Early Life in the Sierra Mazateca
Maria Sabina Magdalena Garcia was born on 22 July 1894 in Huautla de Jimenez, a remote mountain town in the Sierra Mazateca region of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Her parents were campesinos (subsistence farmers); her father, Crisanto Feliciano, died of illness when she was just three years old. She was raised in deep poverty by her mother, Maria Concepcion, in a community where indigenous Mazatec spiritual practices had survived centuries of Spanish colonial suppression.
Her paternal family had a long tradition of healing and were regarded as shamans within the community. When Maria was six or seven years old, she and her younger sister, Maria Ana, discovered psilocybin mushrooms while walking along a hillside. They ate them impulsively and experienced visions, laughter, and tears. This childhood encounter marked the beginning of a relationship with what the Mazatec people called nti si tho -- "the little saints" or "the holy children" -- that would define the rest of her life.
