Mescaline on the Mexican Border

Martin Terry says that even here in San Luis Potosí — the peyote heartland — the cactus is endangered. He says that the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) — the biggest and most prestigious university in Mexico — keeps GPS data on clusters of peyote plants around the sacred area of the Huichol. Last summer, someone ripped huge roots from the area. They squeezed the mescaline out of the cactus and left the roots to die. He thinks it may be a drug cartel.

Frank Collum, the Anglo peyote eater and sometime poacher, says that Native Americans should back off the Mexican peyote gardens. "If it keeps going like it is," he says, "there'll be a war with the Huichol. They eat an incredible amount of peyote. They've got their own problems with the Mexican government."

One local from Real de Catorce, Juan Hernández, makes his living taking foreigners to the sacred places of the Huichol on horseback. He charges about $20 per horse and serves as a guide. Hernández is a mestizo who lives in town, but he has close ties to the Indians.

"They call me before they start their pilgrimage in April," he says. "It takes them about four weeks to walk here and when they get here, I have firewood and food ready for them."

Hernández guides three horses straight up a mountaintop to a spiral of stones. It's not much of a monument, but the landscape is breathtaking, with a view of the Chihuahuan desert stretching as far as the eye can see. Hernández says that this is the birthplace of the god of the sun, Quetzal. He rubs coins across his body — it is a symbol of cleansing — and enters the stone spiral. When he gets to the center, he places the coins on a mound of other offerings. There are old shoes, a driver's license, candles, and Mexican and U.S. coins.

"This is a place of spiritual renewal," he says. (Click here for video footage atop Mount Wirikuta.)

Hernández follows many of the Huichol practices — including peyote eating. He prefers to mix it with chocolate or fruit juice so he's not likely to vomit it back up. He likes it because it gives him energy. He believes — like the Huichol — that the peyote ceremony on Wirikuta releases the shamans' spirits from their bodies. He's seen their spirits flying around the mountains like large, colorful birds.

But he's not immune to the transformations going on in his hometown. His eyes light up when the name Brad Pitt is mentioned. "He was so cool," Hernández says. "We all hung out with him for two months when he wasn't filming."
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Mauro Morales looks a little worried when he talks about Mexican peyote. He knows that there's much more medicine on the other side of the border, but he's not crossing the river to seek it out. Even though he's a licensed dealer, transporting the stuff across the border would land him in jail. And he's skeptical of the Mexican police.

"You don't want to get caught with medicine over there," he says. "In Mexico, you're guilty until proven innocent. Here, you're innocent until proven guilty."

Still, like many people following the decline of the peyote trade in Texas, he hopes that, someday, he might be permitted to import peyote into Texas. But time may be running out for him. Morales says that he knew he was getting older when Indians started calling him "grandpa" a few years ago.

Morales gets part-time help from his sons harvesting peyote in February, when deer season ends and Indians start arriving. But one son has a full-time job and the other is more interested in his hobby of cockfighting than in picking medicine.

Morales has his eye on his 14-year-old grandson, Angel, who's doing well in school and has good manners. Angel might be able to take over the family business someday. But he's not sure. "The medicine might be extinct in 25 years. Then everyone will have to go to Mexico."