Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention. In addition to really brief notes on the content of articles, quotations from the very earliest sources referring to an entheogen are also appreciated. We probably won't use too many of them, but I find that having some of those early quotes from the people who first observed a particular entheogen in use can really add flavor.

I'll start with notes on the history of the psychoactive bindweeds, since I recently made a post about that.



Psychoactive bindweeds
Turbina corymbosa, Ipomoea violacea, Ipomoea carnea

*Sahagún, Bernardino de. 1982. Historia General de las Casas de Nueva España. Editorial Porrúa, México City, Mexico.
*Rätsch, Christian. 2005. Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants. Park Street Press: Rochester, VT. Translated by John R. Baker with Annabel Lee and Cornelia Ballent. Foreword by Albert Hofmann. Originally published in German, 1998. AT Verlag Aarau / Switzerland.
(Translation below from Rätsch 2005)



*Hernández, Francisco. 2005. Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus, seu Plantarum, Animalium, Mineralium Mexicanorum Historia. Rome.
- Ololiuhqui reported to be taken by priests when to contact their gods, said to induce "visions and satanic hallucinations"


*Durán, Diego. 1977. Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar. Civilization of the American Indian series (Vol. 102). University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK. (Translated and edited by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden. Original in Spanish, 1574-1576)
*Acosta, José de. 1604. The Natural and Moral History of the Indies. Val. Sims, London. Translated by Edward Grimston. Original in Spanish, published 1590 in Seville.
*Clavijero, Francisco Xavier. 1807. The History of Mexico: collected from Spanish and Mexican historians, from manuscripts and ancient paintings of the indians, illustrated by charts, and other copper plates, to wich are added, critical dissertations on the land, the animals, and inhabitants of Mexico. Joyce Gold, London, England. Original in Spanish, published 1780 as La Historia Antigua de México. Translated by Charles Cullen.
* Schultes, Richard Evans. 1941. A Contribution to Our Knowledge of Rivea corymbosa, the Narcotic ololiuqui of the Aztecs. Harvard Botanical Museum, Cambridge, MA.
- Reported ololiuhqui is mixed with ash, crushed insects, pitch, and tobacco to make a salve thought to protect the wearer from evil, used to anoint their priests before a human sacrifice. Salve was known as "teotlcualli" [="God's Flesh"].


*Alarcón, Hernando Ruiz de. 1984. Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain. University of Oklahoma Press, London, England. Translated and edited by Andrews, Richard J. and Ross Hassig. Original in Spanish, 1629. Includes Pedro Ponce's Brief Relation of the Gods and Rites of Heathenism.
*Serna, Jacinto de la. 1656. Manual de Ministros de Indios para el Conocimiento de sus Idolatrias y Extirpación de Ellas. Mexico City, Mexico.
*Schultes, Richard Evans. 1941. A Contribution to Our Knowledge of Rivea corymbosa, the Narcotic ololiuqui of the Aztecs. Harvard Botanical Museum, Cambridge, MA.
-The Aztecs and other Mexican Indians consulted ololiuhqui for medical and divinatory purposes (finding lost items, diagnosing disease, seeking advice on how to treat a disease), sometimes taken by the patient, other times by the doctor. They tried hard to hide the seeds from the Catholic Missionaries both because they'd be tortured for idolatry and they were afraid to offend the ololiuhqui.


*Ponce, Pedro. 1984. Brief Relation of the Gods and Rites of Heathenism. In Alarcón: Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain. University of Oklahoma Press, London, England. Translated and edited by Andrews, Richard J. and Ross Hassig. Original in Spanish circa 1629.
-First and only known mention of "tlitliltzin" [="divine black one"] as similar in use to but botanically distinct from peyotl and ololiuhqui. May refer to Ipomoea violacea seeds.

*Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. 1955. Medicina y Magica.Mexico D.F., Mexico.
-Relates a story from the unpublished records of the inquisition, an African slave who acted also as a curandero talks
about an "ololiuhqui del moreno", which Beltrán indicates was his way of saying "black ololiuqui"... may be interpreted as referring to I. violacea seeds.




Re-rediscovery:

*Reko, Blas Pablo. 1919. "De los nombres botánicos Aztecas" El Mexico Antiguo 1(5): 115-157.
*Reko, Blas Pablo. 1929. "Alcaloides y glucósidos en plantas mexicanas" Memorial de la Sociedad Alzate 49: 412.
*Reko, Blas Pablo. 1934. "Das mexikanische Rauschgift Ololiuhqui" El México Antiguo 3(3-4): 1-7
*Schultes, Richard Evans. 1941. A Contribution to Our Knowledge of Rivea corymbosa, the Narcotic ololiuqui of the Aztecs. Harvard Botanical Museum, Cambridge, MA.
-Use of ololiuhqui seeds went underground for centuries in reaction to the tortures imposed on practitioners by the Catholic Church. In the first half of 20th century, reports again began to emerge of the widespread use of the seeds throughout rural Oaxaca, Mexico. Uses were nearly identical to conquest era (divination & magico-medical, both with strong religious overtones) only the religious dimension had shifted to adopt the tropes of Christianity (Jesus, mother Mary, the saints)


*Reko, Blas Pablo. 1945. Mitobotánica Zapoteca Privately published, Tacubaya, Mexico.
*MacDougall, Tómas. 1960. "Ipomea [sic] tricolor a hallucenogenic [sic] plant of the Zapotecs" Boletín del Centro de Investigaciones Antropológicas de México 6: 6-8
*Parsons, E.C. 1936. Mitla - Town of the Souls University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL.
*Wasson, R. Gordon. 1963. "Notes on the present status of ololiuqui and the other hallucinogens of Mexico" Botanical Museum Leaflets Harvard University 20(6): 161-193.
-Around the same period, use of Ipomoea violacea in a manner nearly identical to ololiuhqui was observed in several parts of Oaxaca, particularly among the Mazatec (Reko 1945) and the Zapotec (McDougall 1960, Parsons 1936). It is subsequently suggested that I. violacea may be the tlitliltzin that Ponce mentioned in the early 17th century (Wasson 1963)... While the evidence on the subject is scarce, it is a sound conjecture, and if true establishes the use of the seeds to go back at least four centuries


*Garza, Mercedes de la. 1990. Sueño y Allucinacíon en el Mundo Náhuatl y Maya. Universidad Nac. Autónoma de México, Mexico City.
-I. violacea also used among the Mayans

*Lipp, Frank J. 1991. The Mixe of Oaxaca: Religion, Ritual and Healing. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.
-Both I. violacea and T. corymbosa are used by the Mixe

*Baumgartner, Daniela. 1994. "Das Priesterwesen der Kogi" Yearbook for ethnomedicine and the study of consciousness 1994 (3): 171-198
*Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1978. "The loom of life: A Kogi principle of integration" Journal of Latin American Lore 4: 5-27
*Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1987. "The Great Mother and the Kogi universe: A concise overview" Journal of Latin American Lore 13: 73-113
-In the Sierra Madre of Columbia, the Kogi use a related bindweed (which has not yet been identified conclusively) as an entheogen.

*Naranjo, P. 1969. "Etnofarmacología de las plantas psicotrópicas de América" Terapía 24: 5-63.
*Lascano, C. et al. 1967. "Estudios fitoquímico de la especie psicotomimética Ipomoea carnea" Ciencias Naturales 9: 3
-In Ecuador, the related species Ipomoea carnea is used as an entheogen.





That should cover the rediscovery era.

As to the archaeological evidence, it's difficult to say with certainty. There are native pre-Columbian frescos that show vines that might be intended to represent these plants, but if so, they've taken extreme liberties with such basics as the shape of the leaf.

There was one reference to the use of the seeds as an enema in antiquity, but I've been unable to track down the source: De Smet, P.A.G.M, and F.J. Lipp. 1987. "Supplementary data on ritual enemas and snuffs in the western hemisphere" Journal of Ethnopharmacology 19(3): 327-331.

So if anyone has access to the online Journal of Ethnopharmacology archives from 1987, please please shoot me a PM.

Ok, so I decided it bugged me that I didn't know hardly anything about iboga, so I decided to start researching that one. Found some preliminary info for the Rediscovery section. I haven't given up 100%, but my initial search indicated no archaeological evidence for iboga use in antiquity has been found. However a really impressive number of relatives of Tabernanthe iboga in the genuses Tabernanthe, Tabernaemontana, and Voacanga (many of which contain ibogaine or related alkaloids) are used in many parts of the world by various geographically isolated populations... that sort of ubiquitous use certainly argues for use in antiquity, at least among one or two of the ancestral populations.

Ott, Jonathan. 1996. Pharmacotheon, 2nd ed.
-First report of iboga use from 1864 – it and other early reports from Gabon and the Belgian Congo regarded it as a stimulant and aphrodisiac (Pope, H.G. 1969. “Tabernanthe iboga: An African narcotic plant of social importance” Economic Botany 23(2): 174-184.)
-First report as a visionary compound in 1903 under name eboka, central to a cultic practice from the Congo (Schlieffer, H. (Ed.). 1979. Narcotic Plants of the Old World: An Anthology of Texts from Ancient Times to the Present. Lubrecht & Cramer, Monticello, NY.)
-used in massive amounts by the Bwiti cult (300 to 1000 g for the initiation dose to “break open the head”, thought to contain 1.9 to 6.25 g of ibogaine) – these massive doses can at times kill the initiate (Fernandez, J.W. 1972. “Tabernanthe iboga: Narcotic ecstasis and the work of the ancestors” In: Furst, Peter T. (Ed.) Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. Praeger, New York, NY. pp. 237-260; Fernandez, J.W. 1982. Bwiti: An Ethnography of the Religious Imagination of Africa)
-at lower doses the drug has strong stimulant effect, but is not visionary (Fernandez 1972; Schlieffer 1979)
-Numerous relatives of T. iboga, many of which also contain ibogaine or an isomer (iboganine), are used as stimulants or in ethnomedicine in many parts of Africa and South America. (See Ott 1996, pp 371-373 for details... I'll type out a quick summary later)

Salvia divinorum
Sxa Maria Pastora

[I'll simply use last name and year published when referencing sources which I've given the full citation for in previous entries... I've been adding the sources to the bibliography section of the wiki as I go]

The known history of this one is very recent. While an attempt has been made (Wasson 1963) to extend its history back to the early post-conquest era in Mexico, identifying it with the pipiltzintzintli mentioned in the records of the Inquisition (Aguirre de Beltran 1955) and the poyomatli/poyomate of Sahagun (1950) and Juan de Cardenas (De los problemas y secretes maravillosos de las Indias, Mexico, 1591, folio 243v), this identification rests on very thin, almost nonexistent ground. These early colonial records make reference to an infusion prepared from the stems, roots, and flowers of the plant. The active chemicals of the plant are localized to surface trichomes, so of these parts only the stems would be even moderately active. Further, a flowering Salvia divinorum plant is something of a rarity, spending the overwhelming majority of their time in the vegetative state; the old accounts that the flowers of pipiltzintzintli were used seems to imply a ubiquity that's inconsistent with the botany of the plant.

Another factor indicating the plant's use may have arisen post-Conquest is the common names by which the plant is known. Virtually all of the names, whether Spanish or indigenous, mean something along the lines of "leaves of the sheperdess". Considering that sheep are a European introduction to the New World, the names simply could not have arisen prior to European contact (Ott 1996).

*Johnson, Jean B. 1939a. "Some notes on the Mazatec" Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos 3: 142-156.
*Johnson, Jean B. 1939b. "The Elements of Mazatec Witchcraft" Etnologiska Studier 9: 128-150.
*Reko, Blas Pablo (1945) Mitobótanica Zapoteca. Privately published, México
*Weitlaner, Robert J. (1952) "Curaciones Mazatecas" Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México 4: 279-285
-In the first half of the 20th century, a number of anthropologists found the plant being used among the Mazatecs and Cuicatecs of Oaxaca, Mexico. Both the ritual applications (divination, magico-medical) and the actual process of the rituals (grind on metate, make a cold water infusion) are very similar to those of bindweed seeds and psilocybian mushrooms. Only difference is some curanderos quid or simply masticate the leaves.

*Valdéz, Leander J. 1987. "Studies of Salvia divinorum (Lamiaceae), an hallucinogenic mint from the Sierra Mazateca in Oaxaca, Central Mexico" Economic Botany 41(2): 283-291
-Salvia divinorum, while probably not a true cultigen (ie incapable of sexual reproduction), it is very nearly so. The plant flowers very rarely, and sets seed a great deal less frequently than that. Even when seeds are produced, the vast majority of them are sterile. The plant is propagated by setting a stalk or cutting in the soil where it can develop a new root system. This is how the plant typically propagates in the wild; when the plant grows too tall, the wind will cause the top of the plant to break off and fall in the soil, where the broken top may lay in roots. No truly wild populations of the plant have been reported. All of this bespeaks a very long history of human use.

Psilocybian mushrooms

Antiquity:

*Borhegyi, S.F. de. 1961. "Miniature mushroom stones from Guatemala." American Antiquity 26: 498-504.
*Borhegyi, S.F. de. 1963. "Pre-Columbian pottery mushrooms from Mesoamerica." American Antiquity 28: 328-338.
*Heim, R., and R.G. Wasson. 1958. Les Champignons Hallucinogènes du Mexique. Éditions du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris.
*Lowy, B. "New records of mushroom stones from Guatemala." Mycologia 63: 983-993.
*Ott, Jonathan. 1978. "A brief history of hallucinogenic mushrooms." In Ott, J. & J. Bigwood (Eds.) Teonanácatl: Hallucinogenic Mushrooms of North America. Madrona Publishers, Seattle, WA. pp. 5-22.
*Wasson, V.P., and R.G. Wasson. 1957. Mushrooms, Russia and History. Pantheon Books, New York, NY.
-The oldest suggestion of the use of psilocybian mushrooms comes from ancient anthropomorphic “mushroom stones,” mushroom figures carved with human or animal faces prominent on the stipe. Over 200 of these stone figures have been found through southern Mexico, Guatamala, and El Salvador, the oldest dating to circa 1500 BC.


*Heim & Wasson 1958
*Wasson & Wasson 1957
-Mushrooms depicted with religious connotations are prevalent in the frescos of Teotihuacan, from roughly one century before the Spanish conquest.




Rediscovery:
*Caso, A. 1963. "Representaciones de hongos en los códices." Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.
*Heim, R. 1967. Nouvelles Investigations sur les Champignons Hallucinogènes. Éditions du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris.
*Boone, E.A. Codex Magliabechiano and the lost prototype of the Magliabechiano group. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
*Sahagún, B. de. 1950-1969. Florentine Codex. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, UT
-Mushrooms (and impish creatures representing their effects) are depicted in several pictographic books of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: the Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I of the Mixtec Indians, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's Aztec Florentine Codex, and the Aztec Magliabechiano Codex.

*Durán, Diego. 1967. Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e Islas de la Tierra Firme. Editorial Porrúa: México City.
*Ott 1978
-At Axtec coronations, people would become intoxicated eating great quantities of mushrooms, accompanied with cacahuatl. (Duran wrote of this in 1581, referencing Cronica X, a now-lost history which included an account of Ahuitzotl's coronation circa 1486)

*Hernández 1651
*Molina, A. de. 1571. Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana y Mexicana. Mexico
*Sahagún 1950
-Multiple early post-conquest accounts describe nanacatl, teonanácatl, or teyhuinti, various small mushrooms that are reported to intoxicate those who eat them. They are sometimes likened to peyotl.


*López-Austin, A. 1967. Terminos del Nahuallatolli. Historia Mexicana 17: 1-36
*Wasson, R.G. et al. 1974. María Sabina her Mazatec Mushroom Velada. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, NY.
-By the 17th century the Office of the Inquisition had declared the mushrooms to be idolatry, ushering in a brutal auto-da-fé to the New World and driving the use of the mushrooms into deep secrecy

*Wasson & Wasson 1957
*Schultes, R.E. 1939. "The identification of teonanacatl, a narcotic Basidiomycete of the Aztecs." Botanical Museum Leaflets Harvard University 7: 37-54
*Reko, B.P. 1919. "De los nombres botánicos Aztecos." El México Antiguo 1: 113-157.
-Use of the mushrooms was rediscovered in Oaxaca by Blas Pablo Reko, and his discovery promoted by Richard Evans Schultes. When Wasson participated in a mushroom ceremony and wrote of the experience in Life magazine, psilocybian mushrooms quickly exploded into awareness in modern western culture.

The Kykeon of the Eleusinian Mysteries

*Wasson, R. G. 1978. "The Wasson Road to Eleusis." In Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries‎. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: New York, NY. pp. 2-7.
-In the 2nd century AD Aristides wrote that the experience was "new, astonishing, inaccessible to rational cognition... of all the divine things that exist among men, it is both the most awesome and the most luminous. At what place in the world have more miraculous tidings been sung, and where have the dromena called forth greater emotion, where has there been greater rivalry between seeing and hearing?"

*Hoffman, A. 1978. "A Challenging Question and My Answer." In Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries‎. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: New York, NY. pp. 8-11.
-Folk names for ergot such as the French siegle ivre [="drunken rye"] and the German Tollkorn [="mad grain"] suggest a historical awareness of the inebriating potential of the fungus.
-In 1976, Hofmann tested ergonovine (being present in both bindweed seeds and ergot) and found that it became somewhat visionary at doses at least ten times greater than the dose used in clinical applications, establishing it as feasible that ergot (Claviceps paspali, which grows on the wild grass Paspalum distichum, ubiquitous in the Mediterranean Basin; or Claviceps purpurea from barley or wheat which grew on the Rarian plain, adjacent to Eleusis) could have been the psychoactive principle of the kykeon.
-Ergine, lysergic acid hydroxyethylamine, and ergonovine are water-soluble; the unpleasant ergotoxine and ergotamine are not very water soluble.

*Ruck, C.A.P. 1978. "Solving the Eleusinian Mystery." In Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries‎. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: New York, NY. pp. 12-18.
-The visions were accompanied by trembling in the limbs, vertigo, nausea, cold sweats.

*Newton, Joseph F. 1914. The Builders. Macoy Publishing, New York, NY.
-The mysteries were establish in the early- to mid- 2nd millenium BC.

*Mylonas, G.E. 1961. Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
-The mysteries carried on for nearly 2 millenia, into the 4th century AD, when they were destroyed by the Christians

*Ott 1996
-Wasson was the first to recognize that the kykeon, the potion imbibed before entering the telesterion (initiation hall) and encountering ecstasy and divine visions, was likely compounded from an entheogenic material.
-The recorded ingredients of the kykeon were water, barley, and a sort of mint (generally interpretted as either pennyroyal or Mentha pulegium)

[My comments: These ingredients would seem to preclude the more fantastic theories about the entheogens involved, such as Terence McKenna's suggestion that a species of psilocybian mushroom was used (McKenna 1992).
The mention of mint is particularly interesting. Many exponents of the entheogenic kykeon theory fixate on the barley as a potential source of ergot alkaloids... but many of the theories detractors point to the inconsistency of the experience that ergot might produce unless we postulate that the practitioners had access to a strain of ergot with a very exceptional chemotype. No one pays much mind to the mint. But recently, many casual dabblers in entheogens and ethnobotanicals have discovered that mixing mint with a cold-water extraction of simple lysergic acid amides drastically changes the character of the experience, making its effects a great deal more consistently pleasant and visionary (there are credible hypotheses for the chemical justification of this, but they're not of direct concern here). Thus it might be that the mint provides the bridge from the inconsistent and not entirely desirable effects of the ergot alkaloids to the consistently awe-inspiring effects of the kykeon.
Regardless, the notion that the kykeon was compounded from psychoactive materials is a well-founded hypothesis, even if one does not believe the psychoactive principle has been satisfactorily identified.
*McKenna, T. 1992. Food of the Gods. Bantam Books, New York, NY.

Here's a dump of what I have. Only about 25% is scanned. Let me know what's needed.

--
K

Thanks for the link a1pha! I'll let you know if I see any on the list that I need to read.





Soma/Haoma

Not terribly much to say on this one. Since soma can't be identified, just the basics will do:

*Wasson, R. Gordon. 1972. "What was the Soma of the Aryans?" In Furst, Peter T. (Ed.) Flesh of the Gods. Praeger Publishers, Richmond, VA. pp. 201-213.
-The 1028 hymns of the Rg Veda date to the 2nd millenium BC (c. 1600 BC). Soma was simultaneously a deity, a plant, and a juice that was expressed from the plant. The actual identity of the plant was forgotten long ago for reasons not presently known.
From the hymns: "We have drunk the Soma, we are become Immortals,
We are arrived at the Light, we have fond the Gods.
What now can hostility do to us, what the malice of mortal,
O Immortal Soma!"


It has been suggested that Soma is Amanita muscaria (Wasson 1968 ), Peganum harmala (Flattery & Schwartz 1989), Psilocybe cubensis (McKenna 1992), Ephedra spp. (Rudgley 1998 ), Cannabis spp. (Rudgley 1998 ), and Argyreia nervosa (Riedlinger 1993). Additionally, a number of other candidates have been proposed, including alcohol and a number of plants that lack any psychoactive properties. Alcohol is imfeasible because the soma was sometimes prepared three times a day, which would not allow time for fermentation (Wasson 1968; Flattery & Schwartz 1989), and non-psychoactive plants are simply inconsistent with the rapturous tones that describe soma in the Vedic hymns.
*Wasson, Gordon R. 1968. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, NY.
*Flattery, David Stophlet, and Martin Schwartz. 1989. Haoma and Harmaline: The Botanical Identity of the Indo-Iranian Sacred Hallucinogen "Soma" and Its Legacy in Religion, Language and Middle Eastern Folklore. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
*Rudgley, Richard. 1998. Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances. Thomas Dunne Books, New York, NY.
*Riedlinger, T.J. 1993. "Wasson's alternative candidates for soma." Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 25(2): 149-156.

Discussing the merits of all the candidates for soma is frankly not relevant here (I plan to treat this in a seperate monograph, but to summarize: I don't believe that soma can be identified based on the available evidence; none of the major credible candidates has much of an edge over the others). The important thing is that the Vedic hymns make clear that soma was an entheogenic sacrament derived from a plant, and was in use nearly four millenia ago among the practitioners of the Proto-Indo-Iranian religion.

Cacahuatl/Cacao

-The tree was native to the Amazon Valley and had been brought to Mexico centuries before European contact (Emboden 1980; Ott 1985). Cultivated in Central America some 4000 years ago (Rätsch 2005). T. cacao appears to be strictly a cultivar, indication a long historical association with humans (Ott 1985).
*Emboden, William Jr. 1979. Narcotic Plants 2nd Ed. Collier Books, New York, NY.

*Weinberg, Bennett Alan, and Bonnie K. Bealer. 2001. The World of Caffeine. Routledge: New York, NY.
-Cacao use can be traced back at least as far as the Olmecs (1500-400 BC), inhabitants of the Mexican lowlands long before the Maya came on the scene.

*Morton, Marcia, and Frederic Morton. 1986. Chocolate: An illustrated history. Crown Publishers, New York, NY.
-The Mayan kept written records, but the majority were destroyed by the invading Europeans. Only surviving records of cacao use among Classic Maya comes from drinking vessels buried in tombs.

*Coe, Sophie D., and Michael D. Coe. 1996. The True History of Chocolate. Thames and Hudson, London.
*Díaz del Castillo, Bernal. 1844. Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo written by himself containing a true and full account of the discovery and conquest of Mexico and New Spain. J. Hatchard and Son, London. Translated by John Ingram Lockhart. Original published in Spanish in 1632 as Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Written in 1568 about the events of 1519-1521.
-1504, Cacao became the first caffeinated plant to reach Europe (despite tea and coffee both being used in countries that could be reached by land routes) when Columbus brought some beans back from his 4th voyage to the New World (Weinberg & Bealer 2001; Coe & Coe 1996). Its psychoactive and nutritive properties were not known until Cortés and his men encountered cacao being drunk in the Mayan lowlands, and later in Tenochtitlan in the court of Motecuhzoma II (Coe & Coe 1996; Diaz del Castillo 1844).

*Schultes, Richard Evans. 1976. Hallucinogenic Plants. Golden Press, New York, NY.
*Ramos, C.R. et al. 2006. "The painted murals of Cholula: A contextual perspective." La Tinaja 17: 18-23
-A cacao tree features centrally in one of the Tepantitla frescos, circa 300 AD (Ott 1996, Schultes 1976). The murals of Cholula (circa 600-1000 AD) show cacao being prepared by pouring the liquid between two jars (Ott 1996; Ramos et al 2006).

*Benzoni, Girolamo. 1565. Historia del Mondo Nuovo.
-Cacao was greatly revered. Since the beans were used as money (Benzoni 1565), only the rich could afford to drink it on a regular basis. It was offered to honor visiting dignitaries and consumed copiously in the court of Motecuhzoma II (Diaz del Castillo 1844). It was valued for its stimulating effect, and was reported to be consumed along with psilocybian mushrooms (Sahagún 1950). At the coronation of the Aztec emperor Ahuitzotl (ca. 1486), it was reported that all of the guests engaged in intoxicated revelry after consuming woodland mushrooms with copious amounts of cacao (Durán 1967).

*Foster, Nelson, and Linda Cordell (Eds). 1992. From Chilies to Chocolate: Food the Americas Gave the World. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.
-A Mayan pottery jar dated to the late 5th century AD was found, decorated with a divine-looking figure adorned with cacao pods (speculated to be the god of cacao) engraved with the characters "ka-ka-w(a)".

*Reents-Budet, Dorie (Ed). 1994. Painting the Maya Universe: Royal ceramics of the Classic Period. Duke University Press, Durham, NC.
-Other similar jars depicting cacao accompanied by visionary themes date from 300 AD to 900 AD.

*Duke, James A. 1975. "Ethnobotanical observations on the Cuna Indians." Economic Botany 29: 278-293.
-Among the Cuna Indians of Panama, cacao been have been used as a ritual incense and means of divination in modern times.

*Plowman, T.C. 1980. "Chamairo: Mussatia hyacinthia - An admixture to coca from Amazonian Peru and Bolivia." Botanical Museum Leaflets Harvard University) 28(3): 253-261.
-Among the Quichua, ash from cacao fruit is often used in preparing llipita, the alkaline material added to coca quids.

PEYOTL:

Antiquity:

- Hesham R. El-Seedia, b, Peter A.G.M. De Smetc, Olof Beckd, Göran Possnerte and Jan G. Bruhn “Prehistoric peyote use: Alkaloid analysis and radiocarbon dating of archaeological specimens of Lophophora from Texas” Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Volume 101, Issues 1-3

Two archaeological specimens of peyote buttons, i.e. dried tops of the cactus Lophophora williamsii (Lem.) Coulter, from the collection of the Witte Museum in San Antonio, was subjected to radiocarbon dating and alkaloid analysis. The two peyote samples appear to be the oldest plant drug ever to yield a major bioactive compound upon chemical analysis. The identification of mescaline strengthens the evidence that native North Americans recognized the psychotropic properties of peyote as long as 5700 years ago.



- Boyd, Carolyn E. and J. Philip Dering
1996 Medicinal and Hallucinogenic Plants Identified in the Sediments and the Pictographs of the Lower Pecos, Texas Archaic. Antiquity 70(26:256- 275.
Bruhn, Jan G. and Bo Holmstedt



- 2003 The Rock Art of the Lower Pecos. Texas A&M University Press. College Station, Texas.

Specimens shaped like the body of peyote were excavated in the 1930s from Shumla Cave in the Lower Pecos region of southwestern Texas. These specimens, are not actually desiccated crowns of peyote, but are aggregates of ground peyote mixed with other plant material. They form flattened globular objects resembling peyote buttons. Two of the Shumla Cave specimens have been analyzed, indicating a 2% concentration of mescaline, the psychoactive alkaloid in peyote (Bruhn et al. 2002; El Seedi et al. 2005). These specimens recently have been radiocarbon dated to 4045-3960 B.C. (2s) (Terry et al. 2006).



- Terry M, Steelman KL, Guilderson T, Dering P, Rowe MW. “Lower Pecos and Coahuila peyote: new radiocarbon dates". J Archaelogical Science. 2006;33:1017-1021. El-Seedi HR, Smet PA, Beck O, et al. "Prehistoric peyote use: Alkaloid analysis and radiocarbon dating of archaeological specimens of Lophophora from Texas". J Ethnopharmacol. 2005;101(1-3):238-42 - full text


- Martin Terrya, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author, Karen L. Steelmanb, Tom Guildersonc, Phil Deringd and Marvin W. Rowee - "Lower Pecos and Coahuila peyote: new radiocarbon dates"

Re-discovery

- Schultes, Richard Evans and Hoffman, Albert “Plants of the Gods – their sacred, healing and hallucinogenic powers. (1992)
- Anderson, Edward F.
1996 Peyote: The Divine Cactus. 2nd ed. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
- Boyd, Carolyn E.
1996 Shamanic Journeys into the Otherworld of the Archaic Chichimec. Latin American Antiquity 7(2):152-164.
- Bye, Robert A.
1979 Hallucinogenic Plants of the Tarahumara. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 1:23-48.
-The Appeal of Peyote (Lophophora Williamsii) as a Medicine
Richard Evans Schultes
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 40, No. 4, Part 1 (Oct. - Dec., 193, pp. 698-715


Health:

SOURCES: Harrison G. Pope Jr., M.D., director, Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Boston; John Halpern, M.D., investigator, Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Boston; Victor J. Clyde, vice president, Native American Church of North America; Nov. 4, 2005, Biological Psychiatry
Study with peyote to see what impact this would have on the brain of the users with exciting results. Users not only don't show any sign of braindamage, but even score higher on certain psychological tests.


I have added this small Health section to this even though it has nothing to do with the historic use of the plant. I have also added this link to the wikipedia section on health for the CEL e-book (link )

Peace
Elpo