LEARNIN' ABOUT THE TOLOACHE CULT OF NATIVE CALIFORNIANS AT HIGH PLAINS BUSINESS LOOP (HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY)

Kumeyaay people, native to San Diego county.

Ranging from just below the San Francisco Bay Area south to the Mexican border, the Toloache Cult was the least complex ritually and represented primarily a social commitment to disciplining and initiating the young. Its named is derived from the hallucinogenic drug, datura metaloides, called toloache by the Spanish. Datura was abundant throughout the region and, actually, it occurs widely in North America. Virtually every portion of the datura plant was hallucinogenic and it could be ingested by eating it, smoking it, or drinking a tea made from it. However, the plant's toxicity is so great, being a member of the Deadly Nightshade family, that great caution was required and the dose could be controlled more accurately by making a tea from the plant's roots.

The datura plant. Grows naturally along riverbanks in rural areas. Flowers produce a rotten, foul odor.

Shamans of this region used datura as their principal path into trance-like hallucinogenic experiences; hence, shamans developed considerable expertise in preparing dosages. When boys (or girls) were prepared for their initiation experiences, the shaman harvested datura roots and prepared teas that allowed for a wide variety of factors that could affect the hallucinogenic potency. Among these factors were the weight of the child, the size and location of the plant, and the particular micro-climate environment. The object, in any ingestion of datura, was to take enough to reach a definite state of hallucination while remaining on the safe side of comma or death.

The initiation as a whole was organized, as were all religious practices in California, by a collection of men close to the chief and recognized for their leadership. They were called paxa? in several of the tribes of Southern California. Like priests, they were specially charged with maintaining continuity from generation-to-generation by passing on the essential elements of culture to the young. However, in the Toloache Cult, this seems to have been the limit of their activities. Since the central emphasis of initiation was an introduction to the spirit world and, in some respects, a bonding with it, perhaps, even with a spirit host, or helper, the shaman's role as spiritual mediator was essential.

Generally, the initiation leaders identified the boys who had come of age and began a program of training that was progressively intense. At the culmination of this training, the boys were secluded and led through a number of initiating experiences, including tests of courage and endurance, culminating in the datura ingestion. The datura was usually administered after fasting and the boys were forced to dance until that passed out of consciousness. As they recovered physically, they passed through the hallucination on their way to re-awakening; both the shaman and the leaders acted as guides through this often terrifying passage. The hoped-for result was identification of a spirit-helper that was either obvious to the boy within the hallucination or that could be brought out by later interpretation when the conscious boy recounted the experience. For days afterward, the boys continued under the teaching of the leaders, becoming socialized into the tribelet under their new identities as men. Girls received a similar, though less taxing, initiation in most of these cultures.