VIL. 
The use of a snuff commonly called paricd has been 
known for a century or more, and the source of the nar- 
cotic has quite generally been attributed to the legumi- 
nous tree Piptadenia peregrina. This tree has long been 
recognized as the source of a violently narcotic snuff which 
is employed by the natives of the Caribbean area and of 
northern South America, including the basin of the Rio 
Orinoco, and which is widely called yopo or niopo. Hum- 
boldt’s account of this snuff (Humboldt: ‘‘Voyages aux 
régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent. . .”’ 2 (1819) 
260) referred to the preparation and utilization of the 
drug which he had observed in 1802 amongst the Otomaco 
and Guahibo Indians of the Orinoco in Venezuela and 
Colombia: ‘‘Ex seminibus tritis calci vivae admixtis fit 
tabacum nobile quo Indi Otomacos et Guajibos utun- 
tur.’’ The plant used was identified as Acacia Niopo, now 
considered a synonym of Piptadenia peregrina. 
Sir Robert Schomburgk, who first explored British 
Guiana from 1835 to 1839, referred the narcotic parica 
or paricarand to Mimosa acacioides Benth. (Schomburgk : 
‘Travels in British Guiana’’ [trans]. W. EK. Roth] 1 
(1922) 92). This binomial is a synonym of Piptadenia 
peregrina. 
In June 1854, during his botanical explorations in the 
vicinity of the cataracts of the Rio Orinoco at Maipures, 
Richard Spruce came upon a wandering group of Gua- 
hibo Indians from the Rio Meta in Colombia preparing 
yopo-snuff. He described the preparation of the narcotic 
and attributed it (as P. Miopo) to Piptadenia peregrina 
(Spruce, R. Led. A. R. Wallace] ‘‘Notes of a botanist on 
the Amazon and Andes”’ 2 (1908) 427), and he reported 
the common name as niopo in Venezuela and paricd in 
Brazil. 
Bates, who worked in the Amazon at the same time 
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