A New Mexican Psychotropic Drug

A NEW MEXICAN PSYCHOTROPIC DRUG

BY R. Gordon Wasson 2

For a number of years we have been exploring the highlands of southern Mexico in a study of the role played by hallucinogenic mushrooms in the religious life of the Indians. We began by visiting the Sierra Mazateca in 1953, in the northernmost part of the state of Oaxaca, returning there in 1955 and every year thereafter through 1962. At an early date we learned of a psychotropic plant that the Mazatecs consume when mushrooms are not available. But as we and our collaborator Roger Heim were concentrating on the difficult task of locating and identifying the various species of hallucinogenic mushrooms, we had to neglect for some time this plant that the Indians employ as a less desirable substitute. In 1960 and 1961, we brought back specimens and submitted them for determination to Schultes and to Epling. All of the specimens available proved to be unsatisfactory for specific identification. Finally, in September and October of 1962, satisfactory herbarium material reached *

us, when we were in San Jose Tenango, on which Dr. Epling could base his specific description. Tenango, at

about 1200 meters altitude, is close to and above the tierra caliente of Vera Cruz.

We now identify a species of Salvia new to botanists, S. divinorum Epling & Jativa, as a psychotropic drug used traditionally by the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico, in their divination To the ever growing rites.

family of Mexican phantastica a new member is thus added, and for the first time a species of the Labiatae joins this interesting group. The plant is familiar to virtually all Mazatecs. In Huautla de Jimenez (1800 meters) we saw two or three plants growing, and a specimen taken to Mexico City is still alive there in the open air; but these plants do not flower. We have never seen the seeds, and no Indian has been able to tell us about them. The plant is reproduced vegetatively from a shoot stuck into the ground. It requires black soil, rather than clay, and for the plant to prosper moisture must be steady. Many, perhaps most, Mazatec families possess a private supply of the plants, but almost invariably they are not near the home nor near trails where passers-by might see them. We were on the watch for Salvia divinorum as we criss-crossed the Sierra Mazateca on horseback in September and October of 1962, but never once did we see it. The Indians choose some remote ravine for the planting of it and they are loath to reveal the spots. No Indian in San Jose Tenango was willing to take us to the plants whence they brought back specimens to us. Salvia divinorum seems to be a cultigen; whether it occurs in a wild state (except for plants that have been abandoned or have escaped) we do not know. In former times the proprietors of land paid no attention to growths of hallucinogenic mushrooms and Salvia divinorum; but in the last four or five years the market for the mushrooms and the possibility of a market for

the Salvia have made them conscious of a potential value here. Several episodes have recently taken place in the vicinity of Huautla in which the owner has enforced his right to the plants. The Mazatecs who speak Spanish refer to Salvia divinorum as hojas de la Pastora, or hojas de Maria Pastora ("leaves of the Shepherdess" or "leaves of Mary the Shepherdess"), and this is also the translation of the

name in Mazatec ska* Pastora. :

The Mazatec name is curious. In Christian tradition the Virgin Mary is not thought of as a shepherdess. Is the "Pastora" concept a survival of the pre-Christian duefio de los animales, "the Lord of the animals," that figures large in the folk tradition of the Middle American Indians? A pagan association would thus be sanctified by the addition of the Virgin's name. Salvia divinorum is, in the minds of the Mazatecs, only the most important of several plants, all Labiatae, that they regard as members of the same 'family. " Salvia '

divinorum is known as la hembra, "the female." El macho, or "the male," is Coleus pumila, of European origin. Then there is elnene, "the child," and el ahijado, "the godson," which are both forms of Coleus Blumei. Some Indians insist that these others are likewise psychotropic, but we have not tried them ; others say these are merely medicinal. We have found no reference to the use of the leaves of Salvia divinorum in the 16th and 17th Century writers. We have found only two passages that may refer to them in modern writers. Dr. Bias Pablo Reko, a pioneer in Mexican ethnobotanical field work, discussing the hallucinogenic mushrooms, adds (Mitobotdnica zapo-

•a The superscript digit indicates the tone of the syllable, which is the lowest of four tones in Mazatec.

: :

teca, Mexico, 1945, p. 17) a sentence that, translated, says We cannot fail to mention here another magic plant whose leaves produce visions and which the Cuicatecs and Mazatecs (in the districts of Cuicatlan and Teotitlan) call divination leaf." The loose leaves that I have received do not permit their scientific identification.

This refers probably to the Salvia divinorum of the Mazatecs. There is a longer reference in a paper by Ing. Robert J. Weitlaner ("Curaciones Mazatecas" in An. Inst. Nac. Anthrop. Hist. 4, No. 32 (1952) 283). While Weitlaner was in Ojitlan, a Chinantec village, he encountered a native of Jalapa de Diaz, a neighboring Mazatec town, who told him of the use among his fellowtownsmen of a plant known as Verba de Maria. This informant's account, in a shortened paraphrased translation, follows Verba Maria resembles somewhat the yerba mora, but it has slightly wider leaves. Only the leaves are used, putting them in water. First the leaves are rubbed together in the hands, the water is not boiled,

[The remainder of the article — the Mazatec terminology for the plant and its relatives, the preparation and dosage of the leaves, Wasson's account of two divinatory sessions, and Epling and Játiva's Latin diagnosis of the new species — is omitted. The full article is at the link below.]