for ten days later the child died. With this event, the 
predictive value of diawit intoxication was dramatically 
confirmed for all those Sibundoy involved. Regardless 
of whether the draw actually contained psychotropic 
methoxy-harmanes that might somehow facilitate prog- 
nosis, several occurrences of this sequence—intoxication, 
prediction of an event, realization of the event—might 
be sufficient to establish the general use of the drug for 
prognostication. We may postulate that such a stimulus- 
response-reward phenomenon occurred repeatedly among 
not only the Sibundoy, but especially among tribes of the 
western Amazon long ago when the use of Banisteriopsis 
was in its initial and experimental stages. 
The finial observation of the medicine-man on the iden- 
tity of an unusual plant was as unexpected as it was illu- 
minating. Chindoy’s identification of the leaves as those 
of salaman boracéra was manifestly incorrect, as he con- 
ceded at a later date when comparing leaves of the two 
plants. ‘he misidentification is all the more surprising 
in view of Chindoy’s exceptional interest in the medici- 
nal and narcotic uses of the Datura candida clones and 
in the fact that he cultivates all of them in his garden, 
unlike any other Sibundoy contacted. The plant in ques- 
tion was a variant of the amarén boracéra growing beside 
Chindoy’s house, but for which he knows no use. 
In this determination through Banisteriopsis intoxica- 
tion of the medicinal uses of a previously unknown plant, 
we see a most interesting mechanism for the expansion 
of the Sibundoy materia medica. Not only are new plant 
drugs thus introduced, but there can be little certainty 
that the use of new drugs will be restricted to situations 
for which drugs are already available. Through chance, 
operating within the superstitious nature of Sibundoy 
beliefs, it is entirely possible that a new drug would be- 
come associated with disease symptoms previously un- 
[ 185 ] 
