| OCR Text |
Show 167 English Summary: The narcotic drug coca is used very rarely if at all, by the Indians of Ecuador. This fact is all the more curious when we consider that, according to historians, coca was cultivated in certain regions of Ecuador during Colonial times. Among the Indians of Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, on the other hand, the use of coca is a widespread vice. If it is admitted that the lack of balanced diet upsets the normal functioning of the body, which in turn produces adverse physiological states then it will be agreed that the Indian's condition is abnormal. In his attempt to supply the want of nourishment his system craves - since he has to keep on recovering his strength for the everlasting toil that is fated him - the Indian constantly resorts to alcohol. It is, oi: course, obvious that the use of alcoholic stimulants is no substitute for his diet insufficiency; on the contrary, alcohol, like drugs such as coca, produces an undesirable reaction in the human body and deceives one into thinking that one's energies are restored by its use. The expression reanimar or "reanimate," which is generally used by the people and the Indians of Ecuador (even sometimes by people of other social classes), is thought by them to mean the restrengthening, the recuperating of physical energy. But the self-deception is obvious; the body, temporarily stimulated, is left weaker than before. The beliefs that the Indian lives in a chronic state of profound race and group nostalgia must be examined: that this supposed nostalgia causes him to indulge in orgies: that he gets drunk in order to forget his sorrows. It is obvious that these notions are greatly exaggerated. The writer does not believe that sadness is in any mystical sense, common in the Indian communities. What does exist, however, are misery and suffering, which produce a psychic unbalance in the life of the Indian. For this reason, and particularly for his anxious desire to recuperate his physical energy, the Indian resorts to alcohol. It is true that the Ecuadorean Indian uses alcohol. However, as has been already stated, he does not use coca-a fact which is indeed difficult to explain. Perhaps the Indian does not cultivate coca because he is still unaware of its alleged magic properties. Or it may be because alcoholic drinks of different kinds are easily obtainable in Ecuador. It is, therefore, necessary to correct a statement made by Dr. Jorge Bejarano, a public health expert of Colombia, when in an article on the use of coca in his country, which appeared in the worthy publication, America Indigena, he said that this vice is common to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia and Venezuela. |
