Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-10-14
Curious Effects That Follow the Use
Of the Mesoal Bean.
INDIANS ADDICTED TO IiTHE VICE
Scientists Who Have Made a
e
Study Of This Narcotic,
RUINS MIND AND BODY

Written for The Evening Star.
The use Of the mescai bean, little
known narcotic drug of wonderful proper
ties, producing marvellous color visions, has
lately developed into a craze among In
dams in Oklahoma, and alarming advices
from there have been pouring into the In
dian bureau for fortnight back to the eff
feet that the craze, through the aid CT
medicine men, is making such rapid head
way as to threaten the decentralization of
entire tribes.
This mescal bean is not to be confounded
with the drink mescal, the popular native
beverage of the Mexicans, made from the
agave or century plant, but is the product
Of a plant quite different, the least-known
species of all the cactus family, which,
when chewed and swallowed, ushers the
Indian into the delights of an artificial
paradise and produces optical hallucina-
lions more strange and fanciful than those
of hasheesh or opium.
Though its use is strictly prohibited by
the government, the rage for its has re-
Gently spread from the kiowas and Co
manches to the ApacheS, who live on the
same reservation in Oklahoma, and from
them in turn to the Wichitas and to the
Cheyennes and Arapahoes, directly north,
and next to the Pottawatomies eastward
and finally to the Osages, on the northern
border of the territory, just below the Kan
sas boundary line.
Ruinous to Mind and Body.
The Indians claim the drug is harmless in
its effects, and regard it with superstitious
awe and reverence as an agent of super
natural power But the authorities of the
Indian bureau are convinced that it is ruin
Gus to both body and mind, and have de-
termned to stamp out its use at all haz-
ards. Accordingly a campaign against it is
now being organized by the law depart
ment of the bureau, where measures are
being formulated to put an end to the craze
by effectually cutting off the supply of
the drug Perhaps by the time this article
is printed, or at all events shortly after,
arrests will be made and the strong hand
of the law laid upon the traders and medt-
cine men who surreptitiously convey the
plant from its gatherers to the red-sknned
consumers living under government protec-
ton on the reservations.
Mescal has not been known to our mate
ria medica until within eleven years past,
but the Kiowa and Comanche Indians have
known it and used 1t from time immemo-
rial. Woqui is the name they give 1t: 1t
grows wild in their original dwelling place
along the Rio Grande, in Mexico, and the
secret of its magic virtues has been hand
ed down religiously through successive gen
erations to the present representatives OF
those tribes on their reservation down in
Oklahoma. 1t Is found only in rocky soil,
usually on barren hillSdeS difficult of ac-
toadstool or mushroom. 1t crops up about
two inches above the ground, and has a
thick, soft stem. surmounted- by top or
crown, whose sides are trimmed with little
blunt leaves. Duckered In, and the upper
surface covered with gray fuzz. This
crown, when separated from the stem, Is
the part used as a narcotic, and in general
appearance resembles a bean or button,
whence the name mescal bean. 1t is about
two inches in diameter and about a quar-
ter of an inch thick when green. When
dried 1t becomes hard, and Of the color and
somewhat Of the flavor of tobacco. though
infinitely more bitter and disagreeable, with
a persistent after taste.
Wonderful Sensations.
Just what the Indians see in the visions
invoked by the beautiful intoxication' of
mescal is not known, for no Indian has
ever been induced to reveal the details Of
his experience. But since 1888, when DR..
Levin of Berlin first classified the plant
and gave it the botanical name of "Anha-
lonium Lewini,' several white men, ply
sicians and psychologists, have carefully
tested it and placed on record minute de-
sCriptions of their wonderful sensations and
visions while under its influence. Most of
the beans used by these white investga-
tors were obtained in the autumn of 1894
by Prof James Mooney of the bureau of
ethnOlOgy, attached to the Smithsonian In
sttution, after a sojourn among the Kio-
was and a study of their mescal rites, and
by the bureau of ethnology supplied to ex-
perimental scientists for testing.
The drug produced slightly different ply