Article suitable for older students

Hallucinogens

7th Dec 2023

Magic Mexican mushrooms Nanacatl, Florentine Codex Bk 11

A recent enquirer wrote to us asking: ‘Did the Aztecs take any kind of hallucinogenic drugs for recreational or medicinal purposes?’ The answer unequivocally is Yes, on both counts. In fact one scholar has written that ‘Mexico represents the world’s richest diversity in the use of hallucinogens by aboriginal societies’ (Ortiz de Montellano, 1990: 68); in all over 400 are known, belonging to 15 botanical families (López Austin 1993: 50). Here we can only scratch the surface by way of introduction... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

‘Hallucinogens played and continue to play an important role in Mesoamerican religious life. They have been used for communion with the gods and ancestors, divination, personal visions and self-knowledge, and as a source of pleasure and entertainment’ (Miller & Taube, 1993: 90). A key part of ‘religious life’ was and is today shamanism: using hallucinogens to induce altered states and trances has for centuries been standard practice for ritual healers, since the diagnosis and cure of psychotic conditions ‘required that the healer travel to other worlds’ (Ortiz de Montellano, 1990: 70). Little wonder, then, that plants and fungi that contain psychoactive substances were considered to be gifts from the gods. Indeed the Nahuatl name for the bitter, black mushroom Psilocybe mexicana (main picture above and pic 1), teonanacatl means ‘flesh of the gods’. The modern term entheogen - which replaces older words like ‘psychedelic’ - relates precisely to the idea of a god within a plant.

While the best known Mexican ‘plant of the gods’ - peyote (Lophopora sp., peyotl in Nahuatl), extracted from the buds of a small spineless cactus - is only found in the northern deserts of the country, it was widely traded in ancient times and its use by the Aztecs has been well documented (it’s described in Book XI of the Florentine Codex). It was considered a singularly benevolent ‘gift of the gods’ by the Huichol people, as opposed to jimson weed (Datura sp., tlapatl in Nahuatl) which had evil associations for them (López Austin, 1993: 325). And when it comes to ‘magic mushrooms’, these are found widely throughout Mesoamerica. At least 24 species are still consumed today in southern Mexico (Evans Schultes & Hofmann 1982).

The most potent active compound in teonanacatl hallucinogenic mushrooms is Psilocybin. They can be eaten fresh (see pic 3), in some cases being ground prior to digesting, or prepared as an infusion. Descriptions of these mushrooms in Nahua sources - often poetry - constantly refer to their power to ‘take possession of one’, being considered ‘flowers that intoxicate’ (Ortiz de Montellano 1990, Evans Schultes & Hofmann 1982). In the opening paragraph of Chapter 7 of Book XI of the Florentine Codex, describing ‘the many different herbs which perturb one, madden one’, the consumer of mushrooms becomes ‘besotted’, ‘deranged’, ‘troubled’, ‘maddened’, ‘possessed’... In this last case (Florentine Codex 6: 129) the scribe is writing of the seeds of the Morning Glory climbing bindweed called in Nahuatl ololiuhqui (Rivea sp.), consumed by the Mexica for hallucinations and medical diagnosis (Bray 1987: 41-42).

The Aztecs often conceived hallucinations as bearing portents of future events; merchants were known to consume Psilocybin with honey during late-night banquets to aid them in foretelling their fate on upcoming expeditions - and to end up crying (Miller & Taube, 1993: 91). Among the effects of the hallucinogens the Mexica consumed were all kinds of visions, hysterical laughing, hiding away, weeping (note the tear on the cheek of the deity holding mushrooms in picture 4), even suicide (Bray, op cit). Ortiz de Montellano (1990: 70) notes that the classic Nahuatl disfrasismo or metaphor for poetry - in xochitl, in cuicatl (‘flower, song’) - may well have had shamanic associations, linking divination, hallucinations and music...
’The word [in Nahuatl poems] describing “flowers” as “enrapturing” or “intoxicating” is ihuintli, which was also used to describe the actions of hallucinogens. [One scholar] commented that entheogens also produce auditory effects that can take the form of music’ (note the skull-scraper in pic 4).

It’s interesting that in codex images of (magic) mushrooms they are often depicted in pairs (pic 5). The Florentine Codex specifically talks of eating ‘only two’ (Book XI: 130), and such pairs of mushrooms are reportedly common today in ritual ceremonies in Oaxaca (Evans Schultes & Hofmann 1982: 146).
The best known example of Aztec iconography depicting hallucinogenic plants is the stone sculpture dating from the beginning of the sixteenth century of deity Xochipilli (‘Prince of Flowers’), from Chalco, said to have been found on the slopes of one of Mexico’s most famous volcanoes. His face is often described as one of ecstasy. Highly ornamental, the statue is believed to be covered in hallucinogenic flowers... (pic 6).

‘The posture of Xochipilli suggests a shaman in a hypnotic trance of hallucinogenic ecstasy... The carvings on his knees and the pedestal bear the teonanacatl, a sacred hallucinogenic mushroom. In diverse parts of his body are representations of other hallucinogenic flowers’ (Aguilar-Moreno, 2006: 195). Evans Schultes & Hofmann (1982) have gone further and attempted to identify exactly which specimens are being depicted (see picture 6), ranging from the tobacco flower to sinicuiche, a little known entheogen containing multiple alkaloids.

Sources/references:-
• Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel (2006) Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, Facts on File
• Bray, Warwick (1987) Everyday Life of the Aztecs, Dorset Press
• Evans Schultes, Richard & Hofmann, Albert (1982) Plantas de los Dioses: Orígenes del Uso de los Alucinógenos, Fondo de Cultural Económica, Mexico
• Florentine Codex Book 11 - Earthly Things (1963) trans. Dibble & Anderson, School of American Research, Utah
• López Austin, Alfredo (1993) The Myths of the Opossum: Pathways of Mesoamerican Mythology, University of New Mexico Press
• Miller, Mary & Taube, Karl (1993) The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, Thames & Hudson Ltd.
• Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard (1990) Aztec Medicine, Health and Nutrition, Rutgers University Press.

Picture sources:-
• Main pic, pic 1 (inset) & pic 2: images from the Florentine Codex scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994
• Pic 1: photo by Alan Rockefeller from Wikipedia (Psilocybe mexicana)
• Pic 3: image from the Codex Magliabechiano scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1970
• Pix 4 & 5: images from the Codex Vindobonensis scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1974
• Pic 6: image scanned from Evans Schultes, Richard & Hofmann, Albert (1982) (above); inset photo by Ana Laura Landa/Mexicolore.

Faced with fierce religious repression in the wake of the Spanish invasion, Nahua curanderos (healers) were forced to conceal the names of hallucinogenic plants; to give two examples:-
Peyote became ‘Mary’s Rose’
Morning Glory became ‘Our Lord’...

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