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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. The meaning of "Mazatec" translates to "people of the deer," derived from the Nahuatl word Mazatl meaning deer.
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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 represents a syncretism of traditional beliefs with Christian beliefs brought by the Spanish conquistadores.
Traditional religious rituals
Mazatec tradition includes the cultivation of entheogens for spiritual and ritualistic use. Plants and fungi used for this purpose include psilocybin mushrooms, psychoactive morning glory seeds (from species such as Ipomoea tricolor and Turbina corymbosa), and perhaps most significant to the Mazatecs, Salvia divinorum. This latter plant is known to Mazatec shamans as ska María Pastora, the name containing a reference to the Virgin Mary.