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Quetchua and/or Shipibo snuff called 'changa'

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visionecura91

Esteemed member
Hello,
I was reading a post about changa and Julian Palmer, the self-proclaimed inventor, and someone mentioned Nen:
“...there is also a Quechua and/or Shipibo snuff called changa, which is powdered caapi leaf with other (probably DMT-containing) plants… so that would probably be the origin of that name.”


I can’t access the link to the referenced post, and I can’t find any other mention of this traditional snuff. Do you have any sources for this, or was it based on personal communication?
If anyone can shed some light on the matter, i'd be grateful
 
I don't know, but I'll look into it later. I'm personally sceptical of the existence of a substance called "changa" in Quechua, and of the existence of a caapi leaf snuff.
I don't think caapi leaf contains harmalas in a proportion high enough for it to be active intranasally, even using the large amounts that would be required. If someone knows I'm wrong about this please let me know.
 
Most likely a modern creation with a clear marketing message to it. I once saw "DMT drops" (if I recall correctly) for sale from some Brazilian guy.
They were small balls of caapi resin and DMT extract (most likely from jurema). You would eat one ball and have an experience. There is a lot of innovation in Brazil from what I see. I'd stick with traditional recipes and use methods. Even these tribes are quite modern nowadays and trying to make a living. Stay safe 🙏
 
I was researching about changa and even if it's clear Palmer didn't invent it at all, tha name itself it's quite controversial. I'm pasting the relevant text on another DMT nexus post Changa on Wikipedia
[IMG alt="roninsina"]https://forum.dmt-nexus.me/data/avatars/m/27/27530.jpg?1706390209[/IMG]

roninsina

Esteemed member

Sakkadelic said:
Just to clear things up

Chocobeastie did not claim he invented changa, he claimed that he just named the smoking mixture of DMT and HArmalas changa, and that this name came to him during an ayahuasca trip around year 2000

roninsina claimes that in the year 1994 he was offered changa in this name "changa" and that was 6 years before Chocobeastie naming it changa

So it's not the case of the possible scenario of 2 people inventing the same thing and giving it it different names... but a much less likely scenario of 2 people naming an invention the same exact name "changa" independently

For whatever reason this confusion happened maybe someone lying or someone forgot the real date... we don't know but either roninsina or chocobeastie is right
or some very unlikely coincidence happened
Or some magical telepathic timeless connection occured and the already used name "changa" came to chocobeastie who never heard of it before
Or changa is the glossolalian name of changa :p

Personally i tend to believe roninsina.
Click to expand...
Except it wasn't a random collection of letters used to make some new sound in the English language, it was a traditional name of something which bears more than metaphorical similarities.

nen888 said:
...there is also a Quetchua and/or Shipibo snuff called 'changa', which is powdered caapi leaf with other (probably dmt containing) plants...
Click to expand...

"We dance round in a ring and suppose,
while the secret sits in the middle and knows." Robert Frost
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I'll try to find some reference to that snuff coming from a different source. The second quote you found I think points to what @northape says, a more recent invention, and so it would be possible that they took the name "changa" from (what we know as) changa.
If it has truly been used "for a long time by a number of tribes", there will likely be some anthropological sources mentioning it. I personally still doubt it, the adoption of even Ayahuasca is relatively recent to many tribes.
 
visionecura91 said:
i found another entry by Nen on the topic Trying to improve Acacia information "incidentally, 'Changa' is a name used for a long time by a number of indigenous tribes in Peru for a snuff which uses B. caapi and either an anadenanthera or 'mimosa'..[first-hand info]" so it's personal communication as i guest in the first time.
Click to expand...
Just to be clear, there are plenty of psychoactive snuffs in the Amazon based on numerous plants (yopo, cebil, virola, etc.).
Most likely, most interesting medicines are still unknown to us. I'd hide it very well after all the exploitation that they have experienced.
 
I just would like to known if the word itself it's really a Palmer-made term or some traditional name already used in Perù before 2000. Palmer states he conied the term during an ayahuasca session around 2000, even if some user here reported to be offered changa before that date from another source at the Rainbow Gathering in Wyoming in 1994.
In Quechua “changa” is a word meaning the leg as a body part. But i don't think it got any real connection with the DMT/harmala mixture. For now i think it's more probable that Palmer or another westener used that word first and after some time it become a common slang term.
 
I found this in an old (1982) paper by Schultes:

While Banisteriopsis Caapi is normally used in the form of a drink, recent inconclusive evidence suggests that it may be employed in the northwest Amazon and the adjacent upper Orinoco area as a snuff. Holmstedt and Lindgren have reported harmala alkaloids from snuff powders said to be prepared from a vine from which an inebriating drink is also made, but voucher material for identification is not available
Click to expand...

So there is a possibility that there is/was a snuff containing caapi, although I haven't yet found anything about it written at a later date, and it doesn't mention any names.
 
Jamie01 said:
caapi was added to yopo snuffs
Click to expand...
Caapi was consumed before sniffing a yopo snuff, but I haven't found any source confirming that the snuffs themselves contained caapi. They only mention it as an unconfirmed possibility (see above), and I think it's likely that over time that has been distorted into "they for sure did".
Do you have any source for snuffs containing caapi? I haven't found any yet.
 
Also this:

The Truth Changa: A smoking blend containing Ayahuasca and other herbs

:twisted: :love:::shock: ilearnt a new word today SOLIPSISTIC! I honestly have never heard that word before.:shock: :shock: Solipsism Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything...
forum.dmt-nexus.me forum.dmt-nexus.me



Kind regards,

The Traveler
 
@The Traveler still, that doesn't say much on whether the name was in use before changa was invented, regardless of who came up with the idea. The quote the OP references appears too in the second thread you link, but I don't think a single quote by @nen888 is enough to believe that there was an Amazonian snuff called "changa". So regardless of who invented it, there are open questions about the name.
 
blig-blug said:
@The Traveler still, that doesn't say much on whether the name was in use before changa was invented, regardless of who came up with the idea. The quote the OP references appears too in the second thread you link, but I don't think a single quote by @nen888 is enough to believe that there was an Amazonian snuff called "changa". So regardless of who invented it, there are open questions about the name.
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I see now, and yes, it would be prudent if @nen888 could still post valid sources for this claim. I'm very grateful that you respectfully clarified this!


I guess I made the natural mistake to having met @nen888 in person and being incredibly impressed by the genuine knowledge and wisdom of this person, while them being very careful about the information they shared to be backed up by factual information, this in turn makes it easier for me to accept their words as pristine and brought to us with good intentions.

On the other hand we have @chocobeastie, who seems to be completely focused on promoting their commercial activities like their ceremonies and books, and using their claims to help make these commercial activities into something bigger than they really are. This makes me biased in perceiving this person as narcistic and putting their commercial interests above truth, and giving the impression this person seems to be in a mind state where if they did not hear about something, then somehow nobody did.

And just like how @SnozzleBerry stated, most people who make 'inventions' in the proces of being part of the psychedelic family you wil never hear about it, they are just happy their findings are widely used and might improve the quality of life of other people. For example, you will mostly only hear about me being the admin of the DMT-Nexus since it's quite visible and it's important that people know who they have to contact for specific DMT-Nexus platform related topics, with this I always credit the community for actually being the one responsible for making this place what it is, and @blackclo as being the founder of the DMT-Nexus, doing otherwise feels morally and ethically wrong to me.

So when I saw the combination of @chocobeastie and changa being named in the same post, it triggered my auto-response for posting the topics where the moral questions behind @chocobeastie's claims are discussed ad nauseum.

As an analogy, for patents to be valid, you have to bring up true innovation for the patent be valid, just combining obvious parts will never be a valid patent since it lacks the true innovation part.


Kind regards,

The Traveler
 
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The Traveler said:
I guess I made the natural mistake to having met @nen888 in person and being incredibly impressed by the genuine knowledge and wisdom of this person, while them being very careful about the information they shared to be backed up by factual information, this in turn makes it easier for me to accept their words as pristine and brought to us with good intentions.
Click to expand...
Oh for sure, I'm not questioning @nen888's honesty or competency at all. It's just the difference between something that is widely held to be a fact, and something that just exists in a single, unclear report. Something widely held to be a fact can turn out to be false, and what is reported by a single person may perfectly be true. But their epistemic status, so to speak, is not the same. And so I think it's good to properly qualify it, because otherwise it's easy for urban legends to appear through a process like the "Telephone" game. I.e., someone could easily end up stating as fact that "the smokeable blend changa was invented by the Shiphibo".

There may well be a previous snuff containing caapi and called changa by Amazonian natives, and the likelihood I assign to it being true is higher than before I knew that @nen888 said so, and also Schultes' paper slightly raised it. But I still think it would need to be better supported to be held as a fact, that is, something that has a very high likelihood to be true (no fact is absolute). I think it's an interesting question so I'll keep looking to see if I can find something about either caapi snuff or a snuff called "changa" (or both).

About the @chocobeastie issue on the invention of changa, I agree with you since I read those threads time ago. Also, the book Articulations didn't help the case. It looks very much like commercial promotion and someone being eager to be known as "the creator of changa". I very much dislike people who self-promote and try to wrap and resell knowledge that they got from others for free.
 
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Very interesting to see how this topic seems to resurface over time and still has seemingly been unresolved.

Anyway the pdf might be interesting and is already mentioned elsewhere (from memory) but relevant to the OP and discussion.
 

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  • St-John-Graham-Aussiewaska.-A-Cultural-History-of-Changa-and-Ayahuasca-Analogues-in-Australia-...pdf
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