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Salvia apiana
Salvia apiana A website for the Department of Biology at the University of San Diego contains the following information about Salvia apiana, a well-known and popular smudging plant: “White sage is an important and sacred plant for Native Americans. This plant provides both food and medicine for the Kumeyaay. The seeds of the white sage…
Hierochloe odorata
Hierochloe odorata (or Anthoxanthum nitens) The name for sweetgrass in Mohawk (Kanien’keha) is Óhonte Wenserákon and in Cheyenne it is Motse’eo. According to Cliff Eaglefeathers and Pete Risingsun, “Sweet grass (Motse’eo) is a sacred plant, a gift from Maheo’ (God), our Creator of Life. Cheyenne believe life is a spiritual journey with the sacred spirit of…
Anadenanthera spp.
Anadenanthera spp. Constantino Manuel Torres and David B. Repke, authors of Anadenanthera: Visionary Plant of Ancient South America, the most comprehensive study of this plant maintain: “The genus Anadenanthera was, together with tobacco, one of the most widely used shamanic inebriants. It is primarily South American in distribution and includes two species with two varieties…
Lophophora williamsii
Lophophora williamsii Wade Davis hopes that we always keep in mind a fundamental truth regarding this cactus: “In fact, we now know, based on recent archeological discoveries, that the native people of Mexico have eaten peyote for seven thousand years.” About what they characterize as a “divine cactus” used by the Huichol (Wixárica) of Mexico,…
Brugmansia spp.
Brugmansia spp. Whenever possible, Microcosms: The Sacred Plants of the Americas seeks to highlight the potential connectivity between ancestral knowledge about medicinal plants and contemporary Western scientific models for the study of botany. In this sense, one of the most notable cross-cultural collaborations occurred when Kamentsá healer Salvador Chindoy shared his plant wisdom in the…
Salvia divinorum
Salvia divinorum The most comprehensive overview of Salvia divinorum, a member of the mint family, was published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology in 2013 by a team of researchers headed by Ivan Casselman. Their article “concentrates on the investigation of Salvia divinorum over the last 50 years including ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, taxonomy, systematics, genetics, chemistry and…
