Safford: An Aztec Narcotic 



305 



purchase, and repeats the feast at the 

 same time every year."-"* 



USE BY THE HUICHOLES OF JALISCO 



The ceremonies attending the acquisi- 

 tion and use of the drug by the Indians 

 of the Nayarit mountains of Jahsco and 

 Tepic were described by Leon Diguet 

 in 1899. These Indians belong to the 

 tribes known as Huicholes, Coras, 

 Tepehuanes, and Tepecanos. The 

 Coras, whose use of the raiz diabolica, as 

 described by Padre Ortega, has already 

 been noted, now obtain their supply from 

 the Huicholes. The latter send expedi- 

 tions across the state of Zacatecas to 

 Catorce in San Luis Potosi, where the 

 plant is endemic. The specimens from 

 Zacatecas in the Economic Collection of 

 the Bureau of Plant Industry are not at 

 all mushroom -like, but resemble dry 

 pieces of radishes or carrots sliced longi- 

 tudinally, or small, terminal fragments 

 covered with silky wool, such as those 

 described by early writers as ' ' peyote de 

 Zacatecas y (See fig. 3.) By the Hui- 

 choles the drug is known neither as 

 peyote nor teonanacatl, but as xicoli, or 

 hicuri, which is identical with the name 

 hikori applied to it by the Tarahumari 

 Indians. 



According to Diguet the Huicholes 

 collect the plant in October. The 

 expedition lasts about one month, and 

 its return is an occasion for celebration. 

 "Those who take part decorate their 

 hats and their hair with feathers and 

 paint on their faces the distinctive 

 attributes of their caste and of their 

 gods. After having made an offering 

 of peyote upon their altars they distrib- 

 ute pieces of it to all those they meet; 

 a supply of peyote is kept for the feasts 

 which will take place during the course 

 of the year ; the rest is sold to those who 

 did not take part in the expedition. . . 



"In eating the peyote the Indians 

 chew the pulp of the plant, which has 

 been cut up into small pieces, and at 

 first spit out the saliva which at the 

 beginning dissolves a bitter principle 

 having a very disagreeable taste, then 



TEXAS TYPE 



Specimens of Lophophora from the 

 vicinity of Laredo, Texas; the upper 

 one a typical L. wiUiamsii, with 

 eight ribs separated b}^ straight 

 grooves ; the lower one identical with 

 "L. lewinii," with 13 ribs sep- 

 rated by sinuous grooves. Photo- 

 graphes from plants growing in 

 Cactus House of U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture ; natural size. (Fig. 9.) 



they absorb the active principle which 

 dissolves little by little in the saliva. "-^ 

 According to Diguet the Indians regard 

 the drug as food for the soul, and 

 revere it on account of its miraculous 

 properties. The manifestation of the 

 hallucinations which it produces a 

 little after the absorption of its active 

 principle is held to be a supernatural 

 grace by which men are permitted tO' 

 communicate with the gods; and, more- 

 over, "in using the drug with modera- 

 tion the partaker is endowed with 



2* See "Tarahumari Dances and Plant-worship." Carl Lumholtz, in Scribner's Magazine, 

 October, 1894. Vol. 16, pp. 438-456. 



-^ Diguet, Leon. "La Sierra du Navarit et ses Indigenes." Nouvelles Arch. Missions Scien- 

 tifiques 9: 622-24. 1899. 



