes.
Safety notes
The resin is also a poison; its effects are violent and very variable. Dangerous with heart and vascular disease and together with antidepressants or other MAO inhibitors. DMT is on List I of the Opium Act. This information describes traditional use and is no encouragement or advice. Use is at your own risk; the makers of this site are not responsible for the consequences. Never alone, never together with alcohol, other drugs or medicines, not in pregnancy, with heart disease or mental illness (also in the family), and do not drive. In an emergency call 112.
Cautions by tradition (2)
- Healing traditions of the Americas: Intense and variable effects. Use at your own risk; never alone and not with medicines. Illegal in the Netherlands.
- Medicine of the Tukano peoples (Vaupés): The resin is also a poison. DMT is on List I of the Opium Act. Dangerous with heart and vascular disease and with antidepressants.
Preparation
Traditionally the inner bark is scraped off or the resin is collected from the heated bark, boiled down into a thick paste, dried and ground. Powdered Justicia leaf and the ash of tree bark are often mixed in. Among the Yanomami men blow the snuff into each other's noses through a long tube. Some peoples in Colombia make the resin into small pellets that are eaten.
Use in traditions
The Yanomami call the snuff epena or yakoana. Shamans use it to contact the hekura, the spirits that live in the trees, and so to recognise and fight illness. Among some peoples it is reserved for shamans; among the Yanomami all adult men snuff it at ceremonies. The same resin is also used as an arrow poison. Only in 1954 was it established that the snuff comes from Virola.
Applications
Use by tradition
How different herbal traditions describe this herb. Amounts are traditional guidelines checked for obvious errors; they are not medical advice. For poisonous plants no dosage is given on purpose.
Healing traditions of the Americas
Attributed effects
By shamans to contact the spirits and to recognise and fight illness.
Preparation and amount
Boiled-down, dried and ground resin, often with Justicia leaf and ash, blown into the nose through a long tube as snuff.
Caution: Intense and variable effects. Use at your own risk; never alone and not with medicines. Illegal in the Netherlands.
Medicine of the Tukano peoples (Vaupés)
Attributed effects
Among the Puinave the snuff is called yakee. With it the healer speaks with the spirits, diagnoses illness and is said to be able to turn into a jaguar. The resin is also rubbed on fungal patches on the skin for ten to fifteen days, and is an arrow poison.
Preparation and amount
Traditionally the bark is stripped from the trunk early in the morning, before the sun warms the forest, because the resin flows most then. The reddish-brown resin is scraped off, boiled down, dried, powdered and mixed with the ash of the bark of a wild cacao. The healer snuffs the powder through a tube of bird bone.
Caution: The resin is also a poison. DMT is on List I of the Opium Act. Dangerous with heart and vascular disease and with antidepressants.
- Ways to prepare herbs
- Compress, poultice and pastePowder and kitchen