558 safford: narcotic snuff, cohoba 



use of the fruit of this same tree for snuff we have an early 

 account, written about the year 1583. In Pedro Sotelo Narvaez's 

 Relation de las Provincias de Tucuman, he says of the Indians 

 living in the vicinity of Cordoba: 



They do not make such great use of azua (fermented chicha) as the 

 Indians of Peru. They take through the nostrils the sebil, which is 

 a fruit like the vilca; this they pulverize and inhale through the nostrils 

 (hdcenla polvos y bebenla por las narices). 17 



Vilca, also written huilca, or huillca, described by certain 

 writers as lit tie beans (frisolillos que llaman vilca), remained un- 

 identified until very recently, although, as cited 

 above, it was mentioned at a very early date by 

 Acosta as an intoxicant used by the Quichuas. 

 Specimens were secured by Mr. O. F. Cook, of 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture, from an 

 Indian drug-vender in southern Peru, in 1915. 

 They were labeled huillca, and proved to be seeds 

 of a Piptadenia, if not identical with P. peregrina, 

 at least very closely allied to that species. 



Huillca, like cohoba, nopa, and cebil, was snuffed 

 c i f ii U P ky m eans of tubes. Max Uhle obtained a re- 

 bone from Tiahu- markable snuff tube, in all probability used in 

 anaco, Bolivia, the process by the ancient Quichuas, at Tiahu- 

 PhiladelphiaMu- anaC0) Bolivia, in June, 1895. This tube (fig. 

 Uhle Scale A ^) is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Sci- 

 ence and Art (No. 36095). It resembles closely 

 a specimen, recently discovered in a burial cave at Machu 

 Picchu by the Peruvian Expedition sent out under the aus- 

 pices of Yale University and the National Geographical Society. ls 

 The fork of the snuffing tube is formed by the bifurcation of 

 the distal end of the metatarsus or leg-bone, of a llama. The 

 Tiahuanaco specimen, finished and ornamented by incised carv- 

 ing, has been slightly chipped at the lower end; the Machu 

 Picchu specimen, in the first stages of manufacture, has a trans- 



17 Relacioncs Geograficas, Peru, 2: 152. 1885. 



18 See, Eaton, (Ikorge F., in Mem. Conn. Acad. Arts and Sciences, 5: 58, pi. 

 4, fig. 8. May, 1916. 



