Religion and medicine have not yet been separated out 
in many of the Indian communities. 
Picietl — Nicotiana rustica L. 
The bright green powder of picietl leaves is familiar 
all over the Indian country in Mexico. The curandero 
rubs it on the skin, over the forearms, temples, stomach, 
legs. It is this that constitutes a mpra or ritual cleans- 
ing. Formerly, when mixed with one part of lime to ten 
of picietl, it was made into a wad that the Indian inserted 
between teeth and gums and sucked, much as the Kechua 
sucks coca, to give him strength. The friars inveighed 
against picietl with a vehemence that is proof of its im- 
portance in the native culture. It is still indispensable in 
the religious life of the Indians. Is it possible that picietl 
has pharmacological properties not yet discovered by 
science’ May there be surprises for us in this plant? 
Picietl is Nicotiana rustica L., a sister species to our 
ordinary tobacco, Nicotiana Tabacum L. They both grow 
in Mexico. In Nahuatl together they are yet/, the former 
alone was piciet/ (now in the vernacular pisiete), the lat- 
ter alone was quauhyetl. ‘Tobacco was already widely 
diffused throughout the Americas at the time of the 
Conquest. The Spaniards found it in the Antilles, the 
Portuguese in Brazil, the English in Virginia. Along 
with the plant the Spaniards took the name ‘tobacco’ 
from the Taino people of Hispaniola and Cuba. Long 
since dead and gone, this Arawakan tribe bequeathed to 
the world a legacy of important words that gives us an 
engaging image of a blameless people: ‘canoe’, ‘ham- 
mock’, ‘tobacco’, maize’, and ‘potato’, not to speak of 
a sixth, ‘barbecue’, that is in vogue today. And so the 
Tainos, cultivating their maize and sweet potatoes, smok- 
ing tobacco in their hammocks, paddling their canoes to 
the neighboring barbecue, were destined to be extermi- 
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