But when Marta Turok, a Mexican anthropologist specializing in folk art, looks at a Chia Pet, she sees more than a gag gift or droll decor. Her first time encountering one was at a Woolworth department store in Mexico City in the early 1990s. On the box was a clay bear with sprouted green fur that she recognized right away as a nod to a regional religious handicraft—one she had no idea had been co-opted into a novelty knickknack. “I thought it was crazy,” Turok says, “that somebody saw this as fun for kids.”