The white man has missed the true and better half of the Indian history of the Pacific Southwest. This I shall describe in another book after the translation has been made.
The rattlesnake and tarantula formula I will donate to the good of mankind, free under patent rights under my control to avoid medical exploitation, speculation, and selfish rights of monopoly. I am not in search of mere money. Honor and character are of far more value to me. My happiness comes to me from the good I can do to others, and this to me is almost an obligation to clear and right every wrong done to my people; not with a deadly weapon, but with pen and ink, the Lord willing!
We Indians have not yet learned some of the ways and customs of our white brothers, and, therefore, I could not say that what cannot be done today can be done ten years from now. Our religion and philosophy teach us that the heart is the pendulum of life, each stroke representing timely death which may befall us with one of these strokes any moment, and so don't forget _Datura meteloides_.
Once an incident occurred when _Datura meteloides_ was being prepared at a place where the spying eyes of the friars couldn't observe it. Enough plundering had been done already, and the Indians had no desire to divulge their secret. They would only show them what they could do. One of the friars, full of doubt and curiosity, asked one of the Indians who, the day before, had assisted a patient bitten by a rattlesnake to go with him into one of the fields north of the Mission, pretending he wanted information as to certain plants growing there. When there, the friar drew near to a _Datura meteloides_, and at once began questioning the Indian about the plant, whereupon the Indian refused to give information. The friar, seeing he couldn't make him yield, began kicking at the plant, uttering at the same time Latin words, which of course were wholly unintelligible to the Indian. The friar did that only to make the Indian show resentment, thinking he had cursed a plant which, to the Indian, was sacred.
However, the friar's scheme didn't work; the Indian stood by in silence, until at last the saintly friar lost control of his temper, damned the Indian and his herbs and finally told him that if he'd dig up one of the roots he would chew it, nay, even swallow it, just to show him it was worthless.
