Cohoba

Cohoba is a Taíno Indian transliteration for a ceremony in which the ground seeds of the cojóbana tree (Anadenanthera spp.) were inhaled, the Y-shaped nasal snuff tube used to inhale the substance, and the psychoactive drug that was inhaled. Use of this substance produced a hallucinogenic, entheogenic, or psychedelic effect.[1] The cojóbana tree is believed by some to be Anadenanthera peregrina[2] although it may have been a generalized term for psychotropics, including the quite toxic Datura and related genera (Solanaceae). The corresponding ceremony using cohoba-laced tobacco is transliterated as cojibá. This was said to have produced the sense of a visionary journey of the kind associated with the practice of shamanism.

A pictograph depicting cohoba located in the Pomier Caves

The practice of snuffing cohoba was popular with the Taíno and Arawakan peoples, with whom Christopher Columbus made contact.[3] However, the use of Anadenanthera powder was widespread in South America, being used in ancient times by the Wari culture and Tiwanaku people of Peru and Bolivia and also by the Yanomamo people of Venezuela. Other names for cohoba include vilca, cebíl, and yopó. In Tiwanaku culture, a snuff tray was used along with an inhaling tube.

Fernando Ortiz, the founder of Cuban Cultural Studies, offers a detailed analysis of the use of cohoba in his important anthropological work, Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar.[4]

References
  1. Aquino, Luis Hernández (1977). Diccionario de voces indígenas de Puerto Rico. Editorial Cultural. ISBN 84-399-6702-0.
  2. Hallucinogenic Plants by Richard E. Shultes. Golden Press, New York, 1976.
  3. The Role of Cohoba in Taino Shamanism. Constantino M. Torres, in Eleusis No. 1 (1998)
  4. Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar, Additional chapter VIII, Fernando Ortiz (Madrid: Cátedra, 2002).


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