Monday 10 October 2011

Mushroom Ceremony Of The Mazatec Indians Of Mexico (1957)


Maria Sabina, Recorded by R. Gordon Wasson in Huautla de Jiménez, in the Mazatec Mountains in the northern corner of the State of Oaxaca, July 21, 1956.

Folkways Records FR 8975, this is a US pressing of the impossible to find "Mushroom Ceremony Of the Mazatec Indians Of Mexico" This recording, made by Gordon Wasson in 1956, attempts to chronicle a religious ceremony involving the ingestation of psychedelic mushrooms by Indians who are attempting to communicate with the Divine Spirit.

Participants: native Mexican curandera (medicine woman) Maria Sabina, a male Mazatec indian, the Wassons and some research friends of theirs.


Note: This field recording is of substantial historical interest, both as the earliest known vinyl document of people under the influence of hallucinogens, and as part of the Wasson couples legendary forays into remote Mexican mountains on the trail of an obscure mushroom cult.

The original came out in 1957 with a blue cover, this press has the tan cover from 1966.

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