Coca and its therapeutic application / by Angelo Mariani.

  • Mariani, Angelo.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Coca and its therapeutic application / by Angelo Mariani. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/90 (page 21)
    substance intended to isolate the different principles of the leaf and to make the action of the Coca more prompt. Among those inhabitants of South America, with whom the use of Coca did not extend to the lower classes until after the reign of the Incas, and who reserved for themselves, as we have seen, the right of chewing the Coca leaves, the con- sumption of Coca by children is strictly prohibited. They do not indulge in this luxury except in secret, and it ap- pears to them all the sweeter because it is forbidden. But nearly always their breath, charged with the tell-tale odor of Coca, betrays them on approaching their parents, and the latter make them pay for the pleasure which they have stolen, and to which they are not entitled until they are of age, with very severe punishment. Only when they have grown up will they be allowed to chew Coca and to carry the poporo, which they do not relinquish even in the grave. On coming of age the young Indian is consigned to an old woman, who keeps him a few hours in her hut to ini- tiate him in the mysteries of man’s estate. After this ceremony she gives him the chuspa (Coca pouch), invests him with the poporo and consecrates him a coqucro. One should see with what pride the young Indian leaves the threshold of the sacred cabin, which he entered as a child scarcely a few hours before and from which he departs a man, that is to say, carrying the chuspa and the poporo, and able to chew with impunity, before the old people, this precious leaf which had been forbidden him until then. No happiness is comparable to his! See with what an important air he draws forth the Coca leaves from his chuspa, as he rolls them in his fingers to make a large qiiid of them, which he carries to his mouth, moistens delightingly with saliva, and places under his jaws and against his cheeks. He is seen holding carefully in his right hand the little stick, the extremity of which he is going to moisten by putting it into his month, and