Schultes says that the plant has ‘mildly intoxicating 
properties , and adds these details: 
Sounds seem to come distorted from a great distance. This plant 
typifies an hallucinogen of which the hallucinogenic characteristics 
are auditory, not visual. The natives believe that sinicuichi has 
sacred or supernatural qualities, since they hold that it helps them 
recall events which took place many years earlier as if they had 
happened yesterday: others assert that they are able, with sini- 
cuichi, to remember pre-natal events. 
On contemplating the statue anew one is tempted to 
see in the tilt of the head and above all in the open 
mouth that Nochipilli is listening to the far-off voices 
of sinicwchi. Mrs. Seeler’s drawing (Fig. 8b) is based on 
the illustration in the Budletin on Narcotics, Vol. X X11, 
No.1, January) March 1970, p. 88, from Part IIT, ‘The 
plant kingdom and hallucinogens’, by Dr. Schultes. 
Schultes is confident that he and his colleagues have 
identified another sacred plant of the Nahua: on the 
a Fig. 9 b 
Nicotiana Tabacum 
[ 320 ] 
