Salvia divinorum is a large leaved mint of the cloud forest of the Sierra Mazateca in Oaxaca, and among Mazatec healers it is known as ska Maria Pastora, the leaf of Mary the Shepherdess.
It is used for divination and for diagnosis. The leaves are rolled into a quid and chewed slowly, or crushed and strained into water to be drunk, and the practice is conducted in darkness and quiet by a healer, most often when the psilocybe mushrooms are out of season and a question still needs answering. Valdes, Diaz and Paul recorded the identification, preparation and use in fieldwork published in 1983, which remains the primary account.
The Marian association is a genuine syncretism rather than a missionary gloss laid over an indifferent plant. The leaf is addressed as the Virgin, prayers to her are part of its use, and the healers who use it are Catholic. What has happened here is the same thing that happened to San Pedro and to the mushrooms: a practice continued under Christian names, and the names became part of the practice rather than a disguise for it.
Its position in Mazatec practice is subordinate. It is not the principal plant, it is used for a narrower range of purposes, and the accounts describe it as weaker and more limited than the mushrooms rather than as an equivalent alternative.