16 Angewandte Botanik 



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there can remain no doubt that the mushroom-like peyote used by 

 the Indians in the United States, which we know to be identical 

 with the sacred hikuli, or hicori, of the Sierra Madre Indians, is 

 the same drug which was called teonanacatl, or "sacred mushroom" 

 by the Aztecs. According to the earliest writers, it was endemic 

 in the land of the Chichimecas, the earl}?^ home of the Apaches, 

 Comanches and Kiowas, which is also the source of the modern 

 supply. The ancient Mexicans, like the Huicholes and Tarahumaris 

 of the present day, obtained their supply of the drug through the 

 medium of messengers, consecrated for the purpose, who observed 

 certain religious rites in coUecting it, and who were received with 

 ceremonial honors on their return. Although the Indians on the 

 northern reservations now receive it through the medium of the 

 parcel post; 3'-et they attribute to it the same divine properties as 

 the ancient Mexicans and like them combine its worship with the 

 religion they have received from Christian missionaries It is onh" 

 natural that those who are engaged in the work of Christianizing 

 and uplifting the Indians should tr}?-, like the early Spanish missio- 

 naries, to stamp out its use. On the other hand many of the Indians 

 who use the narcotic declare that they take it as a kind of sacrament 

 or communion, and that it helps them to turn from wickedness 

 and lead good Uves. 



A knowledge of botanj^ has been attributed to the Aztecs which 

 they were far from possessing. Their plant names show that their 

 Classification of plants was not based upon real afifinities, and it is 

 very probable that they had not the sHghtest notion of the difference 

 between a flowering plant and a fungus. Certainly they applied the 

 names nanacatl and nanacace to both fungi and flowering plants 

 and the name peyotl to both the narcotic cactus Lophophora and to 

 the tuber-bearing composite Cacalia. The botanical knowledge of the 

 early Spanish writers, Sahagun, Hernandez, Ortega and 

 Jacinto de la Serna, was perhaps not much more extensive: their 

 descriptions were so inadequate that even to the present day the 

 Chief narcotic of the Aztecs, Ololiuhqui, which they all mention, 

 remains unidentified. They kew these narcotic drugs only in their 

 dry State; and the general appearance of the peyote brought from 

 the vicinity of Zacatecas was so very different from the teonanacatl 

 from the more northerly region inhabited by the Chichimecas, that 

 the two forms might easily have been regarded as Coming from 

 distinct plants. 



As far as the author knows, this is the first time that the 

 identity of the "Sacred mushroom" of the Aztecs with the narcotic 

 cactus known botanically as Lophophora williamsii has been pointed 

 out. That it should have been mistaken by the early Spaniards for 

 a mushroom is not surprising when one notices the remarkable 

 resemblance of the dried buttons to peltate fungi, and also bears 

 in mind that the common potato (Solanum Uiberosum) on its intro- 

 duction into Europe was popularly regarded as a kind of truffle, 

 a fact which is recorded by its German name Kartoffel or Tartuffel. 



M. J. Sirks (Haarlem). 



A.u.agegeben : 4 Januar lOlÖ, 



Verlag von Gustav Fischer in Jena 

 Buchdruckerei A. W. Sijthoff in Leiden. 



