Narcotic plants and stimulants of the ancient Americans / by W.E. Safford.
- William Edwin Safford
- Date:
- [1917]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Narcotic plants and stimulants of the ancient Americans / by W.E. Safford. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![supposed medicinal virtues. After enumerating a long list of maladies which might be cured by it, and relating specific instances in which he had known it to be efficacious (very much after the manner of the testimonials published at the present day in connec¬ tion with patent medicines), he describes its ceremonial use by the Indian priests, or necromancers. In this connection, however, since he speaks of its intoxicating effects, it is very probable that other narcotics were mixed with it. The custom of chewing it, as prac¬ ticed by the Mexicans, he describes as follows: The Indians make use of tobacco to aid them to endure thirst as well as hunger, and to enable them to pass days without having necessity to ea.t or drink. When they have to journey across some desert or wilderness where neither water nor food is to he found, they use little pellets made of this tobacco. They take the leaves of it, and chew them, and as they go chewing them they go mixing with them a certain powder made of burnt clam shells, and go mixing them together in their mouth until they make a kind of paste, out of which they make little pellets a little larger than garbanzos and place them in the shade to dry, after which they keep them and use them in the following manner: When they are obliged to journey in regions where they do not expect to find water or food, they take one of those pellets and place it between the lower lip and the teeth, and they go along sucking it all the time that they are walking, and what they suck they swallow, and after this fashion they pass and journey three or four days without having necessity for food or drink; because they feel neither hunger nor thirst nor faintness which might hinder their journey.1 2 Padre de la Serna, who prepared a manual for instructing the missionaries sent to the Indians concerning witchcraft, necromancy, and idolatry, as practiced by the payni and titzitl of the Mexicans, speaks repeatedly of the use of tobacco (picietl) and lime-and-tobacco (tenexietl) in their various conjurations. This plant, to which the Mexicans ascribed divine honors, was invoked like the sacred olol'iuh- que and peyotl, which will be described later. In all cases the spirits of the plants, designated as brown or green or white, were called upon to cast out various maladies, also distinguished by colors, with threats if they failed and promises if they succeeded. In classifying these narcotics Padre Serna observes: They called by the name of “ green spirit ” the tenegiete [tenexietl] which they prepared with lime, in order to give strength to the mouth, venerating it as though it were the guardian angel of travelers. Tobacco, since it did not cause hallucinations, was not held to possess the virtues of divination like those of the narcotic ololiuhqui [Datura] and peyotl [Lophophora]. The latter were held in such reverence by certain persons “ forsaken by God ” that they were carried about to serve as charms against all injuries.1 1 Monardes. “ Historia medicinal de las Cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occi- dentales que sirven en Medicina.” f. 30. 1574. 2 See Jacinto de la Serna, “ Manual de Ministros para el conocimiento de idolatrias y extirpacion de ellas.” In Documentos In6ditos para la Historia de Espana, vol. 104, p. 165.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3062163x_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
