APPENDIX 3: PEYOTE AND TEO-NANACATL
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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.