Ph.D., F.L.S. Richard Evans
SCHULTES
Curator of Economic Botany and Executive Director, Botanical Museum of Harvard
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
"These substances have formed a bond of union between men of opposite hemispheres, the uncivilized and the civilized; they have forced passages which, once open, proved of use for other purposes; they have produced in ancient races characteristics which have endured to the present day, evidencing the marvellous degree of intercourse that existed between different peoples just as certainly and exactly as a chemist can judge the relations of two substances by the reactions." - Lewin
The use of hallucinogenic substances goes far back into human pre-history. There have been suggestions that even the idea of the deity might have arisen as a result of their weird and unearthly effects on the human body and mind. Narcotic and other drugs have been reported by many writers in many cultures, since the very invention of writing. A truly interdisciplinary scientific interest in narcotics, however, has developed only during the past century.
In 1855, Ernst Freiherr von Bibra published the first book of its kind, Die narkotischen Genussmittel und der Mensch, in which he considered some 17 plant narcotics and stimulants and urged chemists to study assiduously a field so promising for research and so fraught with enigmas.
A review of the scientific literature of the last half of the past century indicates that von Bibra's suggestions were followed, and an interdisciplinary interest in narcotics began to take hold and grow. It proved to be the spark that eventually engendered today's extraordinarily extensive and complex literature in many fields on narcotic substances.
Half a century later, in 1911, another outstanding book-in reality, a much expanded and modernized successor of von Bibra's work-appeared in C. Hartwich's Die menschlichen Genussmittel. This volume considered at great length and with interdisciplinary emphasis about 30 vegetal narcotics and stimulants and mentioned many others in passing. Hartwich pointed out that von Bibra's pioneer work was out of date, that research on the botanical aspects and chemical constituents of these curiously active plants had, in 1855, scarcely begun but that, by 1911, such studies were either progressing well or had already been completed.
Then, 13 years later, a book of most extraordinary breadth of outlook appeared, written by the famous German toxicologist Louis Lewin: Phantastika - die bet?ubenden und erregenden Genussmittel. It was soon translated into several languages. The earliest English edition, Phantastica: narcotic and stimulating drugs - their use and abuse, appeared in 1931 and was soon unavailable; a second edition was published in 1964 in response to the growing need for the work in view of the wide-spread interest in narcotics that has developed in the last quarter century. A novel kind of book, basic to what we now call psychopharmacology, it presented the total picture of some 28 plants employed for their stimulating or intoxicating properties the world around, emphasizing their importance to research in botany, ethnobotany, chemistry, pharmacology, medicine, psychology, psychiatry as well as to ethnology, history and sociology. A very humble man, Lewin wrote that "the contents of this book will provide a starting point from which original research in the above-mentioned departments of science may be pursued". And the book has done exactly that - and admirably so. We may truly say that it was Lewin's Phantastika that sparked to-day's intensive and extensive interdisciplinary interest in narcotics, especially in those that we have come to refer to as the hallucinogens.
In the years between the books by Hartwich and Lewin, an American economic botanist, William E. Safford, in a series of articles, began to focus the attention of the scientific world on the unusual wealth of narcotic plants employed in primitive societies in the Americas. He called attention to the numerous enigmas in the identification of some of the narcotics of ancient American cultures and, although several of his own attempts at identifying them were later shown to be erroneous, he should justly be credited with pioneering research into the rich field of New World narcotic plants.
In the course of his nearly one million years of existence, man must have experimented with most of the plants in his environment. We have no exact idea of how many species of plants there are in the world's flora. There may be as many as 800,000. Estimates for the angiosperms alone - the most conspicuous element in terrestrial vegetation - vary from the usually cited 200,000 to about half a million.
A comparison of the number of species that mankind has found valuable in nutrition with those which he values as hallucinogens may be interesting. Of the vast assemblage of angiosperms, only about 3,000 are known to have been consumed directly as human food. The number that actually feed the human race, however, is relatively very limited, for only about 150 angiosperm species are important enough as foods to enter the world's commerce. Of these, only 12 or 13 stand, in effect, between the world's population and starvation, and these dozen or so plants are all cultivated species.
The number of plants providing the human race with narcotic agents is exceedingly small, even though there may be many hundreds of species with psychoactive organic constituents. Between 4,000 and 5,000 species are known to be alkaloidal, and constituents other than alkaloids may also be responsible for narcotic and similar effects. One would, consequently, expect that at least several hundred species might be involved. Yet only some 60 species - including cryptogams and phanerogams - are employed in primitive and advanced cultures as intoxicants. And of these 60 only about 20 may be considered to be of major importance. Furthermore, and perhaps significantly, only a very few-the coca, the opium poppy, cannabis and tobacco-are numbered amongst the world's commercially important plants; except for cannabis, they are cultigens unknown in the wild state, and have obviously long been associated with man and his agricultural practices.
While we do not know that there are species of plants possessing narcotic properties which have apparently never been employed as intoxicants, it is true that there have been few cultures - even in the most restricted and limited flora - that have not discovered or used at least one plant for its psychotropic activity. Lewin has appraised this interesting observation as follows: "The passionate desire which ... leads man to flee from the monotony of everyday life ... has made him instinctively discover strange substances. He has done so, even where nature has been most niggardly in producing them and where the products seem very far from possessing the properties which would enable him to satisfy this desire."
It may likewise be significant that, whether because of cultural differences or floristic peculiarities or for some other reason as yet unappreciated, the New World cultures are much richer in narcotic plants and apparently in their roles than the Old. The longer I consider the problem, the more I am convinced as a botanist that there may exist in the world's flora an appreciable number of such plants not yet uncovered by the experimenting native and still to be found by the enquiring phytochemist. It is only through the interdisciplinary approach that such discoveries can be made. In fact, the unprecedented strides achieved in the study of hallucinogens in the past 30 or 40 years owe their spectacular success to interdisciplinary studies and consequent integration of data gleaned from many seemingly unrelated fields of investigation: anthropology, botany, ethnobotany, chemistry, history, linguistics, medicine, pharmacognosy, pharmacology and psychology.
In our penetration into the study of known hallucinogens and in our search for new ones, we have much to do and little time in which to do it. Civilization is closing in on many, if not on most, parts of the world still sacred to the less advanced cultures. It has long been pressing in, but its pace is now greatly accelerated, with the consequent lessening of man's dependence upon his immediate environment. Our prime academic and practical interest must, therefore, continually ask: "How can we salvage some of the plant knowledge and lore of primitive cultures before it shall have been forever entombed with the culture that gave it birth?"
The twentieth century will surely be remembered as the period of growth in use, misuse, and abuse in sophisticated circles of hallucinogenic substances. As Hoffer and Osmond have written: "The use of hallucinogens has been described as one of the major advances of this century. There is little doubt that they have had a massive impact upon psychiatry, and may produce marked changes in our society. The violent reaction for and against the hallucinogens suggests that even if these compounds are not universally understood and approved of, they will neither be forgotten nor neglected."
The fast pace of research into hallucinogens and their roles in dying or disappearing primitive cultures, the success of studies of the plants and their active constituents, and the increasing confusion generated by casual or frivolous interests in hallucinogens in certain segments of our modern industrialized and urbanized society - all these considerations might justify an ethnobotanical summary of these strange plants, a summary based on the premise that, even though only an interdisciplinary consideration can adequately cope with such a fast moving field, the starting point must be the identification and aboriginal significance of the plants involved.
My own research since 1936 has been directed towards this botanical and ethnobotanical goal and has taken me into remote areas of the New World. I have studied narcotic plants amongst the North American Indians, made several expeditions into the Mazatec, Chinantec, and Zapotec Indian country in northeastern Oaxaca, Mexico, and lived almost without interruption from 1941 through 1953 in the northwest Amazon in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru and in the northern Andes. Since 1953, I have returned to the Andes and Amazon on many expeditions, usually with students, to pursue studies on toxic and narcotic plants. My research has convinced me that there is still much to be done, that there exist an appreciable number of hallucinogenic plants still unknown to science in the flora of tropical America, that we can no longer afford the erroneous luxury of ignoring reports of aboriginal uses of plants merely because they fall beyond the normal limits of our credence.
The action of these plants capable of inducing visual and other hallucinations is usually so complex that a clearcut definition and classification of them has not yet been found. Lewin grouped psychoactive plants in five categories: Excitantia; Inebriantia; Hypnotica; Euphorica; Phantastica. None has stirred deeper interest than the Phantastica: plants that "bring about evident cerebral excitation in the form of hallucinations, illusions and visions ... followed by unconsciousness or other symptoms of altered cerebral functioning".
As in every fast developing field of study, a burgeoning nomenclature has grown up around these hallucinating agents. They have variously been called phantasticants, psychotica, psychoticants, psychogens, psychotomimetics, psychodysleptics, eidetics, hallucinogens, schizogens and, most recently, psychedelics, a term neither biologically accurate nor etymologically correct and one which, through vernacular misuse, has acquired secondary and even tertiary meanings in certain sections of modern society. To be sure, none of these terms is wholly and always satisfactory. Even Lewin, when he coined the term phantastica, was not wholly satisfied with it, stating that it "does not cover all that I should wish it to convey". Rather than wallow in sterile semantics, I prefer to use the easily understood and now widely accepted word hallucinogen.
Differing from the other psychotropic drugs, which act normally only to calm or to stimulate, the hallucinogens act on the central nervous system to bring about a dream-like state marked, as Hofmann points out, by extreme alteration in the "sphere of experience, in the perception of reality, changes even of space and time and in consciousness of self. They invariably induce a series of visual hallucinations, often in kaleidoscopic movement, and usually in rather indescribably brilliant and rich colours, frequently accompanied by auditory and other hallucinations and a variety of synesthesias.
Although, for general purposes, probably no simpler nor more serviceable term than Lewin's phantastica is available, it has not been widely accepted, especially amongst English-speaking specialists. I prefer, if we do not use Lewin's terminology, the likewise simple hallucinogen or rather the specific psychotomimetic. Both may be rather exactly delimited by Hofmann's definition of psychotomimetic as a "... substance which produces changes in thought, perception and mood, occurring alone or in conjunction with each other, without causing major disturbances of the autonomic nervous system; i.e., clouding of consciousness or other serious disability. High doses generally elicit hallucinations. Disorientation, memory disturbance, hyper-excitation or stupour and even narcosis occur only when excess dosages are administered and are, therefore, not characteristic." Nearly all of these hallucinogenic substances are derived from the Plant Kingdom or else are chemically related to naturally occurring compounds.
Many of these effects are so unearthly, so unreal, that most, if not all, of the hallucinogenic plants early acquired in primitive societies an exalted place, often becoming sacred and the object of direct worship. In almost all primitive cultures, sickness and death are believed to be due to interference from supernatural spheres. For this reason, the psychic effects of drugs are often far more important in primitive medical practices than the purely physical ones. Consequently, hallucinogens above all other plants are found closely connected with magic and witchcraft in the treatment of disease and death and in related religious observances.
We now know that the "divinity" resident in these special plants is chemical in nature, but the ethnobotanist investigating the use of narcotics in primitive cultures must never lose sight of the native interpretation of his "magic" or "sacred" plants. To ignore or to neglect his views-or brusquely to deprecate them -may doom to failure the most meticulously planned scientific enquiry. In this connexion, one must recall the wisdom and foresight of John Harshberger, who first employed the term ethnobotany, when he wrote more than seventy years ago: "It is of importance, therefore, to seek out these primitive races and ascertain the plants which they have found available in their economic life, in order that perchance the valuable properties they have utilized in their wild life may fill some vacant niche in our own."
Hallucinogenic plants may be treated botanically, chemically or geographically. None of these treatments is wholly satisfactory. The third-geographical-is perhaps the least meaningful. Chemically, hallucinogenic plants may be separated into two groups: (1) those with active organic constituents containing nitrogen, most of which are alkaloids or related compounds; (2) those with active organic constituents devoid of nitrogen. Farnsworth has recently presented a summary of hallucinogenic plants based on this chemical grouping. Such a classification lacks adequacy when the active chemical constituent is not known or when there is some uncertainty as to which of several constituents may be responsible for all or a major part of the hallucinogenic effects.
I prefer, and in this paper will follow, the first of these three treatments in which hallucinogenic plants are grouped by the botanical families to which they belong. This treatment has one distinct interdisciplinary advantage-the chemotaxonomic: usually, although not always, genera of hallucinogenic plants in one family may have the same or closely related compounds as their active constituents. Furthermore, if a plant hallucinogen has been identified, it is always possible to assign it to its place in botanical classification: family, order, genus, species.
Hallucinogens occur widely separated in the Plant Kingdom, concentrated especially in two unrelated areas of the vegetal world. While most are spermatophytes, some of the biologically, chemically and sociologically most fascinating are found amongst the cryptogams, especially the fungi. We know of no bacteria, algae, lichens, bryophytes, ferns or gymnosperms that have been employed by man as hallucinogenic narcotics, although there is every possibility that psychotomimetic or medically valuable psychoactive principles may yet be discovered in some of these divisions of the Plant Kingdom. The presence-even abundance-of toxic species in some of these groups clearly indicates this possibility, which was recognized by the English botanist John Lindley one hundred and thirty years ago when, almost prophetically, he wrote: "With respect to poisons, it is to be remembered that the energy which renders them dangerous if taken in excess may also cause them to be ... most valuable remedial agents ... No one will be bold enough to assert that the physician already possesses the most powerful agents produced by the vegetable kingdom; for every year is bringing some new plant into notice for its energy ... In tropical countries, where a fervid sun, a humid air and a teeming soil give extraordinary energy to vegetable life, the natives of these regions often recognise the existence of potent herbs unknown to the European practitioner. No doubt such virtues are often as fabulous and imaginary as those indigenous plants long since rejected by the sagacity of European practice. But we are not altogether to despise the experience of nations less advanced in knowledge than ourselves, or to suppose, because they may ascribe imaginary virtues to some of their official substances... that therefore the remedial properties of their plants are not worth a serious investigation; or that their medical knowledge is beneath our notice because they are unacquainted with the terms of modern science".
Hundreds, if not thousands, of species of the Basidiomycetes or mushrooms and their relatives are toxic -and are feared and avoided by most of humankind because of the supposed prevalence of poisonous characteristics in the group. The presence of toxic constituents in so many mushrooms led to the early discovery, in both the Old and the New World, of hallucinogenic properties in certain species. It has been only recently, however, that phytochemists have succeeded in ascertaining what the toxic principles of the hallucinogenic mushrooms are. Furthermore, in the case of one of the hallucinogenic species longest known and identified, the elucidation of the whole chemical story has just begun.
The use of hallucinogenic mushrooms is so ancient and so much an integral part of several far distant and unrelated cultures in both hemispheres that it has been postulated, with plausible arguments, that the very concept of deity may have arisen from their effects and that their present disjunct ritualistic use in primitive religio-magic systems is relict.
"From earliest times, writes Wasson, they have been worshipped by certain primitive peoples scattered from Mexico to Borneo and Siberia, and we think formerly in Europe, too. The visions ... are staggering in their subjective impact. They are no shadowy, uncertain sights .... you are spellbound by awe, by feelings of wonder and reverence, by an overflowing sense of empathy, of caritas towards those who are sharing the mushrooms and the experience with you. The primitive peoples who worship these mushrooms consider that they open the gates to another plane of existence, to the past and future, to Heaven and God, who then answers truly all grave questions put to him. If we are right in one conjecture that the secret of these mushrooms was discovered by early men, perhaps very early as he was emerging from his bestial past, think for a moment what their miraculous properties must have meant to him! Our hallucinogenic mushrooms opened to him conceptions and emotions theretofore beyond his reach ... yes, perhaps the very idea of a Superior Being. They may have served as a mighty detonation for early man's soul and mind and imagination. It is surprising, we think, that students of early cultures have paid so little attention to the subjective impact on them of hallucinatory agents like these."
Amanita muscaria
Probably the oldest and once most widespread in use of the hallucinogenic mushrooms is Amanita muscaria. It grows throughout the north-temperate parts of both hemispheres. It has long been recognized as a toxic plant, and the specific epithet given to it by Linnaeus refers to the old European custom of employing the caps of the mushroom to poison flies.
In recent times, the use of the fly agaric as an inebriant has been known in only two centres: extreme western Siberia, amongst Finno-Ugrian peoples,- the Ostyaks and Voguls; and extreme northeastern Siberia, amongst the Chukchis, Koryaks and Kamchadals. The Ostyaks and Voguls are linguistically nearest akin to the Hungarians, but there is no recollection amongst modern Hungarians of the employment of the mushroom. Nor do any of the Finnic peoples today utilize it as an intoxicant, although tradition does establish the use of the fly agaric by witch-doctors of the Inari Lapps in Europe. The Yukagirs, peoples surviving in tiny communities and speaking an isolated language in northeastern Siberia, remember that their forbears made use of the mushroom. There seems to be every probability that the fly agaric might once have been employed all the way across Siberia and into Europe and that the now spotty distribution of its use has resulted from the splitting apart of the early inhabitants of this vast region-the paleo-Siberian tribes-by successive waves of invasion by peoples of a somewhat superior culture from the steppes to the south who did not adopt the practices of the tribesmen whom they conquered and displaced. The arguments that seem to support this theory are intricate and are found mainly in studies in comparative linguistics of the devious relationships and meanings in mushroom terminology.
It has even recently been suggested that the ancient giant berserkers of Norway induced their occasional fits of savage madness by ingesting Amanita muscaria.
Only since the middle of the 18th Century have reports concerning the utilization of fly agaric amongst Siberian tribesmen come to the attention of Europeans, and these earliest reports are characterized by an appreciable diversity of opinion concerning the use of the mushroom, although all agree on its ritualistic importance and, in general, on its biological effects. Europe first learned of this curious Siberian inebriant in 1730, when a Swedish army officer, von Strahlenberg, published a book on his twelve years as a Russian prisoner in Siberia, noting its use amongst the Koryaks. A Polish prisoner in Siberia had earlier, in 1658, observed the consumption of Amanita muscaria, but his report was not published until 1874. Krasheninnikov appears to have been the first Russian to record this custom when, in his description of Kamchatka, published in 1755, he noted it amongst the Koryaks. More than a score of anthropologists, linguists, geographers and travellers have since mentioned-often very superficially-the fly agaric as an intoxicant in Siberia. Too little of a definitive and extensive nature, however, is known about this custom which seems to be rapidly on the wane, if not now already extinct.
Most, if not all, of the Siberian users of fly agaric had no other intoxicant before the Russians introduced alcohol. The employment of Amanita muscaria, to all appearances, was more common amongst the Koryaks than amongst the Chukchis and Kamchadals, probably because, since they inhabited the most heavily forested areas of Kamchathka, the mushroom grew more abundantly in their area. It is thought, furthermore, that the Koryaks supplied much of the mushrooms consumed by their neighbours.
Amanita muscaria was usually not taken fresh, at least by the Koryaks, but dried, either in the sun or over a light fire. The explorer, von Langsdorff, wrote that "they are collected in the hottest seasons and hung up by a string in the air to dry; some dry of themselves on the ground and are said to be far more narcotic than those artificially preserved. Small deepcoloured specimens, thickly covered with warts, are also said to be more powerful than those of a larger size and paler colour."
Apparently only men ate fly agaric amongst all of these tribesmen, excepting in rare cases when a woman held the position of shaman. The method of using the mushroom varied significantly amongst the sundry tribes. The Koryak women moistened and softened the agarics in the mouth, then rolled them by hand into small sausage shapes and gave them to the men to swallow. The hot, burning taste often induced vomiting, so they were usually swallowed whole. An average dose was three mushrooms-often one large one and two smaller specimens-but up to ten or twelve were frequently ingested, when a strong and persistent effect were specifically desired. These tribesmen often chewed the plant and held it in the mouth for a long time before swallowing. Other means of using the agaric, however, involved adding it to soups, sauces, cold or warm reindeer milk or steeping it in juice of the bog wortle berry, Vaccinium uliginosum, or the willow-herb, Epilobium angustifolium. The mushroom was even, in more recent times, added to alcoholic liquors to enhance their intoxicating properties. The Kamchadals apparently fermented the Amanita-Vaccinium mixture and were reputed to "scarcely give it time to clarify, ere they invite their friends to partake of it."
There is much diversity of opinion concerning the length of the intoxication thus induced, but it would seem perhaps that the effects of three or four dried or smoked mushrooms might last from four hours to a full day. Undoubtedly, the condition of the mushrooms when gathered, their treatment after collection and the way in which they are ingested all would influence significantly the length and strength of the intoxication.
In many regions where the fly agaric was consumed, it was a very expensive article of trade-so expensive that frequently a tribesman traded a reindeer for one or two mushrooms. At certain times and in some areas, the mushrooms were naturally rare and hard to find. During the long Siberian winters, the more affluent tribesmen were able to store up supplies of the dried mushrooms in large quantities for winter consumption. The poorer individuals, none the less anxious to use the agaric, were often frustrated by the cost and limited supply of the plants.
Whether as a result of this scarcity or not, these people discovered that the urine of an intoxicated person was capable, when drunk, of inducing a similar intoxication in another individual. The effects from the urine are said to be only slightly less inebriating than of the dose of the mushroom itself. An early account of this curious practice states of the Koryaks that "when they make a feast, they pour water on some of these mushrooms and boil them. They then drink the liquor, which intoxicates them; the poorer sort, who cannot afford to lay in a store of these mushrooms, post themselves on these occasions round the huts of the rich and watch the opportunity of the guests coming down to make water and then hold a wooden bowl to receive the urine, which they drink off greedily, as having still some virtue of the mushroom in it; and by this way they also get drunk."
Not only is the urine of another person drunk but an individual may utilize his own urine, frequently still warm, thus prolonging the action of the original mushrooms or renewing their effect several times. A drunken Koryak may even carry his own urine with him on a reindeer trek to continue his intoxication as long as possible.
The Siberian tribesmen did not always drink urine because of economy or poverty. The Yukaghir witchdoctors imbibe agaric urine before consuming the actual mushrooms in shamanistic rituals.
These tribesmen attribute spiritual forces to the fly agaric, one reason for presuming for this mushroom a very great age in the culture development of these peoples. Of the Chukchi ideas of spirits connected with Amanita muscaria, Bogoras has written the following: "The intoxicating mushrooms...are a separate tribe... They are very strong and when growing up they lift upon their soft heads the heavy trunks of trees and split them in two. A mushroom of this species grows through the heart of a stone and breaks it into minute fragments. Mushrooms appear to intoxicate men in strange forms somewhat related to their real shapes.
One, for example, will be a man with one hand and one foot; another will have a shapeless body. These are not spirits, but the mushrooms themselves. The number of them seen depends on the number of mushrooms consumed. If a man has eaten one mushroom, he will see one mushroom-man; if he has eaten two or three, he will see a corresponding number of mushroommen. They will grasp him under his arms and lead him through the entire world, showing him some real things and deluding him with many unreal apparitions. The paths they follow are very intricate. They delight in visiting the places where the dead live." The spirits of the mushroom often play practical jokes on a person under their influence, but they also guide him to other realms or guard him from harm in this world.
The Koryak tale of the discovery of fly agaric relates that "Big-Raven had caught a whale and could not send it to its home in the sea. He was unable to lift the grass bag containing travelling-provisions for the whale. Big-Raven applied to Existence (Vahiy?in) to help him. The deity said to him: 'Go to a level place near the sea; there thou wilt find soft white stalks with spotted hats. These are the spirits Wapaq. Eat some ... and they will help thee.' Big-Raven went. Then the Supreme Being spat upon the earth, and out of his saliva the agaric appeared. Big-Raven found the fungus, ate of it and began to feel gay.... The Fly-agaric said to him: ' How is it that thou...canst not lift the bag' ? ' That is right,' said Big-Raven, 'I am a strong man. I shall go and lift the travelling-bag.'He went, lifted the bag at once and sent the whale home. Then the Agaric showed him how the whale was going out to sea and how he would return to his comrades. Then Big-Raven said: 'Let the Agaric remain on earth and let my children see what it will show them.'"
As with all drugs, the physical and mental condition of the individual greatly influences the intoxicating effects of Amanita muscaria. The intoxication sets in usually about an hour after ingestion of the mushrooms. Twitching, trembling and slight convulsive motions of the limbs are soon evident. The feet begin to feel numb. A euphoria characterized by good humour and happiness, together with lightness on the feet and often a desire to dance, precede the visual hallucinations. The subject speaks with persons not present but seen in visions, and tells them extravagant stories of his wealth and prowess. Macroscopia is common. The eyes are glassy and he stares oblivious of his surroundings. Religious overtones-such as an urge to confess sins-frequently occur. Occasionally, the partaker becomes violent, dashing madly about until, exhausted, he drops into a deep sleep.
Since 1869, a century ago, when muscarine was isolated, most workers have assumed that the toxicity and hallucinogenic properties of Amanita muscaria could be attributed to this compound. Later studies, however, have demonstrated that muscarine is a very minor constituent of the mushroom which could not alone be responsible for such potent effects. Furthermore, sundry other compounds were detected in the same species: acetylcholinc, choline, ibotenic acid, muscimole, agarine, muscazone, muscaridine and bufotenine; and even atropine, scopolamine and hyoscyamine were reported, probably erroneously, from chromatographic studies. There is evidence, too, that the report of bufotenine in Amanita muscaria is in error because of confused identification of the botanical material with another species, A. citrina or A. porphyrina, in which bufotenine is undoubtedly present in the carpophores. The recent investigations carried out by Eugster and Waser indicate that the central nervous activity of Amanita muscaria is due primarily to muscimole, an unsaturated hydroxamic acid which is formed by decarboxylation and loss of water from ibotenic acid, the zwitterion of ?-amino-?[3 - hydroxy - isoazoylyl- (5)]- acetic acid monohydrate. Muscazone, also an amino acid, is a pharmacologically less active principle in Amanita muscaria. Inasmuch as ibotenic acid appears to be a precursor of muscazone as well as of muscimole, it is probable that the often reported variation in intoxication potential of the fly agaric may be due to fluctuations in the ratio between ibotenic acid and muscazone. There is evidence that still other as yet uncharacterized principles may take part in the toxicity of this species of fungus.
The " soma" of the Aryans
Recent studies by Wasson suggest that Amanita muscaria may have played a vital religio-magic role in India, far to the south of its modern area of use in Siberia, and in very remote times.
About 3,500 years ago, Aryan peoples swept from the north into the Indus Valley of India, bringing with them the cult of a plant called soma. Undoubtedly the greatest enigma in the field of plant hallucinogens has revolved about the identity of this soma. The Aryans deified the plant as an holy inebriant and worshipped it, extracting its juice and drinking it in religious rites. They composed more than 1,000 hymns to soma, and these have come down to us intact in the Rig Veda.
What was soma? No one knows at the present time. For more than 2,000 years, its identity has been clouded in mystery. For some unexplained reason, the Aryans abandoned the original plant soon after their arrival in the new homeland and they forgot it. Other plants took its place as substitutes - plants chosen for reasons other than the psychic effects which, in the case of the substitutes, seem to have been non-existent.
Western civilization discovered the enigma of soma about a century and a half ago, when it began to learn about the cultural wealth that India had to offer to the world. Since then more than 100 species have been suggested as the source of the original soma, but none of the suggestions has won acceptance. Amongst these, the principal contenders were sundry species of Ephedra, Periploca and Sarcostemma: the first a genus of gymnosperm; the last two asclepiadaceous genera; but all similar in being vinelike, fleshy, leafless or almost leafless desert plants. Some botanists have felt that soma might have been cannabis, others that it was wholly mythical and never was derived from a plant.
For some years now, Wasson has studied the historical, literary and ethnobotanical records concerning soma. His avenues of approach, all deeply scholarly, have been ingeniously devious and complex. "When I first approached the problem in 1963," he wrote, "I could hardly believe what I found ... a clear-cut botanical question - a psychotropic plant that calls for identification. The clews should be in the Vedic hymns ... True, the poems contain no botanical description ... for those remote singers were not modern botanists ... They were writing for contemporaries ... and their imagery and terms often elude our understanding .... But the hymns are all shot through with soma, and about 120 of them are entirely devoted to the plantgod. Was it possible that so much could have been written about a plant, over centuries ... and its identity not revealed ? It was no secret for the poet-priests. How extraordinary it would have been if all of them... had withheld from their verses the revealing descriptive terms, the tell-tale metaphors, that the trained reader to-day needs to spot the plant! But this did not happen. All that has happened is that no ethnobotanist with an interest in psychotropic plants has applied himself to an examination of the texts."
To this age-old enigma, Wasson has suggested a solution: that the true soma was a mushroom, the fly agaric, Amanita muscaria. This identification appears to be the first that satisfies all of the many intricately interlocking pieces of indirect evidence - including a reference to urine-drinking - gleaned from the Vedic hymns, and none seems to contradict it. If correct, it represents a meaningful contribution to ethnobotany in view of the extraordinary religious and social role of soma as emphasized in one of the earlier texts of the Indo-European world.
Conocybe, Panaeolus, Psilocybe, Stropharia spp.
One of the several important native religious cults that the Spanish conquerors found in Mexico was one in which intoxicating mushrooms were consumed much as a sacrament. These mushrooms were so revered that the Aztecs called them teonanacatl or "flesh of the gods".
Most of the early chroniclers were clerics, and they put special emphasis on the needs for stamping out loath some pagan customs like the worship of poisonous fungi. Peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus, and ololiuqui, the vision-inducing morning-glories - both employed in sacred rituals - also felt the wrath of these priests. Criticism of the mushrooms was particularly vehement, however, perhaps because, as mycophobes, their religious fanaticism could easily be directed in disgust towards a despised form of plant life which, through the vision-giving properties, held the awe of the Indian by permitting him to commune directly and very colourfully with the spirit world. To the Indian mind, nothing that Christianity had offered was comparable. These mushrooms most certainly represented a great obstacle to the spread of the new religion.
Furthermore, the mushroom cult appears to have deep roots in centuries of native tradition. Certain frescoes from central Mexico, dating back to 300 A.D., have designs which seem to put mushroom worship back that far. Even more remarkable are the archaeological artifacts now called "mushroom stones" excavated in great numbers from highland Mayan sites in Guatemala, going back to 1000 B.C. Consisting of an upright stem with a man-like figure crowned with an umbrella-shaped top, these stone carvings have long baffled archaeologists who supposed them to be phallic symbols but which are now quite widely held to represent a kind of icon connected with mushroom worship.
Sahag?n, a Spanish friar, was one of the first Europeans to refer to teonanacatl. Writing between 1529 and 1590, he referred several times to mushrooms "... which are harmful and intoxicate like wine" so that those who partake of them "... see visions, feel a faintness of heart and are provoked to lust". In one reference, he detailed the effects, saying that the natives ate them with honey and "... when they begin to be excited by them start dancing, singing, weeping. Some do not want to eat but sit down ... and see themselves dying in a vision; others see themselves being eaten by a wild beast, others imagine that they are capturing prisoners of war, that they arc rich, that they possess many slaves, that they had committed adultery and were to have their heads crushed for the offense ... and when the drunken state has passed, they talk over amongst themselves the visions which they have seen". In addition to these reports, several editions of Sahag?n's writings give crude illustrations of the mushrooms.
There are a number of other references to the sacred fungi in these early writings. One, for example, recorded that inebriating mushrooms were part of the coronation feast of Montezuma in 1502. Friar Motolinia, who died in 1569, mentioned the psychotropic mushrooms in his work on pagan rites and idolatries. Francisco Hern?ndez, personal physician to the King of Spain, who studied the medicinal lore of Mexican Indians for a number of years in the field, wrote of three kinds of mushrooms used as intoxicants and worshipped. Of some, called teyhuintli, he explained that they "cause not death but madness that on occasion is lasting, of which the symptom is a kind of uncontrolled laughter... these are deep yellow, acrid and of a not displeasing freshness. There are others again which, without inducing laughter, bring before the eyes all sorts of things, such as wars and the likeness of demons. Yet others there are not less desired by princes for their festivals and banquets, and these fetch a high price. With nightlong vigils are they sought, awesome and terrifying. This kind is tawny and somewhat acrid".
Notwithstanding the great age of this cult and the sundry forceful Spanish reports of it, our knowledge of the sacred fungi of Mexico, their identification, use and chemistry is all very recent. The earliest attempt at identifying teonanacatl botanically was apparently that of the American ethnobotanist Safford, who, in 1915, asserted that the "sacred mushroom" was, in reality, only the peyote cactus. The Spanish chroniclers had been in error or misled by the natives. The dried, brown, discoidal head or "button" of the cactus Lophophora Williamsii, he wrote, resembled "a dried mushroom so remarkably that, at first glance, it will even deceive a mycologist". Safford fell into this serious blunder first by his oft-stated belief that the Mexican Indians were deficient in botanical knowledge and secondly by the similarity of the described effects of peyote and teonanacatl. His outstanding reputation as an ethnobotanist stamped his conclusions with authority and they were quite generally accepted. Furthermore, although botanists knew of toxic mushrooms in the Mexican flora, anthropologists had not, in four centuries, found any cult or magical practice utilizing intoxicating mushrooms.
Blas P. Reko, a physician whose botanical collections in Mexico are widely appreciated, raised a lone voice in protest, and, although he did not produce specimens, wrote as early as 1919 and 1923 that teonanacatl in reality was a dung-fungus and was still employed in religious rites in Oaxaca. The first actual specimens of such mushrooms were gathered in 1936 by an engineer and amateur anthropologist, Robert Weitlaner, who found them used in ceremonial divination in northeastern Oaxaca. They were sent to Harvard University where, because of their poor preservation, l was able to assign them only to the genus Panaeolus. During the course of ethnobotanical work amongst the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca which I pursued in the company of Reko, we collected a few specimens of mushrooms which these Indians employed ceremonially. One of the mushrooms was Panaeolus sphinctrinus. The other was Stropharia cubensis. In the time available, I was unable to witness a ceremony, and so few mushrooms were gathered, because of the unusually dry season, that it was not possible for me to ingest them experimentally: all were needed as voucher herbarium specimens. In 1939, I published a paper on the use of Panaeolus sphinctrinus (= P. campanulatus var. sphinctrinus), suggesting that this mushroom was the teonanacatl of the ancient Aztecs. Although I indicated that more than one species of fungus was used in Oaxaca, I failed to identify Stropharia cubensis, which was discovered in the herbarium archives by later investigations and published.
Perhaps it was providential that my botanical activities in 1941 took me to the Amazon and that I never returned to Mexico to follow up many unfinished ethnobotanical problems. In 1953, R. Gordon Wasson and his wife, outstandingly competent amateur ethnomycologists, having read my papers, decided to visit Oaxaca to pursue this fascinating phase of their life-long study of mushrooms. Sensing the need for interdisciplinary and intensive study of all aspects of the use of sacred mushrooms, they enlisted the collaboration of various specialists - anthropologists, linguists, chemists, mycologists and others. The research that has resulted from a number of their successive trips to northern Mexico has been integrated into an intricately integrated whole and will long hold a high place as an outstanding model of what well planned and carefully executed ethnobotanical investigation can accomplish.
Amongst the collaborators whom the Wassons took into the field are the mycologist Roger Heim and the phytochemist Albert Hofmann, both of whom have been vitally instrumental in advancing our understanding of the role of mushrooms in aboriginal Mexican religious life.
Wasson and his associates, especially Heim, have discovered a number of different species of mushrooms valued as sacred, psychotomimetic agents in Mexico, and more recently, Guzman and Singer have added a few additional species to the total. The result is now that at least twenty-four species in four genera are known to be used currently amongst tribes in Mexico.
Undoubtedly there were many tribes in ancient Mexico who employed teonanacatl, but we know with certainty only of the Chichimilcas, who spoke Nahuatl. To-day we know that the sacred mushrooms are consumed by Mazatecs, Chinantecs, Chatinos, Zapotecs, Mixtecs and Mijes - all of Oaxaca; and by the Nahoas of Mexico; and possibly by the Tarascanas of Michoacan; and the Otomis of Puebla.
A relatively large number of mushrooms are employed as divinatory and ceremonial agents in modern Mexico, and probably as many were known to the ancient inhabitants of the Aztec empire. The species involved includes, amongst others: Psilocybe mexicana, P. caerulescens var. mazatecorum; P. caerulescens var. nigripes; P. yungensis; P. mixaeensis; P. Hoogshagenii; P. aztecorum; P. muriercula; Stropharia cubensis; Conocybe siligineoides; Panaeolus sphinctrinus.
It appears that Psilocybe mexicana may be the most important of the psychotropic Mexican mushrooms. This species - a small, tawny inhabitant of wet pastures, is apparently most highly prized by the users: P. aztecorum is known as "children of the waters" by the Aztecs.
Psilocybe zapotecorum of marshy ground, is called "crown of thorns mushroom" by the Zapotecs; P. caerulescens var. nigripes has a native name which means "mushroom of superior reason". Stropharia cubensis is one of the strongest hallucinogenic species.
There are a number of species with psychotropic properties that are presumably not used ritually - possibly because of extreme toxicity - and some authors have listed species confused with truly active mushrooms or which are biodynamically active but which the natives seem not to employ. Several investigators, for example, insist that the Indians do not take Panaeolus sphinctrinus. It must be remembered, however, that this and related species are highly hallucinogenic - one representative being employed for inebriation as far north as Maine in the United States - and that the simple reason why so many species of mushrooms are used in Mexico as narcotics is that different witch doctors may use different mushrooms for different purposes and that, in various seasons and in accord with seasonal variation, any given mushroom may not be abundantly available. Since Weitlaner, Reko and Schultes found Panaeolus employed, and it is known to be psychotomimetic, while other investigators, often after one visit to the field, deny that this genus is utilized, one must be extraordinarily conservative in evaluating data. There is all indication that probably many more species and genera of mushrooms are used hallucinogenically amongst the aborigines of Mexico. Here there is great need for even more field work in ethnobotany and for more critical phytochemical studies.
Aside from the all-important hallucinogenic effects of mushrooms employed ritualistically in Mexico, the most outstanding symptoms are: muscular relaxation, flaccidity and mydriasis early in the intoxication, followed by a period of emotional disturbances such as extreme hilarity and difficulty in concentration. It is at this point that the visual and auditory hallucinations
appear, eventually to be followed by lassitude and mental and physical depression, with serious alteration of time and space perception. One peculiarity of the narcosis which promises to be of interest in experimental psychiatry is the isolation of the subject from the world around him - that is, without a loss of consciousness, he is rendered completely indifferent to his environment, which becomes unreal to him as his dreamlike state becomes real.
Heim and his colleagues succeeded in growing cultures of Psilocybe mexicana and other species. This opened the way for chemical studies of these fungi by Hofmann and his group. They isolated white crystals soluble in water and methanol but almost insoluble in usual organic solvents, which they called psilocybine. They found that this substance had an unusual chemical structure, later found to represent an acidic phosphoric acid ester of 4-hydroxydimethyltryptamine. This compound is allied to other naturally occurring compounds such as bufotenine and serotonine. Psilocybine, an indole derivative with a phosphylated side chain, is the first known naturally-occurring compound of this kind. The discovery of such a substance has implications of great import, for example, for the study of biogenesis of the ergot alkaloids and for other aspects of chemical investigation of the psychotropic indole alkaloids such as harmine and reserpine.
Some species of Psilocybe - especially P. mexicana - contain another indolic compound in minute amounts which, while closely allied to psilocybine, is apparently not stable. It has been called psilocine.
The psychotomimetic effects following the ingestion of 32 dried specimens of Psilocybe mexicana, as described by Hofmann, are significant: "As I was perfectly well aware that my knowledge of the Mexican origin of the mushroom would lead me to imagine only Mexican scenery, I tried deliberately to look on my environment as I knew it normally. But all voluntary efforts to look at things in their customary forms and colours proved ineffective. Whether my eyes were closed or open, I saw only Mexican motifs and colours. When the doctor supervising the experiment bent over me to check my blood pressure, he was transformed into an Aztec priest, and I would not have been astonished if he had drawn an obsidian knife. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, it amused me to see how the Germanic face of my colleague had acquired a purely Indian expression. At the peak of the intoxication, about 1? hours after ingestion of the mushrooms, the rush of interior pictures, mostly abstract motifs rapidly changing in shape and colour, reached such an alarming degree that I feared that I would be torn into this whirlpool of form and colour and would dissolve. After about six hours, the dream came to an end. Subjectively, I had no idea how long this condition had lasted. I felt my return to everyday reality to be a happy return from a strange, fan- tastic but quite really experienced world into an old and familiar home".
Certainly none of us could have been ready to accept some of the fantastic reports of the early writers on the unearthly effects produced by the sacred mushrooms. Now we know that they are true. "The history of the solution of the teonanacatl mystery, according to Hofmann, is a very good example of how modern scientific research, in its effort to obtain novel compounds which are valuable in medicine, can revert to ancient knowledge of the miraculous powers hidden in the Plant Kingdom."
The Yurimaguas Indians of the westernmost Amazon basin in Peru were reported by Jesuit missionaries in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries to be drinking a strongly intoxicating beverage prepared from a "tree fungus". Psilocybe yungensis has been suggested as the identification of this "tree fungus". Field work in this region has, up to the present, not disclosed any practice of this kind, but it represents a culture trait little likely to disappear spontaneously without leaving a trace at least, and the region is still inhabited by many tribes in relatively primitive conditions of culture. The report states that "...the Yurimaguas mix mushrooms that grow on fallen trees with a kind of reddish film that is found usually attached to rotting trunks. This film is very hot to the taste. No person who drinks this brew fails to fall under its effects after three draughts of it, since it is so strong or, more correctly, so toxic." If the fungus be truly Psilocybe, what, then, might this "reddish film" be ?
Lycoperdon marginatum, L. mixtecorum
Amongst the Mixtecs of southern Oaxaca in Mexico, the use of several puffballs as hallucinogens has recently been reported. This fascinating new development in the study of narcotics has resulted from the interdisciplinary research of Heim, Wasson and Raviez amongst an interesting people living in the mountainous regions at an altitude of about 6,600 feet.
One of the species, Lycoperdon marginatum, is characterized in the dry state by a strong odour of excrement. The Mixtecs of the town of San Miguel, south of Tlaxiaco, all recognize the narcotic use of this puffball, but it does not appear to occupy the place as a divinatory agent that the mushrooms hold amongst the Mazatecs. This species of Lycoperdon is known in the Mixtec language as gi' i sawa or hongo de medio, "mushroom of second quality ".
The other and more active species - Lycoperdon mixtecorum - has the Mixtec name gi' i wa or hongo de primera, "mushroom of first quality". The ingestion of one or two specimens is said to induce a state of half-sleep one-half hour after ingestion. One hears voices and echoes, and the voices respond to questions posed to them. The effects of the puffballs are quite different from those of the hallucinogenic mushrooms, and they may not induce visions, even though there seems to be no doubt that definite auditory hallucinations accompany the intoxication.
There is apparently no phytochemical foundation on which to base an evaluation of the intoxication of these two species of Lycoperdon. No psychoactive organic constituent has as yet been isolated from the puffballs.
Amaryllis family (Amaryllidaceae)
Pancraetium trianthum
Amongst the Kung tribe of Bushmen in Dobe, Botswana, this bulbous perennial, known locally as kwashi, is said to have psychoactive properties. When the bulb is rubbed on an incision made on the head of a tribesman, visual hallucinations are said to be induced. Nothing more is known of this curious custom.
Pancraetium, a genus of some 15 species in the warmer parts mainly of tropical Asia and Africa, possesses powerfully toxic principles, including alkaloids. A number of species find use amongst primitive peoples as emetics. Pancraetium maritimum and other species are cardiac poisons, and P. zeylanicum has been reported to cause death through paralysis of the central nervous system. In India, Pancraetium triflorum may sometimes appear in markets as an adulterant of the medicinal Urginea. In Shari-Chad, West Tropical Africa, Pancraetium trianthum, reputedly very toxic, is commonly planted at shrines.
Kaempferia Galanga
Vague information has indicated that possibly a member of the Ginger family, Kaempferia Galanga, may be employed by natives in several parts of New Guinea as an hallucinogen.
The rhizome of Kaempferia Galanga is the source of a condiment known as galanga, highly valued in tropical Asia. The rhizome, mixed with oils, is employed in the Philippines as a cicatrizant and applied to boils and furuncles to bring them to a head. Other species are likewise prized as condiments and medicinally as agents effectively hastening the healing of wounds and burns.
Almost nothing is known about the psychotomimetic use of this plant, and no investigation of a possible narcotic chemical constituent has apparently been made.
Cannabis sativa
Undoubtedly one of the oldest known and certainly to-day the most widely spread hallucinogenic plant is Cannabis sativa. Despite its great age as one of man's principal narcotics and its use by millions in many cultures the world around, Cannabis is characterized more by what we do not know about it than what we know. Our lack of knowledge about Cannabis and its use as an intoxicant not only provides an obstacle to an understanding of moral, legal, sociological and economic phases of its importance to the cultures where its utilization has become established but even many scientific aspects - botanical, chemical, pharmacological, medical and public health - are fraught with uncertainties and contradictions.
Even in what should be the basic study of this plant - the botanical field - we find disagreement as to its classification. Many taxonomists place the monotypic genus Cannabis in the family Moraceae, while others set it aside, together with the hops plant, in a distinct family: Cannabaceae.
One of the most ancient of man's cultigens , Cannabis sativa has been a triple purpose plant: a source of hemp fibre, of a seed oil and of a narcotic. This rank, weedy annual that commonly grows to a height of 15 feet is native probably to Central Asia but has escaped from cultivation in many parts of the world and grows spontaneously. Flourishing especially in disturbed, nitrogen-rich wastelands near human habitation, it occurs widely in temperate and hot drier areas of both hemispheres and seems to be unhappy only in the coldest zones and the hottest humid tropics.
Hemp was reported in a Chinese document 8,500 years ago, and the Assyrians used the plant in the ninth century B.C. in the form of an incense. The Sanskrit Zend-Avesta first menti0ned its intoxicating resin in 600 B.C. Herodotus wrote that the Scythians burned its seeds to produce a narcotic smoke. In Thebes, it was made into a drink with opium-like properties. Galen reported general use of hemp in cakes which, if eaten to excess, had narcotic properties. In thirteenth century Asia Minor, the hashishins were political murderers who, excited to their nefarious work by taking large doses of hashish, would carry out murder for pay; from this Arabic term comes the word assassin.
Although the narcotic use of Cannabis harks back thousands of years in India, the Near East, parts of Africa and other areas of the Old World, its spread to nearly all inhabited parts of the globe has allowed its employment as an inebriant recently to increase in sophisticated societies, especially in urban areas, and to lead to major problems and dilemmas to European and American authorities. Studies in depth of its utilization in less developed societies should shed much light on some of the problems resulting from its use and abuse in more advanced communities.
Methods of using Cannabis vary widely. In the New World, marihuana or, in Brazil, maconha - the dried, crushed flowering tops are leaves - are smoked, usually mixed with tobacco, in cigarettes. In parts of primitive Africa, Cannabis fulfills an important role in religion and magic. In southern Africa, it is called dagga, a term sometimes also applied with a qualifying adjective to sundry species of the labiate genus Leonotis, several species the leaves of which are perhaps feebly narcotic when smoked. In Morocco, where the use of Cannabis is common, the vernacular name is kif. Hashish, the resin from pistillate flowers, is eaten by millions, especially in Moslem areas of North Africa and the Near East.
It is apparently in India where Cannabis assumes an extraordinary religious significance in certain cults and where, as a result, man has selected "races" characterized by high concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol. The ancient Indian Atharva-Veda called the drug a "liberator of sin" and "heavenly guide" and the plant is still held sacred in many temples.
Indians commonly employ narcotically three Cannabis preparations. Bhang, the weakest, consists of the dried plant gathered green, powdered and made into a drink with water or milk, or with sugar and spices, into candies called majun; opium and Datura are said sometimes to be added. Ganjah, usually smoked with tobacco but sometimes eaten or drunk as an infusion, consists of dried pistillate tops with exuded resin carefully gathered from cultivated or escaped "races" notably rich in tetrahydrocannabinol. Charas, pure resin removed from leaves and stems also from especially cultivated, strongly narcotic "races", is normally smoked but it may be eaten mixed with spices. Cannabis supplies the drug of the poor in India, where, in addition to its religious use, it is highly valued in folk medicine and as an aphrodisiac; and, hedonistically, as an euphoric narcotic, especially in activities requiring endurance or physical effort.
Although the marked increase in smoking marihuana in the United States poses a variety of problems, much of the drug illicitly used at the present time in the country is weak in the narcotic principles, since it consists not of pure resin but of crushed leaves, twigs and tops of plants notably low in tetrahydrocannabinol. These plants grow spontaneously, spread mainly from hemp formerly cultivated in plantations for fibre production, at one time a major agricultural industry in North America. Marihuana smuggled into the country from Mexico or other tropical areas represents usually a stronger and potentially more troublesome narcotic.
Over the millenia, man has selected, subconsciously at first, consciously in more recent times, "races" or "strains" of this cultigen with desirable characteristics for the purposes at hand: some for longer, stronger fibre; some for higher oil content; some for greater narcotic potency. Selection for increased narcotic activity has been especially notable in certain regions - in India, for example - where the inebriating properties had religious or magical significance or were otherwise valued. Furthermore, it is thought that often the concentration of the intoxicating principle in any given "race" of Cannabis sativa will decrease as the plant is grown in more northern, cooler latitudes.
Botanists now widely agree that Cannabisis a monotypic genus, a genus with one polymorphic species: C. sativa; that there cannot be recognized any true botanical varieties of this species; and that this one species has diversified into a number of ecotypes and cultivated races. Modern taxonomists, consequently, are in agreement with Linnaeus who, in 1753, recognized only one species.
Nevertheless, a number of binomials have been legitimately published as deserving nomenclatorial recognition. These are such binomials as Cannabis chinensis; C. erratica; C. foetens; C. indica; C. Lupulus; C. macrosperma; C. americana; C. generalis; C. gigantea; C. ruderalis; C. x interstita. As early as 1869, De Candolle recognized several true botanical varieties of Cannabis sativa and offered very detailed taxonomic descriptions of them: ? Kif; ? vulgaris; ? pedemontana; ? chinensis. Although none of these names is accepted by most modern taxonomists, confusion of nomenclature still reigns in non-botanical literature.
In agricultural, horticultural, chemical and pharmacological publications, it is not uncommon to find in use Latin binomials that have no validity, since they were never validly published. The binomial Cannabis indica is, however, frequently employed as though it represented a species-concept distinct from C. sativa and most often to indicate a race native to India and usually high in intoxicating principles. Even more frequently, pharmacological writings use the name Cannabis sativa var. indica in the belief that there exists a definitive " varietas " of Indian origin that may be distinguished taxonomically by having a higher content of the narcotic constituents: a physiological race or chemovar which, it is often asserted, cannot long be maintained in an inappropriate environment or climate. Some specialists have gone even beyond this to distinguish nomenclatorially other varieties. Botanists cannot accept true varieties within Cannabis sativa simply because they cannot define them; and even agricultural and horticultural specialists who often recognize them as true species or varieties admit that they are not stable.
It must be recognized that this problem has arisen because of a confusion of concepts: the true botanical " varietas " is genetically distinct; the polymorphism rampant in Cannabis sativa is undoubtedly non-genetic and gives rise to variations that are better called "races ", " ecotypes ", " cultivars ", " chemovars " or other appropriate terms.
This plasticity of Cannabis has long been recognized. Charles Darwin was impressed with this aggressive weed. He wrote that hemp plants long cultivated can "generally endure with undiminished fertility various and great changes" and be "... so much affected that the proportions and the nature of their chemical ingredients are modified"
Since hemp is a triple-purpose plant long cultivated by man, intensive selection for one characteristic - longer fibre, more seed oil, higher cannabinol content-often leads to an over-shadowing or even disappearance of another characteristic. Races of unusually high yield of seed oil or of superior fibre have been developed which are either inferior in narcotic principles or wholly devoid of them - yet these races may grow in the same region, sometimes even in adjacent fields. On the contrary, highly narcotic races are reported in which the quality of fibre is decidedly inferior, so much so that these strains are commercially worthless - yet, they may grow in the same region, too. In all of these cases, nevertheless, the plants themselves are not taxonomically distinguishable by any stable morphological characters. And, furthermore, the same plants, transported to and cultivated in other climates and environments, yield progeny with alterations in fibre, oil and cannabinol constituency. Much of a basic nature, especially in ecological studies, remains for botanists to unravel.
The dioecious nature of Cannabis sativa - with separate " male " and " female " plants - constitutes an important consideration since it is believed that, under normal conditions, the narcotics principles occur only in the brownish resin found in the pistillate - not in the staminate - individuals. This resin is concentrated in the inflorescences and leaves, especially those near the flowering tops, and appears to be most abundant in the recently fertilized ovary and unripened fruit. There is, however, still much disagreement in these aspects of the morphology of the plant because of the botanical observations on material from wide areas of the world and on a large selection of "races"
Many organic compounds have been isolated from Cannabis resin, some of which appear to possess narcotic properties, others devoid of euphoric activity. Amongst the constituents are cannabinol, cannabidiol, cannabidiolic acid, tetrahydrocannabinol-carboxylic acid, cannabigerol, cannabichromene and stereoisomers collectively called tetrahydrocannabinol. While most of them are actively euphoric, it has only recently been demonstrated that the main psychotomimetic effects are attributable to ? 1 -tetrahydrocannabinol. Very little is known as yet about the biodynamic effects on man of pure tetrahydrocannabinol, and, although the literature is rich in the activity of crude Cannabis extracts or products, controlled studies with the active isolates are basic to any progress in understanding the real physiological significance from a moral or health viewpoint of this ancient and widespread intoxicant. Because of the great variation in chemical composition of crude Cannabis preparations normally employed as narcotics, any correlation of biological activity, if possible at all, would be, for all practical purposes, meaningless.
Only a lengthy consideration of hemp can do it justice. Inasmuch as Cannabis represents one of the hallucinogens most widely recognized - even though very imperfectly understood - in modern times, I have resolved to present this obviously brief and superficial discussion and to concentrate on many of the more poorly known or even unknown psychotomimetics utilized in distant and isolated regions by peoples seldom in the attention of the mainstream of society.
Olmedioperebea sclerophylla
The Moraceae also provide one of the most poorly understood hallucinogens: Olmedioperebea sclerophylla, a jungle tree, the fruits of which reputedly were the source of an intoxicating snuff employed formerly by Indians of the Pariana region of the central part of the Amazon Valley. It is now known only by its Portuguese name rape dos indios, "Indian snuff". No chemical study of this plant nor of the snuff have been published, and direct observations of the preparation and use of the snuff have been impossible to date.
Mesembryanthemum spp.
More than 225 years ago, it was reported that the Hottentots employed a vision-inducing narcotic plant called kanna or channa. They chewed the root and kept the masticated material in the mouth for some time. " Their animal spirits were awakened, their eyes sparkled and their faces manifested laughter and gaiety. Thousands of delightsome ideas appeared, and a pleasant jollity which enabled them to be amused by simple jests. By taking the substance to excess, they lost consciousness and fell into a terrible delirium. "
This interesting narcotic plant has never been definitively identified. The vernacular name kanna now is applied in South Africa to species of Mesembryanthemum: M. expansum and M. tortuosum, the roots, leaves and trunk of which are chewed and smoked in the hinterlands. These two species have yielded an alkaloid, mesembrine, which has sedative, cocaine-like effects, producing torpour in man. More than two dozen other species of Mesembryanthemum are known to be alkaloidal.
Unfortunately, no direct evidence connects the Hottentot kanna with Mesembryanthemum, and Lewin, doubting that these aizoaceous plants could produce the effects described, suggests that the narcotic in question must have been Cannabis sativa, to which the Hottentots were very habituated. He likewise hinted that other South African intoxicating plants, such as the anacardiaceous Sclerocarya Caffra and S. Schweinfurthii, should be considered.
Myristica fragrans
One of the most widely known and most easily available plant hallucinogens is the well known spice, nutmeg. The handsome tropical tree, Myristica fragrans, native to the East Indian archipelago, is the source of two spices - nutmeg and mace - respectively from the seed and aril of the beautiful fleshy drupe that resembles an apricot.
There is a persistent rumour that the hallucinogenic effects of nutmeg are employed by natives in parts of southeast Asia, but little supporting evidence has been found. It is eaten as a narcotic to-day in India by those who add it to the betel chew, and it may also be employed in India, mixed with tobacco, as a snuff. In the ancient Indian Ayurveda, nutmeg is called mada shaunda, meaning "narcotic fruit". There are vague reports that nutmeg is snuffed as an intoxicant in the hinterlands of Indonesia, and that in Egypt it is sometimes taken as a substitute for hashish. Whether or not nutmeg is employed in Asiatic and other areas by natives, there is no doubt that it has pronounced psychotomimetic effects and that it is employed as an hallucinogenic narcotic in Europe and the United States in sophisticated circles, by students, by prisoners and by alcoholics and marijuana users deprived of their preferred drugs.
When taken orally, nutmeg, in doses of one teaspoonful or more, may induce hallucinations and other definitely psychotomimetic syndromes in from two to five hours. The intoxication is extremely variable but often is characterized by distortion of time and space perception and a feeling of detachment from reality. Although it is thought that visual hallucinations are infrequent, they definitely do occur in many individuals. Some of the side and after-effects of nutmeg intoxication - headache, dryness of the mouth, dizziness, tachycardia - are distinctly unpleasant.
Toxicological interest in nutmeg is of long standing. As early as 1676, Van Leeuwenhoek noticed that a volatile constituent of nutmeg killed or repelled mites. At the turn of the present century, there was a flurry of pharmacological interest in Myristica fragrans, but it subsided until the recent rash of use of nutmeg as an intoxicant again focussed attention on the need for a thorough understanding of the constituents, effects and dangers of this potential " new " hallucinogen.
Although the toxicology of nutmeg is still not wholly elucidated, the principal active constituent in the essential oil appears to be myristicine, the psychoactive properties of which are due probably to several phenylisopropylamines. It has been found that nutmeg and synthetic myristicine are mild monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Safrole and elemicine have also been suggested as active agents in nutmeg seed, although no tests on the psychopharmacological effects of these two constituents have been conducted on which to base such a suggestion.
Virola spp.
Amongst many Indian tribes of the northwest Amazon and uppermost Orinoco, a highly intoxicating snuff is prepared from another myristicaceous source: the blood-red bark resin of several species of jungle trees of the genus Virola: V. calophylla, V. calophylloidea, V. theiodora and possibly other species. The snuff is variously known as yakee, paric?, epena and nyakwana, according to the tribe employing the drug.
Virola-snuff was first described in detail and identified as to species in 1954 from ethnobotanical field studies in Amazonian Colombia. The present author found the Indians in the Rio Apaporis basin preparing a brownish, narcotic snuff, known amongst the Puinaves as yakee, from Virola calophylla and V. calophylloidea. It was taken exclusively by witch-doctors in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, for prophecy and divination and for other purposes of magic.
These natives strip the bark from jungle trees early in the morning and scrape off the soft inner bark, with its resinous exudation. These are kneaded in water which, strained, is boiled down to a thick syrup. When the syrup has sun-dried, it is pulverized, sifted and mixed with ashes of the bark of a wild species of Theobroma. The resulting snuff is powerful, causing an intoxication sometimes apparently leading to death.
The German anthropologist, Koch-Gronberg, referred in 1909 to a snuff prepared from a tree-bark amongst the Yekwana Indians of the headwaters of the Rio Orinoco: "Of an especial magical importance are cures, during which the witch-doctor inhales hak?dufha. This is a magical snuff used exclusively by witch-doctors and prepared from the bark of a certain tree which, pounded up, is boiled in a small earthenware pot, until all the water has evaporated, and a sediment remains at the bottom of the pot. This sediment is toasted in the pot over a slight fire and is then finely powdered with the blade of a knife. Then the sorcerer blows a little of the powder through a reed...into the air. Next, he snuff, s, whilst, with the same reed, he absorbs the powder into each nostril successively. The hakud?fha obviously has a strongly stimulating effect, for immediately the witch-doctor begins singing and yelling wildly, all the while pitching the upper part of his body backwards and forwards."
The first definite association of a snuff with Virola was made in 1938 by the Brazilian botanist Ducke, who wrote that the "Indians of the upper Rio Negro use the dried leaves of this species [ Virola theiodora] and of V. cuspidata in making a snuff powder that they call paric? ". In 1939, he wrote in a footnote to a discussion of Piptadenia peregrina, that " Martius and other writers attribute to this species the source of the narcotic paric? employed by certain Amazonian Indians. Notwithstanding, according to information which I obtained from the natives themselves in two localities in the upper Rio Negro, the paric?-powder comes from the leaves of species of Virola... " Although it is now certain that the leaves are not employed in the snuff-making, this represents apparently the first, and - until 1954 - the only identification of this snuff with the genus Virola.
Gradually, it became evident that perhaps the most intensive use of Virola snuffs might centre amongst the several related Indian groups known collectively as the Waik?s inhabiting the very headwaters of the
Orinoco in Venezuela and the Brazilian territory north of the R?o Negro and who refer to the snuff as epen? and nyakwana.
Unlike other Indians, the Waik?s employ Virola snuff both hedonistically and ceremonially, and its use is not restricted to the witch-doctors but is the prerogative of all male members of the tribe. The snuff is taken in excessive amounts and appears to be stronger than that prepared by the natives in Colombia.
Amongst the Waik?s, Virola theiodora is the species employed. Holmstedt and the present author found several variations in method of preparation of epen? or nyakwana. Some scrape the soft inner layer of the bark, dry the shavings by gentle roasting over a fire. These are then stored until needed for preparation of a batch of snuff, when they are crushed and pulverized, triturated in a mortar and pestle of a Bertholettia excelsa fruit. The powder is then sifted to a very fine, homogeneous chocolate-brown highly pungent dust. Next, a powder of the dried leaves of an aromatic weedy plant, Justicia pectoralis var. stenophylla is prepared and added in equal amount to the brown dust of Virola. A third ingredient is the ash of the bark of the beautiful leguminous tree Elizabetha princeps, called am? or amasita by the Waik?s. The hard, grey outer bark is chopped into small pieces and set in a glowing fire, then removed and allowed slowly to reduce to ashes. When the ashes are added in equal amounts to the Virola-Justicia powder, the resulting snuff, ready for use, is rather greyish and extremely fine.
Other Waik? Indians, who make snuff only occasionally for ceremonial purposes, follow a different procedure. The bark is stripped from Virola theiodora. A fire is built in the forest at the foot of the Virola trees, and the bark is gently heated to cause a copious " bleeding " of the red resin which is gathered in an earthenware pot. The resin is boiled down to a thick consistency which, upon cooling, crystallizes into a beautiful amber-red resin. This is then carefully ground up and reduced to an extremely fine powder. This powder alone - without any admixture - is nyakwana snuff. Occasionally, powdered Justicia leaves may be added " to make the snuff smell better ", but Holmstedt and I ascertained, from self-intoxication, that the Virola resin alone is highly intoxicating.
A still unsolved aspect of the Waik? use of Virola resin is its employment direct and without any preparation or admixture as an arrow poison.
The biodynamic activity of Virola resin was at first presumed to be due to myristicine. Recent investigations, however, have established the presence in the resin of certain Virola species of interesting tryptamines in relatively high concentrations. The Waik? snuff prepared solely from Virola resin has been shown to possess
several tryptamine and, in especially high concentrations, 5-methoxy N, N-dimethyltryptamine. Furthermore, there is preliminary evidence that Justicia pectoralis var. stenophylla may likewise contain tryptamines.
The effects of Virola intoxication vary, but amongst the Indians, they usually include initial excitability - setting in within several minutes from the first snuff- ing - numbness of the limbs, twitching of the facial muscles, inability to co-ordinate muscular activity, nausea, visual hallucinations and, finally, a deep, disturbed sleep. Macroscopia is frequent and enters into Waika beliefs about the spirits that dwell in the plant. A description of my own intoxication indicates several points of interest: "The dose was snuffed at five o'clock. Within fifteen minutes a drawing sensation was felt over the eyes, followed very shortly by a strong tingling in fingers and toes. The drawing sensation in the forehead gave way to a strong and constant headache. Within a half hour, the feet and hands were numb and sensitivity of the fingertips had disappeared: walking was possible with difficulty, as with beri-beri. I felt nauseated until eight o'clock and experienced lassitude and uneasiness. Shortly after eight, I lay down in my hammock, overcome with drowsiness, which, however, seemed to be accompanied by a muscular excitation except in the hands and feet. At about nine-thirty, I fell into a fitful sleep which continued, with frequent awakenings, until morning. The strong headache lasted until noon. A profuse sweating and what was probably a slight fever persisted throughout the night. The pupils were strongly dilated during the first few hours of the intoxication. No visual hallucinations nor colour sensations were experienced."
In view of the heavy concentration of alkaloids in the Leguminosae and the large size of this family - especially in tropical areas - it is not surprising that a number of species have been utilized by primitive peoples as hallucinogens. The surprising circumstance, however, lies in the apparent absence of this family amongst the hallucinogens of the Old World, where the Leguminosae is well represented and includes many toxic species. Of the members of this family known to be employed as hallucinogens, only one - Genista canariensis - is of Old World origin, and even this species is used only by a New World group of natives.
Anadenanthera peregrina
A strongly hallucinogenic snuff, prepared from beans of Anadenanthera peregrina (more widely known as Piptadenia peregrina), is employed in northern South America and was used in pre-colonial times in the West Indies.
The earliest report of what is undoubtedly this snuff, known in the West Indies as cohoba, dates from observations made in 1496 when it was first seen amongst the Taina Indians of Hispaniola.
Friar Ram?n Pane, commissioned by Columbus "to collect all ceremonies and antiquities ", wrote in detail concerning this drug and its place in Indian society. His reports were first published in 1511 in Martyr's compilations about the New World. "This kohobba powder," which Martyr described as "an intoxicating herb ", "is so strong that those who take it lose consciousness; when the stupefying action begins to wane, the arms and legs become loose and the head droops ". Taking it with a cane about a foot long, they "put one end in the nose and the other in the powder and ... draw it into themselves through the nose". Its action was rapid, for "almost immediately, they believe they see the room turn upside-down and men walking with their heads downwards ". The witch-doctor took the drug with his patients and it "intoxicates them so that they do not know what they do and ... speak of many things incoherently ", believing all the time that they are in communication with spirits.
Snuff from Anadenanthera is apparently no longer employed in the Antilles, where, of course, few aboriginal groups still exist. It was Safford who, in 1916, definitively identified the cohoba reported by the early Europeans as Anadenanthera peregrina. Up to that time, there had been much confusion in the literature, and the snuff called cohoba was commonly considered to have been tobacco. Years earlier, however, in 1898, Uhle had concluded that "the extreme strength of the powder as described by Petrus Martyr, exceeding that of tobacco, decides its different nature and its Piptadenia character". Safford later pointed out the use of Anadenanthera peregrina in preparing the narcotic yopo-snuff of the Orinoco, still much employed, and established its identity with the ancient cohoba of the West Indies.
The centre of the use of Anadenanthera-snuff is, and probably always has been, the Orinoco basin, where it is widely known as yopo. The West Indian tribes are generally thought to have been invaders from northern South America. If this be true, then the snuffing of Anadenanthera powder in the West Indies could be considered as a culture trait imported from South America. Anadenanthera peregrina occurs wild - that is, undoubtedly free from any hint of present or past cultivation - only in South America, and, as Altschul theorized, the natives of the West Indies " may have found it easier to plant the trees than to maintain communication with the mainland for their source of supply " of the snuff.
An early report of yopo amongst the Otomac Indians of the Orinoco basin is that found in Gumilla's famous El Orinoco Ilustrado, first published in 1741. "They have another most evil habit of intoxicating themselves through the nostrils, with certain malignant powders which they call yupa, which quite takes away their reason, and furious, they grasp their weapons... They prepare this powder from certain pods of the yupa...but the powder itself has the odour of strong tobacco. That which they add to it, through the ingenuity of the devil, is what causes the intoxication and fury...they put their shells [large snails] into the fire and burn them to quicklime...[which] they mix with the yupa ... and after reducing the whole to the finest powder, there results a mixture of diabolical strength, so great that in touching this powder with tip of the finger, the most confirmed devotee of snuff cannot accustom himself to it, for in simply putting his finger which touched the yupa near to his nose he bursts forth into a whirlwind of sneezes.
The Saliva Indians and other tribes...also use the yupa, but as they are gentle, benign and timid, they do not become maddened like our Otomacos who...before a battle...would throw themselves into a frenzy with yupa, wound themselves and, full of blood and rage, go forth to battle like rabid tigers."
A number of other missionary reports from the Orinoco area of Colombia and Venezuela reiterate the details offered by Gumilla. The earliest scientific report on this narcotic appears to be that of Alexander yon Humboldt who botanically identified the plant as Acacia Niopo, stating that the Maypure Indians of the Orinoco break the long pods of this tree, moisten them and allow them to ferment; after they turn black, the softened beans are kneaded into small cakes with Manihot-flour and lime from snail shells. These cakes are powdered when a supply of snuff is desired.
Like Gumilla, von Humboldt felt that the biodynamic activity of the snuff was attributable to the lime admixture: "... It is not to be believed that the niopo acacia pods are the chief cause of the stimulating effects of the snuff used by the Otomac Indians. These effects are due to the freshly calcined lime."
The earliest detailed scientific report is that given by the British botanical explorer Spruce who met with the drug amongst the Guahibo Indians of the Orinoco basin of Colombia and Venezuela.
The literature concerning the snuffing of narcotic powders has become extraordinarily confused. There is no doubt but that sundry wholly unrelated plants enter into South American snuffs. Undoubtedly the most important snuffing material was and still is tobacco, mainly from Nicotiana Tabacum, and snuffing may well be the most widespread method, especially in the wet, tropical lowlands areas, of using tobacco. In certain areas of the northwest Amazon, coca-powder ( Erythroxylon Coca) is snuffed. Recent studies have shown the importance and widespread employment of intoxicating snuffs made from Virola-bark. Yet the literature - especially the anthropological - has unwarrantably exaggerated the importance of the leguminous snuffs from Anadenanthera ( Piptadenia).
Many reports ascribe the sources of Amazon snuffs to various leguminous trees, and the British botanist Bentham's concluded that "all South American trees... referred to as the source of narcotic snuff were probably one species and were identical with Linnaeus' Mimosa peregrina". It seems that one of the most extraordinarily mistaken generalizations in ethnobotany - that all the intoxicating snuffs of the Amazon that were not obviously tobacco must have been prepared from Anadenanthera peregrina - has stemmed from Bentham's conclusion. Recent literature and maps showing the distribution of snuffs made presumably from Anadenanthera include the entire Orinoco basin and adjacent areas of southern Venezuela to the east; westward across the northern Colombian Andes, much of the Magdalena Valley; down the Andes through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia; the coastal region of Peru; scattered isolated areas in northern Argentina and the central and western Amazon Valley. One must remember that not one species - Anadenanthera peregrina - is involved but that there have been suggestions that other species of this genus have entered the South American snuff-making picture.
Anadenanthera peregrina is a species that occurs naturally and cultivated in the open plains or llanos region of the Orinoco basin of Colombia and Venezuela, in savannahs and light forests in British Guiana and in Brazil in the open grasslands or campos of the R?o Branco region and locally in savannah-like areas in the lower R?o Madeira basin. If Anadenanthera peregrina is found elsewhere, it occurs as a rare tree or two brought in and cultivated by recently migrated Indian tribes.
As a consequence of the comparatively restricted distribution of Anadenanthera peregrina, the use of a snuff prepared from its beans obviously must be much more restricted than the literature would indicate. This I believe to be true. As examples, we might cite de la Condamine's observation in the early eighteenth century of an hallucinogenic snuff known as curupa amongst the Omaguas of Amazonian Peru and a modern statement that the Tikunas of the upper Amazon both used a snuff made from Anadenanthera peregrina: since this species is unknown from the area inhabited by the Oma- guas and Tikunas, the attributing of the snuff to A. peregrina must be seriously questioned.
Even within the local range of Anadenanthera peregrina, it is not safe to assume that all narcotic snuffs are referable to this species. A number of erroneous " identifications " of narcotic snuff amongst Indians of the uppermost Orinoco in Venezuela and northern affluents of the R?o Negro in Brazil - especially amongst the Waik?s - have attributed powders prepared from Virola bark to Anadenanthera peregrina. One reason for this confusion may be due to the fact that in many parts of the Amazon - especially in the R?o Negro basin, the term paric?, which does often refer to leguminous trees, has been applied to narcotic snuff from Anadenanthera and Virola indiscriminately.
Until recently, there has been much uncertainty concerning the active hallucinogenic principles of Anadenanthera peregrina. At one time, it was felt that the central nervous activity of yopo-snuff was due mainly, if not wholly, to 5-hydroxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine or bufotenine. Recent analyses of carefully authenticated and identified material, however, has shown that other tryptamine derivatives are present in the seeds of Anadenanthera peregrina: N, N-dimethyltryptamine, N-monomethyltryptamine, 5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine, 5-methoxy-N-monomethyltryptamine, N, N-dimethyltryptamine-N-oxide, 5-hydroxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine-N-oxide.
Anadenanthera peregrina is a beautiful, medium-sized tree with a thick, corky bark. The crown is graceful with its dark green, acacia-like foliage.
Other Anadenanthera species
It was Safford apparently who first suggested that species of Anadenanthera other than A. peregrina may be the source of narcotic snuffs in South America. He identified the vilca or huilca of southern Peru and Bolivia and the c?bil of northern Argentina with seeds of what he called Piptadenia macrocarpa, now referred to as Anadenanthera colubrina var. Cebil. Some evidence suggests that vilca may have been employed in forms other than as snuff. Although the evidence is wholly circumstantial and often rather weak at that, several species or varieties of Anadenanthera may actually be involved in the numerous isolated localities in central and southern South America where snuff was employed amongst the Indians. We know with certainty that snuffing was practiced because of the many implements - trays, tubes and other paraphernalia - that have turned up as archaeological remains or in recent collections of ethnographic artifacts.
The term vilca in modern Peru sometimes refers to Anadenanthera colubrina, although this or similar names signify a number of different plants in South America. An early report, dating from about 1571, stated that Inca witch-doctors prophesied by contacting the devil through an intoxication induced by drinking chicha and an herb called villca. Even earlier records mentioned a medicinal plant of this name, some of them emphasizing its laxative and emetic properties. The c?bil snuff used in northern Argentina at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards appears " to have been Adenanthera-derived ", although " the use of this genus further south beyond its natural distribution is less likely. Yet there, further south, the Comechingon Indians took something called Sebil through the nose ..., and the Huarpe Indians chewed a substance called Cibil for endurance. "
Howsoever weak and circumstantial the evidence that vilca and cebil were prepared from Anadenanthera, there would seem to be no phytochemical reason why this might not be so. Anadenanthera colubrina has been shown by Altschul to be very closely related morphologically to A. peregrina. Furthermore, some of the same hallucinogenic tryptamines found in varying proportions in Anadenanthera peregrina have been located in material said to be referable to A. colubrina.
It is obvious that extensive research must be done on South American hallucinogenic snuffs in general and on the use of Anadenanthera in particular before anything approaching a clear understanding of the total picture can be expected.
Erythrina spp.
There exists the possibility that, in some parts of Mexico, several species of Erythrina have been used locally as hallucinogens. The seeds of some species of Erythrina resemble the mescal bean ( Sophora secundiflora) which has a long history of use as a narcotic in the American Southwest and northern Mexico. The vernacular names for the two kinds of red seeds are often the same: colorines; and the two are sometimes sold in the market places mixed together. Several species of Erythrina contain toxic indole or isoquinoline derivatives.
Genista canariensis
There is evidence that natives of the New World have found psychotropic activity in plants introduced from the Old World. It has been recently reported that Yaqu? medicine men from northern Mexico employ Genista canariensis, the genista of florists, for the purpose of inducing hallucinations. This property of the plant has been experimentally substantiated. The genus Genista and the closely related Cytisus, in which G. canariensis is sometimes included, are extremely rich in alkaloids. Cytisine, an alkaloid that formed the basis for the hallucinogenic use amongst some North American Plains Indians of seeds of the leguminous Sophora secundiflora, has been isolated from leaves and beans of Genista canariensis. There is, apparently, no record of the hallucinogenic use of Genista canariensis in the Old World.
Mimosa hostilis
The Kariri, Pankarur?, Tusha and Fulnio tribes of Pernambuco and Paraiba in eastern Brazil employ the leguminous shrub Mimosa hostilis in the preparation of a "miraculous drink" known as ajuca or vinho do jurema taken in the ajuca ceremony. The roots of the plant, which grows in the dry scrubby caatinga vegetation, are the source of the intoxicant. This cult, apparently, is ancient, having formerly been practised by a number of other tribes - Guegue, Acroa, Pimenteira, Atanay? - some of which have become extinct. An early report of jurema dates from 1788. Another record, dating from 1843, asserted that, among a number of tribes, jurema was taken in order to "pass the night navigating through the depths of slumber" and, by relating it to the use of paric? ( Anadenanthera peregrina and ipad? ( Erythroxylon Coca), seems to indicate hedonistic employment of jurema.
This potent hallucinating drink merits deeper study. Amongst the Indians who still utilize it, groups of priests, warriors or strong young men and old women singers participate in the ceremony - all kneeling with heads bowed to receive their portion of the drink. The ceremony formerly was performed especially before going to war. A very recent description of the jurema cult records that "an old master of ceremonies, wielding a dance rattle decorated with a feather mosaid, would serve a bowlful of the infusion made from yurema roots to all celebrants, who would then see glorious visions of the spirit land, with flowers and birds. They might catch a glimpse of the clashing rocks that destroy souls of the dead journeying to their goal, or see the Thunderbird shooting lightning from a huge tuft on his head and producing claps of thunder by running about."
Apparently several species of Mimosa are generically referred to as jurema in northeastern Brazil. One of the several kinds of jurema pr?ta is the Mimosa hostilis from which the intoxicant is prepared. This species is sometimes also known as jurema branca, although this name may refer also to Mimosa verrucosa, from the bark of which a stupefacient is said to be derived. An alkaloid was isolated from the bark of the roots in 1946 and named nigerine, but recent chemical studies have established the identity of nigerine with N, N-dimethyltryptamine, the same hallucinogenic constituent isolated from the seeds of the related Anadenanthera peregrina.
Rhynchosia spp.
In Oaxaca, Mexico, a number of species of Rhynchosia, especially R. phaseoloides and R. pyramidalis, are known by the name piule, a kind of generic term signifying narcotics, sometimes applied to the hallucinogenic morning glory seeds and sacred mushrooms. These red and black beans are also known in Mexico as colorines and are equated together with hallucinogenic mushrooms on the slopes of Mt. Popocatepetl.
There is evidence that in southern Mexico Rhynchosia seeds may be employed as a divinatory narcotic. The Chinantecs and Mazatecs of Oaxaca consider them poisonous. Although there are no definite indications in the literature of their use in pre-Conquest times, they may be represented together with mushrooms, falling from the hand of the Aztec god of rain, in the Tepantitla fresco which dates from 300-400 AD.
Rhynchosia seed from Oaxaca gave positive reactions for alkaloid and glycoside tests and produce a kind of intoxication with trogs. An unidentified alkaloid has been isolated from seeds of Rhynchosia pyramidalis.
Sophora secundiflora
A shrub native to the dry limestone areas of the American Southwest and adjacent Mexico, Sophora secundiflora produces dark red seeds known as mescal beans, red beans or coral beans. In Mexico, the vernacular name is frijolito, frijolillo or colorines. These seeds, formerly the basis of a vision-seeking, cult, contain a highly toxic alkaloid, cytisine, the effects of which somewhat resemble nicotine, causing nausea, convulsions, hallucinations and occasional death from respiratory failure.
Sophora secundiflora is a beautiful shrub - often planted as an ornamental in Texas - with leathery, evergreen leaflets and large inflorescences of violet or violet-blue flowers and woody legumes containing usually three or four beans. The genus Sophora comprises some 25 species of the warmer and tropical parts of both hemispheres, a number of which likewise contain cytisine or a related alkaloid. No other species, however, has apparently been employed for narcotic purposes.
A report by the Spanish explorer of the Texas coast, Cabeza de Vaca, mentioned mescal beans as an article of trade amongst the Indians in 1539. The Stephen Long Expedition in 1820 reported the Arapaho and Iowa using large red beans as a medicine and narcotic. They have been found in archaeological sites, all dated before 1,000 A.D., sometimes with evidence of possible ritualistic use of the beans. They have been recorded for at least 12 cave and rock shelter archaeological sites in southwestern Texas, and material from sites in northern Mexico has been carbon-dated to between 7,5000 B.C. to 200 A.D., thus substantiating the antiquity of the use of this poisonous bean. Although "the presence of mescal beans in cave and rock shelter sites, even when included in containers holding utilitarian as well as nonutilitarian objects, does not," writes Campbell," necessarily signify the presence of a mescal bean cult... There is additional archaeological evidence which does suggest the presence of a prehistoric cult that may have involved the use of the mescal bean."
A well developed mescal bean cult was present amongst the Apache, Comanche, Delaware, Iowa, Kansa, Omaha, Oto, Osage, Pawnee, Ponca, Tonkawa and Wichita tribes. Other tribes of the central and northwestern American Plains groups valued the bean as a medicine or fetish but failed, apparently, to develop a definite cult surrounding its use. In the cult- known variously as the Wichita Dance, Deer Dance, Whistle Dance, Red Bean Dance and Red Medicine Society - the seeds were employed ritualistically or not as an oracular or divinatory medium for inducing visions in initiatory rites and as a ceremonial emetic and stimulant.
There are many parallels and similarities between certain aspects of the modern peyote cult and the