Coca, cocaine and its salts : their history, medical and economic uses, and medicinal preparations.

  • Martindale, William, 1840-1902.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Coca, cocaine and its salts : their history, medical and economic uses, and medicinal preparations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/90 (page 6)
    tj Yon Tschudi* says :—“ By the Peruviau Indians the Coca plant is regarded as something sacred and mysterious; and it sustained an important part iu the religion of the lucas. In all ceremonies, whether religious or warlike, it was introduced for producing smoke at the great offer- ings, or as the sacrifice itself. “ During divine worship the priests chewed Coca leaves, and unless they were supplied with them, it was believed that the favour of the gods could n<?t be propitiated. It was also deemed necessary that the supplicator lor divine grace should approach the priests with an acul- lico (or quid) iu his mou'h. It was believed that any business undertaken without the benediction of Coca leaves could uot prosper, and to the shrub itself worship was rendered. During an interval of more than three hundred years Christianity has not been able to subdue this deep-rooted idolatry, for everywhere we find traces of beliel iu the mysterious powers of this plant. The excavators in the mines of Cerro de Pasco throw' chew'ed Coca on hard veins of metal, in the belief that it softens the ore and renders it more easy to wrork. The origin of this custom is easily explained, when it is recollected that in the time of the Incas it was believed that the C'oi/as —the deities of metals—rendered the mountains impene- trable if they wrere not propitiated by the odour of Coca. The Indians, even at the present time, put Coca leaves iuto the'mouths of dead persons, to secure to them a favourable reception ou their entrance into another world; and when a Peruvian Indian on a journey falls in with a mummy, he, with timid reverence, presents to it some Coca leaves as his pious offering.’' The reliance, POppig says, on its extraordinary virtues among the Peruvian Indians is so strong that, in the Iluanueo Province, they believe that if a dying man can taste a leaf placed on the tongue, it is a sure sign of his future happiuess.f After the Spanish conquest the cultivation of Coca * Travels in Peru, 1838 to 1842, pp. 134. London: 1817. + Quoted in Markham's Travels in Peru and India. London. 18(12.