The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1886-01-22
WHAT COCAINE Is MADE OF.

The Strange Effects Of Chewing Coca.
In the valleys east of the Andes in
tropical South America there are, and
have been from immcmorial time, ex-
tensive plantations of the coca shrub.
1t is indigenous in these regions, but
the natives of Peru and Bolivia cult
vate the plant in terraces which are H.
kened to the vineyards of Tuscany and
the Holy Land Erythroxylon coca is
allied to the common flax and forms,
says DIR. Johnston, shrub of six or
eight feet, resembling our blackthorn,
with small white flowers and bright
green leaves. Many thousands of
acres are devoted in Peru and Bolivia
to its growth. The leaves, of which
there may be three or four crops in the
year, are collected by the women and
children, and dried in the sun, after
which they are ready for use, and form,
indeed, according to travellers, the usu-
al money exchange in some districts,
the workmen being paid in coca leaf.
The consumption of this leaf, almost
universal in the countries named, has
extended across the continent into Bra
iii; but here it is powdered and chcwed
with the ashes of plants. Among the
Pcruvians and Bolivians the coca leaves
are rolled with a little unslaked lime
into ball (acullico), and chcwcd in the
mouth. We shall presently find Won
dcrfully similar process among the be-
tel-chewers, far away to the east. The
practice, it has been said, is almost uni
vcrsal in these South American coun-
tries. Although the Spanish conquer
ors denounced the native Indian and all
his works, including the chewing of the
coca leaf, these prohibitions proved as
powerless as the bull launched by Ur-
ban the VIII. against tobacco. The
Peruvian was faithful to the tradition of
his fathers; and then a curious, but not
unexampled, conversion came about.
The Spaniards, seeing how admirably
the natives worked in mine and planta-
ton when the coca was permitted them,
decreed certain hours of suspension of
labor for chewing the leaf, and pres
emily came to encourage the growth by
every means in their power, and even
TO recommend its introduction into ELL
rope.
Coca-chcwing resembles in some re-
spccts the smoking of opium. Both
must be taken apart and with delibera-
ton. The coca-chewer three or four
times in the day retircs to secluded
spot lays down his burden, and stretches
himself perhaps beneath tree. Slowly
from the chuspa, or little pouch, which
is ever at his girdle, the leaves and the
lime are brought forth. The ball is
formed and chewed for perhaps fifteen
or thirty minutes, and then the toiler
rises refreshed as quietly as he lay
down, and returns to that monotonous
round of labor, in which the coca is his
only and much-prized distraction. Some
take it to excess, and to these the name
of coqucro is given. This is particular
ly common among white Peruvians of
good family, and hence the name
''White Coquero" in that country is a
term of rcproach equivalent to our cir
reclamable drunkard." The Indians
regard the coca with extreme reverence.
Won Tschudi, quoted by DIR. Johnston
in his Chemistry of Common Lifc,"
says: During divine worship the
priests chewed coca leaves, and unless
they were supplied with them it was be-
licved that favor of the gods could not
be propitiated. 1t was also deemed nee
essary that the supplicator for divine
grace should approach the priests with
an acullico in his mouth. 1t was believ-
ed that any business undertaken without
the benediction of coca leaves could not
prosper, and to the shrub itself worship
was rendered. During an interval Of
more than three hundred years Christi
unity has not been able to subdue this
deep-rooted-idolatry, for everywhere we
find traces of belief in the mysterious
powers of this plant. The excavators
in the mines of Cerro de Pasco throw
chewcd coca upon hard veins of metal,
in the behalf that it softens the ore and
renders it more easy to work. The In
tlians, even at the present time, put coca
leaves into the mouths of dead persons,
in order to secure them favorable re-
ception on their entrance into another
world, and when Peruvian Indian on
journey falls in with mummy, he,
with timid reverence, presents to it
some coca leaves as his pious Offering"
The coco plant resembles tea and hops
in the nature of its active principles. al
though differing entirely from them in
its effects. In the coqueros the latter
are not inviting. ''They are" says the
traveller just quoted, "a bad breath, pale
lips and gums, greenish and stumpy
teeth, and an ugly black mark at the
angles Of the mouth. The inveterate
coquero is known at the first glance;
his unsteady gait, his yellow skin, his
dim and sunken eyes encircled by pur-
pie ring, his quivering lips, his general
apathy all bear evidence of the baneful
effect of the coca juice when taken in
excess. The general influence of
moderate doses is gently soothing and
stimulating; but coca has in addition q
special and remarkable power in cna-
bling those who consume it to endure
sustained labor in the absence of other
food. This appears to be well-attcstcd
fact, and accords strikingly with similar
effects observed in the consumers of
opium. Both coca and opium, and to a
less extent alcohol and tobacco, check
waste in the body, slightly lowering the
temperature, and economizing more or
less the expenditure of force. In the
case of coca, opium and tobacco, this is
well seen under hard labor and in the
absence of food. Alcohol plays, as we
have already limited, a precisely similar
part where waste and expenditure are