Note 14 — APPENDIX 4: “PLANT WORSHIP” IN MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES

The ilex “black drink” is Catawba (Handbook of the American Indians, 1:150a, 2:1000-1001); Alibamu (Forster, Bossu, 254, 261, 294, 354-55); Creek (Swanton, Social Organization and Social Usages, 307, 445; Adair, in Swanton, Social and Religious Beliefs, 265; Speck, The Creek Indians, 110, 117-18, 134; Bartram, Travels, 449, 507), both Taskigi and Mikasuki; Cherokee (Bartram, Travels, 357); Chickasaw (Swanton, Social and Religious Beliefs, 240); Koasati (Paz, Koasati Field Notes); Yuchi (Speck, Ethnology of the Yuchi, 122-24, 135); Natchez (Charlevoix, Histoire de l’Isle, 166; du Pratz, Histoire, 2:46, 3:13); Atakapa (Forster, Bossu, 1:354-55), Chitamacha (Gatschet, in Swadesh, Chitamacha Texts) and Karankawa (Oliver, in Gatschet, The Karankawa Indians, 18-19). Also in Florida (de Laudoniére, in Lewin, Phantastica, 279; Safford, Narcotic Plants, 417; Romans, A Concise Natural History, 94), and also possibly in Virginia (Beverly, History of Virginia, 175-80; Ribault [1666], Dominique de Gourages [1567], McCullough, Le Moyne—all in Havard, Drink Plants, 41-42; Lawson, History of Carolina, 380-82 [1860 ed.]; Adair, The History of the American Indian, 108). A similar emetic rite is also found among the “Cutalchich” of Texas (Cabeza de Vaca, in Safford, Narcotic Plants, 416-17), the Tainan or Greater Antilles Arawak (Gower, The Northern and Southern Affiliations, 39-40), the Lesser Antilles Carib and Guiana (Dixon [R. B.], Some Aspects, 1-12), the Amazon Basin (Wissler, The American Indian, 213), Jivaro and Canelo of Ecuado (Karsten, in Lewin, Phantastica, 279-81; Safford, Narcotic Plants, 413, 416); Guarani of Northern Bolivia (Safford, op. cit., 413; Spruce, Notes of a Botanist, 2:419-20). See also Thurnwald, Economics, 65; Harrington, Cuba Before Columbus, 295, 388-89; Spier, Yuman Tribes, 181; Handbook of the American Indians, 2:32a, 145-46; Sapir, Kaibab-Paiute. An interestingly parallel distribution (which may have historical relevance) is that of fish and arrow poisons. Fish poisons are reported for northeastern South America, the Orinoco valley, the upper Amazon, the Antillean Carib; the Tarahumari, Acaxee, Opata and in California; the Catawba, Taskigi Creek, Cherokee, Koasati, Yuchi and Iroquois (cf. the blow-gun of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Iroquois, Yuchi, central Carib, Florida Key-dwellers, natives of Hispaniola and of northeastern South America). Arrow poisons are found in Sonora, Central America, the Guianas, the Antilles (Carib), Florida Arawak (?) and, in historic times, the Tarahumari, as well as in South America. The Opata, curiously, used yerba de fleche to poison deer at water-holes. Beals (Comparative Ethnology, 115, 193) also lists poison arrows for the Southern Diegueño, Chumash, Cahuilla, Yavapai, Havasupai, Navaho, Western Apache, Lipan, Natchez (?), Seri, Mixtec and in Sinaloa and Culiacan. Spier adds the Blackfoot and perhaps other Plains groups to this list. The group with poison arrows south of the Great Lakes (Jesuit Relations, 8:302, in Gower, 21) one would guess is Iroquois.