stopping in the home of Dona Donata Sosa de Garcia. 
She introduced me to a number of cwranderas: Augus- 
tina Borja, Clementina Unda, Maria Sebastiana Carrera, 
and Sara Unda de la Hoz. 
On the evening of that day, the first two came to the 
house shortly before 11 o’clock, and Augustina Borja 
performed the ceremony in a large spare room. Those 
present were Irmgard Weitlaner Johnson, my daughter 
Mary X. Britten (‘Masha’), Dona Donata, and her 
daughter Consuelo (‘Chelo’). Augustina Borja was the 
daughter of a curandero who had died about ten years 
before. Her own daughters often accompany her on her 
healing visits and are themselves budding curanderas. On 
the evening that we spent with her, she came along with 
Clementina Unda. They were careful to orient themselves 
to the east as they set the stage for the ceremony. In the 
Mazatec country the rites are always so oriented or as 
near as possible in that direction; never to the west, 
which is considered sinister. Augustina was performing 
—she took mushrooms, rather than the /qjas; these I 
had requested especially, as I had never taken them. 
Both mushrooms and leaves are counted in pairs. The 
leaves are paired off, care being exercised to assemble 
leaves that are flawless, without parasitic growths. In 
preparation for the ceremony, the leaves are placed on 
top of each other, each pair being face to face. It is cus- 
tomary forthe Indians to consume the leaves by nibbling 
at the dose with their incisor teeth. This proved to be 
impossible for me, owing to the taste; and I was treated 
as a toothless person. There being no metate (stone 
grinding board) handy, Augustina squeezed the leaves 
with her hands and collected the juice in a glass. This 
was certainly an inefficient method. Some water was 
added. I drank the dark fluid, about half a glass full, the 
result of squeezing 34 pairs or 68 leaves in all. I was told 
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