MUSHROOMS RUSSIA AND HISTORY BY VALENTINA PAVLOVNA WASSON AND R.GORDON WASSON % VOLUME II PANTHEON BOOKS • NEW YORK COPYRIGHT © 1957 BY R. GORDON WASSON MANUFACTURED IN ITALY FOR THE AUTHORS AND PANTHEON BOOKS INC. 333, SIXTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 14, N. Y. www.NewAlexandria.org/ archive CONTENTS VOLUME II V. THE RIDDLE OF THE TOAD AND OTHER SECRETS MUSHROOMIC (CONTINUED) 14. Teo-Nandcatl: the Sacred Mushrooms of the Nahua 215 15. Teo-Nandcatl: the Mushroom Agape 287 16. The Divine Mushroom: Archeological Clues in the Valley of Mexico 322 17. 'Gama no Koshikake' and 'Hegba Mboddo' 330 18. The Anatomy of Mycophobia 335 19. Mushrooms in Art 351 20. Unscientific Nomenclature 364 Vale 374 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 381 APPENDIX I: Mushrooms in Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' 391 APPENDIX II: Aksakov's 'Remarks and Observations of a Mushroom Hunter' 394 APPENDIX III: Leuba's 'Hymn to the Morel' 400 APPENDIX IV: Hallucinogenic Mushrooms: Early Mexican Sources 404 INDEX OF FUNGAL METAPHORS AND SEMANTIC ASSOCIATIONS 411 INDEX OF MUSHROOM NAMES 414 INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES 421 LIST OF PLATES VOLUME II JEAN-HENRI FABRE. Coprinus tardus Karst. Title-page xxxvra.JEAN-HENRI FABRE. Boletus duriusculus Kalchbr. 218 xxxix. JEAN-HENRI FABRE. Panseolus campanulatus Fr. ex L. 242 XL. Ceremonial mushrooms. Water-color by Michelle Bory. 254 XLI. Accessories to the mushroom rite. Water-color by VPW. 254 xiii. Aurelio Carreras, curandero, and his son Mauro. Huautla de Jimenez, July 5, 1955. Photo by Allan Richardson. 262 xnn. Mushroom stone. Attributed to early classic period, Highland Maya, c. 300 A.D. to c. 600 A.D. About 30 cm. high. By courtesy of the Rietberg Museum, Zurich. 274 XLIV. Mushroom stone. By courtesy of Hans Namuth, Esq., New York. 274 XLV. Cayetano's House, Huautla de Jimenez. June 1955. Photo by ROW. 278 XLVI. Maria Sabina and her daughter Polonia, curanderas. Huautla de Jimenez, June 29, 1955. Photo by Allan Richardson. 294 XLVII. Maria Sabina, curandera, passing mushrooms over incense (copal); also her daughter Polonia and Cayetano's mother. Huautla de Jimenez, June 29-30, 1955- Photo by Allan Richardson. 294 XLvm. Adoration of the mushroom. Maria Sabina, curandera, and her daughter Polonia. Huautla de Jimenez, June 29-30, 1955. Photo by Allan Richardson. 294 XLIX. Emilio Garcia taking Teo-nandcatl or 'God's Flesh'. Huautla de Jimenez, June 29, 1955. Photo by Allan Richardson. 294 L. Maria Sabina, curandera, and her son Aurelio under the influence of mush- rooms. Huautla de Jimenez, June 29, 1955. Photo by Allan Richardson. 300 LI. Aristeo Matias with bowl of divine mushrooms. San Agustin Loxicha, July 22, 1955. Photo by RGW. 316 LH. Chinese sage contemplating Ling-chih. Painted by Chen Hung-shou (1599- 1652). Reproduced by courtesy ofWango Weng, Esq. 322 Lin. Teopancalco fresco. Teotihuacan, in the Valley of Mexico. From Teoti- huacan III period, A.D. 300-600. After Antonio Penafiel. 322 LIV. Detail of Tlaloc effigy, Tepantitla fresco. Reproduced by Marilyn Weber. 326 LV. Detail of Tepantitla fresco: Soul arriving on the playing fields of Paradise. Reproduced by Marilyn Weber. 326 VII LIST OF PLATES LVI. Illuminated initial from a ifth century manuscript (No. 165) of Le Livre pour la Sante du Corps, by Aldobrandino da Siena, 1256. By courtesy of The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. 342 LVII. A. Mushrooms. Miniature from a pth century Greek codex (Grec 2179) of Dioscorides. By courtesy of the Bibliotheaue Nationale, Paris. B. Mushrooms. Miniature from an nth century Arabic manuscript (Arabe 4947) of Dioscorides. By courtesy of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. 350 Lvni. Mushrooms. Miniature from a loth century manuscript (No. 652) of Dio scorides. By courtesy of The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. 350 LIX. PIETER BRUEGHEL THE ELDER. The Misanthrope. By courtesy of the Museo Na- zionale, Naples. 358 LX. PIETER BRUEGHEL THE ELDER. The Misanthrope. Detail. By courtesy of the Museo Nazionale, Naples. 358 LXI. JUAN BAUTISTA MAYNO. The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1610. By courtesy of the Prado Museum, Madrid. 358 LXII. JUAN BAUTISTA MAYNO. The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1610. Detail. By courtesy of the Prado Museum, Madrid. 358 LXIII. HERRI MET DE BLES ('CIVETTA'). Christ bearing the Cross. By courtesy of the Gemaldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Kiinste, Vienna. 358 LXIV. HERRI MET DE BLES ('CIVETTA'). Christ bearing the Cross. Detail. By courtesy of the Gemaldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Kiinste, Vienna. 358 LXV. OTTO MARSEUS VAN SCHRIECK. Poppy with mushrooms. By courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 358 LXVI. OTTO MARSEUS VAN SCHRIECK. Mushrooms. By courtesy of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick. 358 LXVII. OTTO MARSEUS VAN SCHRIECK. Mushrooms. Detail. By courtesy of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick. 358 LXVIII. PAOLO PORPORA, d. 1673. Still life. By courtesy of the Soprintendenza alle Gal- lerie, Naples, and the Banco di Napoli. 358 LXIX. ABRAHAM BEGEYN. Still life. By courtesy of the Galleria d'Arte Antica, Rome. 358 LXX. FRANS HAMILTON. Still hfe. By courtesy of the Bayerische Staatsgemaldesamm- lungen, Munich. 358 LXXI. RACHEL RUYSCH. Still hfe. By courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 358 LXXII. F. W. TAMM. Still hfe. Private collection. 358 LXXIII. MELCHIOR DE HONDECOETER. Still life. By courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Am sterdam. 358 LXXTV. MELCHIOR DE HONDECOETER. Still hfe. By courtesy of the National Gallery, London. 358 VIII LIST OF PLATES LXXV. SCHOOL OF ZURBARAN, lyth-iSth century. Chestnuts, cheese, grapes, al monds, and mushrooms, sp. tricholoma personatum. By courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. 358 LXXVI. Mushrooms. From a fresco found at Herculaneum, probably executed about A.D. 50. By courtesy of the Museo Nazionale, Naples. 358 LXXVII. The dream. Woodcut after J.-J. Grandville. From the Magasin Pittoresque, 1847- 358 Lxxvni. JEAN-HENRI FABRE. Lactarius deliciosus Fr. ex Lin. 366 LXXIX. JEAN-HENRI FABRE. Lactarius sanguifluus Fr. ex Paul. 366 LXXX. JEAN-HENRI FABRE. Cantharellus cibarius Fr. 374 LXXXI. JEAN-HENRI FABRE. Boletus scaber Fr. ex Bull. (B. leucophseus Pers.). 398 LXXXII. JEAN-HENRI FABRE. Coprinus atramentarius Fr. ex Bull. 398 JEAN-HENRI FABRE. Coprinus radiatus Fr. ex Bolt. 409 All the colored reproductions of water-colors by Jean-Henri Fabre and Plates xx, XL, XLI, LXXVI, were made by Daniel Jacomet, Paris. The other plates were printed by Fratelli Alinari, Florence. IX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT 26. Woodcut depicting mushrooms, Lyons, 1578. Illustration accompanying French edition of Pietro Andrea Mattioli's Commentaries on Dioscorides, p. 614. The setting includes tree-stumps, snakes, a snail and flying insects, but no toads. 352 27. Earliest description of Tricholoma Gambosum, by Carolus Clusius, in Rario- rum Plantarum Historia, Antwerp, 1601. 368 28. Mushroom Stones. Chart of types by provenience and age. Compiled by Ste- phan F. de Borhegyi. In pocket at end of volume. Figures 14, 15 and 20 were reproduced in color by Fratelli Alinari, Florence. VOLUME II 14 TEO-NANACATL The Sacred Mushrooms of the Nahua 1 here are three cultural areas in the world where men consume mushrooms for psychic effects. We have just dealt with one of these - the eating of the fly amanita by the Hyperboreans of Siberia. The second area is in New Guinea, in the northeastern part of that island, at the headwaters of the Wahgi River. The practice is reported among the natives living in the Mount Hagen range of mountains, but it may well be more wide- spread. The Mount Hagen natives are a mixture ethnically of Negritos and Papuans, with some Melanesian blood. Concerning their use of an intoxicating mushroom the available evidence is clear but pitifully meager. In 1947 the American Ethnographical Society published as its Monograph No. 12 a paper by Abraham L. Gitlow entitled 'Economics of the Mount Hagen Tribes'. He devoted one brief paragraph to intoxicants, and said that one of the three in current use was a mushroom called nonda. Then he continued: The wild mushroom incites fits of frenzy and has even been known to result in death. It is taken before going out to kill an enemy, or in times of anger, sorrow, or excitement. That is all. We are vouchsafed no information about the mushroom itself, or its manner of preparation, or the dosage, or the meaning of its native name; nor any hint of the folk associations that must cling to this potent fungal growth. How odd that professional anthropologists should so often ignore in this way the obvious questions about fungi. Thomas Gilliard, an ornithologist of the American Museum of Natural History specializing in the birds of New Guinea, first drew our attention to the Mount Hagen reference. He did more: he suggested that we address a letter to a Catholic missionary working downstream from the Mount Hagen range and inquire about a peculiar fungal practice among the natives there. The Wahgi is a river that runs east and then south into the Gulf of Papua. Below Mount Hagen but still far from the sea it drains a valley shut in on the north by the Bismarck range and on the south by the Kubor mountains. The natives, known as the Chimbu people, are linguistically and culturally distinct from the Mount Hagen tribesmen, though ethnically similar. It seems that among them chastity is not prized as a virtue in young unmarried women, and that to avoid children they eat a certain fungus. Later, when they marry, they give up the 215 CHAPTER FIVE fungus and proceed to bear children without let or hindrance. We sent off our letter to Father John Nilles, a member of the Society of the Divine Word, to his station at Mingende, in the Central Highlands of the Territory of New Guinea, and in due course his reply confirmed Mr. Gilliard's report: I know [he wrote] of one kind of mushroom that is used by women as a means of preventing conception or procuring abortion. A native has brought me two specimens of that kind, of which I send you two cross sections. It grows on old tree stumps in the bush from 6,000 feet up on the slopes of the Chimbu and Wahgi valleys. When fresh the color on top is brown, and white underneath. Small slices are cut off, cooked by the woman between hot stones, and eaten with cooked sweet potatoes. On receiving this gracious communication from Father Nilles, we forwarded the mushroom samples at once to Professor Roger Heim in Paris. They were insufficient for definitive identification, but Professor Heim felt confident that the specimens belonged to a genus known in France as ungulina, and probably to the species called by French mycologists the ungulina auberiana (Mont.) Pat. This particular species is abundant throughout the tropics and belongs to the polypores with rigid trama. It staggers under the burden of twenty or thirty competing scientific names; in the collections of the New York Bo- tanical Garden the specimens carry the designation rigidoporus microporus. 1 he watershed of the Wahgi, in the light of the tantalizing information at hand, holds exciting secrets for the exploring ethno-mycologist. But we must leave New Guinea behind and turn to Middle America, the third of our areas. Here we discover the most dramatic story in the whole field of ethno-mycology. There survives to this day in Mexico, within a few hours' flight of New York, the living cult of a sacred mushroom, a mushroom to which is attributed the power of bestowing on the eater extraordinary faculties. We know that this cult was nourishing when the Spaniards conquered Mexico and we believe there is evidence indicating that it was then millenniums old. For three centuries this cult lay forgotten by the world in the old writings of the i6th and iyth centuries, while Indians in remote corners of Mexico continued to believe in the mushroom and practice the cult. Only in the last twenty years has the cult come to light again, and even today its existence is known to few. After we had examined the available evidence old and new, we found ourselves succumbing to the spell of the mysterious mushroom with its strange powers and uncertain identity. The possibilities of further exploration in the field drew us more and more, and we proceeded with the pleasant task of laying 216