whether we have to do with Piptadenia snuff, tobacco snuff, or snuff 
. ‘ * ‘ 
from some other plant—as, for instance, the topsayri’ in early Peru 
—or from an unidentified tree bark among the Yecuana. . . 
There is, in this problem of the identity of parica, a 
most curious phase which is, as yet, apparently far from 
solution. 
In the kits which contain the witch-doctor’s parapher- 
nalia amongst certain tribes on the Rio Vaupés and the 
upper Rio Piraparana, there is always a lump or two of 
a clear yellow amber-like resin. This is used as a snuff, 
but seems to have no narcotic properties. Before a ‘‘di- 
agnosis’’, the medicine-man rasps a small amount of this 
resin and pulverizes it finely, after which it is taken into 
the nostrils. The resin, when powdered, is slightly aro- 
matic. It is my belief that the use of this resin as a snuff 
is related perhaps to a kind of ‘‘purification’’, prepara- 
tory to making a diagnosis, but we have very little infor- 
mation about it. I suspect that the source of the resin 
might be a species of Clusia, but I have no personal ob- 
servations to offer in support of this suspicion. There is 
the barest of possibilities that the resin might be of my- 
risticaceous origin, for we recall that Myristica Bicuhyba 
Schott of Brazil yields a balsam which is sometimes sub- 
stituted for copaiba (Copaifera officinalis L..), (Kraemer, 
H.:‘* Scientific and applied pharmacognosy”’ (1915) 
250). There is no actual evidence, however, for such a 
belief. 
I have seen these lumps of paricad amongst the Bara- 
sana Indians of the Cano 'Tee-mee-fia, an affluent of the 
Rio Piraparana. It was impossible to procure material 
or a description of either its preparation or of the source 
tree—but we know that it is procured from a large tree 
of the forest. 
Two of my colleagues, who spent long periods in the 
Colombian Vaupés, have likewise encountered this ele- 
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