Bursera fagaroides Copal is an incense used throughout Mesoamerica that is prepared from the resin (often a blood-red color) from different trees of the Burseraceae family, including Bursera fagaroides, Bursera bipinnata and Bursera simaruba (called Jiñocuago in Nicaragua). “And here is the dawning and showing of the sun, moon, and stars. And Jaguar Quitze, Jaguar…
Tagetes lucida The Huichol (Wixárica) call Tagetes lucida (Mexican Marigold), a plant native to the Americas, Tamutsáli and Yahutli. Its brightly-colored flowers are used in religious ceremonies on home altars as incense and decorative folk art associated with the Day of the Dead throughout Mexico and have a pre-Columbian origin. Siegel, Collings and Diaz document…
Bourreria huanita A team of researchers led by Iandra Holzmann has discovered that the rare, nearly extinct tree Bourreria huanita that grows in Mesoamerica and was used ritually by the Mexica and Maya cultures has medicinal properties that exhibit sedative, antidepressant and hypnotic activities in mice. According to these scientists, “Ethnobotanical surveys conducted in Guatemala…
Cannabis spp. Schultes and Hofmann (with Rätsch), the authors of Plants of the Gods, write of a relationship between Cannabis and humanity that “has existed now probably for ten thousand years—since the discovery of agriculture in the Old World.” They document ancient uses of this multi-purpose plant in India, China and elsewhere. Cannabis was taken…
Ceiba pentandra One January, my wife Esthela Calderón and I secretly rushed Ceiba (as well as Cacao and Copal) leaves wrapped in damp paper towels and sealed in plastic bags across borders from our ancestral farm in Pueblo Redondo (Telica), Nicaragua all the way back to wintry Canton and the confocal microscope at St. Lawrence…
Amaranthus spp. Ricardo Ortiz describes the enormous importance of Amaranth as a basic food source in the pre-Columbian era and also how it was used as a sacred plant in rituals dedicated to the Aztec (Mexica) war god Huitzilopochtli. The seed was an integral part of the festivals in which human sacrifices were made. Consequently,…
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…
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…
Turbina corymbosa and Ipomoea spp. According to Wade Davis, Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD, discovered that “the active principles of ololiuque [Turbina corymbosa] were two indole alkaloids, lysergic acid amide and lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide, compounds that he already had sitting on the shelves of his lab.” About this and other members of the Convolvulaceae…
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,…
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