390 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



supposed medicinal virtues. After enumerating a long list of 

 maladies which might be cured by it, and relating specific instances 

 in which he had laiown it to be efficacious (very much after the 

 manner of the testimonials published at the present day in connec- 

 tion with patent medicines), he describes its ceremonial use by the 

 Indian priests, or necromancers. In this connection, however, since 

 he speaks of its intoxicating effects, it is very probable that other 

 narcotics were mixed with it. The custom of chewing it, as prac- 

 ticed by the Mexicans, he describes as follows : 



The Indians make use of tobacco to aid them to endure thirst as well as 

 hunger, and to enable them to pass days without liaving necessity to eat or 

 drink. When they have to journey across some desert or wilderness where 

 neither water nor food is to be found, they use little pellets made of this 

 tobacco. They take the leaves of it, and chew them, and as they go chewing 

 them they go mixing with them a certain powder made of burnt clam shells, 

 and go mixing them together in their mouth until they make a kind of paste, 

 out of which they make little pellets a little larger than garbanzos and place 

 them in the shade to dry, after which they keep them and use them in the 

 following manner : 



AVhen they are obliged to journey in regions where they do not expect to 

 find water or food, they take one of those pellets and place it between the 

 lower lip and the teeth, and they go along sucking it all the time that they 

 are walking, and what they suck they swallow, and after this fashion they 

 pass and journey three or four days without having necessity for food or 

 drink ; because they feel neither hunger nor thirst nor f aintness which might 

 hinder their journey.^ 



Padre de la Serna, who prepared a manual for instructing the 

 missionaries sent to the Indians concerning witchcraft, necromancy, 

 and idolatr}^, as practiced by the payni and titzitl of the Mexicans, 

 speaks repeatedly of the use of tobacco (picietl) and lime-and-tobacco 

 (tenexietl) in their various conjurations. This plant, to which the 

 Mexicans ascribed divine honors, was invoked like the sacred ololiuh- 

 que and peyotl, which will be described later. In all cases the spirits 

 of the plants, designated as brown or green or white, were called 

 upon to cast out various maladies, also distinguished by colors, with 

 threats if they failed and promises if they succeeded. In classifying 

 these narcotics Padre Serna observes: 



They called by the name of " green spirit " the tenegiete [tenexietl] which 

 they prepared witli lime, in order to give strength to the mouth, venerating 

 it as though it were the guardian angel of travelers. Tobacco, since it did not 

 cause hallucinations, was not held to possess the virtues of divination like those 

 of the narcotic ololiuhqui [Datura] and peyotl [Lophophora]. The latter were 

 held in such reverence by certain persons " forsaken by God " that they were 

 carried about to serve as charms against all injuries. ^ 



1 Monardes. " Historia medicinal de las Cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occi- 

 dentales que sirven en Medicina." f. 30. 1574. 



2 See Jacinto de la Serna, " Manual de Ministros para el conocimiento de idolatrias y 

 extirpacion de ellas." In Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espaua, vol. 104, 

 p. 165. 



