Safford: An Aztec Narcotic 



297 



The name teonanacatl is now obsolete. 

 The drug is called by various names 

 among the Indians using it: xicori by 

 the Huicholes of Jalisco; hikori, or 

 hikuli, by the Tarahumaris of Chi- 

 huahua; huatari by the Cora Indians of 

 the Tepic mountains; kamaba by the 

 Tepehuanes of Durango; ho by the 

 Mescalero Apaches of New Mexico, who 

 formerly ranged as far south as Coa- 

 huila ; seni by the Kiowas ; and wokowi by 

 the Comanches, some of whom formerly 

 lived in the state of Chihuahua. The 

 name peyote has survived as a general 

 commercial term; and the mushroom- 

 like discs from the Rio. Grande region 

 are now widely spread among the north- 

 ern Indians of the United States 

 under the misleading names of "mescal 

 buttons" or "mescal beans," as well 

 as under the Nahuatl name peyote. 



This name is of Aztec origin, derived 

 from peyotl, the Nahuatl word for 

 "cocoon." That its application to Lo- 

 phophora was not general in early 

 times is shown by the fact that Dr. 

 Leonardo Oliva, professor of Pharma- 

 cology at the University of Guadalajara, 

 declared it a singular thing that the 

 peyote was regarded by the Mexicans 

 as a plant having the virtue of giving 

 unusual endurance to those using it, 

 and the power of walking great distances 

 without tiring. The only plant known 

 to him by this name was a yellow- 

 flowered Composite, with velvety tuber- 

 ous roots, which from their form and 

 indument might easily be likened to the 

 cocoon of a moth." As a matter of 

 fact this name is still commonly applied 

 to several species of Cacalia, the 

 principal one of which, Cacalia cordi folia, 

 is common in the vicinity of Guadala- 

 jara, Jalisco, in the drug markets of 

 which the root is offered for sale under 

 the name peyote. 



CACALI.\ ALSO CALLED PEYOTL 



The genus Cacalia belongs to the section 

 Senecioneae, which includes Arnica, Tussilago, 

 and other medicinal plants. To this genus 

 should be referred the Peyotl xochimilcensis 

 and the Nanacace of Hernandez, both of which 

 are composites endemic in the neighborhood 

 of Xochimilco, in the valley of Mexico, having 



a single stem growing from the middle^of 

 a cluster of nut-like tubers, with a terminal 

 cluster of yellow-flowered rayless heads sub- 

 tended by a scarious involucre. They should 

 not be confused with the' narcotic cactus 

 called peyotl or peyote. 



The peyote of Guadalajara, Cacalia cordifolia, 

 was first described botanically by Kunth from 

 specimens collected by Humboldt and Bonpland 

 at vSanta Rosa, Mexico. Its tubers, about the 

 size of walnuts or hickory nuts, are covered 

 with soft woolly hairs. From the center one 

 of the cluster rises a single smooth terete 

 stem bearing alternate, thickish, conspicuously 

 net-veined leaves. The lower leaves are long- 

 petioled, the upper ones, near the terminal 

 inflorescence, are short-stemmed and much 

 smaller. The blades are roundish or broadly 

 ovate, cordate at the base and angled on the 

 margin. The flower heads are arranged in the 

 form of a corymb, with many tubular 5-toothed 

 flowers crowded on a naked flat receptacle^ 

 subtended by an involucre cupshaped in form,, 

 composed of many narrow acute teeth. There 

 are no marginal ray-flowers. The disc- 

 flowers have both stamens and pistils, the 

 latter with an exserted forked stigma. The 

 pappus is pilose, somewhat resembling thistle- 

 down when mature. 



Fig. 4 shows the woolly tubers, reticulate 

 leaves, and mature inflorescense of Cacalia 

 cordifolia, photographed from material in the 

 United States National Herbarium, collected 

 by the writer in February, 1907, in the vicinity 

 of Guadalajara, state of Jalisco, Mexico. 



Other specimens in the herbarium are from 

 the Pedregal, or lavabeds, near Tlalpan, in the 

 Federal District of Mexico, corresponding 

 very closely with the descriptions of Peyotl 

 xochimilcensis of Hernandez; and from Alvarez, 

 state of San Luis Potosi, where the tubers, 

 locally known as cachan, are offered for sale 

 in the drug-markets as an aphrodisiac and a 

 remedy for sterility. 



THE GENUS LOPHOPHORA 



The genus Lophophora was based by Coulter 

 upon a small plant described in 1845 by 

 Lemaire, in the AUgemeine Garten-Zeitung, 

 under the name Echinocactus williamsii. 

 This plant, though suggesting certain echino- 

 cacti by its form difl'ers essentially from all 

 species of that genus in its fruit, which is devoid 

 of scales, and resembles the smooth club- 

 shaped "chilitos" of the Mamillarias. The 

 plant is also devoid of spine-bearing areoles. 

 In 1886 it was referred to the genus Anhalo- 

 nium, which it resembles in its flowers and fruits,. 

 but from the type of which it differs in several 

 important features. 



The genus Anhalonium, defined by Lemaire- 

 in 1839, proved to be identical with the genus. 

 Ariocarpus previously established by Scheid- 

 weiler, the type of which, Ariocarpus relusus, 

 described in 1838, is specifically identical with, 

 the plant described the following year by 



1* " Es singular que los mexicanos miraban el Peyote (el que conozco es de las Compuestas . . . ) 

 como un medicamento propio para dar aptitud a andar sin cansarse . . ." Oliva, Lecc. de 

 Farmacologia 2:392. 1854. 



