Yopon (I. Cassine Linn.).—An elegant shrub, 10 to 15 feet high, but sometimes rising into a small tree of 20 to 25 feet. Its native place is near to salt water, and it is found from Virginia southward, but never far in the interior. Its dark evergreen leaves and bright red berries make it very ornamental in yards and shrubberies. The leaves are small, ½ to 1 inch long, very smooth, and evenly scalloped on the edges, with small rounded teeth. In some sections of the lower district, especially in the region of the Dismal Swamp, these are annually dried and used for tea, which is, however, oppressively sudorific—at least, to one not accustomed to it. The maté, or Paraguay tea, of South America, is of the same genus as this, but a very different species. Our yopon is the article from which the famous black drink of the Southern Indians was made. At a certain time of the year they come down in droves from a distance of some hundred miles to the coast for the leaves of this tree. They make a fire on the ground, and putting a great kettle of water on it, they throw in a large quantity of these leaves, and, seating themselves around the fire, from a bowl that holds about a pint they begin drinking large draughts, which in a short time occasion them to vomit freely and easily. Thus they continue drinking and vomiting for the space of 2 or 3 days, until they have sufficiently cleansed themselves; and then, every one taking a bundle of the tree, they all retire to their habitations.

According to Lawson there are two or three sorts of youpon. The Indians of South Carolina call it “cassina.” It grows on sand banks and islands near the sea. (Used by the North Carolina Indians for tea.) It is written cassena. From Mutter it would appear that the cassine are chiefly African plants, nor do I think that the name is Indian. I find no word in Katawba corresponding to the word “dahoon.” I saw here in the Botanical Garden a shrub from North Carolina called Ilex vomitoria, undoubtedly the Assi shrub. “Assi” is only an abbreviation of Assi lupub’ski (Creek), “small leaves.” The Shetimasha term was no’ut (Ch. C. Jones). Tomochichi calls it “foskey,” probably Yamassi, a dialect of the Creek.

The word cassine belongs to the language of the now extinct Timucua Indians of Florida. Little is known of the language of those people. It has seemed to me that they borrowed the word from the Creeks, who call Ilex cassine ussie, leaf tea. Cassine (c-assi-ne) would seem to be this word with a guttural prefix and a suffix ne of unknown meaning. I can not refer the word dahoon to any Indian language. I believe it to be of French origin, “houx d’Ahon.” Youpon is Indian, and seems to belong to the language of the long-extinct Waccoons of North Carolina. The word is Catawba, for in Catawba yáp, also pronounced “yop,” means wood, stick, and tree.

Linné first used “cassine” as a generic name, and applied it to a South African plant (Gen. Ed. Nova: No. 371, 1753, and his Systema Naturæ, ed. 13th, Lipsiæ, 1791). Thomas Walter used it first as a specific name for Ilex (Flor.-Carolina, Loud., 1778). None of these two refer to the origin of the word. Thomas Walter used dahoon as a specific name; Linné copied from him and spells it “duhoon.”

Having on hand a small sample of the leaves procured from New Berue during the winter of 1883, it seemed desirable to make an examination of them, to decide, if possible, the presence of any alkaloid or other principle which would make the decoction useful as a beverage. The usual treatment with magnesium oxide, exhaustion with water, separation by means of chloroform, and subsequent purification was adhered to, resulting in obtaining a small amount of a white substance slightly soluble in water, more so in alcohol, and easily soluble in chloroform, which gave distinctly the tests for caffeine, especially the murexide reaction, and very closely resembled a specimen of pure caffeine from Powers & Weightman.

This caffeine formed .32 per cent. of the dried leaves. Later on, in May, a much larger supply of the same leaves was gotten from the neighborhood of Wilmington. A more thorough examination of them was then made, with the following results:

Water in air-dried samples	13.19
Extracted by water	26.55
Tannin	7.39
Caffeine	.27
Nitrogen (on combustion)	.73
Ash	5.75

Maté or Brazilian holly (Ilex paraguayensis) belongs to the same genus. Its ash analysis, as made by Señor Arate, is given in the second column. The plant grows wild in Brazil, and is very largely used by the South Americans. It has, according to Peckolt (Pharm. J. Trans. (3) 14, 121-124; Abstract Jour. Chem. Soc., 1884, 479), been planted, and seems to succeed well, in the Cape of Good Hope, Spain, and Portugal. It is stated that six different species of Ilex are used in the preparation of this tea. Peckolt gives, in his analysis of the air-dried leaves, the percentage of caffeine as 0.639. The average percentage of analyses by different authors is about 1.3. I can find mention of only one other Ilex used as a substitute for tea. The analysis of this by Ryland and Brown is quoted in Blythe’s “Composition and Analysis of Foods” (p. 343). It is called the Ilex cassiva, is said to be used as a tea in Virginia, and the percentage of caffeine is given as 0.12. This is probably the same thing as the yopon, the analysis of which is given above, and the “cassiva” may be a misprint for “cassine.”

Some years ago an analysis of the leaves of Ilex cassine was given in this journal.[4] In this analysis appeared the interesting fact that these leaves contained a small percentage of caffeine. During the winter of 1885-’86, at the request of some medical friends whose attention was drawn to the analysis, a more thorough examination was undertaken, not only of the leaves, but of the berries. It was thought advisable, at the same time, to examine the leaves and fruit of other representatives of the Ilex family in this State—Ilex opaca and Ilex dahoon. This was primarily a search after alkaloids, and not intended as a complete chemical examination. As no alkaloids were found other than the caffeine already mentioned, no account of the work was published, and the results have been hidden away in my note books ever since. Thinking, however, that even negative results are often of some value and that the partial analysis might be of aid to others, I offer this paper for publication in the journal of the society.

Besides the I. opaca, I. dahoon, I. cassine, according to Curtis there are in this State five additional species of this genus: I. decidua Walt. I. ambigua Chapman; I. verticillata Gray, I. glabra Gray, I. coriacea Chapm, but the examination was not extended to them. In searching for the alkaloids the directions of Dragendorff were first followed. The leaves (or crushed berries) were first digested at 40°-50° with dilute sulphuric acid. This extract was evaporated to a sirupy consistence, the residue mixed with three or four times its bulk of alcohol, filtered after 24 hours’ standing, and washed with alcohol. The alcohol was then distilled off from the filtrate, the watery residue was diluted with water and filtered. Petroleum-ether, benzol, and chloroform were successively used to extract the alkaloidal principles, if any were present in the acid liquid. Then, after rendering alkaline with ammonia, the liquid was again extracted with the solvents mentioned.

As, even with water but slightly acidified with sulphuric acid, some risk of the destruction or change of the alkaloids was run during the long evaporation, a second method was made use of, as follows:

The leaves were digested for 10 hours with 70 per cent alcohol, the alcohol distilled off, and the residue treated with lead acetate and soda. The excess of lead was removed by means of sulphuretted hydrogen and the filtrate from this evaporated to a thin sirup. This was then treated with strong alcohol, filtered, and the excess of alcohol distilled off. Bismuth, potassium-iodide, and sulphuric acid were next used to precipitate any alkaloid present. The presence of albuminoid matter rendered it necessary to decompose this by means of soda, neutralized with dilute sulphuric acid, and reprecipitate with mercuric chloride. The solutions to which mercuric chloride had been added were allowed to stand several days. The results may be tabulated as follows:

I. opaca, leaves	No alkaloid.
I. opaca, berries	No alkaloid.
I. dahoon, leaves	No alkaloid.
I. dahoon, berries	No alkaloid.
I. cassine, leaves	Caffeine.
I. cassine, berries	No alkaloid.

I regard these analyses as conclusive, at least, of the absence of the known, well characterized alkaloids. It is, of course, possible that other methods might reveal the presence of some of the more elusive ones.

Another native species, the I. vomitoria, of Aiton, appears to be endowed with still more powerful properties. This is a native of the most southern parts of the country, where it is held in high esteem amongst the Indians, who considered it a holy plant, and employed it in their religious ceremonies and councils, to purge their bodies from all impurities. They called both this and the I. dahoon by the name of “cassena.” The leaves, which were the part employed, were collected with great care, and formed an article of trade among the tribes. Dr. B. S. Barton (“Collections,” 38) says of it: “It is thought to be one of the most powerful diuretics hitherto discovered. It is held in great esteem among the Southern Indians; they toast the leaves and make a decoction of them. It is the men alone that are permitted to drink this decoction, which is called ‘black drink.’” These leaves are inodorous, and have a somewhat aromatic, acrid taste. In small doses the decoction acts as a powerful diuretic, and in large ones produces discharges from the stomach, bowels, and bladder. In North Carolina, on the seacoast, the inhabitants modify the deleterious action of their brackish water by boiling a few leaves of cassena with it. (The African kola nut, powdered and added to foul water, is said to purify it. It contains theobromine, an alkaloid analogous to caffeine.)

This by some is said to be the true cassine of the Florida tribes. But C. aumlosa (Rafinesque), Ilex cassine, and dahoon, Viburnum cassinoides, are all equally so named and used. The leaves are bitterish, sudorific, purgative, and diuretic; vomitive and purgative in strong decoctions, called “black drink.” Said to be useful in gravel, nephritis, diabetes, fevers, and small-pox.

None of the people of Florida appear to have used intoxicating drinks; but they made a hot tea from the leaves of the cassine (Prinos glaber), which they poured backwards and forwards until it frothed. This tea may have been slightly stimulant, but it seems to have had no other than a diaphoretic or diuretic effect.

Black drink was prepared from the small and narrow leaves and the tender shoots of the shrub Ilex cassine, which grows spontaneously as far north as the thirty-seventh degree of latitude. The white people of the Carolinas prepared from it a sort of tea. The botanical name formerly given to the plant was Cassine yaupon, yaupon being a derivative from the Katawba term yáp or yop plant, tree, or shrub. The name cassine was first applied, as Prof. Lester F. Ward informs me, as a generic name to a South African plant by Linné, and as a species name for an Ilex by Thomas Walter. (Dahoon is the name of another Ilex; Walter spells it duhoon, others houx d’ahon.) The plant and decoction are called by the Sketimasha, nu’ut; by the Creeks, Assi luputski, small leaves, which is generally abbreviated to Assi leaves. The term black drink originated among the British traders. In Ch. C. Jones’s “Tomochichi,” p. 118, it is called “foskey.”

The Creeks made use of the Assi as we use fermented liquors, to promote conviviality; but it entered also into their ceremonies of religion and warfare. But the black drink potion was not always prepared in the same strength. The ancient Creeks had three modes of preparing it; the three potions resulting from them widely differed in strength according to the uses for which they were intended. Small quantities of the young leaf, parched in a pot until it assumed a brown color, produced a liquor acting as an exhilarant and gentle diuretic; it was drank by the people at the busk, and by the “elders” when assembled in council or when discussing every-day topics. After the potion had been poured from one pan or cooler into another, it begins to ferment and to produce a white froth, from which it is styled also white drink, the term “white” alluding simultaneously to its purifying qualities. To make the liquid stronger a larger infusion of the parched leaves is required; it then assumes a dark hue, nearly as black as molasses, and acts as a powerful intoxicating stimulant. A still larger addition of the cassine leaf produces a strong narcotic, which was, as mentioned previously, used by conjurors to evoke prophetic ecstacies accompanied by dreams. The black drink of the weaker sort acts as an emetic,[5] and was used as such at the annual busk and on other occasions extensively; this gave to the liquid its renown as a bodily and moral purificator, for primitive people are prone to regard agencies which act with mysterious force upon the bodily constitution as symbols for abstract spiritual or religious ideas. This drink being served at all games and festivals, councils, and conclusions of treaties, special ministrants, the Hinihalgi, were appointed for its manufacture by the miko of the town. On festive days they prepared it with peculiar ceremonies and served it to all who attended the celebration in the square. The singing of the yahola, or black-drink note, was, and is still, a peculiar rite connected with the drinking of this favorite liquid.

They have a sort of drink made of the leaves of a tree like the mulberry tree, which they boil very well and work it up into a froth, and so drink it as hot as ever they can suffer it to come into their mouths. All the while this is over the fire the vessel must be close shut; and if by chance it should be uncovered, and a woman should come by in the meantime, they would drink none of it, but fling it all away. Likewise, while they stand cooling it and pouring it out to drink, a woman must not stir or move, or they would throw it all to the ground, or spew it up again if they had drunk any; she herself would incur the bastinado. All this time they continue bawling out aloud, “Who will drink?” and when the women begin to hear these exclamations, then it is that they settle themselves in their postures, and were they sitting or standing, though it were a tiptoe, or one leg up and the other down, they must continue so till the men have cooled their liquor and made it fit to drink. The reason of this is every whit as foolish and unreasonable as the custom itself, for they say should not the women stand still when they hear their voice some bad thing would be conveyed into the liquor, which they say would make them die; and if such a generation of asses were all poisoned it were no great loss to the world.

I departed with fifty of my best soldiers in two barks, and arrived in the dominion of Utina, distant from our fort about 40 or 50 leagues (125 miles); and going ashore we drew near his village, situated 6 leagues from the river, where we took him prisoner. They (his tribe) therefore brought me fish in their little boats, and their meal of mast (maize); they also made their drink which they call cassine, which they sent to Utina and me.

I sent a second expedition, with two shallops, having soldiers and sailors aboard, with a present to be given in my name to the widow of a deceased chief named Hionacara, who lived about 12 miles north of us. She received my men kindly, and loaded both of these shallops, for me, with maize and nuts; and she sent in addition some baskets of cassina leaves, of which they make a drink.

The chief and his nobles are accustomed during certain days of the year to meet early every morning for this express purpose in a public place, in which a long bench is constructed, having at the middle of it a projecting part laid with nine round trunks of trees, for the chief’s seat. On this he sits by himself for distinction sake; and the rest come to salute him, one at a time, the oldest first, by lifting both hands twice to the height of the head, and saying, “Ha, he, ya, ha, ha.” To this the rest answer, “Ha, ha.” Each as he completes his salutation, takes his seat on the bench. If any question of importance is to be discussed the chief calls upon his lauas (that is, his priests), and upon the elders, one at a time, to deliver their opinions. They decide upon nothing until they have held a number of councils over it, and they deliberate very sagely before deciding. Meanwhile the chief orders the women to boil some cassine; which is a drink prepared from the leaves from a certain root and which they afterwards pass through a strainer.

The chief and his councillors being now seated in their places, one stands before him, and spreading forth his hands wide open, asks a blessing upon the chief and the others who are to drink. Then the cup-bearer brings the hot drink in a capacious shell, first to the chief, and then, as the chief directs, to the rest in their order, in the same shell. They esteem this drink so highly that no one is allowed to drink it in council unless he has proved himself a brave warrior. Moreover, this drink has the quality of at once throwing into a sweat whoever drinks it. On this account those who can not keep it down, but whose stomachs reject it, are not intrusted with any difficult commission, or any military responsibility, being considered unfit, for they often have to go three or four days without food; but one who can drink this liquor can go for 24 hours afterward without eating or drinking. In military expeditions also, the only supplies which they carry consist of gourd bottles or wooden vessels full of this drink. It strengthens and nourishes the body, and yet does not fly to the head, as we have observed on occasion of these feasts of theirs.

At their principal festival, at the full moon, they assembled in a tent, in the middle of which was a small fire upon which boiled a very strong and black decoction made from the leaves of the youpon tree. From time to time this was stirred with a whisk, till the top was covered thickly with a yellowish froth. This tea, contained in a vessel of clay of their own manufacture, was handed around occasionally and all the Indians drank freely. It was very bitter and said to be intoxicating, but if so, it could only have been when drunk to great excess, as it never seemed to produce any visible effect upon them.

Before leaving there the savages made a beverage, called by them cassine, which they are accustomed to take at all times, and when they go to fight in places where there is danger. This beverage, made of a certain plant, and drunk quite hot, keeps them from being hungry or thirsty for 24 hours. They presented it first to Captain Gourges, who pretended to drink it, and swallowed none of it; then Satoriona partook of it, and after him all the others, each one according to his rank.

There is a species of tea that grows spontaneously and in great plenty along the seacoast of the two Carolinas, Georgia, and east and west Florida, which we call yopon or casseena. The Indians transplant and are very fond of it. They drink it on certain occasions, and in the most religious ceremonies, with awful invocations; but the women and children and those who have not accompanied their holy ark, pro aris et focis, dare not even enter the sacred square when they are on their religious duty.

The yopon, or casseena, is very plenty [in northwest Florida] as far as the salt air reaches over the lowlands. It is well tasted and very agreeable to those who accustom themselves to use it. Instead of having any noxious quality, according to what many have experienced of the East India insipid and costly tea, it is friendly to the human system, enters into and contests with the peccant humors, and expels them through the various channels of nature. It perfectly cures a tremor of the nerves.

The North American tea has a pleasant aromatic taste and the same salubrious property as the casseena. It is an evergreen and grows on hills. The bushes are about a foot high, each of them containing in winter a small, aromatic, red berry in the middle of the stalk. Such I saw it about Christmas, when hunting among the mountains, opposite to the lower Mohawk Castle, in the time of deep snow. There is no visible decay of the leaf, and October seems the proper time to gather it.

There is a carved human statue of wood, to which, however, they pay no religious homage. It belongs to the head war town of the upper Muskogee country, and seems to have been originally designed to perpetuate the memory of some distinguished hero who deserved well of his country, for when this casseena, or bitter black drink, is about to be drank in the Synedrion they frequently on common occasions will bring it there and honor it with the first conch shell full, by the hand of the chief religious attendant, and then they return it to its former place. It is observable that the same beloved waiter, or holy attendant, and his coadjutant, equally observe the same ceremony to every person of reputed merit of that quadrangular place.

When this beloved liquid, or supposed drink offering, is fully prepared and fit to be drank, one of the magi brings two old, consecrated, large conch shells out of a place appropriate for containing the holy things, and delivers them into the hands of two religious attendants, who, after a wild ceremony, fill them with the supposed sanctifying bitter liquid; then they approach near to the two central red and white seats (which the leaders call the war and beloved cabins), stooping with their heads and bodies pretty low. Advancing a few steps in this posture, they carry their shells with both hands, at an instant, to one of the most principal men on those red and white seats, saying in a bass key, Yah, quite short; then in like manner they retreat backwards, facing each other with their heads bowing forward, their arms across rather below their breasts and their eyes half shut. Thus in a very grave, solemn manner they sing on a strong bass key the awful monosyllable O for the space of a minute; then they strike up a majestic He on the treble, with a very intent voice, as long as their breath allows them, and on a bass key, with a bold voice and short accent, they at last utter the strong, mysterious accent Wah, and thus finish the great song, or most solemn invocation of the divine essence. The notes together compose the sacred, mysterious name, Y-O-He-Wah. The favored persons, whom the religious attendants are invoking the divine essence to bless, hold up their shells with both hands to their mouths during the awful sacred invocation, and retain a mouthful of the drink to spurt out upon the ground as a supposed drink offering to the great self-existing giver, which they offer at the end of their draft. If any of the traders who at those times are invited to drink with them were to neglect this religious observance they would reckon us as godless and wild as the wolves of the desert. After the same manner the supposed holy waiters proceed, from the highest to the lowest, in their Synedrion, and when they have ended that awful solemnity they go round the whole square, or quadrangular place, and collect tobacco from the sanctified sinners, according to ancient customs: “For they who serve at the altar must live by the altar.”