Note 43-§ — Contents.

It is mentioned as useful for this purpose by the early physicians, Francisco Ximenes, Cuatro Libros de la Naturaleza, p. 144; Hernandez, Hist. Plant. Novæ Hispaniæ, Tom. ii, p. 200. Capt. Bourke, in his recent article on “The Medicine Men of the Apaches” (in Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 521), suggests that the yiahuitli of the Aztecs is the same as the “hoddentin,” the pollen of a variety of cat-tail rush which the Apaches in a similar manner throw into the fire as an offering. Hernandez, however, describes the yiahuitli as a plant with red flowers, growing on mountains and hill-sides—no species of rush, therefore. De la Serna says it is the anise plant, and that with it the natives perform the conjuration of the “yellow spirit” (conjuro de amarillo espiritado), that is, of the Fire (Manual de Ministros, p. 197).