Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico

Review by: Gertrude P. Kurath

Midwest Folklore, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Winter, 1958), pp. 238-239
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4317766 .
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238 Midwest Folklore, VI1I:4

state boundaries, should inform us about the soil-beds where beliefs.

cluster thickly and continue to motivate human behavior.
Indiana University Richard M. Dorson
Bloomington, Indiana

CUSTOMS

Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico. Pre-

pared by V. P. and R. G. Wasson. Ethnic Folkways FR 8975, 12"
lp, $5.95.
The Wassons are experts on ethno-mycology, that is, mushroom
lore. When they heard that "several Indian peoples of Mexico con-
sidered certain species of mushrooms as the key to divine communica-
tion," they made trips to southern Mexico. In 1956 they discovered
an able curandera or shaman, Maria Sabina, a monolingual Mazatec
of Huautla de Jimenez, Oaxaca. They obtained her permission to
attend four ceremonies, and finally to record and photograph one
during the night of July 21-2, 1956. On that occasion she sang but
did not receive a vision, due to distracting circumstances as machinery
and White visitors. Notwithstanding, they published some of the
singing.
The curandera accomplishes a feat in singing the long ceremony
entirely unassisted, except for occasional remarks from a male helper.
Most of the time she chants rather than sings, enunciating nonsense
syllables (soso. .) or word phrases in a monotone or on two adjacent
tones. Sometimes she sings simple melodies in diatonic scales, as in
the earlier part of Side I and the end of Side II Sometimes she
hums. On Side I, Band 7 she claps in the exact rhythm of the tune,
in 6/8 meter. That is the sole accompaniment. For a while her
chanting would be most fascinating to any listener, but soon it would
pall on the non-specialist.
Interest would be greatly heightened by some descriptions of the
contents and procedure of the ceremony. But the Wassons limit their
own notes to two paragraphs on the field trip. They give no bibliog-
raphy. They reproduce only two photographs, a small one of the
singer and helper, and a large, unflattering one of the Wassons.
However, they had sent the reels to Miss Eunice Pike and Miss Sarah
C. Gudshinsky,of the Institute Linguistico de Verano. They reproduce
some of the comments, and all of the text translations by these Maza-
tec experts.
Miss Eunice Pike's letter contains some excellent information on
native attitudes towards the Mushroom Ceremony. A twenty-year

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 Book Reviews 239

old boy told her, "'I know that outsiders don't use the mushroom,
but Jesus gave it to us because we are poor people and can't afford
a doctor and expensive medicine." Later on, concerning the text
translation she says, ". . . the Mazatec has been written with an
orthography which more or less follows Spanish and is therefore not
fit for publication in a scientific paper . . ." and ". . Mazatec is a
tonal language, and some words are differentiated by tone only.
Therefore when the woman is singing or chanting some words become
ambiguous." Nevertheless she accomplished the tour de force of mak-
ing sense out of the texts and of rendering both the original and the
English equivalents.
Her text translations provide the most stimulating aspect of this
publication. The repetitious, symbolic phrases combine Indian style
and Christian ideology: "I'm a spirit woman. I'm a Jesus Christ
woman." The ambiguity of the reiterated, "Santo, Santa," "maria
patronai" (Maria who are boss), references to heaven, saints and
the like, all add up to a wonderful jumble of native and Christian
ideology.
The ceremony itself is worth investigation in the complex of
narcotic cults. The tunes and texts suggest analysis for cultural mix-
ture. Thus the LP brings potentially challenging materials. But the
editors do not even mention the problems. Their only contribution
to ethnology lies in the recording of the songs.
Ann Arbor, Michigan Gertrude P. Kurath

From the Archives: Practical Poetry

RHYMED PROVERBS

Submitted By ED KAHN
University of California
In the 1930's, The Indianapolis News ran a question and answer
column. An investigation of these columns will show many instances
of folk and other songs being requested, and other readers or the
editor of the column providing the answers.
The following poem, which appeared in the column, indicates
that versified proverbial comparisons must have had some occurence
around Indianapolis. Archer Taylor, in Proverbial Comparisons and
Similes from California, reports that proverbial comparisons in versi-
fied form have been a fairly common practice since at least the first
quarter of the eighteenth century, and lists a variant of the following
poem:'
1 Archer Taylor, Proverbial Comparisons and Similes from California,
University of California Press, 1954, Pp. 2-3.

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