Mazatecs
The Mazatecs are an Indian people in Mexico . The Mazatec- speaking population of Mexico was 168,374 (census in the 1990s).
Settlement areas
The main settlement area is the north of the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico and covers an area of approx. 2,400 km². The Mazatecs are ethnically related to the Mixtecs and the Otomi .
Name (ethnonym)
The Mazatecs call themselves ha shuta enima , “humble and understandable people”. The Mazatecs are a poor people and they see themselves as such. The name Mazateca is derived from the city of Mazatlán located in the same state , which was so named by the Nahuatl- speaking auxiliary forces of the Spanish conquerors. In Nahuatl, the name means "deer place" ( mazatl "deer" and locative ending -tlan ).
Natural drugs
The Mazatecs became known in the western industrialized countries through the traditional use of psychoactive mushrooms and plants ( Psilocybe mexicana , Salvia divinorum ), which are used by the shamans for spiritual acts. The first reports on this were disseminated by the ethnomycologist couple R. Gordon Wasson and Valentina Pavlovna Wasson and led to a brisk drug tourism to Mexico in the 1960s.
religion
The Mazatec religion is a synthesis of traditional beliefs and Christianity introduced by the Spanish conquistadors . This explains the name Ska María Pastora , which is common among the Mazatec people for Salvia divinorum , whereby "María" means the Christian Virgin Mary .