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Datura innoxia
Datura innoxia According to Peter T. Furst, “Datura, toloache from the Nahuatl toloatzin, in Mexico and also in Indian California, was, and in many places still is, the ritual intoxicant of choice among native peoples of the Southwest and northwestern Mexico, including the Tepehuan.” Also called Mexican Thorn Apple, this plant was used by the…
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,…
Solandra spp.
Solandra spp. As was the case with so many other plants and fungi in the Americas during the colonial period, Tim Knab maintains that Catholic priests, attempting to prohibit the Huichol (Wixárica) ritual use of Solandra (whose common name is Kiéri), “probably destroyed many of the plants in their unsuccessful effort to stamp out idolatry in the…
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…
Nicotiana rustica
Nicotiana rustica Johannes Wilbert’s impossibly comprehensive study of tobacco has stood the test of decades: “Tobacco in traditional South American societies […] is shown to have played a culture-building role. Functioning as an actualizing principle between the telluric and the cosmic, it has served to validate the normative behavior and to affirm cultural institutions.” Wilbert…
