Inside a brick house in Oaxaca, Mexico, a wizened indigenous woman
stands at a candlelit altar adorned with images of Christ, the Virgin
Mary, the Pope and the Santo Niño de Atocha. A small group of Westerners
watch raptly as she prays in her native Mazatec tongue:
“Sacred Heart of Jesus, Holy Trinity, Holy Saint George, give
them your medicine. Give them your medicinal plant, your flesh, your
host. I will search here for the place where they left their spirit,
where they felt laziness, where they felt weakness, or if a wind blew on
them, or if they were victims of gossip. I want you to have mercy on
them when you give them your medicine, wake them up and support them.”
The shaman at the altar, Natalia Martinez, is the focal point of the hour-and-38-minute-long documentary Little Saints.
Shot over the course of three consecutive summers, the film chronicles
six Los Angeles residents’ collective journey to the Sierra Mazateca
region of Oaxaca to take part in veladas: healing mushroom
ceremonies central to the religious tradition of the Mazatec people
(“people of the deer”) who inhabit the area.
