What is Rapé(Hapé)?
Hapé, also known as Rapé in Spanish, is widely known for being a very distinctive, powerful compound used by shamans as a spiritual healing tool. What’s interesting about Rapé is the fact that it combined multiple sacred plants with things like tree ashes, and also some tobacco. But it’s not the regular tobacco that you can find within this recipe, it’s something quite different.
The rapé that comes from Amazonian tribes and indigenous cultures is a cleansing snuff, and it’s used by shamans in rituals very often. The sacred tobacco used for hapé can be administered on your own, however you can also have someone prepare and administer it for you, which is certainly very helpful.
What are the benefits of using rapé?
Rapé is extremely powerful and it’s widely known for being very helpful at clearing bad energies accumulated around a person. In addition, it also does an excellent job at helping you sharpen your mind and boosting your focus naturally. Another advantage of hapé is that it will help you detox your body and your mind.
Thanks to its unique bad energy cleansing benefits, rapé is used alongside other similar ceremonies, more specifically ayahuasca, it does an excellent job at helping you deal with respiratory ailments, and also the common cold. Its ability to clean the sinuses of bacteria and mucus shows the true power of hapé, and how reliable it can be.
On top of that, rapé delivers a grounding, very calming effect since it helps remove many of your negative emotions naturally. You can also use it along with many different mental illness and addiction treatments.
What kind of tobacco can you find in rapé?
As we mentioned earlier, the tobacco you find in hapé is not common. It’s something very specific, and it comes from a tobacco species called NicotianaRustica. In the Amazonian region it’s called Mapacho and it’s widely known for its exclusive use in tribal ritual. If you compare NicotianaRustica with the regular N Tabacum you find in cigarettes, you will find it to be a lot more powerful and with an extremely strong effect.
Another important aspect to consider when it comes to rapé is that aside from tobacco, it also includes alkaline ashes from other plants. That includes mint, banana peel, clover, tonka bean and cinnamon. These are the ingredients we know, however shamans tend to keep the true/complete hapé recipe a secret in order to maintain its potency and not encourage others to create a less powerful alternative.
How is rapé prepared and used?
The entire process is very interesting and quite different to many other treatments or similar traditions. The shaman will take all the ingredients along with the tobacco and then they will grind it into fine powder. Since it’s imperative for the ingredients to be snorted or blown through the person’s nostrils, they spend a lot of time ensuring the powder is very fine and safe to use. That’s why sometimes the process can take a lot of time, just to ensure everything is safe and there are no complications that will arise.
Administering rapé is also quite the experience on its own. It’s a ceremony where the concoction presented above is snorted by the person or blown into their nostrils with the use of a ceremonial pipe. Depending on the tribe, the pipe is either made out of bamboo or bone. Generally, this process is a two-person job, which will require the practitioner and shaman. There are some pipes that can be used solely by one person, in that case the shaman tends to be the one using it.
A very important aspect to think about when it comes to hapé is the fact that it’s a cleansing medicine. That means it will lead to a few side effects. Those can be things like diarrhea, sweating, maybe even vomiting. Some might say this is the uncomfortable part of rapé, but at the same time there are people that believe it’s a major, integral part of the entire experience.
The main focus through this process is to cleanse your body both physically and spiritually, while offering you a way to remove all the negative energy and move forward as much as possible. Once you remove those toxins from your body, you will find an improved version of yourself on the other side. You will feel in line with your true self, but also more focused and calmer.
It’s also worthwhile to note that during the preparation, some shamans will include a few ground shells of AnadenantheraPeregrina. It’s not a major part of the entire compound, but it is included due to how well it works in combination with all the other ingredients. Some shamans will use ash from the Parica tree from the Amazonian region too.
The preparation process involves a few, key steps:
- You get the wild tobacco and then you chop it, after that you dry it in the sun
- Then the dry tobacco is beaten with clubs or you can grind it using a mortar and pestle. Again, you want to have very fine powder for this procedure.
- The medicinal spices/herbs and tree bark are burned in a fire pit. You will need to have a fine, white ash as the result.
- Once you have the ash and dry tobacco, you place them through a fine sieve until you only have the fine dust.
- The ash and tobacco get mixed, ideally you want to have a 1:1 ratio.
- At the end, you can blend some flavorful or aromatic plants with the resulting compound.
Using it as a form of prayer
Despite the fact that rapé clearly has very potent medical attributes, one of the key reasons shamans were using it was related to its ceremonial, spiritual benefit. Hapé does an excellent job at helping people get in line with their true self and remove all the negativity that surrounds them. It can be used as a form of prayer, since it helps you better connect with the forces of nature and the animals found within the forest.
It also harnesses the power of medicinal plants to help boost your strength and empower you to heal your body naturally. That’s why the main focus of rapé is to help guide you and remove negative elements, both from within your body, but also negative energy that surrounds you. There’s a reason why this blends very well with kambo or ayahuasca, because it helps you enter a state of calmness, where all the negative compounds and energy will go away.
Since the main ingredient is nicotine, there is a chance that you can get addicted to the rapé medicine. Thankfully, most shamans have good control over the dosage, so you don’t end up getting way too much of this medicine and you can avoid getting to a point where you need this treatment very often. As we said earlier, you can administer rapé on your own, but it’s a good idea to not do that because you want to avoid getting a very high dosage.
Using rapé as a nootropic
While rapé has a spiritual benefit, it’s also used in many cases to help improve the focus and concentration of people within the Amazonian tribes. Many of them use hapé as a way to improve their hunting capabilities, since it allows them to better hunt or perform daily tasks. That’s an incredible use of rapé that a lot of people don’t talk about very often. Using it as a nootropic is very helpful and it does boost the efficiency of the tribe, especially when it comes to more complex and exhausting tasks like hunting.
But it’s not used solely for that. It can also be just as good against headaches, which is why many shamans considered it as a treatment for a lot of people within their tribe. The fact that you can experience rapé and not deal with any migraine after that is certainly one of the reasons why rapé has become very popular. On top of that, a lot of people are interested in buying the commercial hapé because they want to have access to such a powerful product and not deal with any dangerous chemicals that other medical products might have in the first place.
Using rapé for guidance
Rapé is also known for guiding people and offering them the answer they were seeking. There are many times in life when we are lost and we need guidance or clarity about certain issues and challenges we face. That’s where rapé stands out, because it helps provide that clarity, while also making it much easier to find answers to those tough questions we tend to avoid.
Since hapé is using a variety of natural ingredients and tobacco to help you enter a safe, meditative state, it’s not dangerous. Also, the fact that it can help guide you through all these challenges is extremely helpful. Nicotine is stigmatized in today’s world, so it’s great to see that a variant of nicotine can actively be used for good and no one will get hurt from it.
The only problem is that it can lead to addiction. There’s a reason why shamans are the ones administering rapé to their tribe, because they get to keep dosage under control. They also know when hapé is needed and how often people should use it the first place. Nicotine found in rapé will interact with multiple neurotransmitters, ranging from glutamate to dopamine, endorphins and even adrenaline.
Is rapé safe to use?
Whenever we are dealing with tribal treatments, one of the things that comes to mind is certainly their safety and if they have a place in the modern world. Amazonian tribes talk about hapé having a multitude of side effects, ranging from sweating to diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and even dizziness. But they see this as a natural reaction that the human body has to cleaning and removing all those toxins from it.
If we take a look at rapé from a medical perspective, we will notice that it contains tobacco and that can be a carcinogen. Also, the way you consume rapé is dangerous, since any snuff products like these can lead to dental issues, heart disease and other problems. It’s also dangerous if you try it during your pregnancy period, so that’s something you want to avoid as much as possible.
There are 2 rapé pipe types. One of them is a Kuripe, an applicator used for self-administering hapé. But there’s also a Tepi, which is a long, yet hollow tube. This one is also suitable for a single person, but it can be modified so 2 people can use it when necessary. Most of these pipes are made out of wood, but there are some carved from bone. In some rare cases, they can also be made from reed or even bamboo.
Some things to note about the rapé ceremony
Most of the time, rapé is given outside, mainly due to practical, but also spiritual reasons. It helps you connect with nature, so it’s normal to ensure that you are outside when taking it. Also, tribal tradition states that if you have someone blow hapé for you, that means they are pushing their life force into you. That’s the reason why shamans are the ones administering it. But in general, you want someone that you can trust.
Then there are some practical things to focus on. Since rapé does have some side effects, it’s very important to be close to a bathroom, as this process can lead to diarrhea, purging or spitting. Tissue paper is also necessary since it’s possible you will blow your nose quite a bit. Having someone nearby is crucial for any rapé ceremony, that’s why self-administering it might not be a great idea especially for a beginner.
Conclusion
Rapé is very interesting since it has great health, but also spiritual benefits. Not only is it an incredible experience and it comes with its own ceremony, it can also help someone better identify their role in life, or how they can handle various situations. It’s very important to not administer rapé yourself, since it can be dangerous if you lack experience. Picking the right dosage and using it properly is essential, and it can help prevent many downsides. Despite that, it’s fascinating and a great example of ingenuity from Amazonian tribes!
