[1] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:372-74. These short paragraphs are
summaries, not direct quotations.
[2] Cf. the physiological action of peyote-alkaloids, discussed
elsewhere (dilation of the pupil, increased reflex excitability). The
use of narcotics in this area in connection with racing appears again
with peyote in northern Mexico, and with the “mescal bean” (_Sophora
secundiflora_) among the Wichita. The Acaxee used peyote in their
ball play, much as the “black drink” (_Ilex cassine_) was used in the
Southeast. Cf. Mooney’s (_Tarumari-Guayachic_) “Muräto,” apparently
identical with Lumholtz’ Mulato, that “is used mostly in races, not
ground up, but tied whole around waist, at back.”
[3] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:373. In this region narcotics in
general are much employed in connection with war, and the magical
“witching” of the enemy—whose power is not merely physical but
magically malevolent too. “Mescal beans” were part of the war-bundle
in some southern Plains tribes, and both peyote and datura were used
clairvoyantly and prophetically in war connections. The attitude that
the enemy is a witch, Dr. Spier informs me, is widespread among both the
Yumans and Athapascans of the Southwest. Cf. also peyote and captured
scalps (e.g., Maricopa) talking, and being danger-ridden.
[4] This is an instance where it is rewarding conscientiously to
respect native categories and ethnobotanical statements for hordenine
(= anhaline, one of the alkaloids of Lophophora) was discovered in
_Anhalonium fissuratum_ in 1894 by Heffter (see Appendix 5, fn. 5).
[5] Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_, says sunami is very much respected, and
is used only by doctors. Women doctors grind them on metates, placing
the plant upright and crushing it with one blow (cf. the “killing” of
mescal beans in the Plains). Doctors assemble for this feast, which
requires the sacrifice of a beef. Special rites attend its gathering,
and it must be gathered in a black blanket and bleeds red blood. It
must be kept in a double basket in a cave, lest it hear quarreling in
the house. It dislikes fire, and after ten or twenty years it loses its
virtue and must be replanted with copal incensing where originally found.
Doctors rub tizwin-and-sunami over the heart and rest of the body, for it
makes one win races. _Anhalonium fissuratum_ has a striking resemblance
to deer-hooves; it is likely the hikuli referred to in this and other
Tarahumari-Huichol tales—but it should be recalled that peyotism in
Mexico is also connected with deer-hunting.
[6] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:373-74; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_,
says this variety is as big as a man’s hat. The description probably
refers to an occasional polycephalous specimen of _Lophophora williamsii_
(hikuli wanamé).
[7] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_ 1:374; _Tarahumari Dances_, 253, 452-54;
cf. Mooney’s (_Tarumari-Guayachic_) kókoyómi. Mooney thought Lumholtz’
“walulasahane” was Tepecano, not Tarahumari.
[8] The resemblance of some _Mammillaria_ spp. to a head or scalp of hair
is quite striking; Higgins, in fact, figures an “Old Man Cactus” with
long flowing white “hair.”
[9] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 290.
[10] Bennett and Zingg, _op. cit._, 137, 295. The users of bakánawa
believe it to be even more powerful than peyote. One can more easily
believe that the ataxic gait of a peyote-intoxicated person would “throw”
him over a cliff or break a leg, than that it would result in any
conspicuously superior racing ability.
[11] Dorman, in Bourke, _Scatalogical Rites_, 91, says mushrooms
were “worshipped” in the Antilles, in Virginia, and possibly also in
California. The Siberian use of _Amanita_ spp. is well-known, but no
doubt these sporadic uses are all independent of each other.
[12] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:354; see also notes 41, 45, 48 in
Appendix 6.
[13] The writer has published elsewhere on the subject of the numerous
native American beers (see _Native American Beers_). So far as a
cactus-source of these is concerned, the following groups make use of
_Cereus giganteus_ Englm. and _C. Thurberi_ Englm. for their sahuaro
drink: Huichol (?), Pima, Maricopa, Yuma, Papago, Halchidoma (?), and San
Carlos Apache.
[14] The ilex “black drink” is Catawba (_Handbook of the American
Indians_, 1:150a, 2:1000-1001); Alibamu (Forster, _Bossu_, 254, 261,
294, 354-55); Creek (Swanton, _Social Organization and Social Usages_,
307, 445; Adair, in Swanton, _Social and Religious Beliefs_, 265; Speck,
_The Creek Indians_, 110, 117-18, 134; Bartram, _Travels_, 449, 507),
both Taskigi and Mikasuki; Cherokee (Bartram, _Travels_, 357); Chickasaw
(Swanton, _Social and Religious Beliefs_, 240); Koasati (Paz, _Koasati
Field Notes_); Yuchi (Speck, _Ethnology of the Yuchi_, 122-24, 135);
Natchez (Charlevoix, _Histoire de l’Isle_, 166; du Pratz, _Histoire_,
2:46, 3:13); Atakapa (Forster, _Bossu_, 1:354-55), Chitamacha (Gatschet,
in Swadesh, _Chitamacha Texts_) and Karankawa (Oliver, in Gatschet, _The
Karankawa Indians_, 18-19). Also in Florida (de Laudoniére, in Lewin,
_Phantastica_, 279; Safford, _Narcotic Plants_, 417; Romans, _A Concise
Natural History_, 94), and also possibly in Virginia (Beverly, _History
of Virginia_, 175-80; Ribault [1666], Dominique de Gourages [1567],
McCullough, Le Moyne—all in Havard, _Drink Plants_, 41-42; Lawson,
_History of Carolina_, 380-82 [1860 ed.]; Adair, _The History of the
American Indian_, 108). A similar emetic rite is also found among the
“Cutalchich” of Texas (Cabeza de Vaca, in Safford, _Narcotic Plants_,
416-17), the Tainan or Greater Antilles Arawak (Gower, _The Northern and
Southern Affiliations_, 39-40), the Lesser Antilles Carib and Guiana
(Dixon [R. B.], _Some Aspects_, 1-12), the Amazon Basin (Wissler, _The
American Indian_, 213), Jivaro and Canelo of Ecuado (Karsten, in Lewin,
_Phantastica_, 279-81; Safford, _Narcotic Plants_, 413, 416); Guarani of
Northern Bolivia (Safford, op. cit., 413; Spruce, _Notes of a Botanist_,
2:419-20). See also Thurnwald, _Economics_, 65; Harrington, _Cuba
Before Columbus_, 295, 388-89; Spier, _Yuman Tribes_, 181; _Handbook
of the American Indians_, 2:32a, 145-46; Sapir, _Kaibab-Paiute_.
An interestingly parallel distribution (which may have historical
relevance) is that of fish and arrow poisons. Fish poisons are reported
for northeastern South America, the Orinoco valley, the upper Amazon,
the Antillean Carib; the Tarahumari, Acaxee, Opata and in California;
the Catawba, Taskigi Creek, Cherokee, Koasati, Yuchi and Iroquois (cf.
the blow-gun of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Iroquois, Yuchi, central
Carib, Florida Key-dwellers, natives of Hispaniola and of northeastern
South America). Arrow poisons are found in Sonora, Central America,
the Guianas, the Antilles (Carib), Florida Arawak (?) and, in historic
times, the Tarahumari, as well as in South America. The Opata, curiously,
used yerba de fleche to poison deer at water-holes. Beals (_Comparative
Ethnology_, 115, 193) also lists poison arrows for the Southern Diegueño,
Chumash, Cahuilla, Yavapai, Havasupai, Navaho, Western Apache, Lipan,
Natchez (?), Seri, Mixtec and in Sinaloa and Culiacan. Spier adds the
Blackfoot and perhaps other Plains groups to this list. The group with
poison arrows south of the Great Lakes (_Jesuit Relations_, 8:302, in
Gower, 21) one would guess is Iroquois.
[15] We ignore for our purposes the South American area of the use
of datura, though it is surely connected with the Mexican culturally
and historically, as well as the South American use of coca, tobacco,
cohoba snuff (_Piptadenia peregrina_), guarana (_Paullinia cupana_ or
_P. sorbilis_), chocolatl (_Theobroma cacao_), aya-huasca (_Banisteria
caapi_) and yajé (_Haemadictyon Amazonicum_ Spruce). Many of the uses of
these plants in war, prophesying, divination, ordeals, and doctoring are
strikingly similar to the Mexican uses of marihuana, datura, teo-nanacatl
and peyote.
[16] The sources for these are cited in Gayton, _The Narcotic Plant
Datura_, a manuscript to which I am much indebted.
[17] Note the parallel uses of datura in South America found among the
Inca, Matacuna, Chancay, Sipibo, Cocoma, Omagua, Jivaro, Canelo, Quijo,
Zaparo, Guanes (Guanuco?), Chibcha and in Darien (after Gayton). The
“wysoccan” used by the Pamunky (Beverly, _History of Virginia_, 2:24) is
said to be a datura (Safford, _Daturas_, 557-58); the sporadic use as a
medicament in Jamaica (Beckwith, _Notes on Jamaica_, 9, note 5, 28) may
not be aboriginal.
[18] The writer hopes in due time to publish further data on New World
narcotics.
[19] De la Serna, in Safford, _Daturas_, 551, Arlegui, _Crónica_, 144;
Rouhier, _Monographie_, 331.
[20] Gerste, _Notes sur la médicine_, 51. This may be the source of
Reko’s erroneous teo-nanacatl etymology.
[21] Preuss, _Nayarit-Expedition_, 1:231.
[22] Diguet, _Le Peyote et son Usage_, 21, note 1.
[23] Mason, _Tepecano Prayers_, 138, 139, 142, 143. Cf. the supposed
aphrodisiac effects of peyote, teo-nanacatl, and marihuana.
[24] Russell, _The Pima_, 299-300. Cf. sunami of the Tarahumari for deer
hunting, and the mescal bean for buffalo hunting.
[25] Hrdlička, _Physiological and Medical Observations_, 28; cf.
_Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:837b.
[26] Bourke, _The Medicine-Men_, 455.
[27] Spier, _Havasupai_, 249, 269.
[28] Stevenson, _Ethnobotany of the Zuñi_, 46, 47, 88; _The Zuñi
Indians_, 385; Parsons, _A Zuñi Detective_, 168-70. Every single instance
in this paragraph finds parallels in the uses of peyote: the powdering of
the root, rain-getting, discovery of robbers, as an anodyne, for wounds,
etc., differentiation in sex and communication with the dead. Note also
in connection with rain-making the “water-bird” of peyotism.
[29] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:4; _The American Cave-Dwellers_, 389;
cf. the running amuck with peyote.
[30] Robbins _et alii_, _Ethnobotany of the Tewa_, 55, note 1.
[31] References from Gayton, _The Narcotic Plant Datura_.
[32] Cf. the use of peyote formerly only by adult warriors.
[33] Cf. the group use of marihuana, teo-nanacatl and peyote in Mexico.
[34] Again compare peyote, particularly in the Plains.
[35] Kroeber (_Handbook_ 462, 589, 593, 609, 613-14) lists tribes who may
lack it. See also Kroeber, _Anthropology_, 309-311.
[36] Summarized from Gayton, citing W. D. Strong, _Aboriginal Society_.
[37] Cf. the preparation of peyote in Mexico.
[38] Summarized from Gayton.
[39] Cf. this and the following elements with peyote usages.
[40] Cf. the Mexican use of peyote.