Throughout the history of humanity, every culture has made use of psychoactive substances
but arguably no civilization was better at it than the Mayans.
The clever Mesoamericans were early settlers of the North American continent
and knew a thing or two about getting stoned that is now lost to the sands of time.
Welcome to Nutty History, and today let’s find out how Mayans raved during ancient times?
There are at least fifty-four hallucinogenic mushrooms in the genus Psilocybe that are
found in the southernmost region of North America, especially in Mexico. Mayans used them all to get
stoned. They didn’t just get stoned from shrooms, they made stones out of shrooms. Confusing?
It’s simple actually. Dating back some twenty-two hundred years, nine beautifully
sculptured miniature mushroom stones were found at Kaminaljuyu, a late Preclassic and Early Classic
archaeological site near Guatemala City in the 20th century. The archaeologists have theorized
that these mushroom idols were almost certainly connected with the Nine Lords of Xibalba, as
described in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiche-Maya. These Mayan relics, of which hundreds
have been found, some dating as far back as 1000 BC., were initially considered to be phallic
representations though the current consensus is that the mushroom stones reflect a Mayan religious
mushroom cult. Yeah, you heard that right, a Mushroom stone cult to get stoned by mushrooms.
Mayans certainly used K’aizalaj Okox in their ceremonies for its hallucinogenic properties.
The presence of Psilocybin produced mind-altering effects which allowed them to have “visions”
and feel the fluttering of the heart which was interpreted as connecting with their mighty gods.
Religious practices involving the use of "sacred mushrooms" took place in the Valley of Mexico and
the rest of Central America. Researchers estimate that these rituals are at least 3,500 years old.
Mayans called magic mushrooms – “flesh of the gods,” they believed that the shrooms
were the gift of the serpent god, who created all life, bestowed upon them. Apart from psilocybin
mushrooms, Mayans were also fond of Amanita muscaria , also known as the fly agaric and
fly amanita . Mayans also considered the urine of reindeer holy just because reindeer commonly
consume fly amanita and they would love to drink it for its psychoactive properties.
Apart from mushrooms, peyote, morning glory seeds, and Salvia divinorum were also important means
to achieve another level of consciousness during sacred rituals. Peyote cactus for those who do not
know contains sixty hallucinogenic compounds with mescaline as the primary intoxicating substance.
Mayans liked to perhaps chew nodules of peyote cacti or maybe they mixed it with their drinks.
Interestingly, the use of Peyote in Mesoamerican culture predates Mayan with evidence being
found of its use in rituals as old as five thousand years ago. According to a study,
traces of peyote being used as a drug has been found in a lot of places in Mexico
and the Shumla Cave in Texas. Experts say that ingestion of Peyote causes colorful
visual hallucinations or kaleidoscopic visions, the sensation of weightlessness,
and altered perception of time and space. Like psilocybin mushrooms, peyote too disrupts the
interaction of neurons and the neurotransmitter serotonin. Beware that Peyote can cause increased
body temperature and heart rate, uncoordinated movements, and profound sweating and flushing.
Mayans are known today for their industrious nature and innovative inventions. They were gifted
architects, artisans, engineers, and scientists, with doctrines principally based on science and
cosmology. They also used their creativity and ingenuity to find components to get high where
nobody else would look. Can you imagine getting high on the skin of a dead animal? Mayans could!
One of the most unusual drugs in Mesoamerica was sourced from the toads in the Bufo genus.
The sali-vary glands of the toad species in this genus produce toxic substances
called “Bufotoxins” , which also have psychoactive properties.
According to 16th-century historians, who were able to interact with the last Mayans,
they wrote that the Mayans added tobacco and the dried skins of a common toad in the Bufo genus to
their alcoholic beverages to make the drinks more potent. Toads of the Bufo genus secrete a milky,
toxic substance to dissuade predators called bufotoxin. And as one knows, healers of every
ancient and medieval culture believed that every poison in a controlled dosage was a cure,
but for Mayans, it was psychedelic. According to some sources the K'iche' group of the Mayans still
uses the skin of this amphibian as an ingredient in their balché. Now speaking of Balché…
Mayans LOVED communicating with spirits! Speaking with the dead was a huge part of their fascination
with the afterlife. Well, who can blame them? They were advanced for their time, but still nowhere
close to how far humanity has arrived, so they had to find their answers somewhere! Communicating
with spirits helped Mayans to predict the future and comprehend events that were difficult for them
to grasp. Such events included illnesses, changes in fortune, bad weather, astronomical events, poor
harvests, and wars. To establish communication with their dead ancestors, they would hold a
ritual of divination and drinking balché was an important part of initiating the ritual.
This intoxicating drink was concocted by mixing an infusion from the bark of a plant called
Lonchocarpus longistylus together with honey produced by stingless bees. Also, not just any
stingless bees would do, they had to be the bees that fed on the nectar of xtabentun or a specific
type of morning glory plant that contained ergine, which is thought to have psychedelic properties.
Now, you may think this is a coincidence but no, Mayans were well aware of what they were doing
as they were getting high on the xtabentun seeds and nectar as well. The scientific name,
Turbina corymbosa, xtabentun was widely common among Mayans at least in the 16th century
according to ethnohistorical accounts. Shamans were consuming it for performing soothsaying
and according to Spanish physicians, Fernando Hernandez and Juan de Cárdenas, when consumed
orally, the seeds were powerful enough to make one lose their wits. They were pretty much accurate
with their observation because xtabentun seeds contain the ergot alkaloids ergine, isoergine,
chanoclavine, elymoclavine, and lysergol, together they can create a similar effect to tripping acid.
Now imagine the same hallucinogenic substance but fermented into an alcoholic drink.
Yup, that’s a double whammy!! That is exactly what balché was supposed to be! Anybody would see
their great-great-grandparents come back to life after drinking that. According to Mayan records,
drinking this beverage helped them to make sense of what spirits were trying to tell them. Apart
from balché, Chi was quite a popular drink as well made from the sap of maguey. Pineapples, corn,
guanabana, or soursop, and other fruits containing high levels of sugar were also fermented into
alcoholic beverages. Drinking balché and other liquor beverages was also often accompanied by
smoking tobacco. But Mayans also consumed alcohol in a slightly different manner than how people do
nowadays. Human anatomy is a marvel on its own. Every part of it, every system seems so
intricate and meticulously placed that it is hard to think of a better design. For example, look at
our digestive system, it has a perfect entry and exit process for food and waste respectively. But
sometimes the human body exit needs to be used for injecting cleansing products for sanitary purposes
in the process called an enema. But enema is not a process someone will relate to getting high,
right? Well, not with that attitude! You just need to think like Mayans. Ritual enemas were part of
Mayan life using substances containing alcohol, often mixed with mushrooms, peyote, and other
psychoactive substances. The enemas were applied using long-necked syringes made of gourd and clay
with a hole cut in the tip of the neck as well as a larger hole on the side which was used to fill
it with liquid. They were performed to help people "attain more intense trance states more quickly.”
The reason why someone might want to administer consuming psychoactive substances through their
rear end is that the heinie has two properties that make them excellent drug delivery systems,
they are moist and they have an excellent blood supply. That means the drug will be absorbed into
the bloodstream and reach the brain very quickly, often more quickly than drinking the concoction.
The water lily is pictured so often in Mayan art that it is clearly one of the
top two or three most frequently rendered flowers during the Classic Mayan period.
Many scholars compare Nymphaea ampla or white Lily for holding the same place in Mayan civilization
as Nymphaea caerulea or blue lotus enjoyed in Egyptian civilization. Mayans called water lily
nikte’ha’ or Vulva of the water as for them it represented the source of life,
birth, and fertility. Just like an opiate, the water lily is known to have sedative
and trance-inducing effects and must have been used as a painkiller, for reproduction,
and arousal. Other hallucinogens used by Mayans included but were not limited to Wormwood,
Tagetes lucida, Datura Stramonium, and Datura candida also known as devil’s trumpet. Most
of them were used to dull the senses or kill the pain which also made them effective for making the
person to be sacrificed docile and compliant. So, what do you think? Did Mayans know better
than the current generation about how to party? Or do they make a good cautionary tale for why
one shouldn’t do drugs? Tell us in the comments and as always thanks for watching Nutty History.