The
Early History of Salvia divinorum
[HTML with permission and changes from The Entheogen Review (2001) X: 73-75]
Unless you believe that Salvia
divinorum is the old Mexica (Aztec) narcotic plant pipiltzintzintli (I don’t), the story of this fascinating mint
began in the late 1930s. When R. Gordon Wasson and Albert Hoffman brought back
material for Carl Epling to identify (Wasson 1962, 1963; Epling and Játiva-M
1962), they ended a search that had lasted nearly a quarter of a century. Their
party traveled through Oaxaca under the auspices of a famous Mexican
anthropologist, Roberto Weitlaner (an Austrian by birth), who had been guiding
expeditions to Oaxaca for decades (Pompa y Pompa 1966). I’ve quoted everything
relative to S. divinorum from each of
the following rather rare references, translating to English where necessary.
In the summer of 1938 Jean B. Johnson, Weitlaner’s son-in-law,
visited the Mazatec town of Huautla de Jiminéz, Oaxaca, with a group of young
anthropologists. He wrote a couple of articles based on their findings. The
first one covered various aspects of Mazatec culture and language. In the
section on curing and witchcraft he discussed the magic mushrooms:
Shamans, as well as other
persons, use certain narcotic plants in order to find lost objects. In some
cases teonanacatl is used, while in
others a seed called “semilla de la Virgen” is used. “Hierba María” is
similarly used. The Zapotecs use a plant called “bador”, the little children,
and the Aztecs used narcotic plants in a similar manner(Johnson 1939a).
“Semilla de la Virgen” is
“the Virgin’s seed,” and “Hierba (or Yerba) María” is Mary’s herb, both refer
to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. In the second article Johnson covered the
activities of Mazatec shamans in greater detail. It is an excellent and
interesting source of information, being based on interviews with a shaman.
Concerning the Mazatec trio of magic plants he wrote:
To find a lost animal or
object, one takes some mushrooms at night. One commences to speak (after
falling asleep). It is not permitted to keep an animal around which might cry
out and disturb the sleeper, who goes on speaking while another person listens.
The sleeper tells where the lost animal or thing is, and the next day, there it
is when they go to find it. In addition to the mushrooms, some people use a
seed called “Semilla de la Virgen”,
others use “Hierba Maria” …The
use of various magical plants to find lost objects is not restricted to the
Mazatec alone; the Zapotec use a plant called “bador, the little children,” which is administered the same way as yerba Maria by the Mazatec. The leaf is
beaten well, and a tea is made thereof. It is probable that the Chinantec use
it, since it well known to those who live in the vicinity of Ojitlan. The
Aztecs used narcotic plants in a similar way (Johnson 1939b).
Bador,
or badoh, was later identified as the
morning glory, Rivea corymbosa, and
it is the seeds that are used, not the leaves (Wasson 1963). Johnson was killed
in Africa during World War II.
Blas
P.Reko, like Weitlaner, was an Austrian expatriate. He was a doctor and
naturalist, and often worked in collaboration with the anthropologist (Reko
1945; Pompa y Pompa 1966). In his book on medicinal plants, he wrote:
I cannot leave unmentioned
here another magical plant whose leaves produce visions and which the Cuicatecs
and Mazatecs (of the districts of Cuicatlán and Teotitlán) call “leaf of
prophecy.” The loose leaves I have obtained do not allow its scientific identification
at the present time.
Teotitlán is in the Valley of Oaxaca, in the upper
central part of the state. It is Mazatec country. Cuicatlán is the district
directly adjacent to the southeast. A search engine such as GoogleTM
can find you some good maps. As an
aside, the credit for discovering the magic mushrooms has been given to Richard
Schultes (1939), and later R.G. Wasson. Actually, at the time Schultes was in
the Sierra Mazateca, working on his PhD thesis (Schultes 1941). He was
accompanying Reko, who had been puzzling out the mushroom mystery since 1919.
During the late 1930s Reko sent specimens he had collected to various American
taxonomists for identification. He later said this about the American botanist:
I
have to mention these details, now that an ambitious young Harvard student,
having turned literary pirate, has taken credit for my discoveries (The
identification of Teonanacatl, by Richard E. Schultes, Botanical Museum
Leaflets, Harvard University, Febr. 21, 1939), after I had communicated to him
the results of my prolonged investigations and invited him on a botanical
expedition to Huautla de Jiménez during the summer of 1938, where I gave him
numerous samples of the aforesaid mushroom, which had been finally positively
identified by Dr. Linder as Paneolus campanulatus L. var. sphinctrinus (Fr.)
Bresadola. Samples that I sent to professor C.G. Santesson in Stockholm
revealed the presence of a new narcotic glucoalkaloid.
Schultes never did return to Mexico, and turned his
research toward South America.
Weitlaner, himself, was trained and worked for a while as an engineer,
but later switched to anthropology after emigrating to Mexico (Pompa y Pompa
1966). He led numerous expeditions throughout Mexico and was an expert on the
peoples of Oaxaca. While collecting data on the Chinantecs, he came across a
person who gave him a lot of information about Mazatec healing rites, including
the use of Yerba de María, or S. divinorum. The interview
covering the mint went as follows:
4. USE
OF PLANTS IN HEALING
Asking Don S. about the mushroom Teonanacatl, which is found in Huautla de Jiménez, he said it
wasn’t used in Jalapa, but he mentioned another plant that was called Yerba de
María.
The plant somewhat resembles yerba mora but its leaves are a
little wider; only the leaves are used, and they are put in water. First they
are rubbed (crushed) in the hands, the water is not boiled, and they are used
for very specific means. When the curandero goes to the mountain to
search for this plant, he has to kneel down and pray to it before cutting it.
There are only two or three specialists who know this remedy. They aren’t brujos,
and they cut the plants only when they need them, after praying.
For example, if someone is ill, and the doctors don’t know the
disease, then with this herb they can divine the illness. The curandero
who brings the leaves first asks the sick person if they are addicted to
alcohol, for a person who doesn’t drink is prescribed fifty leaves, but one who
does is prescribed one hundred. The ill one drinks the water in which the
leaves have been squeezed; at midnight the curandero goes with them and
another person to a place where there is no noise, as for example, a house
where the sick person drinks the potion. They wait a quarter of an hour for the
effects of the drug, and the sick person begins to describe the type of illness
they are suffering from. The sick one finds themselves in a semi-delirious
state, they speak as if in a trance and the others listen attentively to what
they say, they throw off their clothing as if with the herb they could free
themselves of the animals. At daybreak the curandero bathes the sick
person with the same water that they took, and with this they are cured.
It is said that this bath ends the intoxicated state of the
sick person who has taken the herb.
When one is trying to uncover a robbery or loss, the curandero
listens to what the person who has taken the plant says and in this manner the
deeds are discovered.
There is a man called Felipe Miranda in Jalapa de Díaz who
goes to the mountain every three to six months to collect the herb; he performs
excellent cures and he is doing quite well, economically; they say he grows the
plant, but he won’t reveal what type of herb it is.
Later Weitlaner
continued:
It seems odd that the use of the mushroom called Teonanacatl
was categorically denied, when we know that in the Mazatecan capital of Huautla
de Jiménez its esoteric use is very well known. As has been said, here it gives
way to the plant known as Yerba de María.
Perhaps it may be of interest to point out the fact that a
plant called Yerba de la Virgen is used in almost the identical manner
in the Otomí town of Santa Ana Hueytalpan, in the region of Tulancingo,
Hidalgo, according to Dr. J. Soustelle, who learned of it and wrote us.
However, he didn’t mention an auto-diagnosis as takes place in our Mazatecan
town.
Yerba mora is Black Nightshade or Solanum nigrum; illness can be physical,
psychological or magical. There is a more detailed description of crushing the Salvia
leaves by hand (Valdés et al 1983). Weitlaner’s article is excellent reading.
When I
was in Mexico City in 1980, I visited the National Herbarium (a place where
plant specimens are stored) to look at their collection of S. divinorum. I learned that in 1957 the Mexican botanist, Arturo
Gómez Pompa, while in the Sierra Mazateca collecting mushrooms for the drug
firm CIBA, found a Salvia species
known by the Mazatecs as xka Pastora. He noted that it was hallucinogenic (alucinante) and a dose was 8-12 pair of
leaves. Flowering material was unavailable (floral description is almost always
necessary to define a new species), so it couldn’t be identified past the genus
level. Unable to return to the area before Wasson and Hofmann’s visit, he
missed the chance to get the credit for identifying ska María Pastora (Gómez Pompa 1957, 2001).
This,
then, is what was known about S. divinorum before Wasson and Hofmann set
out to collect the magic plant. These old articles pose some very important
unanswered questions. Reko noted possible use of S. divinorum by the
Cuicatecs, and Weitlaner by the Otomi. These people live in areas surrounding
the Mazatecan heartland, and they as well as the Chinantecs are long overdue
for study. These old explorers used horses and mules for their traveling, I
used a car and a jeep, but I’m sure that now one could do it all by bus, if
they were brave enough (traveling on rural Mexican buses can be a real learning
experience).
Epling, C. and Játiva-M., C. 1962. A new species of Salvia from Mexico. Botanical Museum
Leaflets, Harvard University, 20:75-76.
Gómez Pompa, A. 1957. Salvia divinorum herbarium sheets, A. Gómez Pompa 87556 and 93216 National Herbarium (UNAM), México,
D.F.
Gómez Pompa, A. 2001. Personal communication
5/13/2001.
Johnson, J.B. 1939a. Some notes on the Mazatec, Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos,
3:142-156.
Johnson,
J.B. (1939b) The elements of Mazatec witchcraft, Etnologiska Studier 9:128-150.
Pompa
y Pompa, A. (1966) Summa Antropológica en homenaje a Roberto Weitlaner, INAH,
México, D.F. Many of the articles deal directly with his life and his numerous
expeditions.
Reko, B.P. (1945) Mitobotanica Zapoteca. Tacubaya,
México, D.F. (Privately printed), pp. 17, 53-54.
Schultes, R.E.
(1939) Plantae Mexicanae II. The identification of Teonanacatl, a narcotic
Basidiomycete of
the Aztecs. Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University 7:37-54.
Schultes, R.E. (1941) Economic aspects of the flora
of northeastern Oaxaca, Mexico. Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Valdés, L.J., III., Díaz, J.L., and Paul, A.G.
(1983) Ethnopharmacology of Ska María
Pastora (Salvia Divinorum, Epling and Játiva-M.). J. Ethnopharmacology 7:287-312.
Wasson,
R.G. (1962) A new Mexican psychotropic drug from the mint family. Botanical
Museum Leaflets, Harvard University 20:77-84.
Wasson, R.G. (1963) Notes on the present status of Ololiuhqui and the other hallucinogens
of Mexico. Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University 20:161-193.
Weitlaner, R.J.
(1952) Curaciones Mazatecas. Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e
Historia (México) 4:279-285.