Teonanáctl, or “meat or food of the gods,” is the Nahuatl name for certain neurotrophic fungi. These mushrooms are common to the central highlands and belong mostly to the Psilocybe genus. However, the use of other varieties has been documented among different indigenous groups in Mexico, such as Conocybe, Panaeolus and Stropharia.
Friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded the use of Teonanáctl by the Mexicas for ritual, divination and therapeutic reasons. The hallucinatory and euphoric effects are described as drunkenness; for example, during a celebration led by merchants:
The first thing eaten during the party were some little black fungi they called nanácatl, which inebriate and cause visions, and even cause lust; they ate these before daybreak, and also drank cacao before dawn; they ate those little fungi with honey, and when they started to get heated up with them, they started to dance, and some sang and some cried, because they were already drunk with the little fungi; and some did not want to sing, rather they sat in their chambers and stayed there, as if they were being thoughtful, and some saw a vision where they were dying, and they cried, others saw some ferocious beast eating them, others saw themselves as war captives, others that must be rich, others who would have many slaves, others who would commit adultery and their head would be made into a tortilla, others who would steal something, resulting in their being killed, and many other visions that they saw. When the drunkenness from the little fungi passed, they spoke among themselves about the visions they had experiences (Sahagún, IX:487).
These mushrooms were probably also consumed with mead or corn cane juice to tone down the bitter taste. Some recent studies suggest that current methods of conservation, whether in mead or dehydrated, may have been used in the past to keep supply available all year long, since the fungi grow mainly during the rainy season (July-September) in the pine forests of high elevation in the mountains. Sahagún describes:
There are some little mushrooms on this land that are called teonanáctl, which are grown beneath the hay in the fields and wilderness; they are round and have a high, thin and round stem. When eaten they have a bad taste, they hurt your throat and make you drunk (XI: 645).
For therapeutic purposes, the mushrooms are used to treat illnesses considered to be cold, such as gout and chronic stomach pain. The ancient prescriptions cite taking two or three mushrooms: “those who eat them see visions and feel heart spasms; those who eat many of them become lustful, and even if they are few” (Sahagún, XI: 645). Currently, Mixes from the state of Oaxaca use the mushrooms to diagnose and cure illnesses such as migraines, inflammation, upset stomachs and painful bones. Among the Nahuas from Veracruz, the mushrooms keep their divination features and help the specialists in rites to know where lost objects are located and reveal the identity of enemies and the cause of illnesses.
The importance and efficacy of the mushroom in Indigenous practices is due to their status as sacred beings. In contemporary ethnography, there are many examples that associate the mushrooms with small entities from other realms, in particular aquatic realms. For the Mazatecs, the mushrooms arrive with the help of thunder; for the Nahuas, eating them allows people to communicate with the inhabitants of Tlalocan, who are considered to be children who are not baptized. In some myths, the mushrooms appear out of Christ’s spilled blood, along with other plants that are also sacred. Given their divinity, the “santitos” [little saints] are delicate, therefore ritual specialists must make “pacts” with the mushrooms and follow rigorous protocols to be granted the right to communicate and “work” with them.