12 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



Nexehuac (Nexeua — the rambler — Simeon, p. 307), is depicted as 

 an erect, white-flowered form with purple, smooth-skinned fruit re- 

 sembling this type. The flowers are drawn as erect, the fruits pendant, 

 but since all the arborescent Daturas have unarmed fruits we may 

 consider either the drawing or the etymological derivation misleading. 

 Its smooth pods would probably place it as a variety of D. stramonium 

 known as D. incrmis Jacq. 



Varieties of Datura have been used the world over for their nar- 

 cotic properties, the effect being due to the presence of the drug 

 atropine. 



Besides these remedies just discussed in detail, there are others 

 for dysentery, skin disease, gout, pain in joints, various helminth 

 infections, and afflictions such as burned body, cracks in soles of feet, 

 and wounds of various types, and a number of other items. It is 

 worthy to be noted that fear, fatigue, and feeblemindedness are looked 

 upon as diseases and treated as such. 



In chapter 10 we find a reference to a charm for getting across the 

 river safely ; chapter 11 is devoted to afflictions of women ; chapter 12 

 refers to remedies for children ; and the book closes very fittingly 

 with two pages entitled " Of certain signs of approaching death." 



The identification of plants depends to a large extent upon the 

 etymological analyses, which frequently give the usage, the place of 

 habitat, or a description of the plant itself. A complete analysis of 

 all the 313 Aztec or Nahuatl words has been made in the preparation 

 of the text for publication of this manuscript.'" About 40 percent of 

 these are new words — that is, they do not occur in the early sources, 

 Molina,™ Sahagun, Hernandez, or in the standard Simeon Aztec- 

 French dictionary. From Simeon however, the roots have been de- 

 rived, so that it has been possible to give a translation based upon 

 the etymological sources of the word. 



This system of the Aztecs of building up a descriptive compound 

 noun results in the grouping of plants as to their color or form or 

 as aquatic plants, eatable plants, sweet or bitter plants, fragrant, 

 spinous, or medicinal. Examples of these when divided into their 

 respective roots are as follows: A-caca-pac-quilitl (an-agreeable- 

 eatable-water plant), Aca-mallo-tetl (water-plant captive (in) stone), 



^" The writer acknowledges the assistance of Dr. John P. Harrington, eth- 

 nologist, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, in verifying the etymologies of 

 the Aztec plant names. 



^ Molina, Fr. Alonso, Vocabulario de la Lengua Mexicana, compuesto porel 

 P. Fr. Alonso de Molina. Publicado de nuevo por Julio Platzmann, Leipsig, 1880. 



