Narcotic plants Datura

Datura meteloides, Narcotic Plant Used by the Ancient Aztecs, Zunis, and California Indians as an Intoxicant and Hypnotic. Natural Size. 

The narcotic properties of Datura stramonium are well known to our own southern Indians as well as to the Mexicans (6). Hernandez called attention to the fact that its fruit causes insanity if eaten incautiously. That this is true is shown by the following anecdote taken from Robert Beverly s History and Present State of Virginia, in his account Of the Wild Fruits of the Country It appears that the soldiers sent to Jamestown to quell the uprising known as Bacon s Rebellion (1676) gathered young plant of this species cooked it as a potherb. 

The narcotic effects of Datura sanguinea, known in Peru as Huacacachu or Yerba de Huaca, have been described by several travelers. Tschudi, who found it growing on the declivities of the Andes above the village of Matucanas, repeats the statement of Humboldt that from its fruit the Indians prepare a very powerful intoxicant which they call tonga, on which account the Spaniards named the plant borrachero. His account is as follows ... 

Humboldt and Bonpland, who collected Datura sanguinea on the banks of the Rio Mayo, in New Granada, state that the natives believe that the tonga prepared from this species to be more efficacious as a narcotic than that made from the white-flowered Datura arborea mentioned above. It is from the account of these travelers that the story of the Peruvian prophets is taken. The Temple of the Sun in which they officiated was at Sagamoza, in the interior of what is now Colombia. Dr. Santiago Cortes, in his account of the medicinal plants of the province of Cauca, Colombia, says that there are many stories and fables relating to this plant told by the natives. 

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