Texts / Ethnobotany

Sahagún’s Book 11 on herbs that intoxicate

Spanish entries from Book 11 of the Florentine Codex, the encyclopedia of Nahua life compiled by Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua scholars at Tlatelolco around 1577. They describe ololiuhqui, peyotl, tlapatl, mixitl, and teonanácatl, plants and mushrooms that cause intoxication or visions, with an English translation made for the archive.

Mushrooms, coronations, and the feast of revelations

Three passages from Diego Durán's Historia describing raw mountain mushrooms in Mexica royal ceremonial life: a coronation feast, Durán's note that mushrooms rather than wine appear as the chronicle's intoxicant, and Motecuhzoma's feast of revelations.

Colonial anti-idolatry texts on divination, healing, and visionary plants

A set of Spanish colonial anti-idolatry excerpts describing ololiuhqui and peyote as oracular substances used in healing, theft investigation, divination, and diagnosis of sorcery. The source preserves rare early descriptions of visionary plant practice while also showing how clerical authorities criminalized and demonized Indigenous ritual knowledge.

Orinoco snuff, Acacia niopo, and curupa in an 1821 travel narrative

Humboldt and Bonpland's Personal Narrative describes niopo snuff among the Otomac on the Orinoco, including preparation from Acacia niopo, nasal apparatus, missionary testimony, and comparison with curupa.

A German travel account of Amazonian snuff, ceremony, and intoxication

Spix and Martius's 1831 German travel narrative describes paricá among the Mura, including preparation from dried seeds, ceremonial use, insufflation through tubes, and comparison with fly agaric intoxication.

An 1858 Ecuadorian account of ayahuasca visions and divination

Manuel Villavicencio's 1858 geography gives an early Spanish account of ayahuasca among Indigenous groups of eastern Ecuador, including divination, warfare, illness diagnosis, visionary effects, and a first-person report of his own experience.

A French naval physician's 1865 travel account surveys Gabon's food plants and condiments, describing iboga as a stimulant and aphrodisiac used by paddlers on long canoe trips. He gives it the genus name 'taberna-ventricosa,' later corrected by Baillon.

Richard Spruce on ayahuasca, yopo/paricá, and Amazonian medicine-men

Richard Spruce's nineteenth-century account of caapi, aya-huasca, niopo, and paricá, based on field observations in the Uaupés, Orinoco, Rio Negro, Napo, and Pastasa regions. The excerpt records plant identifications, preparation methods, visual effects, ceremonial uses, and the role of payes in curing and divination.

The Narcotic Mushroom of the Aztecs

Schultes's botanical account of his 1938-39 fieldwork with Blas Pablo Reko among the Mazatec, tracing the teonanácatl rediscovery from Reko's 1923 letter through Robert Weitlaner's 1936 visit to Huautla de Jiménez. Schultes identifies the mushroom as Paneolus campanulatus var. sphinctrinus.

The first scientific identification of Salvia divinorum, published in Harvard's Botanical Museum Leaflets. Wasson reports ingesting the Mazatec 'leaves of the Shepherdess' at two ceremonies in Oaxaca in 1961-62, attended on the second occasion by Albert Hofmann and his wife.

The Chemistry and Pharmacology of Piper methysticum and Related Species

Alexander Shulgin's review of kava, Piper methysticum, covering Pacific preparation practices, pharmacological classification, and the chemistry of kavalactones and related Piper species.

A short Brazilian natural-products chemistry article confirming the double use of Virola theiodora bark in Yomanê hallucinogenic snuff and arrow poison from the Tototobi River region of Roraima.