[17] A Wichita told an anecdote which he thought evidenced his own very good fortune. During a storm he was trying to get to a meeting at Red Rock in his old car, which failed him. A tragedy occurred in this meeting: Riley Fawfaw (Oto) was killed by lightning. A supporting wire had been put on the tipi and along this the lightning apparently traveled, for money in his pocket was melted, his neighbors made unconscious and others thrown about the tipi by the force of the bolt. Unfortunately it seemed inexpedient to inquire more deeply into detailed attitudes about this incident. [18] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 76. HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS THE PRE-PEYOTE MESCAL BEAN CULT As we have noted in the section on the botany of peyote, the use of the term “mescal” is surrounded with considerable confusion, and is persistently used in the older literature to designate _Lophophora williamsii_ or peyote. The true mescal is the _Agave_ spp. whose cabbage-like center is baked by the tribes of the Southwest and northern Mexico as a food; “mescal” also refers to the brandy distilled from mescal beer or pulque. No doubt it is due to their intoxicating properties that two other distinct plants, _Sophora secundiflora_ and _Lophophora williamsii_, have been called, respectively, “mescal bean” and “mescal button.” A further confusion of these last has been contributed to by the fact that both have been involved in Plains cult uses. _Sophophora secundiflora_ is an evergreen shrub bearing two or three tough-shelled red seeds in a bean-like pod. Known in Mexico as “toleselo” and elsewhere as mescal-bean, coral-bean,[1] frijolito, frijolillo and mountain laurel,[2] it contains the extremely toxic narcotic alkaloid sophorine or cytisine,[3] the physiological action of which accounts for its ceremonial use by natives. This is a powerful poison causing nausea, convulsions and finally death by asphyxiation; it is said[4] to resemble nicotine closely in physiological action. A more complete botanical and physiological account appears in an appendix, and we are here concerned only with its ethnographic aspects. Havard says that the Indians near San Antonio formerly used the seed as an intoxicant, half of a seed producing a delirious exhilaration followed by a deep sleep lasting two or three days. Opler tells a Chiricahua Apache coyote story in which the trickster pounded up a number of the beans and gave them to the people to eat: So while the people were out of their minds, Coyote cut out their hair in patches the way Indians cut their hair. So there they were, crazy. Lumholtz says that the Tarahumari added the root (?) of the frijolillo to their maguey wine “as a ferment,” and Bennett and Zingg report an archaeological occurrence at a Rio Fuerte site in Chihuahua on a Basket-Maker horizon: