Safford: An Aztec Narcotic 



293 



god — the so powerful and superior one — 

 who can destroy the work of thy hands? 

 I command it, I, the prince of enchant- 

 ment." Others using the Hueinacaztli 

 ("great-ear"), Mecaxochitl ("cord- 

 flower"), and CoanenepilH ("serpent's 

 tongue"), repeat the following: "Come 

 hither, thou, the yellow and ardent 

 red one; come and expel the green 

 pain, the brown pain, which now wishes 

 to take away the life of the son of the 

 gods!" And with the herb Atlinan 

 ("water- weed"), "I invoke thee, my 

 mother, thou of the precious waters! 

 Who is the god or who the so powerful 

 one that wishes to destroy and burn 

 my enchantment? Ea! Come thou, 

 sister of the Green Woman, whom I 

 am about to go and leave in the seven 

 caves, where the green pain, the brown 

 pain, will hide itself. Go and rub 

 with thy hands the entrails of the 

 bewitched one, so that thou mayst 

 prove thy power and fall not into 

 disgrace!" 



EARLY HISTORY OF TEONANACATL 



Bancroft, in referring to the narcotics 

 used by the ancient Mexicans, mentions 

 one, which was believed by the early 

 Spaniards to be a fungus. In writing 

 of their ceremonial feasts he says: 

 "Among the ingredients used to make 

 their drinks more intoxicating the 

 most powerful was the teonanacatl, 

 'flesh of God,' a kind of mushroom 

 which excited the passions and caused 

 the partaker to see snakes and divers 

 other visions."* This information was 

 undoubtedly derived from accounts 

 of the Spanish padres, one of whom, 

 Bernardino Sahagun, writing before 

 the year 1569, states that it was the 

 Chichimeca Indians of the north who 

 first discovered the properties and made 

 use of these "evil mushrooms which 

 intoxicate like wine."^ 



They were gathered in the territory 

 now northern Mexico and southern 

 Texas, preserved by drying, and carried 



4 Bancroft, H. H., Native Races, 2: 360. 1875. 



5 Sahagun, Bernardino (1499-1590). Hist. Nueva Espana (ed. Bustamente), vol. 3, p. 118. 

 ^"Quoniam inebrare solent, Teyhuinti nomine nuncupati sunt, et e fulvo in fuscum vergant 



colorem risum inopportunum concitent, imaginemque citra risum inebriantium possint exhibere." 

 Hernandez, Francisco (1514-1578). Hist. PI. Nov. Hisp. (ed. Rom.) 2:357. 1790. 



' Simeon, Remi, Diet, de la langue Nahuatl, p. 436, 1885. 



8 Op. cit. p. 412. 



southward. The inhabitants of the 

 Valley of Mexico knew them only 

 in their dry state. It is also very 

 probable that the early 'writers who 

 recorded their use had seen them only 

 when dry and never knew then; as 

 living plants. Francisco Hernandez, 

 the physician sent by Philip II in 1570 

 to study the resources of Mexico, or 

 New Spain, describes them under the 

 heading " De nanacatl seu Fungorum 

 genere." From the harmless white- 

 mushrooms {iztacnanacame) , red-mush- 

 rooms (tlapalnanacame) , and yellow 

 orbicular-mushrooms (chimalnanacame) , 

 used for food, he distinguished them as 

 teyhuinti, which signifies "intoxicating."^ 

 In this connection it is interesting 

 to note that this Nahuatl word, teyhuinti, 

 or teyuinti, (from yuinti, to be drunk) 

 survives, in the form of tejuino or tehuino 

 in the State of Jalisco, Mexico, and 

 tesuino or tizwin in the south-western 

 United States, as the name of certain 

 intoxicating drinks, the principal of 

 which is a kind of beer brewed from 

 malted maize. 



DETERMINATION OF THE DRUG 



Three centuries of investigation have 

 failed to reveal an endemic fungus 

 used as an intoxicant in Mexico, nor 

 is such a fungus mentioned either in 

 works on mycology or pharmacography ; 

 yet the belief prevails even now that 

 there is a narcotic Mexican fungus, 

 and it is supported by Simeon in his 

 montimental dictionary of the Nahuatl 

 language, in which the following defini- 

 tions occur: 



''Teonanacatl, espece de petit cham- 

 pignon qui a mauvais gout, enivre et 

 cause des hallucinations ; il est medicinal 

 contre les fievres et la goutte."^ 



" Teyuinti, qui enivre quelqu'un, eniv- 

 rant; teyuinti nanacatl, champignon 

 enivrant."^ 



In connection with his study of the 

 economic plants of the Mexicans and 

 the Indians of the south-western United 



