of southeastern Colombia’’ in Geogr. Rev. 87 (1947) 579) 
that the Kubeo Indians of the Kuduyari River employ 
parica. He gives as the source of paricd the leguminous 
Piptadenia peregrina: 
The powdered seeds of paricd (Piptadenia peregrina) are blown force- 
fully through a bone into the nostrils of the payé, producing a sort of 
ecstasy, during which he determines the guilty party [i.e. enemies 
who have sent sickness through the air]. 
In a letter (January 14, 1952), answering my query as 
to his designation of the source of the snuff, Allen writes 
me that he did not see the seeds of Piptadenia himself; 
that he had been informed that seeds were used in the 
area; and that, on the basis of the literature, he con- 
cluded that these represented Piptadenia peregrina. 
It would seem, therefore, that there is much confusion 
of parica with yopo. This stems primarily from Spruce’s 
account, for he recorded (/oc. cit. 427): 
I first gathered specimens of the paricd (or niopo) tree in 1850, near 
Santarém, at the junction of the Tapajé6z and Amazon, where it had 
apparently been planted. In the following year, I gathered it on the 
little river Jauouari—one of the lower tributaries of the Rio Negro— 
where it was certainly wild. But I did not see the snuff actually pre- 
pared from the seeds and in use until June, 1854, at the cataracts of 
the Orinoco, 
We know that Spruce was aware of Humboldt’s re- 
port of yopo-snuff. Upon finding the same tree in an area 
such as the Rio Negro where, according to local reports, 
the medicine-men took a snuff called parica, it is possi- 
ble that Spruce assumed that Piptadenia peregrina was 
also the source of the paricd-snuff. This is not an easy 
explanation to accept, for Spruce deservedly enjoys the 
reputation of one of the most critical and accurate of 
ethnobotanical students of South America. Nor are we 
at all certain to this date that parica does not refer to 
snuff made with Piptadenia seeds in some parts of the 
Amazon Valley. Furthermore, we have the reports of 
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