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The Salvia divinorum Research and Information Center - Shroomery

The Salvia divinorum Research and Information Center - Shroomery

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<strong>The</strong> Identities of pipiltzintzintli<br />

To find a lost animal or object, one takes some mushrooms at night. One<br />

commences to speak (after falling asleep). It is not permitted to keep an<br />

animal around which might cry out <strong>and</strong> disturb the sleeper, who goes on<br />

speaking while another person listens. <strong>The</strong> sleeper tells where the lost<br />

animal or thing is, <strong>and</strong> the next day, there it is when they go to find it. In<br />

addition to the mushrooms, some people use a seed called “Semilla de la<br />

Virgen”, others use “Hierba Maria” …<strong>The</strong> use of various magical plants to<br />

find lost objects is not restricted to the Mazatec alone; the Zapotec use a<br />

plant called “bador, the little children,” which is administered the same<br />

way as yerba Maria by the Mazatec. <strong>The</strong> leaf is beaten well, <strong>and</strong> a tea is<br />

made thereof. It is probable that the Chinantec use it, since it well known<br />

to those who live in the vicinity of Ojitlan. <strong>The</strong> Aztecs used narcotic plants<br />

in a similar way (Johnson 1939b).<br />

Bador, or badoh, was later identified as the morning glory, Rivea corymbosa, <strong>and</strong><br />

it is the seeds that are used, not the leaves (Wasson 1963). Johnson was killed in<br />

Africa during World War II.<br />

Blas P.Reko, like Weitlaner, was an Austrian expatriate. He was a doctor <strong>and</strong><br />

naturalist, <strong>and</strong> often worked in collaboration with the anthropologist (Reko 1945;<br />

Pompa y Pompa 1966). In his book on medicinal plants, he wrote:<br />

I cannot leave unmentioned here another magical plant whose leaves<br />

produce visions <strong>and</strong> which the Cuicatecs <strong>and</strong> Mazatecs (of the districts of<br />

Cuicatlán <strong>and</strong> Teotitlán) call “leaf of prophecy.” <strong>The</strong> loose leaves I have<br />

obtained do not allow its scientific identification at the present time.<br />

Teotitlán is in the Valley of Oaxaca, in the upper central part of the state. It is<br />

Mazatec country. Cuicatlán is the district directly adjacent to the southeast. A<br />

search engine such as Google TM can find you some good maps. As an aside, the<br />

credit for discovering the magic mushrooms has been given to Richard Schultes<br />

(1939), <strong>and</strong> later R.G. Wasson. Actually, at the time Schultes was in the Sierra<br />

Mazateca, working on his PhD thesis (Schultes 1941). He was accompanying<br />

Reko, who had been puzzling out the mushroom mystery since 1919. During the<br />

late 1930s Reko sent specimens he had collected to various American taxonomists<br />

for identification. He later said this about the American botanist:<br />

http://www.sagewisdom.org/earlysdhistory.html (2 of 6) [04.09.01 10:21:54]

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