R. Gordon Wasson, with whom I had maintained friendly relations since the
investigations of the Mexican magic mushrooms, invited my wife and me to take
part in an expedition to Mexico in the fall of 1962. The purpose of the journey
was to search for another Mexican magic plant. Wasson had learned on his travels
in the mountains of southern Mexico that the expressed juice of the leaves of a
plant, which were called hojas de la Pastora or hojas de Maria Pastora, in
Mazatec ska Pastora or ska Maria Pastora (leaves of the shepherdess or leaves of
Mary the shepherdess), were used among the Mazatec in medico-religious
practices, like the teonanacatl mushrooms and the ololiuhqui seeds.
The question now was to ascertain from what sort of plant the "leaves of Mary
the shepherdess" derived, and then to identify this plant botanically. We also
hoped, if at all possible, to gather sufficient plant material to conduct a
chemical investigation on the hallucinogenic principles it contained.
Ride through the Sierra Mazateca
On 26 September 1962, my wife and I accordingly flew to Mexico City, where we
met Gordon Wasson. He had made all the necessary preparations for the
expedition, so that in two days we had already set out on the next leg of the
journey to the south. Mrs. Irmgard Weitlaner Johnson, (widow of Jean B. Johnson,
a pioneer of the ethnographic study of the Mexican magic mushrooms, killed in
the Allied landing in North Africa) had joined us. Her father, Robert J.
Weitlaner, had emigrated to Mexico from Austria and had likewise contributed
toward the rediscovery of the mushroom cult. Mrs. Johnson worked at the National
Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, as an expert on Indian textiles.
After a two-day journey in a spacious Land Rover, which took us over the
plateau, along the snow-capped Popocatepetl, passing Puebla, down into the
Valley of Orizaba with its magnificent tropical vegetation, then by ferry across
the Popoloapan (Butterfly River), on through the former Aztec garrison Tuxtepec,
we arrived at the starting point of our expedition, the Mazatec village of
Jalapa de Diaz, lying on a hillside.
There we were in the midst of the environment and among the people that we would
come to know in the succeeding 2 1/2 weeks.
There was an uproar upon our arrival in the marketplace, center of this village
widely dispersed in the jungle. Old and young men, who had been squatting and
standing around in the half-opened bars and shops, pressed suspiciously yet
curiously about our Land Rover; they were mostly barefoot but all wore a
sombrero. Women and girls were nowhere to be seen. One of the men gave us to
understand that we should follow. him. He led us to the local president, a fat
mestizo who had his office in a one-story house with a corrugated iron roof.
Gordon showed him our credentials from the civil authorities and from the
military governor of Oaxaca, which explained that we had come here to carry out
scientific investigations. The president, who probably could not read at all,
was visibly impressed by the large-sized documents equipped with official seals.
He had lodgings assigned to us in a spacious shed, in which we could place our
air mattresses and sleeping bags.
I looked around the region somewhat. The ruins of a large church from colonial
times, which must have once been very beautiful, rose almost ghostlike in the
direction of an ascending slope at the side of the village square. Now I could
also see women looking out of their huts, venturing to examine the strangers. In
their long, white dresses, adorned with red borders, and with their long braids
of blue-black hair, they offered a picturesque sight.
We-were fed by an old Mazatec woman, who directed a young cook and two helpers.
She lived in one of the typical Mazatec huts. These are simply rectangular
structures with thatched gabled roofs and walls of wooden poles joined together,
windowless, the chinks between the wooden poles offering sufficient opportunity
to look out. In the middle of the hut, on the stamped clay floor, was an
elevated, open fireplace, built up out of dried clay or made of stones. The
smoke escaped through large openings in the walls under the two ends of the
roof. Bast mats that lay in a corner or along the walls served as beds. The huts
were shared with the domestic animals, as well as black swine, turkeys, and
chickens. There was roasted chicken to eat, black beans, and also, in place of
bread, tortittas, a type of cornmeal pancake that is baked on the hot stone slab
of the hearth. Beer and tequila, an Agave liquor, were served.
Next morning our troop formed for the ride through the Sierra Mazateca. Mules
and guides were engaged from the horsekeeper of the village. Guadelupe, the
Mazatec familiar with the route, took charge of guiding the lead animal. Gordon,
Irmgard, my wife, and I were stationed on our mules in the middle. Teodosio and
Pedro, called Chico, two young fellows who trotted along barefoot beside the two
mules laden with our baggage, brought up the rear.
It took some time to get accustomed to the hard wooden saddles. Then, however,
this mode of locomotion proved to be the most ideal type of travel that I know
of. The mules followed the leader, single file, at a steady pace. They required
no direction at all by the rider. With surprising dexterity, they sought out the
best spots along the almost impassable, partly rocky, partly marshy paths, which
led through thickets and streams or onto precipitous slopes. Relieved of all
travel cares, we could devote all our attention to the beauty of the landscape
and the tropical vegetation. There were tropical forests with gigantic trees
overgrown with twining plants, then again clearings with banana groves or coffee
plantations, between light stands of trees, flowers at the edge of the path,
over which wondrous butterflies bustled about.... We made our way upstream along
the broad riverbed of Rio Santo Domingo, with brooding heat and steamy air, now
steeply ascending, then again falling. During a short, violent tropical
downpour, the long broad ponchos of oilcloth, with which Gordon had equipped us,
proved quite useful. Our Indian guides had protected themselves from the
cloudburst with gigantic, heart-shaped leaves that they nimbly chopped off at
the edge of the path. Teodosio and Chico gave the impression of great, green hay
ricks as they ran, covered with these leaves, beside their mules.
Shortly before nightfall we arrived at the first settlement, La Providencia
ranch. The patron, Don Joaquin Garcia, the head of a large family, welcomed us
hospitably and full of dignity. It was impossible to determine how many
children, in addition to the grown-ups and the domestic animals, were present in
the large living room, feebly illuminated by the hearth fire alone.
Gordon and I placed our sleeping bags outdoors under the projecting roof. I
awoke in the morning to find a pig grunting over my face.
After another day's journey on the backs of our worthy mules, we arrived at
Ayautla, a Mazatec settlement spread across a hillside. En route, among the
shrubbery, I had delighted in the blue calyxes of the magic morning glory
Ipomoea violacea, the mother plant of the ololiuhqui seeds. It grew wild there,
whereas among us it is only found in the Garden as an ornamental plant.
We remained in Ayautla for several days. We had lodging in the house of Dona
Donata Sosa de Garcia. Dona Donata was in charge of a large family, which
included her ailing husband. In addition, she presided over the coffee
cultivation of the region. The collection center for the freshly picked coffee
beans was in an adjacent building. It was a lovely picture, the young Indian
woman and girls returning home from the harvest toward evening, in their bright
garments adorned with colored borders, the coffee sacks carried on their backs
by headbands. Dona Donata also managed a type of grocery store, in which her
husband, Don Eduardo, stood behind the counter.
In the evening by candlelight, Dona Donata, who besides Mazatec also spoke
Spanish, told us about life in the village; one tragedy or another had already
struck nearly every one of the seemingly peaceful huts that lay surrounded by
this paradisiacal scenery. A man who had murdered his wife, and who now sits in
prison for life, had lived in the house next door, which now stood empty. The
husband of a daughter of Dona Donata, after an affair with another woman, was
murdered out of jealousy. The president of Ayautla, a young bull of a mestizo,
to whom we had made our formal visit in the afternoon, never made the short walk
from his hut to his "office" in the village hall (with the corrugated iron roof)
unless accompanied by two heavily armed men. Because he exacted illegal taxes,
he was afraid of being shot to death. Since no higher authority sees to justice
in this remote region, people have recourse to self-defense of this type.
Thanks to Dona Donata's good connections, we received the first sample of the
sought-after plant, some leaves of hojas de la Pastora, from an old woman. Since
the flowers and roots were missing, however, this plant material was not
suitable for botanical identification. Our efforts to obtain more precise
information about the habitat of the plant and its use were also fruitless.
The continuation of our journey from Ayautla was delayed, as we had to wait
until our boys could again bring back the mules that they had taken to pasture
on the other side of Rio Santo Domingo, over the river swollen by intense
downpours.
After a two-day ride, on which we had passed the night in the high mountain
village of San MiguelHuautla, we arrived at Rio Santiago. Here we were joined by
Dona Herlinda Martinez Cid, a teacher from Huautla de Jimenez. She had ridden
over on the invitation of Gordon Wasson, who had known her since his mushroom
expeditions, and was to serve as our Mazatec and Spanish-speaking interpreter.
Moreover, she could help us, through her numerous relatives scattered in the
region, to pave the way to contacts with curanderos and curanderas who used the
hojas de la Pastora in their practice. Because of our delayed arrival in Rio
Santiago, Dona Herlinda, who was acquainted with the dangers of the region, had
been apprehensive about us, fearing we might have plunged down a rocky path or
been attacked by robbers.
Our next stop was in San Jose Tenango, a settlement lying deep in a valley, in
the midst of tropical vegetation with orange and lemon trees and banana
plantations. Here again was the typical village picture: in the center, a
marketplace with a half-ruined church from the colonial period, with two or
three stands, a general store, and shelters for horses and mules. We found
lodging in a corrugated iron barracks, with the special luxury of a cement
floor, on which we could spread out our sleeping bags.
In the thick jungle on the mountainside we discovered a spring, whose
magnificent fresh water in a natural rocky basin invited us to bathe. That was
an unforgettable pleasure after days without opportunities to wash properly. In
this grotto I saw a hummingbird for the first time in nature, a blue-green,
metallic, iridescent gem, which whirred over great liana blossoms.
The desired contact with persons skilled in medicine came about thanks to the
kindred connections of Dona Herlinda, beginning with the curandero Don Sabino.
But he refused, for some reason, to receive us in a consultation and to question
the leaves. From an old curandera, a venerable woman in a strikingly magnificent
Mazatec garment, with the lovely name Natividad Rosa, we received a whole bundle
of flowering specimens of the sought-after plant, but even she could not be
prevailed upon to perform a ceremony with the leaves for us. Her excuse was that
she was too old for the hardship of the magical trip; she could never cover the
long distance to certain places: a spring where the wise women gather their
powers, a lake on which the sparrows sing, and where objects get their names.
Nor would Natividad Rosa tell us where she had gathered the leaves. They grew in
a very, very distant forest valley. Wherever she dug up a plant, she put a
coffee bean in the earth as thanks to the gods.
We now possessed ample plants with flowers and roots, which were suitable for
botanical identification. It was apparently a representative of the genus
Salvia, a relative of the well-known meadow sage. The plants had blue flowers
crowned with a white dome, which are arranged on a panicle 20 to 30 cm long,
whose stem leaked blue.
Several days later, Natividad Rosa brought us a whole basket of leaves, for
which she was paid fifty pesos. The business seemed to have been discussed, for
two other women brought us further quantities of leaves. As it was known that
the expressed juice of the leaves is drunk in the ceremony, and this must
therefore contain the active principle, the fresh leaves were crushed on a stone
plate, squeezed out in a cloth, the juice diluted with alcohol as a
preservative, and decanted into flasks in order to be studied later in the
laboratory in Basel. I was assisted in this work by an Indian girl, who was
accustomed to dealing with the stone plate, the metate, on which the Indians
since ancient times have ground their corn by hand.
On the day before the journey was to continue, having given up all hope of being
able to attend a ceremony, we suddenly made another contact with a curandera,
one who was ready "to serve us ." A confidante of Herlinda's, who had produced
this contact, led us after nightfall along a secret path to the hut of the
curandera, lying solitary on the mountainside above the settlement. No one from
the village was to see us or discover that we were received there. It was
obviously considered a betrayal of sacred customs, worthy of punishment, to
allow strangers, whites, to take part in this. That indeed had also been the
real reason why the other healers whom we asked had refused to admit us to a
leaf ceremony. Strange birdcalls from the darkness accompanied us on the ascent,
and the barking of dogs was heard on all sides. The dogs had detected the
strangers. The curandera Consuela Garcia, a woman of some forty years, barefoot
like all Indian women in this region, timidly admitted us to her hut and
immediately closed up the doorway with a heavy bar. She bid us lie down on the
bast mats on the stamped mud floor. As Consuela spoke only Mazatec, Herlinda
translated her instructions into Spanish for us. The curandera lit a candle on a
table covered with some images of saints, along with a variety of rubbish. Then
she began to bustle about busily, but in silence. All at once we heard peculiar
noises and a rummaging in the room-did the hut harbor some hidden person whose
shape and proportions could not be made out in the candlelight? Visibly
disturbed, Consuela searched the room with the burning candle. It appeared to be
merely rats, however, who were working their mischief. In a bowl the curandera
now kindled copal, an incense-like resin, which soon filled the whole hut with
its aroma. Then the magic potion was ceremoniously prepared. Consuela inquired
which of us wished to drink of it with her. Gordon announced himself. Since I
was suffering from a severe stomach upset at the time, I could not join in. My
wife substituted for me. The curandera laid out six pairs of leaves for herself.
She apportioned the same number to Gordon. Anita received three pairs. Like the
mushrooms, the leaves are always dosed in pairs, a practice that, of course, has
a magical significance. The leaves were crushed with the metate, then squeezed
out through a fine sieve into a cup, and the metate and the contents of the
sieve were rinsed with water. Finally, the filled cups were incensed over the
copal vessel with much ceremony. Consuela asked Anita and Gordon, before she
handed them their cups, whether they believed in the truth and the holiness of
the ceremony. After they answered in the affirmative and the very bitter-tasting
potion was solemnly imbibed, the candles were extinguished and, lying in
darkness on the bast masts, we awaited the effects.
After some twenty minutes Anita whispered to me that she saw striking, brightly
bordered images. Gordon also perceived the effect of the drug. The voice of the
curandera sounded from the darkness, half speaking, half singing. Herlinda
translated: Did we believe in Christ's blood and the holiness of the rites?
After our "creemos" ("We believe"), the ceremonial performance continued. The
curandera lit the candles, moved them from the "altar table" onto the floor,
sang and spoke prayers or magic formulas, placed the candles again under the
images of the saints-then again silence and darkness. Thereupon the true
consultation began. Consuela asked for our request. Gordon inquired after the
health of his daughter, who immediately before his departure from New York had
to be admitted prematurely to the hospital in expectation of a baby. He received
the comforting information that mother and child were well. Then again came
singing and prayer and manipulations with the candles on the "altar table" and
on the floor, over the smoking basin.
When the ceremony was at an end, the curandera asked us to rest yet a while
longer in prayer on our bast mats. Suddenly a thunderstorm burst out. Through
the cracks of the beam walls, lightning flashed into the darkness of the hut,
accompanied by violent thunderbolts, while a tropical downpour raged, beating on
the roof. Consuela voiced apprehension that we would not be able to leave her
house unseen in the darkness. But the thunderstorm let up before daybreak, and
we went down the mountainside to our corrugated iron barracks, as noiselessly as
possible by the light of flashlights, unnoticed by the villagers, but dogs again
barked from all sides.
Participation in this ceremony was the climax of our expedition. It brought
confirmation that the hojas de la Pastora were used by the Indians for the same
purpose and in the same ceremonial milieu as teonanacatl, the sacred mushrooms.
Now we also had authentic plant material, not only sufficient for botanical
identification, but also for the planned chemical analysis. The inebriated state
that Gordon Wasson and my wife had experienced with the hojas had been shallow
and only of short duration, yet it had exhibited a distinctly hallucinogenic
character.
On the morning after this eventful night we took leave of San Jose Tenango. The
guide, Guadelupe, and the two fellows Teodosio and Pedro appeared before our
barracks with the mules at the appointed time. Soon packed up and mounted, our
little troop then moved uphill again, through the fertile landscape glittering
in the sunlight from the night's thunderstorm. Returning by way of Santiago,
toward evening we reached our last stop in Mazatec country, the capital Huautla
de Jimenez.
>From here on, the return trip to Mexico City was made by automobile. With a
final supper in the Posada Rosaura, at the time the only inn in Huautla, we took
leave of our Indian guides and of the worthy mules that had carried us so
surefootedly and in such a pleasant way through the Sierra Mazatec. The Indians
were paid of, and Teodosio, who also accepted payment for his chief in Jalapa de
Diaz (where the animals were to be returned afterward), gave a receipt with his
thumbprint colored by a ballpoint pen. We took up quarters in Dona Herlinda's
house.
A day later we made our formal visit to the curandera Maria Sabina, a woman made
famous by the Wassons' publications. It had been in her hut that Gordon Wasson
became the first white man to taste of the sacred mushrooms, in the course of a
nocturnal ceremony in the summer of 1955. Gordon and Maria Sabina greeted each
other cordially, as old friends. The curandera lived out of the way, on the
mountainside above Huautla. The house in which the historic session with Gordon
Wasson had taken place had been burned, presumably by angered residents or an
envious colleague, because she had divulged the secret of teonanacatl to
strangers. In the new hut in which we found ourselves, an incredible disorder
prevailed, as had probably also prevailed in the old hut, in which half-naked
children, hens, and pigs bustled about. The old curandera had an intelligent
face, exceptionally changeable in expression. She was obviously impressed when
it was explained that we had managed to confine the spirit of the mushrooms in
pills, and she at once declared herself ready to "serve us" with these, that is,
to grant us a consultation. It was agreed that this should take place the coming
night in the house of Dona Herlinda.
In the course of the day I took a stroll through Huautla de Jimenez, which led
along a main street on the mountainside. Then I accompanied Gordon on his visit
to the Instituto Nacional Indigenista. This governmental organization had the
duty of studying and helping to solve the problems of the indigenous population,
that is, the Indians. Its leader told us of the difficulties that the "coffee
policy" had caused in the area at that time. The president of Huautla, in
collaboration with the Instituto Nacional Indigenista had tried to eliminate
middlemen in order to shape the coffee prices favorably for the producing
Indians. His body was found, mutilated, the previous June.
Our stroll also took us past the cathedral, from which Gregorian chants
resounded. Old Father Aragon, whom Gordon knew well from his earlier stays,
invited us into the vestry for a glass of tequila.
- from Hofman, A - LSD, My Problem Child, Chapter 6: