The Huaca-Cachu of Peru

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  

In former times the Indian sorcerers, when they pretended to transport themselves into the presence of their deities, drank the juice of the thorn apple In order to work themselves Into a state of ecstasy. Though the establishment of Christianity has weaned the Indians from their idolatry, yet It had not shed their old superstitions. They still believe that they can hold communication with the spirits of their ancestors, and that they can obtain from them a clue to the treasures concealed In the huacas, or graves hence the Indian name of the thorn-apple—huacacachu, or grave plant. 

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. 

6) Its active principle, daturine, has been identified with the alkaloid atropine, for which it is a perfect substitute. In 1916 one firm in the United States used one and a half million pounds of this plant for the manufacture of atropine. 

7) [Beverly, Robert.] History and Present State of Virginia. Bk. 2, p.24. 1705. Source Stafford 1916 

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