1957 Expeditions Journal
Baja California American Museum of Natural History Expedition Journal Spring 1957 Huautla Mexico Seeking The Sacred Mushroom With Gordon Wasson Summer 1957
By Oakes A. Plimpton
Published: 7/31/2013
Format: E-Book (available as ePub, Mobi, and PDF files)
Pages: 134
ISBN: 978-1-47598-973-1
Print Type: B/W
Overview:
Log of Expedition to Baja California (March - May, 1957) This voyage on a 100 foot schooner, all sponsored by a California millionaire who is some 73 years of age, is the result of my yearning for adventure (I had imagined a safari into the depths of the Belgian Congo, but the Museum informed me native help is used now-a-days). This expedition will encompass the West coast of lower California, the Tres Marias Islands, and the Gulf of California. We will be collecting marine invertebrates, coral, mammals and reptiles. I will be the scientific assistant to four scientists — all about 30 years of age — William Emerson, Donald Squires, Richard Van Gelder, and Richard Zweifel — marine invertebrates, corals, mammals and reptiles respectively. I am not a scientist, although I have occasionally yearned to be one. They chose me from other applicants as I am through with the Army, presumably having some intelligence, a strong back, and as I am a mature and responsible individual — Ha! My function will be concerned mostly with the physical acts of collection and preparation (stuffing mice for instance). The four scientists are interested in the following: Emerson, the leader, will be collecting marine invertebrates especially Echinoderms, Brachiopods and Mollusks looking for more complete data on their distribution than is already known (thermal particularly); he will also be interested in collecting fossil invertebrates — Pleistocene and Pliocene for a more complete picture. The Gulf once supported a more tropical marine fauna, but in some of the shallow bays, especially on the west coast of Baja, there are found some species that are next found in Panama going South. . . . Donald Squires will be looking for a coral reef which he does not expect to find; should he find it, it would be the northernmost and the only (I think) reef off the west coast of a continent. Emerson is also interested in this, and is more confident of discovery. Dick Van Gelder, Mammologist, will be interested in indigenous species of mice on the various islands that we will visit. He will also be after bats and rabbits, especially a rabbit on one of the islands that is coal black. Porpoises and seals will be another item on the agenda. We expect to collect porpoises with a crossbow! Dick Zweifel, Herpetalogist, will be after indigenous reptiles on these islands. Informally I offered to keep a list of the expedition birds seen, as that is my nature hobby.* I couldn’t find my list, but I did note all the birds I saw in the Journal. 3. Mushroom Trip to Mexico with the Wassons, July/August 1957 Gordon Wasson, a banker with J. P. Morgan, but also a writer and an amateur anthropoligist, essentially the discoverer of the hallucinatory mushroom, invited me to go along with his daughter Masha, friend Joan Ferrante (school classmates of my sister Sarah), and Mrs. Wasson to help out and share the experience. Follows the Journal I kept! This voyage mostly concerns mushrooms which are hallucinatory and eaten in a religious rite in an obscure Indian village named Huautla in the hills of central Mexico. We also visited other Indian towns to inquire about their Mushroom Rites, traveling there by small planes and mules, no roads! Laden with tape recording machines and the various heavy luggage of the party, I set off in the family’s 1954 Ford convertible — alone — for Mexico. Alan Richardson, the Wasson’s photographer, was originally going with me, but he dropped out. My average mileage was 500 miles a day (no interstates back then). My first stop was Roanoke, Virginia, the second Nashville, Tenn. staying at the Davis’s house which was being occupied at the time by their cousins on the Davis side. He is the Dean of Freshmen at Yale; we spent our time discussing colleges, etc. The third night was spent in a motel near Texarkana, a town on the border of Arkansas and Texas. The fourth night — July 4th — with an Airforce Lieutenant Peter Crisp watching a fire works display and the panorama of Texas. The 5th night was spent at Loredo, Texas on the Mexican border — an afternoon and day besides arguing (with the Border Guards) and having to wire the Wassons for money to pay a new and very exorbitant tariff on the tape recorders, $130 in all. I unpacked the trunk completely four times including twice on the Mexican side, once at the American, and once at an inspection station 10 miles inside Mexico! Leaving at 6 on a Saturday night, I drove straight through to Cuernavaca where the Wassons were staying — save for a two and a half hour catnap in the car. Sunday is a banner day in Mexico — families mysteriously walking along the side of the road in the middle of nowhere apparently waiting for a bus. I asked once such family if I was on the right road for Mexico City, and ended up taking the whole family to their destination — the parents and two cute little boys in front, and their daughter sitting on top of a pile of inspected clothes in back. Great crowds were congregating in the towns all dressed in their Sunday best. I finally reached Cuernavaca at about 4:00 in the afternoon. The Wassons are living in Dwight Morrow’s house (once the ambassador to Mexico) a charming place partly because of its location which is smack in the middle of a tourist city. One enters off the noisy street into a spreading ‘villa’, with three gardens, a lawn, a lovely swimming pool — one imagines oneself in the country. The rooms are decorated with Mexican serapes; the servants are rather ancient and dote on the Morrows, who haven’t been there for 20 years, no doubt comparing Joannie Ferrante and Masha Wasson with the Morrow girls, and me with Lindbergh. . . .
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