I] 
The stupefying of fish to secure food in quantity with rela- 
tively little effort is one of the most widespread and possibly one 
of the oldest activities of primitive peoples. In the Old World, it 
has a long history in diverse areas. Although the plants used 
there differ in toxic constituents from those of South America, 
the techniques employed the world over are strikingly similar. 
Since reports of fish-drugging in the New World were avail- 
able only after the Discovery, its antiquity there cannot be 
determined. Accumulated evidence sustains Heizer’s conclu- 
sion (9) that ‘* ...we are dealing with a single, widely distributed 
concept which has a South American focus of origin, dispersal 
center, and highest and most complex development...’ To 
support this conclusion, he mentions the presence of rivers and 
streams rich in fish and of many plants appropriate for this use. 
Heizer’s tables of regional fish-poison plants — among the most 
comprehensive available — are based on lists published by 
Ernst, Greshoff, Rostlund and Howes, as well as Radlkofer, and 
are supplemented by material from various ethnographical ac- 
counts. He issues a caveat: ‘‘these [tables] are not complete, 
and give only a sampling of the plants used and places where 
piscicides are employed’’. 
Going a step further than Heizer in pinpointing the focus of 
origin and a dispersal center for the use of fish-poisoning plants, 
Hornell (10) and Schultes (22) suggest that it lies in the Amazon 
basin. Denying that independent invention may account for this 
trait, Schultes comments: ‘*. . . this continent seems to repre- 
sent the center from which this custom has developed in the 
greatest degree, to judge from the number of species used. 
Moreover, recent studies have indicated that the area of the 
northwest Amazon may easily be considered as the epicentre of 
greatest degree of development of fishing with poisons in all 
South America’’. 
Schultes has spent many years in exploration of the Amazon 
flora. He and his students have found sundry new fish-poison 
plants in the northwest Amazonia of Colombia, some of them 
new to science and some in families never suspected as having 
toxic principles. Several of these are cultigens of such age that 
they are no longer known in the wild state. He reports that the 
most commonly used in the area belong to the genera Phyllan- 
74 
