ombia, parica, epena or nyakwana in Brazil (Schultes, 1954a, 
1954b). 
Although used in the western Amazon generally, Virola as a 
narcotic is most intensely utilized in the northwesternmost part 
of Brazil, adjacent parts of Colombia and the Orinoco head- 
water areas of Venezuela: a region where Spruce concentrated 
several years of his field research, and where he devoted spe- 
cial attention to the diversity of species of Virola; yet he failed 
to discover this interesting native use of the genus. 
It seems that the first mention of the snuff is that of the 
German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grtinberg who, in 1923, 
referred to an intoxicating powder called hakudufha prepared 
from a tree-bark by the Yekwana Indians of the Orinoco 
(Koch-Grunberg, 1923). ‘This is a magical snuff’, he wrote, 
‘*exclusively used by witch doctors and prepared from the bark 
of a certain tree which, when pounded up is boiled in a small 
eathenware pot, until all the water has evaporated and a sedi- 
ment remains at the bottom of the pot. This sediment is toasted 
in the pot over a slight fire and is then finely powdered with the 
blade of a knife. Then the sorcerer blows a little of the powder 
through a reed . . . into the air. Next, he snuffs, whilst, with 
the same reed, he absorbs the powder into each nostril succes- 
sively. The hakudufha obviously has a strongly stimulating 
effect, for immediately the witch doctor begins singing and 
yelling wildly, all the while pitching the upper part of his body 
backwards and forwards.” 
Koch-Grunberg did not authenticate this discovery with bo- 
tanical material, but there would appear to be little doubt that 
his description applies to Viro/a-snuff. 
The earliest botanical association of an inebriating snuff with 
the Myristicaceae or Nutmeg Family appeared in 1938. The 
Brazilian botanist Adolpho Ducke indicated that the ‘‘ Indians 
of the upper Rio Negro use the dried leaves of this species 
[Virola theiodora| and of V. cuspidata in making a snuff pow- 
der that they call parica’’ (Ducke, 1938). A year later, in writing 
about the leguminous tree Anadenanthera peregrina, the seeds 
of which are the source of yopo-snuff, he elaborated as follows: 
‘*Martius and other writers attribute to this species the source 
of the narcotic parica employed by certain Amazonian Indians 
314 
