Cuarrer XVI 
NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 
Tobacco: Preparation (282); smoking (283); chewing (284); licking (285). 
Yupo, niopo, or parica (Piptadenia) (286); Ypadu (Frythrorylon) (287); 
Caapi (Banisteria) (288); Capsicums (289). 
282. Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum).—The term tobacco does not 
appear to have been a commonly used original name for the plant. 
It has come to us from a peculiar instrument used- for inhaling its 
smoke by the inhabitants of Hispaniola (‘Santo Domingo). The 
instrument described by Oviedo in his Historia de las Indias Occi- 
dentales, Salamanca, 1535, consisted of a small hollow wooden tube 
shaped lke a Y, the two points of which, being inserted into the 
nose of the smoker, the other end was held into the smoke of burning 
tobacco, and thus the fumes were inhaled. This apparatus the natives 
called “tabaco,” but it must be said that the smoking pipe of the 
continental tribes was entirely different from the imperfect “ tabaco ” 
of the Caribees. Benzoni, on the 
other hand, whose travels in 
America in 1542-1556 were pub- 
lished in 1565, says that the 
Mexican name of the herb was 
“tabacco” (Encycl. Brit., 9th 
edit., xxmt, 423). 
At every Indian settlement 
some tobacco plants will be 
found cultivated in the provision 
fields. According to the statement of the Wapishana, wild tobacco 
grows at Mount Urawai, on the upper Takutu (SR, u, 77). When 
once planted, no further attention is paid to it, and the leaf is 
cured in the most simple manner, by being hung up in the Indian’s 
hut (ScD, 109). The leaves are plucked when the blossom 
“bursts.” They are sometimes, though not always, dipped in 
honey; under any circumstances they are hung up until they com- 
mence to get yellow. After that the leaves are evenly arranged, 
side by side, and are lightly tied in bundles the size of one’s fist. As 
the leaves dry the strings round the bundles are drawn tighter and 
tighter, until it is evident that no further diminution will take place 
in the bulk (IT, 317). On the Rio Aiary the leaves are slowly dried 
on a sifter in the neighborhood of the fireplace, dampened again, 
and pounded in a mortar. By means of a bark band and smaller 
strips the leaves are now made up into a flat circular cake (fig. 65) 
240 
1G. 65.—Tobacco being pressed. Aiary River, 
