402 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



"cahoba" was the name, not ouly of the powder, but also of the cere- 

 mony of taking the powder.' 



According to Fairholt, this figure of the pipe does not occur in the 

 earlier editions of Oviedo, the cut being copied from the Salamanca 

 edition of 154:7.- 



Purchas, about 1G26, quaintly describes this tube referred to by 

 Oviedo; alluding to the native,s of Hispaniola, who, he says, "had 

 tobacco in religious estimation, not only for a sanity, but for sanctity 

 also, as Oviedo writeth, the smoke whereof they took into the nose 

 with a forked pipe fitted to both nostrils, holding the single end in the 

 smoke of that herb burning in the fire until they be(;ame senseless. 

 Their priests most used this, who, coming to themselves after this 

 sleepy fume, delivered the oracles of their zemes or devils, which some- 

 times spake by them." ^ 



Dr. Max Uhle, of the Museum of Science and Art of the University 

 of Pennsylvania, has written a most interesting paper on snuffing 

 tubes,^ and to him my thanks are due for the illustration shown in fig. 2. 



Latitau, speaking of this habit, says that "after they tumble down, 

 deprived of all feeling, they are carried away in their hammocks by 

 their wives." ^ 



Southey refers to certain tribes of the Rio Negro "who have an 

 extraordinary and tremendous ceremony, for which a large house is set 

 apart in all their villages. It begins by a general flogging of one 

 another with a thong and stone at the end. This continues eight days, 

 during which the old women, who among the American savages officiate 

 at most works of abomination, roast the fruit of the parica tree and 

 reduce it to a fine i)owder. The parties who had been paired in the 

 previous discipline are partners also in the following part, each in turn 

 blowing this powder with great force through a hollow cane into the 

 nostrils of his friend. They then commence drinking and the eflect of 

 the drink and the deleterious powder is such that most of them lose 

 their senses for a time and many lose their lives. The ceremony lasts 

 sixteen days, and is called the feast of the parica." ^ 



Condamine, according to McCulloh, says the Omaguas, on the upper 

 waters of the Amazon, snuff up a powder, which they call there "car- 

 rupa," by means of a forked hollow stick, the forked end being inserted 

 in the nostrils. He says that the intoxication which follows this prac- 

 tice lasts twenty-four hours.^ 



'A. Ernst, of Caracas, Venezuela, Etymology of the word tobacco, American 

 Anthropologist, II, p. 134. 



^F. \V. Fairholt, Tobacco and Its Associations, p. 14, London, 1859. 



^Purchas, His Pilgrimage, V, p. 957, Londcm, 1626. 



■•Bulletin No. 4, University of Pennsylvania, I. 



•'^Prre Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvagcs Amcriquains, compar<^es aux Moenrs des 

 premiers Temps, II, p. 138, Paris, 1724, quoting Oviedo. 



•'Robert Southey, History of Brazil, Pt. 3, p. 723, London, 1819. 



^J. H. McCulloh, Researches, p. 93, Baltimore, 1829, quoting Pinkcrtou's A'oyages, 

 IV, p. 226. 



