HALLUCINOGENIC PLANTS (PART 16)

EFFECTS OF VIROLA SNUFF are felt within minutes from the time of initial use. First there is a feeling of increasing excitability. This is followed by a numbness of the limbs, a twitching of the face, a lack of muscular coordination, nasal discharges, nausea, and, frequently, vomiting. Macropsia - the sensation of seeing things greatly enlarged - is characteristic and enters into Waiká beliefs about hekulas, the spirit forces dwelling in the Virola tree and controlling the affairs of man. During the intoxication, medicine men often wildly gesticulate, fighting these gigantic hekulas.

CAUSE OF THE NARCOTIC EFFECT of Virola has been shown by recent studies to be an exceptionally high concentration of tryptamine alkaloids in the resin. Waiká snuff prepared exclusively from the resin of Virola theiodora has up to 8 percent of tryptamines, mainly the highly active 5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine Two new alkaloids of a different type—,B-carbolines— have also been found in the resin; they act as monoamine oxidase inhibitors and make it possible for the tryptamines to take effect when the resin is taken orally.

OTHER WAYS OF TAKING VIROLA RESIN besides snuffing it are sometimes employed. The primitive nomadic Maku of Colombia often merely scrape resin from the bark of the tree and lick it in crude form. The Witoto, Bora, and Muinane of Colombia prepare little pellets from the resin, and these are eaten when, to practice witchcraft or diagnose disease, the medicine men

wish to 'talk with the spirit people"; the intoxication begins five minutes aher ingestion. There is some vague evidence that certain Venezuelan natives may smoke the bark to get the intoxicating effects.

USE OF VIROLA AS AN ARROW POISON by the Waiká Indians is one of the recent discoveries in the study of curare. The red resin from the bark of Virola theiodora is smeared on an arrow or dart, which is then gently heated in the smoke of a fire (shown in the illustration below) to harden the resin. The killing action of the poison is slow. The chemical constituent of the resin responsible for this action is still unknown.

It is interesting that although the arrows are tipped while the hallucinogenic snuff is being prepared from resin from the some tree, the two operations are carried out by different medicine men of the same tribe.

Many other plants are employed in South America in preparing arrow poisons, most of them members of the families Loganiaceae and Menispermaceae.

MASHA-HARI (Justicia pectoralis var. stenophylla) is a small herb cultivated by the Waiká Indians of the Brazilian- Venezuelan frontier region. The aromatic leaves are occasionally dried, powdered, and mixed with the hallucinogenic snuff made from resin of the Virola tree. Other species of Justicia have been reported to be employed in that region as the sole source of a narcotic snuff.

Hallucinogenic constituents have not yet been found in Justicia, but if any species of the genus is utilized as the only ingredient of an intoxicating snuff, then one or more active constituents must be present. The 300 species of Justicia, members of the acanthus family, Acanthaceae, grow in the tropics and subtropics of both hemispheres.