Maria Sabina
Encyclopedia
María Sabina was a Mazatec curandera who lived her entire life in a modest dwelling in the Sierra Mazateca
of southern Mexico
. Her practice was based on the use of the various species of native psilocybe
mushrooms.
shaman, to allow Westerners to participate in the healing vigil that became known as the velada
, where all participants partake of the psilocybin mushroom
as a sacrament
to open the gates of the mind. The velada is seen as a purification and as a communion with the sacred.
In 1955, the US banker and ethnomycologist
R. Gordon Wasson visited María Sabina's hometown of Huautla de Jimenez, Oaxaca
, and participated in a velada with her. He also brought spore
s of the fungus
, which he identified as Psilocybe mexicana
, to Paris
. The fungus was cultivated in Europe and its active ingredient was duplicated as the chemical psilocybin
in the laboratory by Swiss
chemist
Albert Hofmann
in 1958.
US youth began seeking out María Sabina and the "holy children" as early as 1962, and in the years that followed, thousands of counterculture
mushroom seekers, scientists, and others arrived in the Sierra Mazateca
, and many met her. By 1967 more than 70 people from the US, Canada
, and Western Europe were renting cabins in neighboring villages. Many of them went there directly after reading the May 13, 1957 Life Magazine article written by Wasson about his experiences.
Sabina cultivated relationships with several of them, including Wasson, who became something of a friend. Many 1960s celebrities visited María Sabina, including rock stars such as Bob Dylan
, John Lennon
, Mick Jagger
and Keith Richards
. Jagger gave Sabina a pair of golden earrings from France, depicted in this article and many other photos. .
While she was initially hospitable to the truth seekers thronging to her, their lack of respect for the sacred and traditional purposes caused María Sabina to remark:
Many of the travelers were penniless, and they contributed little to the local economy, especially when they learned to find the mushrooms on their own.
Late in life, María Sabina became bitter about her many misfortunes, and how others had profited from her name. Nevertheless, late in her life she confided to Joan Halifax
that the dissemination of the knowledge of the sacred mushroom was her fate, that it was pre-ordained by God that she met Wasson. She also felt that the ceremony of the velada had been desecrated and irremediably polluted by the hedonistic use of the mushrooms:
was celebrating a mushroom velada with pills of Indocybin or synthetic psilocybin.
On the 1962 expedition organized by R. Gordon Wasson to see Maria Sabina, Hofmann came along and brought a bottle of psilocybin pills. Sandoz was marketing them under the brand name "Indocybin"—"indo" for both "Indian" and "indole" (the nucleus of their chemical structures) and "cybin" for the main molecular constituent, "psilocybin." ("Psilo" in Greek means "bald," "cybe" means "head.") Hofmann gave his synthesized entheogen to the curandera who divulged the Indians' secret. "Of course," Wasson recalls of the encounter, "Albert Hofmann is so conservative he always gives too little a dose, and it didn't have any effect." Hofmann had a different interpretation: activation of "the pills, which must dissolve in the stomach before they can be absorbed, takes place only after 30 to 45 minutes, in contrast to the mushrooms which, when chewed, work faster because part of the drug is absorbed immediately by the mucosa in the mouth." In order to settle her doubts about the pills, more were distributed, bringing the total for Maria Sabina, her daughter, and the shaman Don Aurelio up to 30 mg., a moderately high dose by current standards but not perhaps by the Indians'. At dawn, their Mazatec interpreter reported that Maria Sabina felt there was little difference between the pilb and the mushrooms. She thanked Hofmann for the bottle of pills, "saying that she would now be able to serve people even when no mushrooms were available."
s. Estrada's American brother-in-law, Henry Munn
, translated many of the chants from Spanish to English, and wrote about the significance of her language. According to Munn, María Sabina brilliantly used themes common to Mazatec and Mesoamerican spiritual traditions, but at the same time was a unique talent, a masterful oral poet and craftsperson with a profound literary and personal charisma.
It is sung in a shamanic trance in which, as she recounted, the "saint children" speak through her
:
The Mexican counterculture has an affinity for Sabina. The Mexican rock
group Santa Sabina
is named for her, and El Tri
, one of the first and most successful rock groups in Mexico, dedicated the song María Sabina to her, proclaiming her "un símbolo de la sabiduría y el amor" ("a symbol of wisdom and love").
Mexican musician, Jorge Reyes, included prerecorded chants of Maria Sabina in the track "The Goddess of the Eagles", in his album "Comala".
The quality of the original recording is excellent.
Reyes also used more of the recording in his collaboration with "Deep Forest" in the track, "Tres Marias", in the Album "Comparsa".
Sierra Mazateca
The Sierra Mazateca is a mountaineous area, part of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, located in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico. Its western part is within the district of Teotitlan del Camino in the Cañada and its eastern part is within the district of Tuxtepec, in the...
of southern Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Her practice was based on the use of the various species of native psilocybe
Psilocybe
Psilocybe is a genus of small mushrooms growing worldwide. This genus is best known for its species with psychedelic or hallucinogenic properties, widely known as "magic mushrooms", though the majority of species do not contain hallucinogenic compounds...
mushrooms.
Her life
María Sabina was the first contemporary Mexican curandera, defined as a nativeIndigenous peoples of Mexico
Mexico, in the second article of its Constitution, is defined as a "pluricultural" nation in recognition of the diverse ethnic groups that constitute it, and in which the indigenous peoples are the original foundation...
shaman, to allow Westerners to participate in the healing vigil that became known as the velada
Velada (Mazatec ritual)
Velada is the name of the healing vigils carried out by Mazatec curanderos .-References:...
, where all participants partake of the psilocybin mushroom
Psilocybin mushroom
Psilocybin mushrooms are fungi that contain the psychoactive compounds psilocybin and psilocin. There are multiple colloquial terms for psilocybin mushrooms, the most common being shrooms or magic mushrooms....
as a sacrament
Sacrament
A sacrament is a sacred rite recognized as of particular importance and significance. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites.-General definitions and terms:...
to open the gates of the mind. The velada is seen as a purification and as a communion with the sacred.
In 1955, the US banker and ethnomycologist
Ethnomycology
Ethnomycology is the study of the historical uses and sociological impact of fungi , and can be considered a subfield of ethnobotany or ethnobiology...
R. Gordon Wasson visited María Sabina's hometown of Huautla de Jimenez, Oaxaca
Oaxaca
Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...
, and participated in a velada with her. He also brought spore
Spore
In biology, a spore is a reproductive structure that is adapted for dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many bacteria, plants, algae, fungi and some protozoa. According to scientist Dr...
s of the fungus
Fungus
A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...
, which he identified as Psilocybe mexicana
Psilocybe mexicana
Psilocybe mexicana is a psychedelic mushroom. It is from this species that Dr. Albert Hofmann first isolated and named the active compounds, psilocybin and psilocin in 1958. It was first used by the early natives of Central America and North America over 2,000 years ago, known to theAztecs as...
, to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The fungus was cultivated in Europe and its active ingredient was duplicated as the chemical psilocybin
Psilocybin
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug, with mind-altering effects similar to those of LSD and mescaline, after it is converted to psilocin. The effects can include altered thinking processes, perceptual distortions, an altered sense of time, and spiritual experiences, as well as...
in the laboratory by Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
Albert Hofmann
Albert Hofmann
Albert Hofmann was a Swiss scientist known best for being the first person to synthesize, ingest and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide . He authored more than 100 scientific articles and a number of books, including LSD: My Problem Child...
in 1958.
US youth began seeking out María Sabina and the "holy children" as early as 1962, and in the years that followed, thousands of counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
mushroom seekers, scientists, and others arrived in the Sierra Mazateca
Sierra Mazateca
The Sierra Mazateca is a mountaineous area, part of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, located in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico. Its western part is within the district of Teotitlan del Camino in the Cañada and its eastern part is within the district of Tuxtepec, in the...
, and many met her. By 1967 more than 70 people from the US, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and Western Europe were renting cabins in neighboring villages. Many of them went there directly after reading the May 13, 1957 Life Magazine article written by Wasson about his experiences.
Sabina cultivated relationships with several of them, including Wasson, who became something of a friend. Many 1960s celebrities visited María Sabina, including rock stars such as Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
and Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
. Jagger gave Sabina a pair of golden earrings from France, depicted in this article and many other photos. .
While she was initially hospitable to the truth seekers thronging to her, their lack of respect for the sacred and traditional purposes caused María Sabina to remark:
"Before Wasson, nobody took the children simply to find God. They were always taken to cure the sick."
Many of the travelers were penniless, and they contributed little to the local economy, especially when they learned to find the mushrooms on their own.
Late in life, María Sabina became bitter about her many misfortunes, and how others had profited from her name. Nevertheless, late in her life she confided to Joan Halifax
Joan Halifax
Joan Jiko Halifax is a Zen Buddhist roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, hospice caregiver, and the author of several books on Buddhism and spirituality. She currently serves as abbot and guiding teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a Zen Peacemaker community...
that the dissemination of the knowledge of the sacred mushroom was her fate, that it was pre-ordained by God that she met Wasson. She also felt that the ceremony of the velada had been desecrated and irremediably polluted by the hedonistic use of the mushrooms:
"From the moment the foreigners arrived, the 'holy children' lost their purity. They lost their force, they ruined them. Henceforth they will no longer work. There is no remedy for it."
Use of synthetic entheogens
María SabinaMaria Sabina
María Sabina was a Mazatec curandera who lived her entire life in a modest dwelling in the Sierra Mazateca of southern Mexico...
was celebrating a mushroom velada with pills of Indocybin or synthetic psilocybin.
On the 1962 expedition organized by R. Gordon Wasson to see Maria Sabina, Hofmann came along and brought a bottle of psilocybin pills. Sandoz was marketing them under the brand name "Indocybin"—"indo" for both "Indian" and "indole" (the nucleus of their chemical structures) and "cybin" for the main molecular constituent, "psilocybin." ("Psilo" in Greek means "bald," "cybe" means "head.") Hofmann gave his synthesized entheogen to the curandera who divulged the Indians' secret. "Of course," Wasson recalls of the encounter, "Albert Hofmann is so conservative he always gives too little a dose, and it didn't have any effect." Hofmann had a different interpretation: activation of "the pills, which must dissolve in the stomach before they can be absorbed, takes place only after 30 to 45 minutes, in contrast to the mushrooms which, when chewed, work faster because part of the drug is absorbed immediately by the mucosa in the mouth." In order to settle her doubts about the pills, more were distributed, bringing the total for Maria Sabina, her daughter, and the shaman Don Aurelio up to 30 mg., a moderately high dose by current standards but not perhaps by the Indians'. At dawn, their Mazatec interpreter reported that Maria Sabina felt there was little difference between the pilb and the mushrooms. She thanked Hofmann for the bottle of pills, "saying that she would now be able to serve people even when no mushrooms were available."
Chants
Álvaro Estrada, a fellow Mazatec, recorded her life and work and translated her chantChant
Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes to highly complex musical structures Chant (from French chanter) is the rhythmic speaking or singing...
s. Estrada's American brother-in-law, Henry Munn
Henry Munn
Henry Munn is a writer and poet who studied the use of hallucinogenic plants by the Conibo Indians of eastern Peru and also the Mazatec Indians of the mountains of Oaxaca...
, translated many of the chants from Spanish to English, and wrote about the significance of her language. According to Munn, María Sabina brilliantly used themes common to Mazatec and Mesoamerican spiritual traditions, but at the same time was a unique talent, a masterful oral poet and craftsperson with a profound literary and personal charisma.
It is sung in a shamanic trance in which, as she recounted, the "saint children" speak through her
Channelling (mediumistic)
In spirituality, channelling or channeling is the belief that communication of information occurs by or through a person , from a deity, spirit or other paranormal entity outside the mind of the channel...
:
Because I can swim in the immense
Because I can swim in all forms
Because I am the launch woman
Because I am the sacred opposum
Because I am the Lord opposum
I am the woman Book that is beneath the water, says
I am the woman of the populous town, says
I am the shepherdess who is beneath the water, says
I am the woman who shepherds the immense, says
I am a shepherdess and I come with my shepherd, says
Because everything has its origin
And I come going from place to place from the origin...
Cultural impact
Sabina is regarded as a sacred figure in Huautla. At the same time, her image is used to market various local commercial ventures, from restaurants to taxi companies.The Mexican counterculture has an affinity for Sabina. The Mexican rock
Mexican rock
Mexican rock music, often referred to in Mexico as rock nacional , originated in the 1950s with covers of standards by Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and The Everly Brothers, among others, bands such as Los Rebeldes del Rock, Los Locos del Ritmo, Los Crazy Boys, Los Nómadas, and Javier Bátiz soon arose...
group Santa Sabina
Santa Sabina (band)
Santa Sabina is a Mexican rock band originally from Mexico City. The group was formed in 1989 by singer Rita Guerrero, bassist Alfonso "Poncho" Figueroa, guitarist Pablo Valero and keyboardist Jacobo Lieberman. Juan Sebastian Lach was keyboardist for a while...
is named for her, and El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
, one of the first and most successful rock groups in Mexico, dedicated the song María Sabina to her, proclaiming her "un símbolo de la sabiduría y el amor" ("a symbol of wisdom and love").
Mexican musician, Jorge Reyes, included prerecorded chants of Maria Sabina in the track "The Goddess of the Eagles", in his album "Comala".
The quality of the original recording is excellent.
Reyes also used more of the recording in his collaboration with "Deep Forest" in the track, "Tres Marias", in the Album "Comparsa".
External links
- http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=1614/R. Gordon Wasson's recording of a 1956 veladaVelada (Mazatec ritual)Velada is the name of the healing vigils carried out by Mazatec curanderos .-References:...
at Smithsonian FolkwaysSmithsonian FolkwaysSmithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways...
.