Salvia divinorum

Diviner's Sage · Ska Pastora · Salvia

Sierra Mazateca

Rare perennial herb in the mint family containing salvinorin A, a unique kappa-opioid agonist with extremely potent and short-acting dissociative-psychedelic effects.

ECOLOGY & HABITAT

Grows in shaded, humid ravines in the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Distribution

Endemic to a very small region in Oaxaca, Mexico

INDIGENOUS NAMES

The names this organism has been given by the cultures that have lived alongside it. Each carries an entire relationship — what is sacred is never simply translated.

Ska María Pastora

Mazatec · Mazatec
"Leaves of Mary the Shepherdess"
Pipiltzintzintli

Nahuatl
"Most noble little prince/princess"

TRADITIONAL USE

Used by Mazatec curanderos for divination and healing

CULTURAL CONTEXT

The plant is considered to have a feminine spirit. Traditional use involves chewing fresh leaves or drinking the juice.

GALLERY

3 images

REFERENCES

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Valdés 1983
Siebert 1994

Kin & neighbors

Mexican Prickly Poppy

Yellow-flowered, prickly, latex-bearing annual poppy native to Mesoamerica and naturalised across much of the world's tropics. The Aztec pharmacopeia recorded multiple uses, and contemporary Mexican curanderos continue to use it. The seed oil contains the toxic alkaloid sanguinarine, the cause of epidemic dropsy when it has contaminated cooking-oil supplies.

Mexican Morning Glory

Climbing morning-glory vine whose dark seeds contain the ergoline alkaloid LSA (ergine). Known to the Aztecs under the Nahuatl name tlitliltzin and used in parallel to the seeds of Rivea corymbosa (ololiuqui). Modern horticultural cultivars sold as "Heavenly Blue", "Pearly Gates", and "Flying Saucers" all derive from this species.

Mexican woody climber of the nightshade family with very large pale-yellow trumpet flowers. Contains the classic tropane alkaloids scopolamine and hyoscyamine at substantial concentration. Held sacred by the Huichol people, who call it kieli or kieri and treat it as a powerful, dangerous spirit.

ScopolamineHyoscyamine

Mexican Mint Marigold

Aromatic perennial marigold native to the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala, with a strong anise-tarragon scent. Named yauhtli in the Aztec Florentine Codex, where it appears in ritual incense formulae alongside copal. Continues in contemporary Mazatec, Huichol and other Mexican ceremonial use.

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