NEPENTHE IN ABORIGINAL AMERICA Franklin Fenenga The custom of anesthetjzing a potential sacrificial victim in order to make him insensate to the moment of pain has a limited and nearly continuous distribution in the New World. Human sacrifice is of much more general occurence than is such nepenthic care for the victim. In this paper, I shall review the distribution of the custom of nepenthe and attempt to arrive at an explanation for its failure to diffuse to the limits of human sacrifice. Inca1 On the death of an emporer, some of his wives and servants were expected to volunteer for immolation in order that they might accompany him. Before they were killed they were made drunk with chicha,2P3 Some of the human sacrifices offered at times of econ- omic distress and extreme need were also narcotized with chicha be- fore being executed.4,5 Rowe has reported a survival of nepenthe and human sacrifice: "About 1903 during a severe drought the villag- ers decided to make a sacrifice to the Urubamba River. The sorcer- ers picked a victim and persuaded him to offer himself. A great festival was held and the victim got drunk and threw himself into the river from a bridge."6 Chibcha The Chibcha of the middle Magdalena anesthetized the wives and retainers of a dead chief with a drink.of chicha containing leaves of datura and tobacco before burying them alive with their master.7 Cueva Bancroft, speaking presumably of the Cueva, says that the faith- ful wives of a dead chief sometimes volunteered to commit suttee. They were praised at a general assemblage which included much drink- ing of chicha and'"At the expiration of such time they became en- tirely inebriated and in a senseless condition, when the final act was consujimated by throwing dead an; doomed into a grave and filling. it with logs, branches and earth." This is probably taken from Oviedo .9 Mixtec Among the Mixtec of Oaxaca, a chief was-accompanied in burial by two male and three female slaves who had been made drunk and then strangled. 10 Tarasco Bancroft describes the elaborate funeral ceremony of a Tarascan "king" in Michoacan in which seven noble women and a large number of male subJects representing each trade and profession were chosen by the successor of the deceased to be sacrificed at the cremation: "While the flames shot up, and the funoral chants fell from the lips of the mourners, the victims were stupefied with drinks and clubbed; the bodies were thrown in holes behind the temple by threes and fours together with the ornamients and other belongings of the deceased.`11 Natchez The ceremonies accompanying the death of a Sun amongst the Natchez were so elaborate - and so disturbing to the French - that the chroniclers wrote long circumstantial accounts of them and of the French efforts to dissuade the Natchez from the practice of mortuary immolation. In theory, sacrificial victims volunteered themselves or their offspring but it seems clear that custom decreed Just who would volunteer and that the wife (or husband in the case of a female Sun) was always one of the victims. Adult victims were anesthetized by being made to swallow little balls of tobacco. SwantOnl2 has presented five accounts of stupef;brtltaX of victim of which three are by eye witnesses: "While they interred the female Noble in the temple the victims were stripped before the door, and, after they had been made to sit on the ground, a savage seated him- self on the knees of each of 'them while another held his arms. They then passed a cord around his neck and put the skin of a deer over his head; they made each of these poor unfortunates swallow three pills of tobacco, and gave him a draught of water- to drink, in order that the pills should dissolve in his stomach, which made him lose consciQusness; then the relatives of-the deceased ranged themselves at their sides, to right and left, and each as he sang, drew an- end of a cord, which was passed around the neck with a running knot, until they were dead, after which they buried them."l3 Similar rites accompanied the burial of Tattooed Serpent, war *chief, brother to the Sun and partisan of the French: "...a third carried the cord for strangling him (each victim), another the skin, the fifth a dish in which were five or six balls of pounded tobacco to make him swallow in order to stupefy him. Another bore a little earthen bottle holding about a pint, in order to make him drink some mouthfuls of water in order to swallow the pellets more easily. Two others followed to aid in drawing the cord at each side."14 Dumont describes the same ceremony at the death of Tattooed Serpent.l5 The custom of nepenthe is limited in the Weste`1i Hemisphere to the higher centers of culture of Middle America and to the Natchez of Mississippi. Its occurrence among the latter is not so sutprising as it would at first appear, for the Natchez share a large number of specific Middle American traits including the shoulder-borne litter 82 for human transportation, the temple with altar and carved idols, a ceremonial fire, the game of pelota de ule, the maize ceremony. the feather sun shade carried by an attendant before the chief, pyramidal 8ubstructures for temples., hierarchical ranking of gods and society, etc. The institution and its associated features differ in specific details from tribe to tribe. Thus the victim is disposed of by various methods (clubbing, strangling, burial alive, etc.) and oblivion is achieved by getting drunk in most groups; however, the Natchez, who live well north of the distribution of alcoholic beverages, substitute tobacco in a narcotizing form, and the Chibcha add datura and tobacco to chicha. The single consistent feature associated with nepenthic stupe- faction is that it accompanies mortuary immolation, both suttee and retainer sacrifice, and that the victim enjoys such considera- tion because he earns the approbation of the group by his martyrdom. Only the Inca seem to have extended the idea of nepenthe to victims of sacrificial situations other than mortuary sacrifice and these victims, too, can be supposed to have gained prestige by contributing to the public weal. Excepting , for the moment, the northwest coast of North America, social systems in which single individuals are so exalted that their funerals call for sacrifice of a number of victims are not found beyond the limits of Middle America and the Southeastern United States. Where human sacrifice does occur in these marginal areas it is almost invariably associated with warfare and the victims are captured enemy. Such victims are customarily taunthd, ahd tor- tured in preparation for the sacrifice. Hence, the attempt is to achieve results which are just the opposite of nepenthe in antici- pation of the final act. On the Northwest Coast where mortuary immolation of slaves is practiced, adequate narcotizing drugs seem to have been absent so that there may have been no way to drug the victims even if there was sufficient consideration for their personal comfort to Justify such treatment. Nepenthe, then, is limited in distribution to the higher centers of culture where the sacrificial victim earns prestige by his death and is absent in those areas where the victim is degraded by being killed. 83 Natchez. Inca Figure 1: Location of Tribes Footnotes 1. I A Indebtedcto,YProfessor John H.Rowe ior most of:theIt*a references. 2. Poma de Ayala, Felipe Guam$n, Nueva coroonica ; buen govierno (coddx p4ruvien illustre). Travaux et M6ncires de 1'Institut, d'Ethnologie, Universitd de Paris. Paris, 1936. 3. Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua, Jcan de Santacruz, Relacion de antig?Xedadet, deste reyno del Piru. edited by H. H. Urteaga, Coleccidn de Libros y Documentos Referentes a la Historia del Peru. 2nd series, Limna, 1929, vol. 9, p. 195. 4, Cobo, Bernabe", Historia del Nuevo Mundo... Edited by Marcos Jim?enez de la Espada. Sociedade de bibliofilos andaluces. Written about 1653. 4 vols. Seville, 1890-1893, book 12, chapter 34, p. 275. 5. MorIa, Martin de,, Historia del origin y genealogia de los reyes Incas del Peru. Edited by Constantino Bayle, Consijo Superior de Investigaciones Cientlficas, Instituto Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo, Biblioteca "Missional?a Hispanica." Madrid, 1946. Vol. II, book 3, chapter 44, p. 266. 6. Rowe, John H., Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 143 Washingtonr, 1946. vol. 2, pp. 183-330. footnore, p. 306. 7. Castellanos, Juan de, Historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada. 2 vole. Madrid, 1886-1887. vol. 1, pp. 65-66. 8. Bancroft, H. H., The Native Races of the Pacific States. vol.' 1, Wild Tribes. D. Appleton and Co., New Y5rk, 1875. p. 783. 9. Oviedo y Valdes', Gonzale Fernadndez de, Historia general ; natural de las Indias... Edited by Jose Amador de los Rios. 4 vole. Madrid, 1v51-1855, vol. 3, book 29, chapter 31, p. 156. 10. Bancroft, H. H., The Native Races of the Pacific States. vol. 2, Civilized Tribes. D. Appleton and Co., New York 1882;, p. 622. 11. Ibid., p. 622. 12. Swanton, John R., Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Val and adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Bureau of American Ethnology, bulletin 143. Washington, 1911, pp. 138-157. 13. Margry (ed.), Decouvertes et!Ztablissements des Francais dans 1' ouest et dansT lesu de 1Amerique SetentronaleI (1614. 17. Paris, l877-_`87 vol 14. Le Page du Pratz, Historie de La Louisiane. 3 vols., Paris, 1758. vol. 3, pp. 23-57. 15. Dumont de Montigny, Mdmoires Historigues sur La Louisiane. Edited by Le Mascrier. 2 vols., Paris, 1753, vol. 1, p 9 .