The apparently wide use of vegetal additives to alter the 
effects, strength and duration of the activity of some of the 
principal plant components of biodynamic drinks, snuffs and 
chews is still in a very preliminary stage of investigation. It 
promises to disclose a rich understanding of often hidden plant 
properties on the part of the South American aborigines. 
In view of the present state of our knowledge, then, it may be 
advantageous to review the steps in identifying a number of the 
major psychotropic plants currently used in South America 
and to look at what little we know about some of the additives 
employed in a few of the hallucinogenic preparations. 
ERYTHROX YLACEAE 
Erythroxylon* P. Brown 
Coca must be rated as the most important and culturally 
significant narcotic of South America. It likewise is the psy- 
choactive plant that, of the New World flora, has played the 
greatest role in Western medicine. Yet our understanding of the 
source plant or plants has been woefully inadequate. Recent 
studies are beginning finally to clarify some of the botanical and 
ethnobotanical mysteries surrounding coca and its aboriginal 
use. 
The chewing of coca — practiced by millions of Indians in 
the Andes and in the western Amazon — represents probably 
the oldest use of a narcotic in South America. The oldest 
archaeological records of coca-chewing date from at least 3000 
B.C. Figurines of this remote date demonstrating the pouched 
cheeks of coca-chewers have been discovered in sites of the 
Valdivia Culture of coastal Ecuador (Lathrap, 1979). This dis- 
covery represents the earliest known specimen of a continuous 
series of Ecuadorian figurines showing coca-chewing, primar- 
ily in the northern highland area of the country. 
Actual pre-Incan coca leaves have been found ina grave site 
located along the coastal area of Peru, with a radio carbon 
dating of 1314 B.C. (Lanning, 1967). 
*This generic epithet is often spelled Erythroxylum and it has been suggested that 
Erythroxylum is nomenclaturally correct (Plowman, 1976). In this non-taxonomic 
article, I prefer to employ the more widely used and more familiar Erythroxylon. 
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