Table Of ContentMUSHROOMS
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
Description:Aksakov's 'Remarks and Observations of a Mushroom Hunter'. 394 XLVII. Maria Sabina, curandera, passing mushrooms over incense (copal); also her.
