Article · 2026-11-01

Teacher plants: the dieta in the Amazon and the leaf of the Pastora in the Mazatec mountains

In some communities a plant is not only a medicine but a teacher. In the Peruvian Amazon, healers believe that certain plants have a “mother” who comes in dreams and visions to teach. In the Mazatec mountains of Mexico, a sacred leaf bears a name that evokes the Virgin Mary. This article draws on field studies from both worlds.

Plants that have a mother

In a field study carried out between 2003 and 2008 in the east-central Peruvian Amazon, researchers interviewed 29 healers, 3 apprentices and 4 herbalists; some were Shipibo-Konibo, Asháninka and Matsigenka, others from mestizo communities. They recorded 55 plant species from 26 families used in preparing to become a healer ^[1].

Locally these plants are called “plantas con madre”, plants with a mother. Each is believed to have a spirit, a mother; when the apprentice takes the plant, the mother teaches the uses of plants, the path of healing and sacred knowledge ^[1].

The dieta: alone in the forest, without salt, in silence

The path to this learning runs through a regimen called the “dieta”. It has four core elements: withdrawing into the forest and speaking to no one except the master healer; taking one or more plants every day; giving up salt, sugar, fat, pork, game, sour foods, garlic, hot sauce, alcohol and cold drinks, sometimes fasting completely; and sexual abstinence ^[1].

The master healer gives the plants in a set order. First come plants for purging and cleansing, then plants that open sensitivity and intuition, then strengthening plants, and last the plants that protect and defend ^[1]. Among other Amazonian peoples too, healers in training seek to reach the spirit world through seclusion, fasting and abstinence ^[1].

The mother of tobacco

The strong tobacco called “rome” in Shipibo-Konibo and known locally as mapacho (Nicotiana rustica) is considered one of the most powerful and oldest plants. According to one healer, mapacho balances negative energies in the body and teaches a person to become a warrior who cleanses himself; its mother appears in dreams as a large, short-haired, dark-skinned man in silver-embroidered clothing ^[1].

Two healers described the mother of tobacco as twins: these twins teach the icaros, the healing songs, and how to blow smoke over the patient ^[1].

Ayahuasquero or curandero?

Today people from all over the world travel to the Amazon, especially around Iquitos in Peru, to take part in ayahuasca ceremonies. An ethnographic study in this area shows that local people draw a distinction: someone who leads ayahuasca ceremonies is an “ayahuasquero”, while a “curandero” is a healer who can treat many ailments with many plants. The locals interviewed stressed that not everyone who leads ceremonies is a curandero ^[2].

The same study examines how the long talks that shamans give before and during ceremonies for tourists frame the experience. These talks set the ceremonial space apart from everyday life and shape how participants make sense of what they go through ^[2]. The ceremonies also include icaros sung partly in Quechua and other Indigenous languages ^[2].

We tell the chemistry of the plant pair that makes ayahuasca possible, and why it interacts dangerously with medicines, in a separate story: the drink works because substances in the vine stop the DMT in the chacruna leaf from being broken down in digestion ^[4].

The leaf of the Pastora in the Mazatec mountains

Salvia divinorum is a large, velvety-leaved sage that grows wild only in the Mazatec mountains of southern Mexico. The Mazatec call it “xka pastora” in their language, a name that links the plant to the Virgin Mary ^[3].

Outside the region the plant is known almost only for its psychoactive effect, but locally its use is much broader. People interviewed apply the leaves externally for joint pain, swelling and inflammation, insect stings, sore throat and headache, and drink a mild tea of a few fresh leaves for headache, fever and general pain. Some also use it to treat animals ^[3].

The Mazatec grow the plant near their homes but keep it out of sight, because it is a sacred being whose rules must be followed. The researcher noticed that the first plant she saw was bent like an arch: in these mountains an arch shows that something is sacred. Arches are also set up around Day of the Dead altars and at the entrances of houses holding weddings and baptisms ^[3].

The study calls the way drug research reduces the plant to its active compound “stripping”, and the way the Mazatec wrap it in prayers, rules and relationships “dressing”; it stresses that this difference has ethical and political consequences for Indigenous peoples connected to the plant ^[3].

A note

This article reports what field studies describe; it is not an account of personal experience or a recommendation for use. Ayahuasca and Salvia divinorum are plants with powerful effects, are regulated in many countries and can interact seriously with medicines.

Plants in this article

Ayahuasca vine Chacruna Mapacho Toé