Note 308 — DEMOTIC CHARACTERS (continued 3)

It should be noted that the actuality of the poisonous property ascribed to the yerba mala is in some degree questionable; the plant is the only one of southern Papagueria yielding suitable material for arrow-shafts, and it is possible (if not probable) that it was consecrated to this purpose by the aboriginal Opata and protected by tabu in such wise as to become a sacred and fearsome thing. It is accordingly by no means improbable that the reputed poisonous property is but the product of generations of association, and that the plant is really harmless—an inference supported by experiments on the part of the leader of the 1895 expedition, who swallowed the juice of stem and leaves in two or three minute but increasing doses without perceptible effect. On the other hand, it should be observed that the region is one abounding in toxic juices, and that this shrub is so luxuriant and so free from thorny armament and other protective devices of a mechanical sort as to raise the presumption that it must be protected against herbivorous animals, at least, by chemical constituents of some kind (cf. ante, p. 35).