Huatla Mushrooms

Description

As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Huautla de Jimenez and the Sierra Mazateca were “discovered” in 1955, when the American banker and amateur “ethnomycologist” Gordon Wasson visited the town and consumed psilocybin “magic” mushrooms with the curer María Sabina. He was impressed by what he experienced and, although he had promised to keep her identity a secret, he published an account of his journey in Life Magazine.¹ Since then, Huautla and its people have been inextricably linked to mushrooms; the name of the town is itself an icon for the fungi and what they represent to a national and transnational audience.