---
name: Pituri
molecule: C10H14N2
compound: "Nicotine"
era: Ancient
origin: Australia
archetype: Chicago Detroit
ancestor: Aboriginal
swag_score: 3
image: "https://assets.0xhoneyjar.xyz/Mibera/traits/chicagodetroit_aboriginal_pituri.webp"
date_added: "2025-01-12"
---

<div align="center">
  <img src="https://assets.0xhoneyjar.xyz/Mibera/traits/chicagodetroit_aboriginal_pituri.webp" alt="Pituri" width="320" />
</div>


# Pituri

## Effects & Properties

**Effects:** Stimulant, narcotic, deliriant (in large quantities).

**Natural Occurrence:** Used by Aboriginal Australians and traded
across Australia. It grows in the arid regions of central Australia from WA, across NT and SA to
Qld and NSW.
**Appearance:** A small tree or shrub about 3
meters high with narrow linear leaves up to 15 cm long. Its flowers have a broad bell-shaped
white corolla, with a purple-striped tube, and five lobes. The fruit is a black 6mm long berry that
contains two seeds in a dark pulp.

## History

Pituri (Duboisia hopwoodii) has been used by Aboriginal Australians for thousands of years, making it one of the oldest continuously used psychoactive substances on the planet. It was chewed as a stimulant mixed with alkaline wood ash (to enhance nicotine absorption) and was one of the most valuable trade items in pre-colonial Aboriginal trade networks, transported along "pituri roads" stretching thousands of kilometers across the Australian interior. European settlers documented pituri use from the 1860s onward, and the plant remains culturally significant to Indigenous communities in central Australia.

## Connections

**Archetype:** [Chicago Detroit](../../../core-lore/archetypes.md#chicago-detroit)

**Ancestor:** [Aboriginal](../../../core-lore/ancestors/aboriginal.md)

**Tarot Card:** [The Magician](../../../core-lore/tarot-cards/the-magician.md)

**PubChem:** [Nicotine](https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Nicotine)

**Paired With:** [Chewing Tobacco](chewing-tobacco.md)

## Sources

- https://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/faqs/faq_natural_high_australia.shtml#PITURI
- [Pituri - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pituri)
- [Duboisia hopwoodii - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duboisia_hopwoodii)
- [Nicotine - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine)
- [The pituri story: a review of the historical literature surrounding traditional Australian Aboriginal use of nicotine in Central Australia - PMC](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2944156/)