The Black Drink

The Mississippians developed a very complex art style in shell in which figures that seem to represent men and animals and mythological beings important in Mississippian religion were carved on large shell discs like this one, and also on conch shell cups. This specimen shows two masked males and two steaming pots. Possibly the substance in the pots was the famous ceremonial beverage of the Southeastern Indians, the "Black Drink," as it is called in early historic accounts. Conch shell cups, usually made of Busycon contrarium shells from the Gulf of Mexico, are closely associated with the Black Drink. Whenever the cups appear, the black drink and its ceremonies were probably present. During the early part of the Mississippian era these cups were engraved with elaborate scenes from the Mississippian religion. Hundreds of these have been found at the Spiro site, a Mississippian site just across the state line near Fort Smith. This particular specimen came from a Caddo site in southwest Arkansas dating A.D. 1700-1750 , indicating that the Caddo, too, had the Black Drink.

The Black Drink was brewed, like tea, from the dried leaves of a native southeastern holly tree called Ilex vomitoria . Because early European observers saw the Indians drinking large quantities of it on ceremonial occasions, and then vomiting--to attain the ritual purity necessary to participate in religious ceremonies--this drink was once thought to be a powerful emetic. Hence the name for the plant. But recent work by Charles Hudson and others has shown that its major active ingredient is caffeine. Consumed in normal amounts, as it probably was on most occasions, the effects of the Black Drink would be those of a cup of hot tea or coffee. In fact, early colonists sent it to Europe where it was used as a beverage variously called South Sea tea, Yaupon tea, Carolina tea, or Appalachian tea. In the American South, rural people drank it as tea at least through the late 1920s. Its last known commercial use was in the Pony Island Restaurant on Ocracoke Island in 1973, where it was being served as a local specialty.)