Of the ritually used narcotics of this area we have already discussed
the “mescal bean,” or _Sophora secundiflora_, and teo-nanacatl, the
sacred mushroom of the Aztec and Chichimeca.[11] The use of marihuana
(_Cannabis_ spp.) in counteracting sorcery, and other beliefs surrounding
its employment are also elsewhere discussed.[12] The use of the
mescal-bean of the southern Plains and the various alcoholic drinks[13]
of Mexico and the Southwest are perhaps related to the “black drink” made
of the leaves and twigs of the “beloved tree” (_Ilex cassine_), which
is distributed continuously from the Carolinas to the Rio Grande, with
a continuation of the trait across the Antilles into northeastern and
central South America.[14]
But the narcotic exhibiting perhaps the most numerous parallels in
usage with peyote is datura.[15] Gayton lists as datura-users in the
Southwest[16] the Pima, Zuñi, Navaho, Hopi, Havasupai, Walapai, Mohave,
Yuma and Cocopa, and in California the Akwa’ala, Southern Diegueño, Pass
Cahuilla, Gabrielino, Luiseño, Serrano, Chumash, Salinan, Miwok, Eastern
and Western Mono, and the Foothill and Southern Valley Yokuts. This
distribution is continuous with that in northwestern Mexico among the
Opata, Tepehuane, Cora, Tepecano and Aztec.[17]
The parallel uses of peyote, cohoba snuff and datura in prophecy and
divination have been summarized elsewhere,[18] but there are further
interesting uses of datura. The Aztec of Mexico[19] had special officials
who took ololiuhqui (the seeds of datura) to discover cures for
illnesses, to find lost or stolen property, to ascertain the origin of
long sickness due to witchcraft, etc., receiving pay for their services.
Sometimes they prescribed the drug for their patients; datura was also
used empirically as an anodyne in setting fractures, and it may have
been one of the drugs employed to stupefy sacrificial victims, though
peyote is the only one identified. Ololiuhqui was also mixed with tobacco
and the ashes of venomous insects to make the sacred ointment of the
priesthood; set on altars it was called Divine Meat.[20] The Cora[21]
refer to daturas in their songs and myths, but their use of it is not
known.
In northern Mexico, the Tepehuane used toloache [datura] in place of
peyote.[22] Tepecano prayers refer to datura as the husband of Corn
Daughter and the son-in-law of Father Sun; having taken two mistresses,
he was punished for this by being stuck head downward in the ground and
commanded to give mortals whatever they begged of him. They believe him
to have great riches, which they pray for and “borrow.” Datura is one of
the five narcotics whose flowers decorate a love charm.[23]
In the Southwest, the Pima had a jimsonweed song which brought success
in deer-hunting[24] and cured vomiting and dizziness. The White Mountain
Apache[25] mixed the root of _D. meteloides_ with their corn beer to
make it more intoxicating. The Apache of Bourke[26] credited datura
with the power of making men crazy, but denied using it medicinally or
ceremonially. The Havasupai[27] eat datura leaves occasionally apparently
for purely secular pleasure, and also use the drug in their arrow poison.
At Zuñi[28] datura was one of the medicines formerly belonging to the
gods, and only the rain priests and directors of the Little Fire and
Cimex fraternities could use it; the rain priests propitiated birds with
the powdered root, or a man ate it to bring rain. They also administered
it to clients who had been robbed, to discover the thief, and to patients
with broken bones; the pulverized root and flower were also used with
corn meal for all types of wounds. In myth the daturas were once brother
and sister who walked the earth and saw who committed thefts, but the
Divine Ones said they knew too much and caused them to disappear into the
earth forever; perhaps for this reason it is also used to communicate
with the dead. The Navaho[29] eat the root of _D. meteloides_, and
sometimes “the Indians under its influence, like the Malays run amuck and
try to kill everybody they meet.” There is a record of Hopi doctoring
with datura.[30]
Nearly all the tribes of southern California used datura. The Akwa’ala,
Yuma, Mohave and Eastern Mono took it to acquire gambling luck; the
Central Miwok did not eat it, but considered that a dream about datura
aided one’s gambling fortune.[31] Of the remaining tribes of the region
who used it ceremonially, some features were held in common: (1) it
was not taken before puberty,[32] (2) it was usually administered to
a group,[33] and (3) a supernatural helper, sometimes an animal, was
sought.[34]
In southwestern California the use of datura is strongly ritualized in
the Chungichnich cult of the Luiseño, and Northern and Southern Diegueño.
According to Kroeber the ritual is comparatively recent and overlies an
older, simpler use of the plant over a wider area. In the Chungichnich
ceremony datura is given to boys as a preliminary ritual in puberty
observance; its use is not seasonal, nor do women ever partake of it.[35]
The Mountain Cahuilla[36] are typical of groups who had the simpler
datura rite in puberty ceremonials before the addition of Chungichnich
ritualism.
Manet (datura) was given to boys of 18-20 in a ceremony lasting
3 to 6 days in which other younger boys of 6-10 years were
taught clan and “enemy” songs by their fathers. The paha or
leader prepared strings of reed, eagle and flicker feathers
which were worn by the dancers, who practiced away from the
village. The drinking ceremony or kiksawel took place inside
the ceremonial dance house, and women and children were warned
away by the manet-dancer’s bull-roarer.[37] Each boy was
given a drink of a decoction of datura pounded in a mortar
by the clan chief. The men in the enclosure took each boy by
the waist, and they all danced around the fire, led by the
manet-dancer. The boys remained unconscious in the house all
night when the effect of the drug became manifest, and were
removed the following afternoon to a secluded cañon where for
a week they were taught songs and dances nightly. The last
afternoon a sand-painting was made and its symbolism explained.
After an ant-ordeal and a fire-dance they were regarded as men
and full-fledged members of the clan.
A second group of tribes in the San Joaquin basin and Sierra Nevada
foothills had a datura-drinking ceremonial every spring for both sexes
shortly after the age of puberty.[38]
The participant’s social status was not changed and the
rite alone constituted a ceremonial unit, the tananhibina
or tanabi-drinking of the Western Mono. Dancing to clappers
took place until the children fell unconscious, whereupon
they were carried away to special camps by relatives. If
a person appeared to be covered with blood or maggots and
vermin (the causes of sickness), they were brushed off with
an eagle-feather brush.[39] In discovering the sickness the
seer used an eagle-bone whistle which enabled him to “hear”
the sickness; if a man had poison, one could see where it was.
One could also see things at very great distances, as well as
discover what medicine-man had caused the death of people by
witchcraft. The seer could likewise find lost articles and
discover wealth by means of datura. The drinkers were guarded
during this time lest they harm themselves or be harmed.
Some men did not have any datura-visions; this was because
some medicine-man feared his bad deeds would be discovered,
and hence rendered the drink harmless by magic and “covered
up” those persons. If a medicine-man wanted to become very
powerful, he took tanabi on ten successive seasons. Datura
leaves were placed on the forehead of a dead person to drive
out the spirit,[40] and people boiled tanabi leaves so the
steam filled their house that the spirit of the dead man would
not return to them in dreams.
In view of these repeated parallels in the attitudes and usages
surrounding both peyote and datura, it is certainly not without
significance that their distribution, while contiguous, is mutually
exclusive in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States: peyote
is generally central and northeastern in Mexico, whence it spread
northward and eastward into the Plains, while datura is northwestern in
Mexico and extends through the Pueblo and nomadic Southwest to southern
California. And if the “black drink,” native American beers in Mexico and
the Southwest, and the mescal bean be all counted with peyote and datura
as part of one general distribution, we have a large continuous area or
“narcotic complex” across the whole southern United States and northern
Mexico. Such large general distributions are not unknown (e.g., bear
ceremonialism), and datura (via Central America), ilex drinks (via the
Antilles) and aboriginal alcoholic liquors (continuous from the Southwest
through Mexico and Central America to include the entire northern
three-quarters of South America) are surely connected ultimately with the
same traits in South America—more particularly since not alone are the
plants involved the same, but also detailed “superorganic” attitudes and
ritual manifestations.