finely powdered with the blade of a knife.” It was called 
hakudufha by the Yekwana (Koch-Griinberg 1923). 
In 1938, the Brazilian botanist Adolpho Ducke indicated that, 
in the Rio Negro, the Brazilian Indians made a snuff called 
parica from the leaves of Virola theiodora and V. cuspidata 
(Ducke 1938; 1939). 
The source of the narcotic snuff was, however, not definitively 
identified until 1954, when voucher specimens and field studies 
indicated that the leaves are not used but that a bark exudate Is 
the real source of the snuff. At that time, the Indians of the Rio 
Apaporis of Amazonian Colombia were found to be using in 
ritual ceremonies of the medicine men an intoxicating snuff 
made from the red “resin” of the inner bark or from scrapings of 
the inner bark itself of Virola calophylla, V. calophylloidea and 
possibly V. elongata (Schultes 1954). 
Later, it was learned that the Witoto Indians of Colombia did 
not utilize the red “resin” of the bark in the form of snuff but did 
value it in pellets orally ingested as a magic and ceremonial 
hallucinogen (Schultes 1969; Schultes and Swain 1976). More 
recent field work amongst the Boras and Witotos of Peru has 
indicated the use of Virola Pavonis and V. elongata as well as 
possibly V. surinamensis and V. loretensis. The Boras likewise 
point out /ryanthera macrophylla of a related myristicaceous 
genus as the source of a narcotic paste. This represents the first 
time that a genus other than Virola has been known to be 
involved in the myristicaceous hallucinogens of tropical South 
America. 
Reports from the field work of an anthropologist—Peter L. 
Silverwood-Cope—inform us that the primitive, nomadic Ma- 
ku Indians of the Rio Piraparana in Amazonian Colombia 
drink the “resin” directly, with no preparation and no admix- 
ture, for its hallucinatory effects (Schultes 1978, 1979). 
There are suggestions that the bark of Virola sebifera may be 
smoked in Venezuela. Several herbarium collections note that 
the inner bark is smoked by witch doctors at dances when curing 
fevers and that they boil the bark “to drive away evil spirits.” 
(Schultes and Hofmann 1980). 
216 
