“A WOMAN AT THE FOOT OF A BORRACHERO 
(The Intoxicator). ISUG YAS GYETA 
‘*How pleasant is the perfume of the long, bell-like flowers of 
the Yas, as one inhales it in the afternoon, following the rural 
paths. 
‘But the tree has a spirit in the form of an eagle which has 
been seen to come flying through the air, and then to disappear; 
it vanishes completely in the leaves, between the branches, 
between the flowers. 
‘*The spirit is so evil that if a weak person stations himself at 
the foot of the tree, he will forget everything and stay in that 
state, feeling up in the air as if on the wings of the spirit of the 
Yas. This happens to men and women alike, but if a girl who 
has evil within her, something dirty* sits resting in the tree’s 
shade, she will dream about men of the Pdez tribe, about those 
men who never stop chewing coca, and later, a figure will be 
left in her womb which will be born six months later in the form 
of pips or seeds of the tree. 
‘Spirit which evilly impregnates women. Spirit which pun- 
ishes Indians if they uproot all the plants where they live in 
order to make fields, when at least one plant should be left just 
for seed. 
‘*A spirit so evil, our grandparents tell us, was in these trees 
with flowers like long bells, which give off their sweet perfume 
in the afternoon, that they were the food of those Indians at 
whose name people tremble: the fierce Pijaos.”’ 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Barclay, A. S. ‘‘New considerations in an old genus: Datura’ in Bot. Mus. 
Leafl., Harvard Univ. 18 (1959) 245-272. 
. Studies in the Genus Datura (Solanaceae). 1. Taxonomy of Subgen- 
us Datura (1959) Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
Bristol, M. L. ‘‘Notes on the species of tree Daturas’’ in Bot. Mus. Leafl., 
Harvard University 21 (1966) 229-248. 
*This is a literal translation, but it all means ‘‘a menstruating girl’. 
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