medicine men make unusually extensive use of hallucinogens 
(species of Datura [Brugmansia], Methysticodendron 
Amesianum, lochroma fuchsioides) in their magico-medical 
practices. 
It is not easy, however, to procure much information on 
Desfontainia, partly because it represents an hallucinogen 
which, unlike the others employed in the region, is wild, appar- 
ently never cultivated. It grows in the moors or pdramos sur- 
rounding the valley, and medicine men must go afield to secure 
their supply of leaves. 
The first time that I learned of the narcotic use of Desfontainia 
was in 1942, when, while collecting in the Paramo de Tambillo, 
northeast of the Valle de Sibundoy, one of my guides — the son 
of a shaman — volunteered the information that native medicine 
men took a tea of the leaves of D. spinosa, known locally as 
borrachera de paramo, when they ‘‘want do dream.”’ Later, in 
1953, while collecting in the Paramo de San Antonio on the road 
between Pasto and Sibundoy, several Indians volunteered the 
information that ‘‘in Sibundoy, witch doctors use a tea of the 
leaves to see visions and diagnose illness.’’ One Indian indicated 
that the medicine men ‘‘go crazy’’ when they take the drink. 
There is an urgency to learn more about this drug plant, as 
native lore in the region is fast disappearing. I have on several 
occasions questioned local medicine men about the plant but 
have met with reluctance to discuss its use. This reluctance in 
itself is an indication possibly that its employment is held more in 
secret because of a very special place that the plant holds in 
magico-medical practice. 
No psychoactive constituent is as yet known from the genus 
Desfontainia. Material from several herbarium specimens of D. 
spinosa from Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador have been spot- 
tested with Dragendorff reagent for alkaloids with what appear 
to be negative results. These reports of similar use in such 
distant points in the Andes, however, tend to suggest that the 
genus does actually possess psychoactive principles. 
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