A plant having such manifold and beneficent properties must needs have a supernatural origin, and the Indians had a belief that the goddess Varischa first introduced the Cuca plant into Peru, and taught the inhabitants the use thereof. Abraham Cowley sang thereof in his Latin poems, “Sex libri plantarum,” and use is made here of the translation by Nahum Tate, of the fifth book, published in 1700. The Indian Bacchus challenge the other deities to judge between the fruits of the two worlds.
...
“But Bacchus much more sportive than the rest,
Fills up a Bowl with Juice from Grapestones drein’d,
And puts it in Omelichilus hand;
Take off this Draught, said he, if thou art wise,
’Twill purge thy Cannibal Stomach’s Crudities.
He, unaccustomed to the acid Juice
Storm’d, and with blows had answer’d the Abuse,
But fear’d t’engage the European Guest,