other contacts with Caribbean and Central American 
snufE~using cultures notwithstanding, the Indians of 
Late Post-Classic Mexico seem not to have assimilated 
these practices into their own extensive complex of 
ritual intoxicants. 
Nevertheless, there is a growing corpus of data, in the 
form of archaeological art, to suggest that snuffing was 
once known and. practiced in several parts of Meso- 
america as early as 1500-1200 B.C. and at least as late 
as the first centuries A.D. Before we examine some of 
the evidence, we need briefly to consider the problem of 
potential indigenous Mexican sources for hallucinogenic 
snuffs. 
Thanks to prodigious research in the field, the labora- 
tory and the historical sources, especially by such inves- 
tigators as Richard Evans Schultes, S. Henry Wassén, 
Siri von Reis Altschul, and Bo Holmstedt, the various 
kinds of South American snuffS are botanically and 
chemically rather well understood. For Mexico, how- 
ever, the botanical data are inadequate, and chemical in- 
formation is wholly or largely lacking. Nevertheless, 
there are indications of the direction that future research 
might fruitfully take. 
First, one cannot rule out one or more species of Nico- 
tiana. These native tobaccos have a much greater nicotine 
content than do the hybrid species from which cigarette 
or pipe tobaccos are made. Wilbert (1972: 55-73) re- 
cently documented the use of tobacco as the sole psycho- 
tomimetic employed by the shamans of the Warao In- 
dians of Venezuela, who smoke themselves into ecstatic 
trance states that are phenomenologically indistinguish- 
able from those elsewhere triggered with such botanical 
hallucinogens as ayahuasca, the sacred mushrooms, 
morning-glory seeds, or cfnadenanthera and Virola 
snuffs. Several species of Nicotiana are in tact employed 
[2] 
