Latua pubiflora
Olivos Herreros calls Latúe, perhaps the rarest of all psychoactive plants, “the classic hallucinogen of Mapuche ethnology.” One researcher translated the name of the plant as “Land of the Dead”, perhaps in reference to the isolated region on the mountainous coast of southern Chile (from Valdivia to Chiloé), which is its sole habitat and which is said to be the place where the dead depart westward with the setting sun for the next life. It is possible to observe this thorny plant, which is in the Solanaceae family, in the Parque Oncol near Valdivia, on the road between La Unión and Hueicolla, and in the Cordillera Pelada near Osorno. According to Rätsch, “for Mapuche shamans, latúe is the most important incense for dispelling evil spirits, bad moods, worries and grief.” He also says that the Huilliche “still revere the plant as a shamanic tree, for it brings power, knowledge, and realization; offers magical protection; and can heal.” Latúe can also “cause severe delirium, and visual hallucinations” whose after effects can persist for weeks. Scientific research has established that L. pubiflora’s main alkaloids responsible for its sedative and hallucinatory effects are atropine and scopalomine. According to Sánchez-Montoya et al, “L. pubiflora is indeed used by Mapuche medicine men to induce sedation, to reach a trance state or mystical experience and also as piscicide.” For Capuchin priest and missionary Wilhelm de Mösbach, latúe is a “sinister little tree” and one of Chile’s “most toxic plants” that “breaks down one’s resistance to twisted intentions.” The plant is used in traditional medicine to alleviate cramps and rheumatism.
