No happiness is comparable to his! See with what an important air he draws forth the Coca leaves from his chuspa, as he rolls them in his fingers to make a large quid of them, which he carries to his mouth, moistens delightingly with saliva, and places under his jaws and against his cheeks. He is seen holding carefully in his right hand the little stick, the extremity of which he is going to moisten by putting it into his mouth, and which he will dip into the poporo in order that the llipta may adhere to its moistened part.
He carefully carries the part of his little stick covered with llipta to his quid, and thus performs the operation of mixing the alkaline powder with the masticated leaf. It is at this moment that the quid of Coca affords the young adult the most delightful sensation. His jaws munch it slowly, his tongue collects and rolls it up against the left cheek, all the papillæ of his mouth refresh themselves deliciously with the soothing and aromatic juices of the precious leaf, and by the slow and measured motions of deglutition, he carries with delight the precious juice into the pharynx and thence to the stomach. While he is accomplishing this important operation, his eyes swim with beatitude, over his entire countenance is diffused an expression of content and unutterable joy, and his right hand slowly turns the little stick around the upper part of the poporo, where are deposited little by little the particles of llipta and masticated Coca, which on leaving his mouth adhere to its extremity.
The only occupation of the first days of the adult is the much-loved quid of Coca and the encrusting of his gourd, which we cannot do better than compare to the coating of the pipe, with this difference that our confirmed smokers blacken hundreds of their pipes during their existence, while the Indian encrusts only one gourd in his whole life; so that by the thickness of the crust formed around a poporo, it is possible to judge the age of its owner. This crust, which hardly ever exceeds the thickness of a ring on the poporo of a young Indian, ends by reaching the dimension of the pileus of a large mushroom on the poporo of an old man.
The crust is produced by the particles of Coca and llipta mixed with saliva which are deposited little by little about the mouth of the poporo by smearing with the stick.
These deposits are brought about in an almost imperceptible manner. It is only after some months that the surface of the poporo, on which the chewer continually turns the little stick, becomes covered with a hardly perceptible layer of calcareous substance; at the end of two or three years the superimposed layers form a ring which grows larger from year to year, and which finally attains the thickness we have spoken of above.
Small stick for extracting the Llipta from the poporo.
