plants in their new home with properties similar to those of the 
jurema that they had known. 
Jurema means ‘‘intoxicating drink’? in Tupi-Guarani and, 
therefore, was applied probably in a wide sense by the peoples 
who used the term. 
It was only in 1873 that botanical studies on jurema began 
with the work of the Brazilian botanist Aruda Camara who 
reported several plants as jurema. A bush known as jurema 
branca, which he identified as ‘‘Mimosa Jurema alba’’ was 
‘used as a narcotic’. Jurema préta, which he referred to 
Acacia Jurema Mart., grew, he stated, only in the driest areas 
of the caatingas and sertoes, describing it as a large plant from 
which ‘‘the natives prepare a drink which brings on an en- 
chantment, transporting them heaven’’. 
Later, in 1881, Mello Morais wrote more extensively on the 
botanical aspects of jurema. He reported that the “‘country folk 
cure fatigue and with the bark of this tree’’ and that “the 
Indians extract from jurema a certain kind of intoxicating wine 
with delightful effects; to make it, they strip off the bark and, 
after boiling it for 24 hours, they add honey to counteract the 
astringency of the inebriating drink which is kept for later use.” 
Mello Morais identified the source as a new species of Mimosa 
which he described and called M. Jurema. It is obvious then 
that his observations were based on botanical specimens. 
In 1946, the Brazilian biochemist Oswaldo Gongalves de 
Lima collected material of the several juremas in northeastern 
Brazil. The material was identified by Adolpho Ducke. Jurema 
preta, he found, was Mimosa nigra Huber and M. hostilis 
(Mart.) Benth. It was the roots of the latter — M. hostilis — that 
yielded the *‘miraculous drink’? consumed ritually in the ajuca 
ceremony. Jurema branca, used as a stupefacient, 1s M. verru- 
cosa Benth. and other closely allied species. 
From this authentically identified material of Mimosa hos- 
tilis, Gongalves de Lima isolated an alkaloid which he called 
nigerine (Goncalves, 1946). The compound was later shown to 
be identical with N,N-dimethyltryptamine. 
With the knowledge that the active principal of jurema is 
N,N-dimethyltryptamine, there arises a further and still uni- 
321 
