LiSA 20: The Aztec mind

The Aztec mind

Nahuatl ethnobotany, mental health and psychoactive drugs among Ancient Mexicans

José Antonio Flores Farfán and Jan G. Elferink
CIESAS, Tlalpan, México

Ethnobotany studies the relationship between plants and humans. In this book the aspects of Aztec ethnobotany dealing with plants modifying “normal” states of mind are addressed. Up to now the attention to plants that cured mental diseases among the Aztecs is limited. In other words, whereas there have been many studies regarding Mexican hallucinogens, they did mostly not specifically focus on their use and role in Aztec culture to cure mental diseases.

Thus, in this book the primary target will be the relationship in Aztec society between plants on one side, and the diseased and normal mind on the other. Since the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs is of major importance for the understanding of such a relationship, a careful analysis of Nahuatl lexicon is as much as possible incorporated, together with a close inspection of the different sources available on the topic of the ideology of mental health and its magical, religious and empirical treatment.

ISBN 9783862886227 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Anthropology 20. 271pp. 2015.