PodsUse: SOCIAL USES - Smoking Materials/Drugs User: Man
TDWG use
SOCIAL USES - Smoking Materials/Drugs
Storage
Bottles, boxes etc
Related Items
Donor
Spruce, Richard
Donor No
119
Donor Date
00/02/1852
Donor Notes
Collector
Spruce, Richard
Collector No
Collection Notes
Collection Date
Exhibition
Expedition
Number Components
Publication
Notes:
Source: Spruce, R. (1855) Domestic Uses. Plantae Amazonicae. Domestic Uses. (pp31-61) and miscellaneous notes, p42.: This tree is planted here and there throughout Rio Negro and Uaupes, but on passing of Venezuela it takes the name Niopo. At Maypures,i, ves agreeably and you can catch a Guahito Indian in the act of pounding niopo seeds with a little difficulty. I purchased of him the whole apparatus; it seems to be used in same way as auasin. The same Indians grow also caapi exactly as on the Uaupés a, nd they called it by the same name only accentuating the last syllable instead of the second. They use stem both in infusions and also for chewing, for later purpose it is baked over a fire and like bark becomes charred. 'With a chew of caapi and a pinc, h of niopo', said the Guahito to me in broken Spanish, 'one feels so good, no hunger, no thirst, no tired.' x0Dx0Ax0Dx0ASource: Spruce, R. (1855) Domestic Uses. Plantae Amazonicae. Domestic Uses. (pp31-61) and miscellaneous notes, p9: Throughout R. Uaupés thisi, s almost the sole medicinal agent. When the pajé ( who is at the same time a physician and magician) is about to treat a patient he first snuffs up his nose a quantity of parica powder as suffices to throw him in some sort of a ecstasy. He then lightsa, large cigar of tobacco from which he blows the smoke over the hammock and other matter belonging to the sick person and specially over the food he is to eat. The next operation preformed by the pajé is sucking the site of pain or as near to it as practic, able, whether the malads being external or internal. I have never known any other remedies applied except occasionally the milk of some tree, and they are not particular to the species, by the way of plaster in the case of wound.