APPENDIX 2: PEYOTE AND THE MESCAL BEAN

Far the commonest designation for peyote in the older literature is "mescal bean," a curiously persistent misusage, since either in the dried or the green state Lophophora wil-liamsii resembles a bean even less than a mushroom, Safford's teomanacatl. On probing more deeply into this confusion, a wide-spread pre-peyote narcotic cult of the southern Plains was discovered. The ethnographic results of this study are presented in the text, but a brief characterization of the "mescal bean" proper is essential as well.

Collected specimens of the old Plains "red bean" ( = mescal bean proper) have been identified by authorities at the Harvard Botanical Museum as Sophora secundifiora (Ortega) Lag. ex DC.1 Variously known as "mescal bean" (southern Plains), "colorfn" (Coahuila, Nuevo León, Texas), "frijolillo" (Nuevo Lei:5n, Texas), "frijolito" (Texas), "evergreen coral-bean," "coral-bean" and "mountain laurel" (southern New Mexico), this plant grows from Coahuila to San Luis Potosi, western Texas and southern New Mexico, being specially characteristic of the dry limestone hills It is not, however, the "mountain laurel" Kalmia latifolia, being a true member of the Fabaceae or Bean Family; the term "coral-bean" is likewise applied to two other legumes of Texas, both, however, Erythrina spp., not
Sophora. 2

Sophora secundiflora contains the highly toxic narcotic alkaloid sophorine, CIA40N2, which is identical with cytisine ( = ulexine, = baptitoxine). Resembling nicotine closely in physiological action, the contents of one bean are said to be able to produce nausea, convulsions and even death by asphyxiation in man.' Sophora secundiflora (= Broussonetia secundifiora) itself is a handsome evergreen shrub or small tree, eight to thirty-five feet high, bearing thick, leathery, dark glossy green leaves. The violet-blue bunches of flowers appearing in the spring give off a strong rank fragrance, and from these develop, in the sum-mer, woody pods, satiny outside, two to four inches long, and containing one to four hard-shelled bright red beans."

Safford' states that "these beans are often confused with those of certain species of Erythrina, which are sometimes sold in their place in the markets of Mexico, but which are not at all narcotic." It is therefore possible, and indeed probable, that the beans used as necklaces and bandoliers in the Plains were both Sophora spp. and Erythrina spp.; Mooney' for example had specimens of red bean necklaces identified as S. secundiflora and E. fruticisa. The confusion of the two closely related groups is understandable when the beans alone are available for diagnosis; the bean of Sophora secundiflora differs from that of Erythrina flabelliformis, for example, in little more than the shape of the hilum, or scar of attachment, that of the former being rounded and of the latter more linear, while the beans of E. corraloides are more elongate than those of Sophora. Gilmore's' identification of the Omaha "red-medicine" with Erythrina spp. may possibly be wholly correct since he mentions only decorative and magic uses for the beans; but in view of the chemical composition of the two, any ritual narcotic use must a fortiori refer to Sophora secundifiora, the "mescal bean" proper.

1 There is no problem of identifying the old Plains "red bean" with the "mescal bean"; both Schultes and I obtained Kiowa specimens in the field. The problem is the correct botanical classification of the specimens, and the wide-spread misusage of their name for peyote.

2 Standley, Trees and Shrubs, 435; Dayton, Imperrtant Western Browse Plants, 87; Boughton and Hardy, Mescalbean, 5; Opler, Autobiography. The Chiricahua "Mountain laurel" is S. secundifiora.

3 Henry (T. A.), The Plant Alkaloids, 395; Dayton, op. cit., 89. Havard (Report on the Flora, 5oo) says the alkaloid sophoria [sic] was isolated by Dr. H. C. Wood in 2877 as a whitish, amorphous substance producing convulsions, temporary loss of voluntary movement, and distressing vomiting; again (Drink Plants, 39) he says sophorine [sic] is an irritant,narcotic. Another alkaloid, matrine, is found in Sophora spp. (Nagai, Plugge, Kondo et al. in Henry (T. A.), The Plant Alkaloids, 398). Havard, citing one Bellanger, says the Indians near San An, tonio formerly used the seed as an intoxicant, half of one producing a delirious exhilaration followed by a deep sleep lasting two or three days; a whole bean, according to Dr. Rothrock's informant, would kill a man. Dayton, 89, says children have been known to die from the effects of eating seeds of S. secundiflora; in any case, a rupture of the hard, leathery coat of the bean would be required for the release of the alkaloid in the bean,fiesh.
Cattle and sheep appear to be more affected by the leaves of the plant, which also contain the alkaloid, than by the beans. The effect on them is marked: sheep fed about one percent body weight of the leaves were paralyzed in the legs for days and calves fed as little as .25% of body weight of fresh leaves died in 45 hours; one fed 2.0% died in hours. Recovery in sheep sometimes required 12 days, in calves up to 16 days (Boughton and Hardy).

4 Condensed and synthesized from Boughton and Hardy; Havard, Report on the Flora, 458, 500; Drink Plants, 39-40; Standley, 43S; Dayton, 87-80.

5 Safford, Narcotic Plants, 398-

6 Mooney, Tarumari,Guayachic (quoting Safford?).

7 Gilmore, Uses of Plants, oo writes: "The Omaha traveling into Oklahoma have found them [chinaberry] there, and have taken up their use. They already had employed for beads as well as for a good.luck charm the bright red seed of a species of Erythrina. They say it grows somewhere to the southwest, toward or in Mexio. They call it 'red medicine,' maka. zhide (maka., medicine; zhide, red). When the seeds of Melia (azerdache L.) [chinaberry] were adopted for use as beads, they likened them to make zhide, and so call them maka.-zhide sabe, 'black red-medicine'."