RoTH] NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 945 
sing, shout, and leap about in the wildest excitement. A reaction 
soon follows. More drinking is then necessary to rouse them from 
their stupor, and thus they carry on for many days in succession. 
The Mauhé also use the parica, although it is not known among 
their neighbors, the Mundurucu. ... The Mauhé keep it in the 
form of a paste and employ it chiefly as a preventive against ague in 
the months between the dry and wet seasons, when the disease pre- 
vails. When a dose is required a small quantity of the paste is dried 
and pulverized on a flat shell and the powder then drawn up into 
both nostrils at once through two vulture quills, secured together by 
cotton thread. The use of paricé was found by the early travelers 
amongst the Omagua, a section of the Tupi who formerly lived on 
the upper Amazon, 1,000 miles distant from the homes of the Mauhé 
and Mitra” (HWB, 169). De Ja Condamine thus relates how the 
Omagua make use of two sorts of plants, one of which is called by 
the Spaniards “ floripondio,” whose flower, resembling a bell turned 
upside down, has been described by Father Feuillée; the other, in the 
language of Omagua, is named curupa, some seeds whereof I have 
brought with me. Both of these are cathartic or purging. But these 
people make use of them to intoxicate themselves therewith, for the 
space of 24 hours, during which time they have strange visions. They 
take also the curupa reduced to powder as we do snuff, but with some- 
what more formality. They make use of a pipe formed out of a reed 
and ending in a fork; in short, shaped like a Y; each of the branches 
of this instrument they put into one of their nostrils, which operation, 
being followed by a violent drawing in of their breath, causes them 
to screw up their faces, after a manner very ridiculous to a Euro- 
pean, who would have everything conformable to his own customs 
(LCo, 36). 
Within still more recent years, Crévaux (Cr, 550), when traveling 
through the country of the Guahibo (=Guajiva of the Meta River 
referred to by Gumilla), mentions how at every instant they put 
to their nostrils a blackish brown powder resembling snuff to- 
bacco, both in color and odor, very finely ground, and which they 
call yopo. He further tells us that in order to obtain it they roast 
the green seeds ... and pulverize it with calcined snail shells 
(Cr, 550). This snuff was apparently identical with the aromatic 
powder of a composition unknown to him, to which he had previ- 
ously referred as taken by the Ouitoto (of the Yapura River) 
in so peculiar a manner, and now identified as the yupa or parica 
snuff. Its manner of use, by means of a special apparatus, is thus 
described by him: “ Their snuffbox is formed of a large Bulimus 
shell, of which the base is covered over with a bat’s wing fixed with 
balata. The extremity of the cone carries a hollow bone, through 
which one pours an aromatic powder (pl. 53 B). To bring the dust: 
