1. Thorpe's "Northern Mythology."

2. _Fraser's Magazine_, 1870, p. 720.




CHAPTER IX.

DREAM-PLANTS.


The importance attached to dreams in all primitive and savage culture
accounts for the significance ascribed to certain plants found by
visitors to dreamland. At the outset, it may be noticed that various
drugs and narcotic potions have, from time immemorial, been employed for
producing dreams and visions--a process still in force amongst
uncivilised tribes. Thus the Mundrucus of North Brazil, when desirous of
gaining information on any special subject, would administer to their
seers narcotic drinks, so that in their dreams they might be favoured
with the knowledge required. Certain of the Amazon tribes use narcotic
plants for encouraging visions, and the Californian Indians, writes Mr.
Tylor,[1] "would give children narcotic potions, to gain from the
ensuing visions information about their enemies;" whilst, he adds, "the
Darien Indians used the seeds of the _Datura sanguinca_ to bring on in
children prophetic delirium, in which they revealed hidden treasure."
Similarly, the Delaware medicine-men used to drink decoctions of an
intoxicating nature, "until their minds became wildered, so that they
saw extraordinary visions."[2]