As the Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagun, had observed during a visit to New Spain:
When the mushrooms took effect on them, then they danced, then they wept. But some, while still in command of their senses, entered and sat there by the house on their seats; they did no more, but only sat there nodding.
The ancient Aztecs hod quite the history of employing entheogenic plants and fungi in rituals. In particular, the ingestion of the fungi, Teonanacatl (literally “god mushroom”; these mushrooms belong to the Psilocybe genus), in the ritual Monanacahuia (meaning to “mushroom oneself”) served as the chief inspiration for this piece.