What the Feitio is
Feitio (literally, "the making") refers to the ritual preparation of the Santo Daime sacrament from its two source plants, the vine Banisteriopsis caapi (Jagube) and the leaf Psychotria viridis (Rainha, or Queen). Within the tradition, the Feitio traces back to Mestre Irineu's own apprenticeship with Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, who had long practiced the making of ayahuasca brews, before he began the Santo Daime doctrine.
The Feitio is regarded within the community as its own Work, distinct from the danced or seated works held afterward, and is conducted with prayer, hymns, and long periods of silence. It is considered by many members to be the most important ritual of the tradition, since it produces the sacrament that all other works depend on.
How the community takes part
The gathering and preparation of the plants is traditionally divided by gender: women are generally responsible for locating, picking, and cleaning the Rainha leaves, while men are generally responsible for cutting and preparing the Jagube vine. Many churches limit participation in the Feitio to members of their own congregation, though some also welcome respectful guests with a sincere, personally vouched interest in the ritual.
The people who oversee a Feitio are known as Feitio Masters, experienced members entrusted with guiding the community's preparation of the sacrament according to the practices sanctioned within the tradition. Because the two source plants are native to the Amazon and protected under Brazilian environmental law, Santo Daime communities maintain their own orchards of Rainha and harvest Jagube from managed forest stands, understood by the community as a matter of long-term stewardship.
Its place within the tradition's teaching
Community members describe the Feitio as an apprenticeship: participants learn each stage of the work gradually, according to their experience, and the tradition holds that skill in the Feitio develops alongside a person's spiritual growth. Because a Feitio can take days or weeks depending on the amount of sacrament needed, it draws on the labor of many members over its course.
The tradition also holds that the unity of the people taking part matters to the outcome: it is said within the community that whatever concerns or tensions exist among participants surface and are worked through over the course of the ritual, in much the same way that impurities rise to the surface of the pots as they cook. At the close of a Feitio, the congregation gathers to sing a hinário chosen for the occasion, and the ritual ends, as it began, with prayer.