NAECOTIC PLANTS AND STIMULANTS — SAFFOED. 399 



cession was formed which climbed the mountain where the tree 

 was growing. When it fell there came an aged Indian woman 

 who, taking a few of its branches, laid them on the trunk where 

 it had been cut, and, consoling it with loving words, begged that 

 it might not feel humiliated or angry; for they had chosen it on 

 account of its magnificent stature and great strength, and it was 

 destined to span a mighty river, so that all the people of the land 

 of Michoacan might cross over upon it. And before dragging 

 it away they placed upon the place where it had fallen a piece of 

 lighted candle which had been left over from Holy Thursday, 

 and they repeated in its honor a very solemn litany, sprinkling it 

 with holy water and much pulque. ^ On the next day, having pro- 

 pitiated the spirit of the tree, they bore away the hewn beam to 

 the bridge with much shouting and jubilation. ^ 



The same author speaks of the veneration paid by the Mexicans to 

 certain medicinal plants and to the narcotic ololiuhqui, the sacred 

 nanacatl, the peyotl, and the picietl (tobacco), "to which they 

 ascribe deity and with which they practice superstitions." 



LOPHOPHORA WILLIAMSII, THE SO-CALLED SACRED MFSHROOM. 



Bancroft, in referring to the narcotics used by the ancient Mexi- 

 cans, 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 malfe their drinks more intoxicating the most 

 powerful was the teouanacatl, " flesh of God," a kind of mushroom which 

 excited tlie passions aud caused the partaker to see snakes and divers otlier 

 visions." ^ 



This information was undoubtedly derived from accounts of the 

 Spanish padres, one of whom, Bernardino Sahagim, 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 

 mushroom which intoxicate like wine."* 



They were gathered in the territory now northern Mexico and 

 southern Texas, preserved by drying, and carried 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 them as 

 living plants. Francisco Hernandez, the physician sent by Philip II 

 in 1570 to study the resources of Mexico, or New Spain, describes 



1 Fermented sap of the century plant (Agave amcricana), which also yields the strong 

 distilled spirit called mescal. 



" Jacinto de la Serna, " Manual de Ministros par el conoclmiento de idolatrias y extir- 

 pacion de ellas." In Documentos ineditos para la Historia de Bspafia, vol. 104, pp. 

 159-160. 



3 Bancroft, H. H., Native Races, 2 : 360. 1S75. 



* Sahagun, Bernardino (1499-1590). Hist. Nueva Espana (ed. Bustamante), 3: 118. 



