Teonanácatl is a Nahuatl word, from the language of the Aztecs, for sacred mushrooms. The friar Bernardino de Sahagún described small mushrooms called teonanacatl that grow under field grass, taste bad and cause visions (Sahagún, Book XI). Nanacatl is the ordinary Nahuatl word for mushroom, and teo comes from teotl, god or sacred; the Mexican mycologist Gastón Guzmán read the whole as “sacred or divine mushroom” (Guzmán, 2012).
The popular gloss “flesh of the gods” goes back to the friar Motolinía, who wrote that the name meant “carne de Dios”, God’s flesh (Motolinía). Wasson repeated “God’s flesh” in Life in 1957 (Life, 1957). Translations still disagree, and the site does not pick a winner.
Its identity was once disputed too. In 1915 the botanist William Safford argued teonanácatl was really dried peyote (Safford, 1915). Richard Evans Schultes answered in 1939, pointing out that Sahagún named peyote and mushrooms as separate things (Schultes, 1939). Guzmán found the word was not in use among any ethnic group in Mexico in his time; it survives mainly as a scholars’ name (Guzmán, 2012).
Sources
- Sahagún, Historia general, vol. 3 (Book XI, ch. 7)
- Guzmán, 2012, Acta Botanica Mexicana
- Motolinía, Historia de los indios de la Nueva España
- Schultes, 1939, Botanical Museum Leaflets
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