Plants

Coca

Herbs

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Coca." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/plants/coca.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Coca. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/plants/coca

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-coca,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Coca},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/plants/coca},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Coca, Erythroxylum coca, is a shrub of the eastern Andean slopes whose leaves have been chewed and offered in the region for thousands of years. Its religious role is not intoxication, since the leaf is mild and its effect is closer to tea, but exchange: the k'intu, a small fan of perfect leaves breathed on and offered to the mountain lords and to the earth, is the basic gesture of Andean reciprocity, and leaves are also cast and read for divination. Coca is a social bond as much as a sacrament, passed between people to open any serious conversation. Its identification with cocaine, an isolate first produced in nineteenth century Europe, has made the leaf itself the subject of a long international dispute.

Facts

Attributions

Traditional Working

The k'intu, a fan of three perfect leaves held in both hands and breathed on, is offered to the apus, the mountain lords, and to Pachamama, and exchanged between people as the basic gesture of Andean reciprocity 1

Traditional Ailments

Used for altitude sickness, digestive complaints, fatigue and as a mild anaesthetic, and cast and read for divination 1

Effects

Mild, comparable to strong tea: alertness and tolerance of altitude, cold and hunger, with a slight numbing of the mouth. Not visionary 1

Origins

Botanical Identification

Erythroxylum coca, family Erythroxylaceae, the coca family 2

Origin of the Name

From Quechua and Aymara kuka, the Andean name for the plant, adopted into Spanish as coca and from there into English and the scientific name Erythroxylum coca. 3

Origin Region

Eastern Andean slopes of Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador 1

Method

Preparation Method

Leaves are chewed with a mineral alkali to release the alkaloids, absorbed slowly through the mouth over a long chew 1

Contested Use

Contested or Appropriated Modern Use

Routinely conflated with cocaine, an isolate first produced in nineteenth century Europe at concentrations the leaf cannot approach, and eradication campaigns fall on regions where the leaf has been ordinary and religious for millennia 1

Status

Legal Status

The 1961 Single Convention listed the coca leaf and called for the abolition of coca chewing; Bolivia withdrew in 2011 and rejoined with a reservation preserving traditional use, which its constitution protects 1

Learn More

The K'intu, and Reciprocity as a Religion

Coca is the least intoxicating plant this atlas describes and one of the most religiously important, which makes it a useful corrective to the assumption that sacredness follows potency.

The leaf is chewed with a mineral alkali to release its alkaloids, and the effect is mild, comparable to strong tea: alertness, tolerance of altitude, cold and hunger, and a slight numbing of the mouth. Nobody has visions.

Its ritual centre is the k'intu, a small fan of three perfect unbroken leaves, held in both hands, breathed on, and offered. It is given to the apus, the mountain lords, to Pachamama, the earth, and to the dead, and it is also given between people. Catherine Allen's fieldwork in the Peruvian community of Sonqo shows the same gesture running through both directions: the exchange of coca between two people and the offering of coca to a mountain are the same act, and both are instances of the reciprocity that organises Andean social and religious life. To decline coca is to decline a relationship.

Leaves are also cast and read for divination, and coca appears in every serious occasion: healing, planting, building, travel, burial, and the settling of disputes.

Archaeologically it is old. Coca leaves and the lime containers used with them appear in Andean and coastal burials over thousands of years, and it was under Inca administration a regulated and high status crop.

The Leaf, the Alkaloid, and a Century of Arguing About the Difference

Coca's modern history is a long argument about whether a plant and a compound extracted from it are the same thing.

Cocaine was isolated from coca leaves in Europe in the mid nineteenth century and became a widely sold medicine and ingredient. The leaf and the isolate differ in almost every way that matters: the alkaloid content of a leaf is under one per cent, it is absorbed slowly through the mouth over a long chew, and the traditional preparation delivers nothing resembling the concentrated dose of the purified compound. Andean users have made this distinction for as long as the argument has existed.

International drug control has largely not accepted it. The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs listed the coca leaf itself and called for the eradication of coca chewing within a fixed period, a provision that treated a daily practice of millions of people, with religious and medical dimensions, as a habit to be abolished. Bolivia withdrew from the convention in 2011 and rejoined with a reservation preserving traditional chewing, and coca chewing is protected in the Bolivian constitution.

Eradication campaigns, aerial spraying and the violence that follows the illegal trade fall on growing regions where the leaf has been part of ordinary and religious life for millennia. The atlas records the leaf as a sacred plant and the alkaloid as a separate subject, because conflating them is precisely the error the dispute is about.

Cross-Tradition Connections