Francoise Gamma. Calea zacatechichi. It is used in traditional medicine and ritual in its native range.[3] Uses[edit] In Mexico the plant is used as an herbal remedy for dysentery and fever.[3] The Zoque Popoluca people call the plant tam huñi ("bitter gum") and use it to treat diarrhea and asthma, and the Mixe people know it as poop taam ujts ("white bitter herb") and use it for stomachache and fever.[4]
Interview Jeremy Narby, part 1 of 4 - A general introduction to Ayahuasca. October 2007 phone interview with Jeremy Narby By Izmar Verhage (www.izmarmusic.com) October 2007 phone interview with Jeremy Narby By Izmar Verhage ( I: Alright, so explain to us what ayahuasca is in layman's terms.
J: Ayahuasca is an Amazonian plant mixture that the indigenous people of the Western Amazon concocted centuries ago, if not millennia ago. It is an extremely powerful hallucinogen that tends to unleash all kinds of vivid imagery in the mind, and at the same time constitutes a kind of botanical mystery, in that it is a necessary combination of plants, one of which is a bush that contains a substance called dimethyltryptamine, which is also produced by the central nervous systems of mammals, and in particular by human brains. But this hallucinogenic substance is inactivated by a stomach enzyme called monoamine oxidase.