Plants

Yopo

Trees

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Yopo." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/plants/yopo.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Yopo. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/plants/yopo

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-yopo,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Yopo},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/plants/yopo},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Yopo, Anadenanthera peregrina, is a leguminous tree of the Orinoco basin and the savannas of northern South America whose seeds are toasted, ground with an alkaline ash or lime, and blown into the nostrils through a paired tube. The snuff is fast, harsh and short, and the tube requiring two people means the act is usually shared rather than solitary. Its antiquity is unusually well established for a perishable practice, since the snuff trays, tubes and spatulas survive in dry burials from the Atacama and elsewhere across a span of thousands of years. A southern relative, Anadenanthera colubrina, was used the same way under the name vilca or cebil and appears in Andean iconography.

Facts

Attributions

Traditional Working

The paired tube requires one person to blow the powder into another, so administration is ordinarily shared rather than solitary; used in curing, divination and collective gatherings 1

Traditional Ailments

Amazonian and Orinoco shamans use the visionary state the snuff induces to diagnose and treat illness, a healing function recorded alongside its more prominent divinatory and ceremonial use. 1

Effects

Fast, harsh and short, beginning with intense burning and passing into a brief forceful visionary state; the tryptamines are inactive by mouth, so the nasal route is a necessity rather than a preference 1

Origins

Place of Origin

Snuff trays, tubes and spatulas survive in dry burials from the Atacama and across South America over several thousand years, with residue analysis confirming contents in some cases 1

Botanical Identification

Anadenanthera peregrina, family Fabaceae, the legume family 2

Origin Region

Orinoco basin and the savannas of northern South America 1

Attestation

Meaning in the Attesting Source

A southern relative, Anadenanthera colubrina, was prepared identically as vilca or cebil and appears in Andean and northwest Argentine material; the two are often confused in older literature 1

Method

Preparation Method

Seeds are toasted, ground, and mixed with an alkaline material such as bark ash or burnt snail shell, then blown into the nostrils through a paired tube 1

Learn More

A Snuff That Takes Two People

Yopo is made from the seeds of Anadenanthera peregrina, a leguminous tree of the Orinoco basin and the northern South American savannas. The seeds are toasted, ground, and mixed with an alkaline material, commonly the ash of a particular bark or burnt snail shell, to produce a fine grey-green powder.

It is administered nasally, and the classic instrument is a paired tube, a Y-shaped or double-ended pipe through which one person blows the powder forcefully into the nostrils of another. The design means the act is ordinarily shared: someone must administer it, and the giving of yopo is itself a relation between two people. Self-administration through a single tube is also done.

The effect is fast, physically punishing and short, beginning with intense burning and streaming and passing into a brief and forceful visionary state. It is used in curing, in divination, and among some peoples collectively at gatherings rather than only by specialists.

The tryptamines it carries are, like those in chacruna, ordinarily inactive by mouth, which is why the nasal route is not a stylistic preference but a necessity. In some places yopo is combined with a beta carboline plant, which is the same principle that governs the ayahuasca brew arrived at through a different delivery.

Snuff Trays, and Why This Practice Has a Datable Past

Ritual plant use very rarely leaves durable evidence. Yopo is the exception, and it is the reason its antiquity is better established than that of almost anything else this atlas describes.

Snuff-taking requires equipment: a tray to hold and mix the powder, a tube to inhale or blow it, a spatula, a container. These are made of wood, bone and stone, they are frequently carved with elaborate iconography, and in the dry conditions of the Atacama and other arid burial contexts they survive. Torres and Repke assembled the corpus, which spans a very wide area of South America and a range of dates running back several thousand years, and chemical residue analysis has in some cases confirmed what the trays held.

The equipment carries a second kind of information. Because the trays are carved and their imagery is stylistically datable and regionally distinctive, they let the spread of the practice be traced across cultures and periods in a way that oral tradition cannot. The iconography frequently shows the same fanged and transforming figures that appear in San Pedro contexts, which suggests a shared visual language for the state rather than for the plant.

A southern relative, Anadenanthera colubrina, was prepared identically under the names vilca and cebil, and appears in Andean and northwest Argentine material. The two species are often confused in older literature, so a source that names only the practice and not the species should be read with care.

Cross-Tradition Connections