414 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



of the southern United States in connection with its ritual, which 

 has remarkable parallels in the customs of various South American 

 tribes in connection with their rituals accompanying the preparation 

 and use of certain narcotics. 



ILEX PARAGUARIENSIS, THE TERBA MATE OF PARAGUAY. 



The use of the leaves of Ilex faraguariensis by the Guarani Indians 

 and their neighbors must have begun centuries before the discovery. 

 In pre-Columbian times the plant was known only in its wild state, 

 but after the arrival of the Jesuits its cultivation was successfully 

 undertaken in their missions in Paraguay and Brazil. When they 

 were expelled the plantations went to ruin, but the industry was 

 resumed at a later date and is now of great commercial importance. 

 According to a bulletin of the Pan American Union issued in May, 

 1916, the value of the prepared leaves exported from Brazil amounts 

 annually to about $8,727,000. In 1915 Argentina received from 

 Brazil about 48,000 tons and 3,500 tons from Paraguay. The plan- 

 tations of Paraguay were formerly guarded with jealous care. Bon- 

 pland, the companion of Humboldt, was imprisoned for many years 

 by the Paraguayan Government for attempting to export living 

 plants and seeds from Paraguay to Europe. For the methods of 

 propagating, cultivating, gathering, curing, and packing yerba mate 

 the reader is referred to the Pan American bulletin cited above. 



The writer first encountered the custom of drinking Paraguay Tea 

 in Uruguay, on an expedition with the eminent botanist, Don Jose 

 Arechavaleta and his botany class of the National College of Medi- 

 cine, October 1, 1886. The locality visited was an estancia, or cattle 

 ranch, not far from the railway station of Santa Lucia. He recalls 

 with pleasure the band of young students, many of them wearing the 

 picturesque costume of the gauchos, or cowboj'^s of the pampas — 

 ponchos of guanaco wool, broad-brimmed hats, knives thrust in em- 

 bossed silver scabbards, and silver spurs. At the station horses were 

 awaiting many of them with silver-mounted bridles and saddles with 

 heavy silver stirrups. After filling portfolios of drying paper with 

 the beautiful spring flowers of the pampa (there were acres and 

 acres of scarlet verbenas) yerba mate was served in gourds {Cucur- 

 hita lagenana) . These gourds, called mate, or mati in the Quichua 

 language, give to the plant its name. The infusion was sucked up 

 scalding hot through a bombilla, a silver tube terminating at the 

 lower end in a hollow perforated bulb, which served as a strainer. 

 A single gourd was passed around a circle composed of gauchos and 

 students, each taking a suck at the bombilla in turn. To have hesi- 

 tated to follow their example would have caused resentment. The 

 infusion was not unlike tea, but more astringent, and too bitter for 



