USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



botanists it is Broussonetia secundiftora, Ort., or 

 Sophora secundiftora, Lag. The seeds contain a 

 narcotic poison that makes them dangerous particu- 

 larly to children, who are likely to be attracted by 

 the brilliant color. The crushed seeds have been 

 used from very early times by the Indians, who, it 

 is reported, could make themselves deliriously drunk 

 on half a bean, and sleep two or three days on top 

 of it, while a whole bean would kill a man. Among 

 some tribes, as the lowas, there were religious rites 

 connected with the Eed Bean, and a society was 

 founded upon it. 



To-day one hears little of the Eed Bean Society, 

 but the cult of another dangerous vegetable poison 

 of the Southwest is still active. This is the so-called 

 Sacred Mushroom, Mescal-button, Dry Whisky, 

 Peyote, or Rais diabolica (devil's root) — ^names 

 given in common speech to a small cactus, Lopho- 

 phora Williamsii, whose use has become a rather 

 desolating factor among the present-day Reservation 

 Indians of the United States. Some of these, it ap- 

 pears, maintain a regularly organized association 

 called the Sacred Peyote Society with a form of 

 baptism "in the name of the Father, and the Son 

 and the Holy Ghost," the Holy Ghost being Peyote ! « 



8 Quoted by W. E. Safford, "Narcotic Plants and Stimulants of 



252 



