Maria Sabina and «Los Niños Santos» (The Holy Children)

The Mazatecos are the people who more purely have preserved the teonanacatl rituals. It was precisely a Mazatec shaman: Maria Sabina, who spread, despite herself, the power and strength of the « Niños Santos” the "Holy Children"  of the teonanacatl mushrooms.

Maria Sabina was a native of Huautla in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.  She was born in 1894, and since young life lived in poverty and sacrifice. She recounts that when she was a child tending sheep in the mountains and at one moment she went hungry.

Mushrooms offered available food.   It was at that moment that she had her first contacts with the Niños Santos.

Over the years, inspired by her large family, her grandfather, her grandmother, her uncles, connoisseurs of traditional Mazatec traditions, she began using mushrooms to heal people.

Her fame spread to neighboring regions and beyond, to the capital and abroad.

Among those who heard about the existence of María Sabina was the ethnic mycologist Gordon Wasson and his wife Valentina Pavlovna. In June 1955 the couple traveled to Oaxaca and attended an evening singing with Maria Sabina in Huautla. Both consumed teonanacatl and were very impressed by the experience. At that time María Sabina was 61 years old.

Following on from this point Pavlovna Wasson set out to study the theme. They invited Professor Roger Heim, an expert mycologist, who joined a research team that would have to devote to work on teonanacatl in subsequent years.  Valentina Pavlovna died soon after, but after three years as a result of these exploration the book Les champignons hallucinogènes du Mexique s was published , whose principal authors were Roger Heim and Gordon Wasson himself.

Almost twenty years later, a student of Mazateco  origin named Alvaro Estrada, devoted himself to the task of collecting the history of the life of Maria Sabina from her own lips and translated it into Spanish. In 1977 the first edition of Alvaro Estrada book “Life of Maria Sabina, the Sage of the Fungi «prefaced by Wasson himself was published.

The global diffusion of the power of teonanacatl made many people travel to Huautla to meet Maria Sabina or to obtain their «dose» of mushrooms.

External influence and its impact on medical practice and the power of the Niños Santos was discussed by Maria Sabina in this way:

« Before Wasson, I felt that the saint children raised me. I no longer feel that way ... If Cayetano had not brought to foreigners, the Niños Santos would retain their power .... From the moment foreigners arrived ... the Niños Santos lost their power.  They lost their force, they were decomposed. From now on they no longer serve. There is no remedy. «13  

Wasson himself, who reproduced this statement of the Mazateca shaman, lamented the process that he had unwittingly sparked some years earlier.

 «These words shake me, I, Gordon Wasson, I am made responsible for the end of a religious practice in Mesoamerica that goes back millennia ago.»(The little mushroom) will no longer serve. It is hopeless. «I fear telling the truth, showing her wisdom. A practice carried out in secret for centuries has been brought to light, and the light announces its end. «

 One of the visitors who received Maria Sabina in Huautla was the eminent writer and researcher Fernando Benitez, who died recently. Benitez was one of the most important personalities in the study of native cultures of Mexico. 

His work «The Indians of Mexico», in several volumes, is one of the most important milestones in world anthropology.

Not so long ago he presented a conference on the power of mushrooms which is very expressive in this regard.

«Back to the hallucinogenic mushrooms.»

“I was one of the first to try. I went to Huautla, I came into contact with the magic priestess María Sabina. I ate mushrooms and chocolate to remove the bitterness. The ceremony had several stages: first of crazy laugh, laugh to tears, which already meant the beginning of catharsis and of which you relieve you crying. Then I entered a period of extraordinary visions, a display of Persian carpets of wonderful drawings. Then I went to the sounds; I heard sounds I had never heard, I saw things illuminated by a light that they don’t have.

I stood four hours in the rain, without feeling. A friend came and asked me: Who are you? I said, I am God, I do not need glasses. I see.

I took the glasses and smashed them on the floor. The shaman Maria Sabina tended me in bed and covered me with some blankets, until I could return to the world, purified, clean and, of course, infinitely wiser and more sensitive. It was the most important experience of my life. «

From "Peoples, Drugs and Serpents". Danilo Antón, Piriguazú Ediciones.

The Cloud People of Oaxaca (México)

From Ancient History Encyclopedia

The Zapotecs, known as the 'Cloud People', dwelt in the southern highlands of central Mesoamerica, specifically, in the Valley of Oaxaca, which they inhabited from the late Preclassic period to the end of the Classic period (500 BCE - 900 CE). Their capital was first at Monte Albán and then at Mitla, they dominated the southern highlands, spoke a variation of the Oto-Zapotecan language, and profited from trade and cultural links with the Olmec, Teotihuacan and Maya civilizations.  

The Zapotecs grew from the agricultural communities which grew up in the valleys in and around Oaxaca. In the Preclassic period they established fruitful trade links with the Olmec civilization on the Gulf Coast which allowed for the construction of an impressive capital site at Monte Albán and for the Zapotec to dominate the region during the Classic period. The city, strategically placed overlooking the three main valleys, evolved over centuries, beginning around 500 BCE and remaining the cultural centre until the demise of the civilization around 900 CE.

By the late Preclassic period Zapotec cities show a high level of sophistication in architecture, the arts, writing and engineering projects such as irrigation systems. For example, at Hierve el Agua there are artificially terraced hillsides irrigated by extensive canals fed by natural springs. Evidence of contact with other Mesoamerican cultures can be seen, for example, at the site of Dainzu, which has a large stone-faced platform with reliefs showing players of the familiar Mesoamerican ball game wearing protective headgear. We also know of very close relations between the Zapotec and the peoples based at Teotihuacan in the Basin of Mexico. Indeed, at Teotihuacan there was even a quarter of the city specifically reserved for the Zapotec community.The Zapotec had other significant settlements besides the capital and over 15 elite palaces have been identified in the surrounding valleys. Indeed, the Zapotec may be divided into three distinct groups: the Valley Zapotec (based in the Valley of Oaxaca), the Sierra Zapotec (in the north), and the Southern Zapotec (in the south and east, nearer the Isthmus of Tehuantepec). The major Zapotec sites, spread across the Y-shaped Valley of Oaxaca, include the capital Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Huitzo, Etla, San Jose Mogote, Zaachila, Zimatlan, Ocotlan, Abasolo, Tlacolula, and Mitla. The latter would become the most important Zapotec city from c. 900 CE and is notable for its buildings arranged around plazas which are richly decorated with reliefs of geometrical designs.

By the late Preclassic period Zapotec cities show a high level of sophistication in architecture, the arts, writing and engineering projects such as irrigation systems. For example, at Hierve el Agua there are artificially terraced hillsides irrigated by extensive canals fed by natural springs. Evidence of contact with other Mesoamerican cultures can be seen, for example, at the site of Dainzu, which has a large stone-faced platform with reliefs showing players of the familiar Mesoamerican ball game wearing protective headgear. We also know of very close relations between the Zapotec and the peoples based at Teotihuacan in the Basin of Mexico. Indeed, at Teotihuacan there was even a quarter of the city specifically reserved for the Zapotec community.

Ref.

www.ancient.eu/Zapotec_Civilization/