had good reason to give to his readers rather than ¢co- 
nanacatl, ‘god's flesh’, an appalling word for a 16th 
Century churchman to write down, to utter, or even to 
think? As the mushrooms carried with them an aura of 
holiness for the Indians, it was certainly inevitable that 
there should be a variety of evasive terms for them. 
A peculiar trait of Nahuatl poetry is the preoccupation 
of the poets with ‘Howers’: they write incessantly about 
flowers but they fail to distinguish the kinds of blossoms, 
though Nahuatl was rich in botanical terminology. This 
feature of Nahuatl] poetry has baffled students: it seems 
inconsistent with the nature of poets, who delight in fine 
distinctions. It has even been called to the attention of 
the outside world. In The Times (London) of 15 May 
1961 there appeared a dispatch from Mexico City written 
by their correspondent stressing this odd fact: *Strange- 
ly, the ancient Mexican poet seldom differentiated be- 
tween one blossom and another, although old indigenous 
names for many plants exist.” If wochit/ was used by the 
poets as a metaphor for the inebriating mushrooms, or 
for hallucinogens as a class, this would explain the poets’ 
addiction to the generic term for all flowers. 
Hlere are examples where [ think wochit/ stands for 
the inebriating mushrooms: 
1. © ya noconic in nanacaoctli ya noyol in choca. . . 
ma yuh tonpolihuiz a iz ca towochiuh. 
j Ay, he bebido licor de hongos embriagadores: mi 
corazon llora!. 
jast has de desaparecer! | Aqui estan tus flores! 
©! | have drunk the liquor of inebriating mush- 
rooms! My heart is weeping !. 
Thus you are to disappear! Here are your flowers! 
Romances de los Seviores de la Nueva Espana, c. A.D. 
1470, Ms. in the Library of the University of Texas, 
Austin. Published in Nochimapietli, ed. by Father 
Garibay, Mexico, 1959. 
[ 306 | 
