Three Mazatec Wise Ones and their Books

Abstract

■ Most accounts of psychedelic mushroom use in Mexico's Sierra Maza teca describe the practice as a prehispanic survival degraded by tourism. This article explores how - through chants, self-descriptions and life stories - Mazatec curers who deal with 'outsiders' use the discourse surrounding mushrooms to construct a mimetic model of power and the relationship between inside and outside that highlights the importance of the border and the position of the mediator. The themes of shamanic travel and the book make both sense and power out of magical mushroom mediation and involve the outsider as an essential component of Mazatec identity.

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