r8D BY TDE I1TDIANB. 505 



them, and cause them to ferment. When the softened 

 seeds begin to grow black, they are kneaded like a paste, 

 mixed with some flour of cassava and lime procured from 

 the shell of a helix, and the whole mass is exposed to a very 

 brisk fire, on a gridiron made of hard wood. The hardened 

 paste takes the form of small cakes. When it is to be used, 

 it is reduced to a fine powder, and placed on a dish five or six 

 inches wide. The Ottomac holds this dish, which has a 

 handle, in his right hand, while he inhales the niopo by the 

 nose, through the forked bone of a bird, the two extremities of 

 which are applied to the nostrils. This bone, without which 

 the Ottomac believes that he could not take this kind of 

 snuff, is seven inches long : it appeared to me to be the leg- 

 bone of a large sort of plover. The niopo is so stimulating, 

 that the smallest portions of it produce violent sneezing in 

 those who are not accustomed to its nse. Father Gumilla 

 says, " This diabolical powder of the Ottomacs, furnished by 

 an arborescent tobacco-plant, intoxicates them through the 

 nostrils (emboracha por las narices), deprives them of reason 

 for some hours, and renders them furious in battle." How- 

 ever varied may be the family of the leguminous plants in the 

 chemical and medical properties of their seeds, juices, and 

 roots, we cannot believe, from what we know hitherto of the 

 group of mimosacese, that it is principally the pod of the 

 Acacia niopo, which imparts the stimulant power to the snuff 

 of the Ottomacs. This power is owing, no doubt, to the 

 freshly calcined lime. We have shown above, that the 

 mountaineers of the Andes of Popayan, and the Gruajiros, 

 who wander between the lake of Maracaybo and the Rio la 

 Hacha, are also fond of swallowing lime as a stimulant, 

 to augment the secretion of the saliva and the gastric 

 juice. 



A custom analogous to the use of the niopo just de- 

 Bcribed, was observed by La Condaroine among the natives of 

 the Upper Maranon. The Omaguas, whose name is ren- 

 dered celebrated bv the expeditions attempted in search of 

 El Dorado, have like the Ottomacs, a dish, and the hollow 

 bone of a bird, by which they convey to their nostrils their 

 powder of curupa. The seed that yields this powder is 

 no doubt also a mimosacea ; for the Ottomacs, according to 



Orinoco. The ohiga is a species of Inga, and I know of no otUts 

 imosacea that can supply the place of the cerealia. 



