A Contribution to Our Knowledge of Rivea Corymbosa

[This 42-page monograph has nine sections: an introduction, the history of ololiuqui's identification, its nomenclature and taxonomy, two sections on its chemistry, its ethnographic uses, its vernacular names, a review of plants confused with it, and a summary.]

[What follows is the introduction and the identification chapter in full but for one tangential digression, a passage from the uses chapter with Schultes's translations of two colonial Spanish accounts of ololiuqui intoxication, and the summary. The taxonomic, chemical, and vernacular-name chapters are omitted as technical and outside this archive's scope.]

I. INTRODUCTION

In the life of primitive peoples, narcotic plants have usually played an extremely important part. Because of their intoxicating or poisonous properties, a large number of such plants have been valued by the aborigines of North, Middle and South America. But perhaps nowhere in the New World did a greater variety of narcotic plants enter into the religious ceremonies, medical practices and daily life of a people than in Mexico.

The Aztecs, in pre-hispanic Mexico, from their own experiences and from association with conquered or friendly tribes, had acquired a knowledge of many narcotic and poisonous plants. The most important of these were the cactus, peyotl (Lophophora Williamsii (Lem.) Coulter); the mushroom, teonanacatl (Paneolus campanulatus L. var. sphinctrinus (Fr.) Bresadola); and the convolvulaceous vine, ololiuqui (Rivea corymbosa (L.) Hallier filius), the plant with which this article deals.

Ololiuqui has received relatively little critical attention in anthropological and botanical studies, notwithstanding the fact that it presents a number of fascinating ethnobotanical problems. One reason for this neglect may be that the identity of the ololiuqui plant has been imperfectly understood. The information necessary for a clear understanding of it, even though available, has been misinterpreted.

The purpose of the present paper is to review the history of the use of ololiuqui and to present the pertinent details for an understanding of its identity. With this purpose in mind, I have endeavored to refer to all of the writings concerning the use of ololiuqui among the Indians of Mexico, but since the published records are widely scattered and are often incidental, it is probable that some may have been overlooked. As many of the anthropological records of ololiuqui are preserved in obscure or rare publications, it has been thought advisable to include in this paper translations of the relevant passages from these records. The historical material has been correlated with several discoveries which have recently been published as well as with field notes made during my ethnobotanical investigations in Oaxaca in 1938 and 1939.

II. THE HISTORY AND IDENTIFICATION OF OLOLIUQUI

In 1615, Francisco Ximenez issued a Spanish translation of a portion of the unpublished ethnobiological notes of Francisco Hernandez, a Spanish physician who, between 1570 and 1575, carried out for Philip II extensive research on the flora and fauna of Mexico. He described ololiuqui under the heading: De la yerva que llaman ololiuqui que quiere decir planta de ojas redondas. Ximenez did not attempt to identify this plant nor did he figure it. He merely stated that:

"[...] it will not be wrong to refrain from telling where it grows, for it matters little that this plant be here described or that Spaniards be made acquainted with it."

A contemporary of Hernandez, Bernadino de Sahagun, whose Historia de las cosas de Nueva España was written after careful investigation of Mexican life and customs, gathered comprehensive information regarding the use of plants and plant products. He enumerated three plants which were called ololiuqui, but only one of these was a narcotic. Under the heading: De ciertas hierbas que emborrachan, he mentioned ololiuqui and stated that:

"There is an herb called coatl-xoxouhqui, and it bears a seed called ololiuqui."

The Aztec name coatl-xoxouhqui means "green snake" and probably refers to the twining habit of the plant. In the Paso y Troncoso edition of Sahagun's writings (1905), a number of early illustrations made under the direction of Sahagun were reproduced. Figure 449 on Lam. CI is crude, but it agrees in all essentials with the figure of ololiuqui published by Hernandez. It has congested fruits, cordate leaves, a swollen root, and a twining habit — characteristics of Rivea and related genera of the Convolvulaceae.

Writing in 1629, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcon described in great detail the Aztec method of using ololiuqui. In his description, he recorded several peculiarities of the plant and stated that:

"...ololiuqui is a kind of seed like the lentil which is produced by a species of ivy of this land; when it is drunk, this seed deprives of his senses him who has taken it, for it is very powerful."

Although this account of such an important narcotic plant leaves much to be desired, there can be little doubt but that the plant which Alarcon had in mind was the same as the one which Hernandez subsequently described and figured.

In 1651, Hernandez described and figured ololiuqui under the heading: De Oliliuhqui, seu planta orbicularium foliorum. This is the earliest detailed account and the first illustration of the plant. A free translation of the 1651 Latin version follows:

"Oliliuhqui, which some call coaxihuitl, or snake-plant, is a twining herb with thin, green, cordate leaves; slender, green, terete stems; and long, white flowers. The seed is round and very much like coriander, whence the name [in Nahuatl, the term ololiuqui means "round thing"] of the plant. The roots are fibrous and slender. The plant is hot in the fourth degree. It cures syphilis and mitigates pain which is caused by chills. It relieves flatulency and removes tumors. If mixed with a little resin, it banishes chills and stimulates and aids in a remarkable degree in cases of dislocations, fractures, and pelvic troubles of women. The seed has some medicinal use. If pulverized or taken in a decoction or used as a poultice on the head or forehead with milk and chili, it is said to cure eye troubles. When drunk, it acts as an aphrodisiac. It has a sharp taste and is very hot. Formerly, when the priests wanted to commune with their gods and to receive a message from them, they ate this plant to induce a delirium. A thousand visions and satanic hallucinations appeared to them. In its manner of action, this plant can be compared with Solanum maniacum of Dioscorides. It grows in warm places in the fields."

Jacinto de la Serna, one of the early chroniclers of Mexico, wrote at great length on the superstitions of the Aztecs. He observed and recorded carefully every detail concerning the method of using ololiuqui, but he failed, as did Alarcon, to describe the plant fully. However, his statement that the seeds resemble the lentil is in agreement with the corresponding observation of Hernandez and Alarcon.

An early attempt to identify ololiuqui botanically was made in 1854 when Oliva declared that it was "Convolvulus microcalyx". Although this identification was later shown to be incorrect, it was important since, for the first time, it referred ololiuqui to the proper family — the Convolvulaceae.

In 1897, Doctor Manuel Urbina identified ololiuqui as Rivea corymbosa (Ipomoea sidaifolia (HBK.) Choisy). This identification was published in a more detailed form in 1903 in an article entitled: El peyote y el ololiuqui, which was reprinted in 1912.

Doctor William E. Safford, in his well-known paper An Aztec narcotic, expressed his belief that Urbina's conclusions were wrong. He suggested that ololiuqui might not be Rivea corymbosa, but he did not definitely identify it until a later date. He wrote:

"Dr. Manuel Urbina, ... declared it to be Ipomoea sidaifolia of Choisy; but this identification, while agreeing with Hernandez's illustration, lacks confirmation through investigation of the chemical properties and physiological action of the seeds of this species; and it is not known that any of the Convolvulaceae are narcotic, though many of the Solanaceae, which have somewhat similar flowers, are highly so. It is very strange that Mexican botanists living in the country of the Ololiuhqui have not solved the mystery of its identity."

Furthermore, Safford expressed doubt as to the value of certain early Mexican accounts of plants and plant uses when he stated:

"A knowledge of botany has been attributed to the Aztecs which they were far from possessing. ... The botanical knowledge of the early Spanish writers, Sahagun, Hernandez, Ortega, and Jacinto de la Serna, was perhaps not much more extensive: their descriptions were so inadequate that even to the present day the chief narcotic of the Aztecs, Ololiuhqui, which they all mention, remains unidentified."

Safford's lack of faith in the reliability of the botanical knowledge of the Aztecs and the early Spanish writers seems unjustified. It was undoubtedly this lack of faith, together with a belief in the absence of narcotic principles from the Convolvulaceae, which led Safford to disagree with Urbina's identification of ololiuqui and to look upon his conclusions with suspicion.

In 1915, Safford definitely stated that ololiuqui should be referred to Datura meteloides Dunal ex DC., a species of the Solanaceae. This identification, repeated in his later papers, has received such serious consideration that anthropologists and botanists have very generally accepted it.

[Schultes reviews, and sets aside, a digression on whether "Solanum maniacum" of Dioscorides — the plant Hernandez had compared ololiuqui's effects to — was itself a species of Datura, quoting two old herbals on that plant's symptoms, from "idle and vaine imaginations" to death, by dose.]

Safford's reasons for identifying ololiuqui as a species of Datura were several. In the first place, Datura was used in northern Mexico and in North America for purposes of divination. To Safford, it seemed very probable that ololiuqui, a narcotic of central and southern Mexico, merely extended the use of Datura southwards. This appeared all the more likely since the symptoms of Datura and ololiuqui intoxication are very similar.

In the second place, Safford suspected that Hernandez might have erroneously figured a convolvulaceous plant instead of a Datura. He argued:

"... it is not surprising that it should have been so confused [i.e., Datura meteloides with Rivea corymbosa], for its trumpet-shaped flower, like that of the closely allied Datura discolor, strongly suggests a morning-glory."

Although it is true that the Convolvulaceae and the Solanaceae are related and have certain similarities in their floral structure, this argument is hardly a convincing one. It must be remembered that the vegetative differences between Rivea corymbosa (a large, woody vine) and Datura meteloides (an erect herb) are so great that mere floral similarity should not cause confusion. It should be emphasized also that the natives were interested chiefly in the seeds, which are quite different in the two genera.

Concerning the possibility of error on the part of Hernandez, Safford further states:

"The identity of the latter plant [ololiuqui], held sacred by all the Indian tribes who use it, was carefully kept secret from strangers. ... The late Dr. Manuel Urbina ... believed it to be a morning-glory, Ipomoea sidaifolia; but none of the Convolvulaceae have narcotic properties. He was misled by Hernandez, who never learned the identity of this sacred plant, but who described and figured in its stead the Ipomoea referred to. As a matter of fact, the name ololiuhqui, originally applied to certain species of Convolvulaceae, was given to a certain Solanaceous plant with flowers shaped very much like those of a Convolvulus or Ipomoea."

From a study of the older writers on ololiuqui, I have been unable to find supporting evidence for Safford's statement that the name was formerly applied to species of the Convolvulaceae and was later used to designate certain species of the Solanaceae. Neither of the two earliest figures of the narcotic ololiuqui are solanaceous in aspect, and I have been unable to find a description which would suggest that this supposed transfer of name had taken place. There apparently was no definite transfer of the name to the Solanaceae until 1915, when Safford himself applied it erroneously to Datura meteloides.

The first actual field evidence to corroborate the work of Hernandez and Urbina's identification was found by Doctor B. P. Reko, who had studied the works of some of the older writers and interpreted their reports in the light of his own discoveries. He concluded that Urbina's determination was correct and that Safford's was incorrect. In 1919, he defined ololuc (as ololiuqui is known in parts of Oaxaca) as the round, lentil-like seeds of Rivea corymbosa and stated that the medicine-men used them to produce an intoxication resembling somnambulism.

Subsequently, in 1934, [B. P.] Reko published a review of the identity and use of ololiuqui. Going back to the reports of Hernandez and Sahagun and reproducing Hernandez' figure of ololiuqui, he outlined some of his own field observations which agreed with the ancient records and which argued against the possibility that ololiuqui was a species of Datura. Furthermore, the narcotic seeds which he collected in Oaxaca were sent to Safford, who identified them as the seeds of Rivea corymbosa.

[A different writer, V. A. Reko — not confirmed to be related to B. P. Reko — took the opposite position in a 1936 popular account, favoring Safford's Datura identification; Schultes does not engage with that argument beyond noting it.]

Admitting that narcotic constituents were unknown in the Convolvulaceae, Reko insisted that this fact could not be used to discredit the reports of earlier writers, inasmuch as Rivea corymbosa had not, as yet, received chemical investigation, and he suggested that a narcotic principle — possibly a glucoside — actually was present in the plant.

In several articles on narcotic plants, I have referred to ololiuqui. I accepted as correct the Urbina identification, basing my conclusions on a study of the reports of early writers and on an evaluation of the arguments for and against the Urbina and Safford identifications.

In summarizing the problem of the identification of ololiuqui, therefore, we may state that all of the available early reports, the field observations of Reko, and my own ethnobotanical studies indicate that Urbina was correct in referring ololiuqui to Rivea corymbosa and that Safford was wrong in suggesting that it was derived from a species of Datura. Furthermore, recent pharmacological work, in demonstrating the presence of an intoxicating principle in the seeds of Rivea corymbosa, removes the most important argument which Safford advanced in favor of his identification.

[Chapters III–V, on nomenclature, taxonomy, and chemistry, are omitted. Chapter VI, on ethnographic uses, opens with reports Schultes gathered in 1938–39 among Zapotec, Chinantec, Mazatec, and Mixtec communities still using the seeds for divination — material the archive's Johnson record (1939) independently corroborates for the Mazatec case — then turns to the historical record, picking up below.]

An excellent summary of the uses of ololiuqui among the ancient Aztecs is provided by Simeon's definition of the name in his Dictionnaire de la langue Nahuatl ou Mexicaine: "Ololiuhqui — a medicinal plant whose seed is round, also called coaxiutl, herb of the serpent (Hernandez). It served to cure venereal disease and entered into a preparation with which astrologers rubbed the body before undertaking certain divinatory practices."

If we are to judge from the early writers, ololiuqui must have been very extensively used in the Valley of Mexico in pre-hispanic times. It seems to have been more important in divination than peyote (Lophophora Williamsii (Lem.) Coulter), teonanacatl (Paneolus campanulatus L. var. sphinctrinus (Fr.) Bresadola), or piciete (Nicotiana Tabacum L.). Ololiuqui was accorded as many ritual honors as piciete.

Sahagun, describing the use of ololiuqui, reported that the coatl-xoxouhqui plant:

"... bears a seed which is called ololiuqui. This seed intoxicates and causes one to become talkative. The natives give it in a drink to injure those persons whom they wish to harm. Those who take it see visions and frightful things. Witch doctors, or those who wish to harm other people, administer it in foods and in drink. This plant is medicinal, and its seeds are good for rheumatism when they are pulverised and applied to the afflicted parts."

According to Hernandez, the medicinal use was much more extensive than reported by Sahagun. Ololiuqui was believed to cure flatulency, to remedy venereal troubles, to deaden pain, and to remove tumors. When mixed with a resin, it was used as a boneset. The seeds were pulverised and mixed with chili and milk to make a poultice which was described as a cure for "eye-troubles." The narcotic use of ololiuqui was also described by Hernandez.

For extended accounts of the use of Rivea corymbosa as a narcotic in divination among the Aztecs, recourse must be made to the writings of Serna, Acosta, Alarcon and other contemporaries who had to contend with ololiuqui as a threat to the extension of Christianity in Mexico. Since these accounts are rare or are to be found only in obscure publications, and since they are written in Old Spanish, a few of the most pertinent will be translated in detail. Alarcon stated, in part, that:

"Those things which I have mentioned [i.e., springs, rivers, mountains, ololiuqui, etc.] have their deities. Ololiuqui ... deprives those who use it of their reason .... The natives communicate in this way with the devil, for they usually talk when they become intoxicated with ololiuqui, and they are deceived by various hallucinations which they attribute to the deity which they say resides in the seeds...."

"It is remarkable how much faith these natives have in the seed, for, when they drink it, they consult it as an oracle in order to learn many things .... especially those things which are beyond the power of the human mind to penetrate, as for example, to learn the cause of an illness .... which they attribute to witchcraft .... They consult this seed through the medium of one of their deceiving doctors, some of whom practice the drinking of ololiuqui as a profession .... If a doctor who does not practice ololiuqui-drinking wishes to free a patient of some trouble, he advises the patient himself to partake of the seeds. For this patient must pay as though his doctor had taken the drink and were a payni [an ololiuqui-doctor]. The doctor appoints the day and hour when the drink must be taken and establishes the reason for the patient's drinking it. Finally, the one drinking the ololiuqui must seclude himself in his room alone .... No one must enter during the divination. He who is consulting the seeds believes that ololiuqui ... is revealing what he wants to know. The delirium passed, the payni comes out of seclusion reciting a thousand fabrications, among which there may be a few truths. Thus, in every way, the doctor keeps his patient deceived ...."

"It happens that he who drinks ololiuqui to excess loses his mind because of the great potency of the seeds. As a consequence of indulgence, the senses are distorted, and he who uses the narcotic speaks whatever words come into his warped mind .... Perhaps he condemns the innocent, perhaps he exposes the guilty, or perhaps his words are uttered in such confusion that their meaning cannot be understood .... and these unfortunate people believe the utterances, attributing everything to ololiuqui. ... For this reason, they venerate these plants [ololiuqui and peyote] so much that they do all in their power so that the use of the plants does not come to the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities ...."

[Alarcon goes on to describe how curanderos used ololiuqui to diagnose illness attributed to witchcraft, and how patients would follow the "deceiving doctor's" instructions "as though they were the words of a prophet or of an oracle."]

[The uses chapter continues with Schultes's own 1938–39 fieldwork among the Zapotec, Chinantec, and Mazatec, a record of an Aztec penitent's 1634 confession mentioning ololiuqui alongside peyote, and Serna's account of colonial-era efforts to suppress the plant's use — omitted here for length. The monograph's summary follows.]

IX. SUMMARY

I. Ololiuqui, one of the most important narcotics of ancient and modern Mexico, has been imperfectly understood and interpreted by many botanists and anthropologists in spite of the fact that all of the information essential to a clear understanding has long been available.

II. All of the ancient writers described ololiuqui as a vine with coriander-like seeds. Hernandez and Sahagun figured ololiuqui as a convolvulaceous plant. In 1897, Urbina correctly identified ololiuqui as Rivea corymbosa (L.) Hall. f., but, in 1915, Safford referred ololiuqui to Datura meteloides Dunal ex DC. The Safford identification, although erroneous, gained wide acceptance, and, in spite of a reaffirmation of the Urbina identification by Reko in 1934, has persisted.

III. Rivea is a segregate of the genus Ipomoea and the genus has its greatest development in Asia. Rivea corymbosa is the only species of the New World. The correct combination for this plant of Central America, the West Indies, and the northern part of South America, is Rivea corymbosa, but several other names are more frequently used for it.

IV. Recent investigation has demonstrated the presence in Rivea corymbosa of a resinous constituent and a gluco-alkaloid. The gluco-alkaloid is physiologically active, producing narcotic effects.

V. The Convolvulaceae are characterized by having resins of a glucosidal nature. The purgative action of some of the species of this family is due to the gluco-resin content of the plants.

VI. Rivea corymbosa was used by the Aztecs in pre-hispanic times as a narcotic in divination, as a medicine, and as an ingredient in magical and analgesic ointments. The plant is used at the present time in Oaxaca, being known among the Chinantec, Mazatec, Mixtec and Zapotec Indians.

VII. Rivea corymbosa has been known under a number of different vernacular names.

VIII. The name ololiuqui was applied to at least three different plants by the Aztecs, but only one of these plants was a narcotic. The name piule is used at the present time in Oaxaca to refer to Rivea corymbosa as well as to the poisonous species of Rhynchosia.