408 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
is interesting to learn that some of these intoxicating plants figured 
in ceremonies of divination which resembled the practices of the 
priestesses of the ancient oracle of Delphos. What is more interest- 
ing is that these same beliefs and practices existed in regions widely 
separated, like Cuba and Haiti, Mexico and Peru, Florida and Cali- 
fornia, and Virginia and the pueblos of the Zuni Indians. 
It 1s equally remarkable that all these peoples employed incense 
in their religious ceremonies. In certain regions, ike the Antilles, 
the incense was composed of fragrant balsams, in Mexico of resinous 
copal or of odorous herbs, while other tribes used tobacco for the 
same purpose. One reads that the Indians of Canada, before tapping 
sugar-maple trees, to collect the sweet sap, were accustomed to offer 
a sacrifice to the spirit of the tree, burning tobacco before it, and 
apologizing to the tree for robbing it of its blood. The Mexican 
Indians, thousands of miles away from the Canadian tribes, practiced 
the same rite before felling a tree to make a bridge, burning fragrant 
copal, and explaining to the spirit of the tree why they were going 
to cut it. 
Among stimulants, the most important discovered and employed 
by the ancient Americans were the verba maté or Paraguay tea, the 
coca of Peru, the guarana and caapi of Brazil and Venezuela, the 
cacao of Mexico, the tobaccos of the Antilles, Mexico, and North 
America, and the coxvoba or cohoba of Haiti, of which I have just 
spoken.? 
While speaking of yerba maté, I should like to call attention to 
a species of Jlexw of the United States, which resembles closely Jlex 
paraguariensis. This plant, used by the Indians of Carolina and 
Florida in certain religious rites, was adopted by the Spaniards 
as a substitute for Chinese tea. It has been found that the leaves 
contain caffeine, like that yielded by yerba maté and Chinese tea. 
The coca, Hrythroxylon coca, in use by the Peruvians before the 
discovery of America, is a strong stimulant which is used even at 
the present time in South America. From its leaves is extracted 
the alkaloid cocaine. In the Peruvian graves which I have men- 
tioned nearly all the mummies had about their necks sacks filled with 
coca leaves, with little matés or gourds of lime, which the Indians 
of Peru chewed with the coca leaves. 
Among the tobaccos used by the ancient Americans the most im- 
portant species were WVicotiana tabacum, of the Orinoco and the 
Antilles, the kind observed by Columbus and his companions upon 
their arrival; and Nicotiana rustica, of the Mexican plateau, Vir- 
ginia, and Canada. WNicotiana tabacum was the petun of the 
7Safford, W. B., “ Narcotic plants and stimulants of the ancient Americans.” Smith- 
sonian Annual Report for 1916, pp. 887-424, 1917. 
