1890 Coca and its Therapeutic Application by Angelo Mariani

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF COCA.

|OCA has been known from time immemorial in South America. At the time when Pizarro landed on the Peruvian coast,the leaf of Coca was held in great esteem among the natives; it wasconsidered to be a divine plant,a living representation of the Deity, a fetish of wonderful and supernatural quali ties, and the fields where it grew were reverenced as sanc tuaries. Not everybody was allowed to make use of it; its use was the privilege of the nobles and of the priests, arid among the greatest rewards that the sovereign could give his subjects, the privilege of chewing Coca leaves was most highly esteemed. However strange such a superstition may appear, it is indisputable,and all authors that have published the ac count of the conquest of the Indies corroborate it. It will suffice for us to quote the testimony of Joseph Acosta,who says in every letter,of his natural and moral history of the Indies, of the East as well as of the West,published in 1653: "The Indians esteem it highly, and during the reign of the Incas,the common people were not allowed to use Coca without the permission of the Governor." The disappearance of the empire of the Incas,far from diminishing the importance of Coca,on the contrary gave a very much greater scope to its popularity. The natives