1800-1950 / Ethnobotany

Orinoco snuff, Acacia niopo, and curupa in an 1821 travel narrative

Humboldt and Bonpland's Personal Narrative describes niopo snuff among the Otomac on the Orinoco, including preparation from Acacia niopo, nasal apparatus, missionary testimony, and comparison with curupa.

A German travel account of Amazonian snuff, ceremony, and intoxication

Spix and Martius's 1831 German travel narrative describes paricá among the Mura, including preparation from dried seeds, ceremonial use, insufflation through tubes, and comparison with fly agaric intoxication.

An 1858 Ecuadorian account of ayahuasca visions and divination

Manuel Villavicencio's 1858 geography gives an early Spanish account of ayahuasca among Indigenous groups of eastern Ecuador, including divination, warfare, illness diagnosis, visionary effects, and a first-person report of his own experience.

A French naval physician's 1865 travel account surveys Gabon's food plants and condiments, describing iboga as a stimulant and aphrodisiac used by paddlers on long canoe trips. He gives it the genus name 'taberna-ventricosa,' later corrected by Baillon.

Richard Spruce on ayahuasca, yopo/paricá, and Amazonian medicine-men

Richard Spruce's nineteenth-century account of caapi, aya-huasca, niopo, and paricá, based on field observations in the Uaupés, Orinoco, Rio Negro, Napo, and Pastasa regions. The excerpt records plant identifications, preparation methods, visual effects, ceremonial uses, and the role of payes in curing and divination.

The Narcotic Mushroom of the Aztecs

Schultes's botanical account of his 1938-39 fieldwork with Blas Pablo Reko among the Mazatec, tracing the teonanácatl rediscovery from Reko's 1923 letter through Robert Weitlaner's 1936 visit to Huautla de Jiménez. Schultes identifies the mushroom as Paneolus campanulatus var. sphinctrinus.