APPENDIX 3 : PEYOTE AND TEO-NANACATL

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' 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 circum-stantial distinctions which leave no room for misunderstanding. Sahagun,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, Sahagun 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 teonanacatl. 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, Sahagun in the next section of this chapter° 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° 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 teonanacatl as "teyhuinti," that is,``intoxicating." Simeon's Nahuatl dictionary even uses nanacatl as an illustration:7

Teonanacatl, 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 queIqu'un, enivrant; tey-huinti nanacatl, champignon enivrant.

Safford quotes this evidence himself!

Padre Jacinto de la Sema° 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,° 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 Sema distinguished these from Picietl, tobacco, also. There is an implied confusion, to be sure, in Alarc6n, but he supplies confirmation of this last point, along with interesting ethnographic details »)

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 what-ever whim arises when they are deranged from the drinking of what they call ololiuhqui or pezote [sic] or t,obacco, whatever it might be called in particular localities.

The Franciscan Fray Toribio de Benvento mentions teollanacatl, to which he gives an erroneous etymology:11

They had another kind of drunkenness    which was with small fungi or mushrooms [hongos 6 setas pequetías] . . . 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," again, related that at the coronation of Montezuma the Mexicans gave wild mushrooms [bongos montesinos] to the strangers to eat; that the strangers became drunk, and thereupon began to dance. Diego Duran" gives further particulars of the coro, nation 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 williarnsii, 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.

1 Safford, An Aztec Narcotic 294; Identification of Teortanacatl, Narcotic Plants; Peyote, 1278-79.

2 Sahagfin, Historia general, Lib. lo, cap. xxix: " . . . ellos mismos discubrieron, y usaron primer° la raiz que Haman y los que comian y tomaban la usaban en lugar de vino, y lo mismo hacian de los que Haman nanacatl que son los hongos malos que emborrachan tambien como el vino." The authoritative edition of Jour, danet and Simeon, 661-6/ translates nanacatl as "champignon vénéneux."

3 Sahagün, Historia general, 3: 241-42: -Hay otra yerba como tunas de tierra, se llama peiotl, es blanca, hacese 6,cia la parte del norte, los que la comen 6 beben vén visiones espantosas 6 irrisibles." (Lib. xi, cap. vii, pt. i, "De ciertas yerbas que emborrachen.") Jourdanet and Simeon, 737, unfortunately describe tunas as "une . . . plante qui rapelle la truffe," which is a mushroom. Sahagun's work is virtual dictation from Aztec informants, later translated with painstaking care into Spanish. It is difficult to assume, as did Safford, that such able herba, lists did not know the difference between a cactus and a fungus.

4 Hay unos honguillos en esta tierra que se llaman teonanacatl, crfanse debajo del heno en los campos 6 paramos; son redondos, tienen el pie altillo, delgado y redondo, comidos son de mal sabor, dal-Ian la garganta y emborrachan." (Idem, 3: 241-42.) To be sure our own best scientific knowledge must always be the touch,stone for the data of the various folk,sciences; yet one is not entitled to a lofty and comprehensive d priori distrust of native knowledge, particularly when detailed with such clarity as this.

5 "Las setas (hongos 6 nanacatl) hacen genus campos agrorum en los montes, son buenas de comer . . . " (Sahagfin, Historia general, 3: 243).

6 Hernandez, in Safford, Aztec Narcotic, 293. The very word itself means "mushroom!" Reko's etymology for tmnanacatl, "divine nourishment," is unsound according to Whorf; and indeed, there is nothing of the edible par excellence about fungi (see Schultes, Peyote and Plants Used, 136-37).

7 Simeon, in Safford, Id.entification of Teonanacatl, 400, 411.

8 de la Serna, Manual de Ministros, 261.

9 Cf. the Huichol peyote,gathering ritual and the wind which arises.

10 Safford, Aztec Narcotic, 291. Indeed in this short sub,chapter, Sahagun distinguishes and describes coatlxoxouhqui =ololiuhqui [its seeds] peyotl, tlapatl, tzintzintlapatl, mixitl, teonanacatl, tochtetepo, atlepatli, aquiztli, tenxoxoli and quimichpatli! Alarcón, Tratado, 13r; also in Urbina, El Peyote y el Ololhiuqui, 27.

11 Ritos Antiquos; in Kingsborough, g: 17. Jourdenet and Simeon, translators of Sahagtín, Histoire général, 738, have: "[Teonanacatl] c'esta-dire: champignon dangereux. Le terme générique est nanacatl qui se met en com'position avec d'autres mots pour désigner les diverses espkes de champignons."

12 Cr önica Mexicana; in Kingsborough, g: x53. The fact that raw mushrooms are mentioned disposes of Safford's supposition that dried peyote buttons are meant.

13 Duran, Historia de las Inclias. 564, quoted from Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities by Bourke, Scat°, logical Rites, go.