NAKCOTIC PLANTS AND STIMULANTS SAFFOKD. 411 



was handed around in a large calabash with a tablespoon for each to help 

 Jiiuiself, the customary dose being a couple of spoonfuls. After each dose 

 they passed some minutes without opening their mouths, adjusting the ipadti 

 in the recesses of their cheelis and inhaling its delightful influences. I could 

 scarcely resist laughing at their swollen cheeks and grave looks during these 

 intervals of silence, which, however, had two or three times the excellent 

 effect of checking an incipient quarrel. The ipadti is not sucked, but allowed 

 to find its way insensibly into the stomach along with the saliva. I tried 

 a spoonful twice, but it had little effect on me and assuredly did not render 

 me insensible to the calls of hunger, although it did in some measure to those 

 of sleep. It had very little of either smell or taste, and in both reminded 

 me of weak tincture of henbane. I could never make out that the habitual 

 use of ipadti had any ill results on the Rio Negro; but in Peru its excessive 

 use is said to seriously injure the coats of the stomach, an effect probably 

 owing to the lime taken along with it. 



AYA-HUASCA, OR DEAD MAN'S VINE, BANISTERIA CAAPI. 



Richard Spruce, in his Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and 

 Andes, describes a remarkable narcotic plant, the botanical identity 

 of which he was the first to discover. It proved to belong to the 

 genus Banisteria, and it is the only member of the family Malpighia- 

 ceae thus far known to possess narcotic properties. For its specific 

 name he adopted the common name by which it was known in 

 Brazil and Venezuela, caapi, signifying in the Tupi language " thin 

 leaf." 



Banisteria Caapi Spruce has a twining habit of growth. It has 

 thinnish opposite leaves with oval-acuminate blades G.4 by 3.3 inches 

 in size with petioles scarcely an inch long. Its inflorescence is in 

 the form of 4-flowered umbels. The flowers are composed of a 

 5-parted calyx and 5-clawed petals, 10 stamens, and 3 styles. The 

 capsules are " muricato-cristate, prolonged on one side into a green- 

 ish white semi-obovate wing." 



The lower part of the stem is beaten in a mortar with water, some- 

 times with the addition of a few slender roots of the caapi-piniTna, 

 an Apocynaceous twiner with red-veined leaves belonging to the 

 genus Haemadictyon. When sufficiently triturated it is strained and 

 enough water is added to it to make it drinkable. It forms a brown- 

 ish-green infusion with a disagreeable bitter taste, 



Mr, Spruce describes the ceremonial drinking of caapi at a feast 

 held at a village above the first falls of the Eio Uaupes. It is accom- 

 panied by the greatest solemnity, and is preceded by the sound of 

 the botutos, or sacred trumpets. On hearing these every woman 

 seeks seclusion in a house with all possible haste; for merely to see 

 one of these sacred instruments would be to her a sentence of deatli. 

 The night was spent in dancing. Between the dances the young 

 men partook of the drink, a few at a time. The formality attending 

 the dispensing of it recalls that of the "black drink" ceremony of 



