midst. Or he may be anxious to know who is gossiping 
about him during his absence. The location of a lost ob- 
ject, he believes, can be revealed by intoxication. It 
would appear that anxiety states can be better defined, 
or even resolved, with b’awn. Of great importance is its 
use para conocer, ‘to perceive, to experience, to know 
through familiarity, to learn’, the native’s way of ex- 
pressing in Spanish the drug’s ability to ‘‘expand con- 
sciousness’, especially in the visual realm. In this con- 
nection, and perhaps in other ways as well, dbiaxiz helps 
the Sibundoy ‘‘to learn how to live’’. 
Therapeutically, the Sibundoy medicine-man employs 
biaxti for its unfailing purgative action, perhaps due to 
harmine’s ability to increase intestinal motility (62). As 
an emetic, the drug is notorious. These secondary actions, 
while deliberately prescribed at times, also affirm the 
medicine-man’s control over the body, for the drug 1s 
taken usually by the patient undergoing diagnosis as 
well. A strong purge is always assumed to be beneficial, 
a reasonable assumption in an environment where intes- 
tinal parasites are common. The antiparasitic actions of 
the harmala alkaloids have already been noted (32). Re- 
gardless of the ensuing diagnosis, the patient justifiably 
feels that some improvement has been attained. 
X 
We now proceed to an examination of my observa- 
tions on the preparation of biavwii and its use in diagnos- 
ing disease and in ‘‘studying medicine’ by a Sibundoy 
medicine-man and close friend, Salvador Chindoy. I 
have been able to discuss the utilization and especially 
the intoxication from biaxvt with many Sibundoy, but 
rather than present a composite and generalized picture 
of its use, it seems preferable to recount a specific in- 
stance, the one I observed most fully. 
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