The dilation of the pupils of the eyes possibly explains the Huichol[43] belief that the squirrel- and skunk-fetishes of their ceremony can see better than ordinary people, guiding and guarding the hikuli-seekers on their way. Visual phenomena, indeed, are perhaps the most conspicuous effects of peyote eating. The colors red and yellow, usually with reference to birds and feathers, are common in both Mexican and Plains peyote symbolism.[44] The widespread Plains belief that peyote makes one see better may derive from pupil-dilation; white observers have reported acuter vision in peyote intoxication from this cause. Indians frequently manifest a marked “photophobia” even in the mild morning sunlight after meetings, and many younger men affect colored glasses at this time. The peyote alkaloids cause increased salivation, and there is a constant noise in meetings of spitting as the users eat peyote; in some meetings attended individual tin-can spittoons were provided. The increased flow of saliva probably accounts for the thirst-allaying effect of the plant encountered in the origin legends and elsewhere, but this and the diuretic[45] action of the drugs cause thirst to reappear more strongly later. A regular feature, therefore, of the typical Plains ritual is the bringing in of water at midnight and in the morning, which is passed around clockwise.[46] The widespread taboo on the use of salt in connection with peyote may have some reference to this action of the plant.[47] On the other hand, the use of sweet[48] foods is a necessary part of the ritual; these are stereotyped both in the Plains and Mexico to include parched corn in sugar-water, sweet fruit, and sweetened meat either dried and powdered or cut into chunks, and candy is a regular feature in some meetings. Sugar may in effect relieve the stage of depression in peyote intoxication somewhat.[49] The classification of plants into male and female on the basis of their physiological action has, as we have seen, a botanical basis. We are convinced on the other hand, however, that peyote has no effect whatsoever in the curbing of an appetite for liquor. Both native and white apologists[50] for peyote advance this argument in extenuation and defence. Natives are perfectly sincere in their belief that the antagonism of peyote and alcohol is physiological (even in the face of conspicuous contrary evidence),[51] and Plains Indians are annoyed and hurt at the widespread association of drinking and peyote-eating through the confusion of the term “mescal.” Yet the stubborn ethnographic fact remains that in Mexico peyote is commonly drunk _with_ tesvino or mescal. Various other physiological effects noted by whites find native parallels. Many of the visions recorded for natives deal with synaesthesias of sight and hearing and smell, and there occur cases of taste- and smell-hallucinations as well as the more common auditory and visual ones. Kinaesthetic derangements are also not unknown.[52]