Drugs in Early Mesoamerica Included 'Magic' Mushrooms and Toad Skins Agata Blaszczak-Boxe - Live Science
go to original December 10, 2014

Psilocybin mushroom (Wikipedia)

From hallucinogenic mushrooms and cacti to alcohol-infused enemas and psychoactive dried toad skins, the array of consciousness-altering substances that people in the early Americas used was wider than thought, a new report suggests.

People living in Mesoamerica before the arrival of Europeans used such psychotropic drugs primarily in medicine and religious rituals, said study author Francisco Javier Carod-Artal of Hospital Virgen de la Luz in Cuenca, Spain. (Mesoamerica is a region defined more by shared cultures than by geographical boundaries, but it can roughly be considered as the southernmost region of North America. The modern nations of Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua and Costa Rica are among the countries in the region.)

Moreover, some of these drugs are still used today for medicinal purposes in indigenous communities, Carod-Artal said.

"In many rural and traditional communities with limited access to the modern health system, many healers are taking care of the health in the native communities," Carod-Artal told Live Science. "Seizures, migraine, depression, and other neurological and mental health disorders are treated in the context of ritual ceremonies with some of these drugs."

Take a closer look at some of those mysterious substances at Live Science

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