Mazatec people

Mazatec
Ha Shuta Enima
Mazatec girls performing a dance in Huautla de Jimenez
Total population
~200,000
Regions with significant populations
Mexico (Oaxaca)
Languages

Mazatec, Spanish,
Religion

Roman Catholic, and Traditional religion
Related ethnic groups

Popolocas

The Mazatec people are an indigenous people who inhabit an area known as the Sierra Mazateca in the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, as well as some communities in the adjacent states of Puebla and Veracruz.

Contents

Language family

The Mazatecan languages are part of the Popolocan family which, in turn, is part of the Otomanguean language family.

Post-colonial period

The Mazatecs' religion is a synthesis of traditional beliefs with Christian beliefs brought by the Spanish conquistadors.

Traditional religious rituals

Mazatec tradition includes the cultivation of entheogens for spiritual and ritualistic use. Plants and fungi used for this purpose include morning glory seeds,[1] coleus leaves, psilocybe mushrooms and Salvia divinorum or "Diviners' sage", a species of the Salvia (sage) genus with psychoactive properties.[2] This latter plant is known to Mazatec shamans as ska María Pastora, the name containing a reference to the Virgin Mary.[3]

Notable Mazatecs

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Johnson, Jean Basset (1939) The elements of Mazatec witchcraft, Etnologiska Studier 9:128-150.
  2. ^ Valdés et al. (1983)
  3. ^ Valdés et al. (1983)

References

Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 4. William Bright (series general ed.) (OUP paperback edition, 2000 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1. OCLC 32923907. 
CDI [Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas] (2004–2007). "Mazatecos - Ha shuta Enima". Información: Los pueblos indígenas de México. CDI. Archived from the original on 2007-06-09. http://web.archive.org/web/20070609231402/http://cdi.gob.mx/index.php?id_seccion=305. Retrieved 2007-05-02.  (Spanish)
Karttunen, Frances E. (1994). Between Worlds: Interpreters, Guides, and Survivors. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2030-4. OCLC 28150669. 
Mooney, James (1911). "Mazatec Indians". Catholic Encyclopedia. vol. X (New Advent online reproduction ed.). New York: Robert Appleton and Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10093a.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-02. 
Valdés, Leander J., III; José Luis Díaz and Ara G. Paul (1983). "Ethnopharmacology of ska María Pastora (Salvia divinorum, Epling and Játiva-M)". Journal of Ethnopharmacology 7 (3): 287–312. doi:10.1016/0378-8741(83)90004-1. PMID 6876852. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T8D-475NV2H-5P&_user=4385511&_coverDate=05%2F31%2F1983&_fmt=summary&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5084&view=c&_acct=C000010000&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4385511&md5=f60c51d4f328bd1cf3b2df063db7b56d&ref=full. Retrieved 2006-12-20. 

External links