Solanaceae Datura wrightii Regel

Sacred Thornapple

Cahuilla - Drug, Hallucinogen

Use documented by:
Bean, Lowell John and Katherine Siva Saubel, 1972, Temalpakh (From the Earth); Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants, Banning, CA. Malki Museum Press, page 60

View all documented uses for Datura wrightii Regel

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Scientific name: Datura wrightii Regel
USDA symbol: DAWR2 (View details at USDA PLANTS site)
Common names: Sacred Thornapple
Family: Solanaceae
Family (APG): Solanaceae
Native American Tribe: Cahuilla
Use category: Drug
Use sub-category: Hallucinogen
Notes: Used by the shaman to transcend reality and enter other worlds. Datura offered the shaman not only a means to transcend reality and come into contact with specific guardian spirits, but it also enabled him to go on magical flights to other worlds or transform himself into other life forms such as the mountain lion or eagle. Such magical flights were a necessary and routine activity for Cahuilla shaman. A shaman might use the drug to visit the land of the dead, returning to the profane world with information useful to his people, or he might pursue a falling star to recapture a lost soul and return it to its owner.

RECRD: 11394 id: 12131

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