Safford: An Aztec Narcotic 



ANOTHER TYPE OF LOPHOPHORA 



Form described by Hennings as a distinct species, A nhalonium leivinii, but often occurring 

 in the same cluster with the typical form, growing from the same root. Photograph of 

 specimen in the Cactus House of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, collected in the 

 state of Zacatecas, Mexico, in 1908, by F. E. Lloyd. Photograph natural size. (Fig. 8.) 



in which all the tribes of the southern 

 plains take part. 



The Kiowas and other Indians of 

 Oklahoma receive the greater part of 

 their supply of the drug from traders 

 who bring it from the vicinity of 

 Laredo, Texas, in the form of "mescal 

 buttons," which are identical with 

 the teonanacatl of the ancient Mexi- 

 cans. Like the ancient Mexican feasts 

 referred to above, their meetings 

 are nocttirnal, usually beginning 

 Saturday night. A summary of Mr. 

 Mooney's account was published in the 



Therapeutic Gazette of vSeptcmbcr 16, 

 1895. A more detailed description was 

 published by Mr. Mooncy the following 

 January, in the same journal, from which 

 the following extracts arc taken. 



"The ceremony occu]jies from twelve 

 to fourteen hours, beginning about 9 or 

 10 o'clock and lasting until nearly noon 

 the next day. vSaturday night is now 

 the time usually selected, in deference 

 to the white man's idea of Sunday as a 

 sacred day and a day of rest. The 

 worshipers sit in a circle around the 

 inside of the sacred tipi, with a fire 



