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History
The Mazatec healer, and the cost of the West’s discovery.
A Mazatec sabia, or wise woman, from Huautla de Jiménez in Oaxaca, Mexico. She was born in the mid-1890s and died in 1985.
A night vigil. In Wasson’s account, people consulted the mushrooms about illness, a stolen donkey or a relative far away.
She led the velada that R. Gordon Wasson and the photographer Allan Richardson attended. In 1957, Life captioned her photographs with a pseudonym.
Outsiders came to Huautla in large numbers. Officials and conservative sectors of the community blamed her, and one study says her house was burned on several occasions.
Few quotations can be traced. In the life story she told, she said that “the mushrooms are saints; they give me wisdom”.
Three papers say Wasson published about her without her consent. Mazatec researchers have called for reparations. Who has benefited is still disputed.
The full story
Our article links every claim to a source we opened, and says where we could read only a summary.
Educational only. Pictures are Shroomverse AI illustrations and film stills.