tightly bound around the stick. This sieve is then lowered into 
the mortar or, when it is available, into a five-gallon gasoline tin 
with a hole in the top and beaten, until the successive blows 
release all of the fine powder from the bag. The finely sifted 
powder, then ready for use, is put into a special calabash made 
of half of the hard rind of the fruit of Crescentia Cujete, known 
locally as a cuya. 
Finely pulverized cassava-flour or farina (Manihot esculenta) 
may occasionally be added to the coca ash powder. 
V. 
The use of coca in the northwest Amazon is restricted to the 
male sector of the indigenous population. Intensity of use varies 
from individual to individual and from tribe to tribe. Although 
it appears to have an essential and semi-sacred role in sundry 
ceremonies, it is employed hedonistically in daily life. Some 
Indians will take coca only in the afternoon or evening, but 
many keep the powder in the mouth throughout their waking 
hours and consume large amounts. During my long period of 
field work, I encountered its heaviest employment amongst the 
Yukunas of the Rio Miritiparana, where it was not uncommon 
to find men who daily used up to one pound of the powder. 
In regions where acculturation has not progressed significant- 
ly — the Rio Piraparana of Colombia, for example — a visitor 
or stranger is made welcome with an offer of coca on the part of 
the head of the maloca. 
A spatula made from the leg bone of the jaguar or a folded 
piece of the banana leaf are aboriginally used for transferring 
coca powder to the mouth, but now metal spoons may be 
employed. 
A spoonful or two of the powder is put into the mouth. 
Conversation is impossible, until the powder has slowly been 
moistened and packed with the tongue between the gums and 
the cheeks. It is not chewed but is allowed gradually to mix with 
saliva and pass into the stomach. When the amount of the 
powder is thus diminished, it is replenished with an additional 
supply. Normally, a “quid” is kept in the mouth throughout the 
day. 
51 
