had travelled the mountain trails all his life and knew 
Spanish, though he could neither read nor write, nor even 
tell time by aclock’s face. We asked him why the mush- 
rooms were called ‘that which springs forth.’ His answer, 
breathtaking in its sincerity and feeling, was filled with 
the poetry of religion, and I quote it word for word as 
he gave it: 
El honguillo viene por si mismo, no se sabe de dénde, 
como el viento que viene sin saber de dénde ni porqué. 
The little mushroom comes of itself, no one knows whence, 
like the wind that comes we know not whence nor why. 
When we first went down to Mexico, we felt certain, 
my wife and I, that we were on the trail of an ancient 
and holy mystery, and we went as pilgrims seeking the 
Grail. ‘To this attitude of ours I attribute such success 
as we have had. It has not been easy. For four and a 
half centuries the rulers of Mexico, men of Spanish blood 
or at least of Spanish culture, have never entered sympa- 
thetically into the ways of the Indians, and the Church 
regarded the sacred mushroom as anidolatry. The Protes- 
tant missionaries of today are naturally intent on teaching 
the Gospel, not on absorbing the religion of the Indians. 
Nor are most anthropologists good at this sort of thing... 
For more than four centuries the Indians have kept the 
divine mushroom close to their hearts, sheltered from 
desecration by white men, a precious secret. We know 
that today there are many curanderos who carry on the 
cult, each according to his lights, some of them consum- 
mate artists, performing the ancient liturgy in remote 
huts before minuscule congregations. With the passing 
years they will die off, and, as the country opens up, the 
cult is destined to disappear. They are hard to reach, 
these euranderos. Almost invariably they speak no Span- 
ish. To them, performing before strangers seems a pro- 
fanation. They will refuse even to meet with you, much 
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