Far too little is known—or probably ever will be known—about peyotism in Mexico to attempt to reconstruct its history; but our earliest Spanish sources indicate its pre-Columbian presence among the Aztec, and probably also the Cora-Huichol.[25] But the latter do not live in the region of growth of the plant, whence Beals argues that they must certainly have borrowed the cult. Rouhier claims immense antiquity for Huichol peyotism, but unconvincingly. If, indeed, as Beals with great plausibility argues, peyote is historically associated with shamanism, then it may have been involved in a late reinvigoration of shamanistic elements, at the expense of the priestly-sacerdotal elements of an older, impoverished culture stratum. Evidence is even less conclusive for other Mexican groups, but on the whole it appears that the ritualization of the use of peyote was already vigorous in many parts of Mexico at the time of the first Spanish contact. The approximate age of the peyote cult among the Tarahumari is likewise unknown to us. It is not so integrated into their culture as in the case of the Huichol, and in nearly all respects the southern cult is more complex than the northern. Furthermore, Tarahumari peyotism has for some time been in decline, indicating perhaps a borrowing which was not sufficiently rooted—the neighboring Tubar, for example, did not use hikuli, though their customs otherwise much resembled the Tarahumari. Both Lumholtz and Bennett and Zingg consider Tarahumari peyotism a diffusion from the Cora-Huichol; certainly the Tarahumari themselves show very little indication of being a center of diffusion in Mexico in their lack of characteristic traits[26]. Despite our comparative ignorance of the region, a much better case could be made for northeastern Mexico as a center of diffusion, for the region immediately south of the Rio Grande is one of the abundant growth of peyote. The oldest use in the United States is in this region, rather than in the Southwest as represented by the Mescalero. Tonkawan peyotism, for example, may be quite old: Velasco wrote in 1716 that many of the Indians of Texas drank “pellote” in connection with their dances. The Lipan got peyote from the Carrizo before white contact, according to Opler’s informants. The Lipan used to go to a place called Biγaguɫgai, which was “wide grass country beyond the Pecos in Texas,” where the Mescalero came sometimes to meet them. Wagner says the Mescalero got peyote from the Lipan about 1880, but later Plains history of the cult as evidenced by the Kiowa leads us to accept the date 1870 set by Opler, as more plausible. Opler has well accounted for the ready acceptance by the Mescalero of this shamanistically-colored complex, and its integration into their pattern of aggression by witchcraft; he believes that peyotism was brought to their door by the same movement which brought it to the Plains, though Mescalero peyotism is appreciably older.[27]