We Wouldn’t Have Magic Mushrooms Without Indigenous Mexican Women

Azalea Montaño-Kemp
3 min readFeb 11, 2022

We Wouldn’t Have Magic Mushrooms Without Indigenous Mexican Women. 🍄 Period.

Psilocybin mushrooms can grow pretty much anywhere and are found as ancient sacraments among many cultures around the world! So, why did they gain so much popularity in Western culture in the 1960s? Well, let’s explore.

There is substantial evidence that ancient humans were using magic mushrooms for a very long time. In fact, the Aztec even had a word for the sacred mushroom. They called it teonanácatl, meaning, “flesh of the Gods”.

For thousands of years, the Mazatec people in the mountain ranges of Oaxaca, México have been using mushrooms medicinally in ceremonies. The doctors of this community were curanderas who could cure patients of physical and mental illnesses with Los Niños Santos (psilocybin mushrooms)!

In 1955, a New York banker named Gordon Wasson traveled to the mountain ranges in Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca, México searching for what he called “the magic mushroom.” Although the Mazatec people would typically only share the medicine within their community, a curandera (mushroom healer) named Maria Sabina took this Westerner into her ceremony.

In 1957, Wasson went back home and published Seeking the Magic Mushroom in Life magazine. This article kickstarted the psychedelic era of the 1960s!

Maria Sabina was ostracized by the people in her village for sharing the medicine of Los Niños Santos with foreigners. However, she wasn’t the only Mazatec mushroom curandera sharing ceremonies with Westerners.

Abuelita Julieta, while she was alive, was a member of The Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers protecting sacred lands and sacred medicines around the globe.

She continued the tradition of sharing the medicine of Los Niños Santos with foreigners, as she understood this 🍄 healing was a God given right to everyone on this planet. A gift from Mother Earth to all of Her children. 🌎

Today, honoring this tradition and my Mexican ancestors, I give back to this lineage by working directly with Abuelita Julieta’s family in Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca, México.

You can read more of my work on https://www.vibrationalhealing.me/blog-posts.

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I wrote a book about micro-dosing mushrooms! Find it on Amazon here.

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