554 



safford: narcotic snuff, cohoba 



in the form of powder, as we take tobacco, but with more apparatus. 

 The Omaguas make use of a cane tube terminating in a fork, of a Y- 

 shaped form, each branch of which they insert into one of their nostrils. 

 This operation, followed b}^ a violent inspiration, causes them to make 

 diverse grimaces. 10 



This snuff, called curupa and also, according to Gilii, curuba. 11 

 was afterwards identified by Humboldt with the yupa or nupa 

 of the Otomac Indians, described by Gumilla, 

 and the paricd of Brazil, 12 and* traced to a tree, 

 which he called Acacia Niopo. Humboldt states 

 that the missionaries on the Orinoco commonly 

 call it tree-tobacco (tabac en arbre) to distinguish 

 it from the ordinary herbaceous tobacco (Nico- 

 tiana) . 



humboldt's description 



Humboldt, who observed a party of Otomac In- 

 dians at Urana, a mission on the Orinoco River, 

 says of them: 



. they throw themselves into a peculiar 

 state of intoxication, one might almost say of mad- 

 ness, by the use of the powder of niopo. They gather 

 Fig. 2. Bifur- the long pods of a Mimosacea, which we have made 

 cated tube for known under the name Acacia Niopo, cut them to pieces, 

 snuffing pow- moisten them, and cause them to ferment. When the 

 dered seed of softened seeds begin to turn black they are ground 

 Piptadenia pere- into a paste, and after having mixed with them some 

 grina. Used by flour of cassava and some lime made from the shell of 

 Otomac Indians an Ampullaria, they expose the whole mass to a very 

 of the Orinoco brisk fire, on a gridiron of hard wood. The hardened 

 River. Berlin paste is given the form of little cakes. When wanted 

 Museum. Scaled for use it is reduced to a fine powder, and placed on 

 a dish five or six inches wide. The Otomac holds 

 this dish, which has a handle, in his right hand, while he inhales the 

 niopo by the nose, through a forked tube of bird's bone. This bone, 



10 See, Relation abregee d'un voyage fail dans I'interieur de V Amerique merid- 

 ionale, etc. par. M. de la Condamine, in Mem. de l'Acad. Roy. des Sciences, 

 Annee 1745, p. 428. Paris, 1749. 



11 Gilii, F. S. Saggio de storia Americana, 1: 201-202. 1780. 



12 Humboldt & Bonpland. Voyage aux regions equinoxiales, 2: 620. 1819. 



