The already sufficiently intricate ethnobotanical problem of peyote has
been further complicated by an erroneous identification of a narcotic
mushroom used by the Aztecs with the cactus peyotl. Safford[1] identifies
the two by a somewhat casual use of his evidence, and mystifies himself
with the consistent contradiction offered by all the early Spanish
writers to his assumption. He composes the contradiction by assuming
that the Aztecs did not recognize the dried discoidal button as the same
plant as the green cactus; despite overwhelming etymological evidence he
supposes they called the former teo-nanacatl and the latter peyotl. Only
a complete review of the evidence can clear up this misapprehension.
The Spanish writers consistently describe the two separately,
with detailed circumstantial distinctions which leave no room for
misunderstanding. Sahagún,[2] says
[The Chichimeca] had a great knowledge of herbs and roots
and knew their qualities and their virtues. They themselves
discovered and first used the root that they call peiotl and
those that used to gather and eat them used them in place of
wine, and they did the same with those that they call nanacatl,
which are toadstools [hongos malos] that also make one drunk
like wine.
Again, in a special chapter on intoxicating plants, Sahagún distinguishes
the two:
There is another herb like tunas of the earth [the Spanish name
for the fruit of the prickly pear, _Opuntia opuntia_] which
is called peiotl. It is white. It grows in the northern part.
Those that eat it see frightening and laughable visions. This
intoxication lasts two or three days and then stops....[3]
There are some little mushrooms in their land that they call
teo-nanacatl. They grow under the grass of the fields or
pastures. They are round. They have a sort of high stem [pie],
thin and round. They are eaten with great relish, but they harm
the throat and make one drunk.[4]
Still further to emphasize the point, Sahagún in the next section of
this chapter[5] goes on to speak of edible mushrooms:
The cone-shaped mushrooms (mushrooms or nanacatl) _genus campos
agrorum_ in the mountains are good to eat. They are cooked
because of this, and if they are raw or badly cooked, they
produce vomiting or diarrhea, and they kill one,
and he continues to list and describe a number of other edibles.
The naturalist Hernandez[6] is even more explicit. He describes
teo-nanacatl under the heading “De nanacatl seu Fungorum genere”; and
from the harmless white mushrooms, iztacnanacame, the red mushrooms,
tlapalnanacame, and the yellow-orbicular mushrooms, chimalnanacame, he
distinguishes teo-nanacatl as “teyhuinti,” that is, “intoxicating.”
Siméon’s Nahuatl dictionary even uses nanacatl as an illustration:[7]
Teo-nanacatl, espece de petit champignon qui a mauvais gout,
enivre et cause des hallucinations; il est medicinal contre
les fievres et la goutte.... Teyuinti, qui enivre quelqu’un,
enivrant; teyhuinti nanacatl, champignon enivrant.
Safford quotes this evidence himself!
Padre Jacinto de la Serna[8] records for us another compound of the
Nahuatl word for mushroom, and describes the fungus while likewise
specifically distinguishing it from peyote and ololiuhqui:
To this meeting had come an Indian ... who had brought some of
the mushrooms that are gathered in the monte, and with these
he had performed a great idolatry. But before proceeding with
my story I wish to explain the nature of the said mushrooms,
which in the Mexican language are called Quahtlananacatl, “wild
mushrooms.” ... These mushrooms were small and yellow and ...
were collected by priests and old men, appointed as ministers
for these impostures, who would proceed to the place where
they grow and remain almost the whole night in prayer and in
superstitious conjuring; and at dawn, when a certain little
breeze known to them would begin to blow, then they would
gather the narcotic,[9] attributing to it deity, with the same
properties as ololiuhqui or peyote, since when eaten or drunk,
they intoxicate those who partake of them, depriving them of
their senses, and making them believe a thousand absurdities.
In Safford it appears that de la Serna distinguished these from Picietl,
tobacco, also. There is an implied confusion, to be sure, in Alarcón,
but he supplies confirmation of this last point, along with interesting
ethnographic details:[10]
One should notice that in almost every case that they are moved
to offer a sacrifice to their imagined gods, there comes to
take charge of it and preside over it some quack, medicine-man,
seer or diviner from among other Indians, the majority of them
falling back on their crazy ceremonies, or on whatever whim
arises when they are deranged from the drinking of what they
call ololiuhqui or pezote [sic] or tobacco, whatever it might
be called in particular localities.
The Franciscan Fray Toribio de Benvento mentions teo-nanacatl, to which
he gives an erroneous etymology:[11]
They had another kind of drunkenness ... which was with small
fungi or mushrooms [hongos ó setas pequeñas] ... which are
eaten raw, and, on account of being bitter, they drink after
them or eat with them a little honey of bees, and shortly after
that they see a thousand visions, especially snakes. They went
raving mad, running about the streets in a wild state [bestial
embriaguez]. They called these fungi “teo-na-m-catl,” a word
meaning “bread of the gods.”
Tezozomoc,[12] again, related that at the coronation of Montezuma the
Mexicans gave wild mushrooms [hongos montesinos] to the strangers to eat;
that the strangers became drunk, and thereupon began to dance. Diego
Durán[13] gives further particulars of the coronation of Montezuma II;
he says that after the usual human sacrifices had been offered, all went
to eat raw mushrooms (hongos crudos), which caused them to lose their
senses, more than if they had drunk much wine. In their ecstasy many
of them killed themselves with their own hands, and by virtue of the
mushrooms had visions and revelations of the future.
The conclusion from all this evidence is obvious: the peyote of the
Plains, _Lophophora williamsii_, is identical with the peiotl, peyotl,
pellote, peyote, pejori, peyori or bejo of the Aztec and other Mexican
tribes, but this cactus is wholly distinct from the little yellow
thin-stemmed fungus teo-nanacatl, and Safford’s identification of the two
is erroneous.