II. 
The Tukanoan Indians of the Colombian Vaupeés, for example, 
put the coca plant back into the very origin myths of the tribes. 
The Sun Father was a payé, a medicine-man, who originated the 
knowledge and power of modern payes. He had in his navel the 
powder of viho, a narcotic snuff prepared from the bark-resin of 
trees of the myristicaceous genus Virola. A daughter of the 
Master of Game Animals owned caapi, the narcotic plant 
Banisteriopsis Caapi. Pregnant and in great pain, she lay down. 
An old Indian woman, in an attempt to help, took hold of her 
hand. The pregnant young woman broke her finger, but the 
elderly woman kept it and guarded it in the maloca or great 
round house. A youth, however, stole it and planted it. The 
caapi vine grew from this finger. Another daughter of the 
Master of Game Animals, also pregnant and in intense pain, lay 
down. An old woman came to help, but this time the woman 
seized the girl’s hand and broke off a finger. She buried it. The 
finger took root and grew into the first coca plant. 
Similar legends from many of the tribes of the northwest 
Amazon concerning the supernatural and ancient origin of 
Erythroxylon Coca might be repeated. All bespeak great anti- 
quity. 
Iil. 
Erythroxylon Coca var. Ipadu is not known in the wild. It is 
cultivated, almost always in plots devoted exclusively to coca. 
The five- to eight-foot shrub is always vegetatively propagated: 
small pieces of the stem being inserted in the wet soil. Planted at 
the beginning of the rainy season, the shrub grows sparsely — 
the stems becoming often completely covered with lichens — 
and does not yield a harvest of leaves for 18 months. From then 
on, however, an individual shrub may yield for 20 to 30 years. 
The coca plant is cultivated exclusively by men, as are other 
sacred plants such as caapi and tobacoo, and only men usually 
harvest the leaves. It is interesting to note this difference in 
agricultural practices in the northwest Amazon: cassava — 
which is rarely if ever planted together with coca — is cultivated, 
cared for and harvested always by women: coca, never. Further- 
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