Mixtecs of the Valley of Juxtlahuaca, or among the 
Zapotecs of San Bartolo Yautepac, for the preparation 
of the divinatory agent, either the seeds of the morning 
glory or the mushrooms or the hojas de la Pastora. (Had 
we been warned in advance to look for this, perhaps we 
should have discovered the same custom in other regions, 
visited in years previous to 1960.) Suddenly it dawns on 
us that a deep-seated harmony exists between the role 
of the child in preparing the divine agent and the names 
circulating throughout the Nahuatl area for the sacred 
mushrooms themselves: we have found them called /os 
ninos, ‘the children’, and los hombrecitos y las mujereitas, 
‘the little men and the little women’, and Jos senroritos, 
the lordlings.” Marina Rosas, eurandera of San Pedro 
Nexapa, on the slopes of Popocatepetl, called the sacred 
mushrooms in Nahuatl apipiltzin, ‘the noble princes of 
the waters’, a singularly appropriate name, in which the 
a conveys the sense of ‘water’. And here we re- 
prefix 
vert to the miraculous plant that we think is the Salva 
divinorum, called (as we believe) in Nahuatl pipiltzintzinth 
in the records of the Inquisition dating from 1700. This 
is obviously related to the name for the sacred mush- 
rooms used by Marina Rosas. Dr. Aguirre Beltran trans- 
lates it as ‘the most noble Prince’ and relates it to Pi/t- 
zinth, the young god of the tender corn. In the accounts 
of the visions that the Indians see after they consume the 
sacred food — whether seeds or mushrooms or plant — 
there frequently figure hombrecitos, ‘little men’, mujer- 
citas, ‘little women’, duendes, “supernatural dwarfs’. 
Beginning with our maiden at her metate, here is a fas- 
cinating complex of associations that calls for further 
study and elaboration. For example, are these Noble 
Children related perchance to the Holy Child of Atocha, 
which gained an astonishing place in the hearts of the 
Indians of Middle America’ Did they seize on this 
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