Copal Negro
Copal Negro
Copal Negro is brownish grey in color and is very bright and clean smelling. This is a standard in Mexico, South and Central America for purification. Copal Negro has a deeper, more complex smell than the Copal Blanco, perhaps because it is not such a refined product.
Copal resin comes from a number of trees in the genus Copaifera, and like other resins derived from tree sap the distinctive smells come from the sugars and other components present in the sap of the tree. Copal is a genus of the western hemisphere, and in many ways it is the western equivalent of Frankincense, and is used ritually in very similar ways, for purification, blessing, and to create a spiritual environment that calls out our Higher Powers. Enjoy Copal Negro by itself in its purest form, or blend it with other herbs and resins for your own formulas. Copal Oro works better than Copal Blanco with woodsy and mysterious scents.
The below correspondences are vis Cunningham, Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs in plain text, C.L. Zalewski, Herbs in Magic and Alchemy in brackets, or my own interpretations in parenthesis. Cunningham and Zalewski do not distinguish between the different kinds of Copal, but baed on the correspondences they give, I believe that Cunningham is referring to White Copal, and Zalewski is referring to Black or unrefined Copal.