Yopo

Anadenanthera peregrina, known as yopo, jopo, cohoba, cojoba, parica or calcium tree, is a perennial thorny-barked tree in the pea family, native to the Caribbean and South America. Its pale yellow to white flowers grow in small spherical clusters. It is an entheogen used in healing ceremonies and rituals for thousands of years. Some Indigenous peoples of the Orinoco basin in Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil prepare yopo snuff for ritual and healing. Among the Piaroa of Venezuela, yopo is reserved primarily for shamanic specialists, who use it in visionary rituals to diagnose illness and mediate with spiritual beings. The snuff is blown into the nostrils through bamboo tubes. Friar Ramon Pane reported the Taino snuffing cohoba on Hispaniola in 1496. The beans and falling leaves are hallucinogenic and toxic to cattle.