Topic
Indigenous practice and knowledge of psychoactive plants, including the outside records that describe it.
Banisteriopsis caapi
A Colombian Amazon ethnographic study placing Tukano use of Banisteriopsis caapi, or yajé, within a wider cultural system of mythology, ritual, symbolism, perception, and social knowledge.
Ritual architecture, psychoactive plants, sound, and authority in the Early Horizon Andes
A concise archaeological site entry on Chavin de Huantar as a ceremonial center where architecture, controlled movement, sound, San Pedro imagery, and direct evidence for vilca and Nicotiana snuff formed part of institutionalized ritual practice.
A high-Andean ritual bundle with direct chemical evidence for multiple psychoactive plants
A rock shelter in southwestern Bolivia where archaeologists found direct chemical evidence for ancient use of coca, harmine-bearing plants, DMT-bearing plants, and possibly psilocin.
Motolinía's account of Aztec mushroom intoxication from Historia de los indios de la Nueva España. He describes small bitter mushrooms producing visions of serpents and worms, names them Teonanácatl ("flesh of God"), and compares the rite to other Aztec communal meals.
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.
Chapter 14 of Francisco Ximénez's 1615 Spanish redaction of Hernández's natural history, describing ololiuhqui. Ximénez gives the plant's Nahuatl name cohuaxihuitl ('serpent herb'), its medicinal uses, and records that priests ate it to commune with the devil and see a thousand phantasms.
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.
Krasheninnikov's 1764 English translation describes fly-agaric (Amanita muscaria) intoxication in Kamchatka: its effects, use by the Koryak, and the practice of drinking an intoxicated person's urine to prolong inebriation. He covers dose-dependent effects and behavioral consequences including murderous impulses.
Franz Xaver Veigl, a German Jesuit who worked in the mission province of Maynas in the upper Amazon until the Jesuits were expelled in 1768, describes healers and visionary drinks there. He writes that people who drank "hayac huasca" saw "absolutely enormous visions" and seemed to travel far away, and, like other missionaries of his time, he treats this as dealings with the devil. English translation of Latin passages from his account of Maynas.
A Kamchatka note on mushroom trade and intoxication
Langsdorff's 1812 German voyage account records fly agaric in Koryak trade with Russians and Kamchadals, noting in a footnote that Koryaks preferred it to brandy as a stupefying or intoxicating substance.
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.
An American telegraph surveyor's account of Koryak men intoxicated on fly-agaric at a wedding celebration in northern Kamchatka. Kennan describes the mushroom's price, preparation, etiquette of serving, and the trade dynamics between Russian merchants and Koryak consumers.
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.
An account of the Kiowa and Comanche peyote ceremony by ethnologist James Mooney, published in the Therapeutic Gazette in 1896. Drawing on field observation and participation since 1891, Mooney describes the all-night rite, dosages, and cases including his interpreter Paul Setkopti and leader Quanah Parker.
A Study of a Divine Plant
Havelock Ellis's account of his own peyote self-experiment, conducted on Good Friday 1897 in his London chambers. Written for a general scientific audience, it situates his diary of jewel-like visions within the clinical work of Prentiss, Morgan, and Weir Mitchell, alongside Indigenous religious use of the plant.
Religion — Intoxicants
An ethnographer's account of fly-agaric use among the Chukchee and Koryak, including dosage, preparation, three stages of intoxication, the 'spirits of fly-agaric,' and urine-drinking to extend the effect. The text also records the mushroom's place in Chukchee myth.
Safford, a USDA botanist, analyzes peyote's physiological effects and Native American ceremonial use in 1915. The article incorporates sworn testimony from Menominee, Omaha, and Winnebago members of the Sacred Peyote Society.
Excerpts from Bogoras's Koryak Texts, including the introduction and two songs transcribed from phonograph recordings. The second song, sung by an elderly Chukchee man, records an Indigenous voice describing fly-agaric use for recovering consciousness.
Filed with the Oklahoma Secretary of State on October 10, 1918, these articles incorporated the Native American Church as a religious and benevolent association. The purpose sections frame peyote as a Christian sacrament, giving the pan-tribal peyote religion legal standing.
Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs, House of Representatives, on H.R. 2614
A subcommittee of the House Committee on Indian Affairs held February-March 1918 hearings on H.R. 2614, a bill to prohibit peyote use in Indian Country. Witnesses included ethnologist James Mooney, Osage chief Fred Lookout, Omaha ethnographer Francis La Flesche, Arapaho delegate Cleaver Warden, and Cheyenne-Arapaho Paul Boynton.
An essay by physician and ethnobotanist Blas Pablo Reko arguing against Safford's claim that teonanácatl was a fanciful name for peyote. Reko insists teonanácatl was a real mushroom still eaten by Indigenous communities in Oaxaca.
French physician P. Reinburg's account of his ayahuasca ingestion among the Záparo in May 1913, published in the Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Rather than visions, he experienced a severe toxic reaction with pulse loss, vomiting, and spasms, recorded in clinical detail.
Anthropologist Rafael Karsten's account of a Jívaro victory feast describes the natéma ceremony, in which the vision-inducing drink made from Banisteria caapi and tobacco is prepared ritually and drunk communally. The passage covers preparation, the emetic effect, and beliefs that the visions foretell prosperity.
The Montana Supreme Court reverses a Crow man's peyote conviction, finding the state failed to establish jurisdiction over an offense on the Crow Reservation. The court addresses federal Indian law and rejects the defendant's religious-use defense, but does not decide the jurisdictional question, remanding for new trial.
A Berkeley anthropologist's field survey of Mazatec witchcraft from a 1938 expedition to Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca. Hosted here is a fair-use excerpt: Johnson's eyewitness account of a curing ceremony he and his party attended on July 16, 1938 -- the first outsider-witnessed session involving the sacred mushrooms -- along with his description of the mushroom species and their ritual use among Mazatec brujos.
External source
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.
External source
The Narcotic Ololiuqui of the Aztecs
Schultes's botanical monograph settling the identity of ololiuqui, the Aztec morning-glory narcotic. He credits Urbina's 1897 identification as Rivea corymbosa, corrects Safford's 1915 misidentification as jimsonweed, and surveys continued ritual and medicinal use among the Chinantec, Mazatec, Mixtec, and Zapotec of Oaxaca.
R. Gordon Wasson's photo-essay in Life magazine announcing that he and photographer Allan Richardson had participated in a Mazatec mushroom ceremony near Huautla de Jiménez in June 1955. The article, illustrated with color photographs and watercolor plates, named Roger Heim as Wasson's collaborator.
External source
The Tenth Circuit affirms dismissal of a Native American Church suit against the Navajo Tribal Council's 1940 peyote ban, holding that the First Amendment does not apply to tribal governments unless Congress extends it. The court treats tribes as sovereign nations outside the federal Constitution.
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.
External source
The California Supreme Court reverses the peyote convictions of four Navajo men arrested at a Native American Church meeting near Needles in 1962. Justice Tobriner's opinion describes the all-night ceremony, its officers and its ritual objects before reaching the First Amendment question.
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.
The Supreme Court holds that Oregon may deny unemployment benefits to two Native American Church members dismissed for sacramental peyote use, since a neutral criminal drug law requires no religious exemption. Blackmun dissents.
Congress restored a nationwide exemption for the ceremonial use of peyote by Indians in connection with traditional religions. The statute carves out exceptions for prison, military, and safety-sensitive positions.
An edict of the Mexican tribunal of the Holy Office, issued in Mexico City on 19 June 1620 over the signature of Licenciado Pedro Nabarre de Isla, prohibiting the use of peyote to discover thefts and divine hidden or future events. The inquisitors deny the plant any natural power to produce visions, attribute them to the devil, threaten users with excommunication and proceedings as suspects in the faith, and pardon use before the edict's publication. The Spanish text is hosted as printed by Irving A. Leonard (1896–1996) in American Anthropologist in 1942, with a new English translation.
The entry "Koræiki" from the anonymous 1736 London translation of Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia (Stockholm, 1730) by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg (1676–1747), a Swedish officer captured at Poltava who spent over a decade as a prisoner in Siberia. Strahlenberg reports that Russian traders exchanged the mushroom Muchumor for Koryak furs, that wealthy Koryaks boiled it and drank the liquor at feasts, and that the poor drank the urine of intoxicated guests to share the effect. The full entry is hosted from pp. 396–97 of the 1736 printing.
Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkála-Šá, 1876–1938), the Yankton Dakota writer and secretary of the Society of American Indians, testified against peyote on February 22, 1918, before the House Indian Affairs subcommittee considering H.R. 2614, a bill to prohibit peyote among Indians. Drawing on her fourteen years among the Utes of the Uintah Basin, she described deaths, sexual misconduct, and fraud by the peyote missionary Peter Phelps, and she disputed the ethnologist James Mooney (1861–1921), who had ridiculed her newspaper photograph the day before. The record hosts her statement and cross-examination in full, her additional statement, the signed statements she co-authored, and the passages by Mooney and Cleaver Warden that answer her.