The Salvia divinorum Research and Information Center - Shroomery

Salvia Divinorum
THE BOTANY OF SALVIA DIVINORUM (LABIATAE)
The Mazatec Landscape
The Mazatec Indians
have lived in a relatively
isolated area in
northernmost Oaxaca,
wedged in between the
states of Puebla and
Veracruz, since well
before the arrival of the
Spanish in the Sixteenth
Century (Fig. 1). The
topography of the region is diverse, characterized by rugged highland
areas virtually without level ground. The dissection of the terrain is
reflected by the many dialects of the Mazatecan language spoken, and
the unique "lenguage silbado," or whistle language, by which the
Mazatecs can carry on a conversation with whistle sounds only. Like
the yodeling of the Alpine shepherds, communication from one peak to
another is made easier using a vocabulary of sounds especially tailored
for that purpose. The temperate highlands of the Sierra Mazateca,
roughly 1200-2500 m in elevation, grade into tropical lowlands, which
comprise somewhere near 40 percent of the total area inhabited by the
Mazatec (McMahon 1973; Vasquez 1981). South and east of the
highland region, these areas are part
of the extensive Papaloapan river
basin. About half of the roughly 1000
km2 of lowland terrain once
inhabited by the Mazatec was
inundated with water in 1955 to form
the Miguel Aleman Dam. This huge
hydro-electric project forced over
20,000 Mazatecs to abandon their
homes, and many of those displaced
now live on the banks of the dam,
including its eastern shores (where S.
divinorum does not grow, see below).
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