A NEW NARCOTIC SNUFF 
FROM THE NORTHWEST AMAZON 
BY 
RicHarpD Evans SCHULTES 
i 
AN interesting new drug has been added to our growing 
list of native narcotic and stimulant plants of South 
America. Recent investigations have uncovered the use 
amongst certain Indians of eastern Colombia and north- 
western Brazil of several species of the myristicaceous 
genus Viro/a in the preparation of a violently toxic snuff 
which is employed by the medicine-men in witchcraft, 
divination and the diagnosis of illness. 
II. 
During the course of exploration of the Rio Apaporis 
in Amazonian Colombia in 1951 and 1952, I had as 
helpers several Indians of the Puinave tribe from the 
little known Rio Inirida. The Inirida is the highest 
Colombian affluent of the Orinoco and, although botan- 
ically completely unknown, it represents apparently an 
area where the Amazon (Rio Negro-Vaupés) and Orinoco 
floras blend. Consequently, my Puinave helpers, from 
whom I first learned of this myristicaceous snuff, were 
familiar with many of the plants encountered in the 
Apaporis basin. 
During 1951, the uninhabited Rio Apaporis was 
opened up for tapping wild rubber, and natives from 
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