Soma: Devine Mushroom of Immortality by R. Gordon Wasson (1972) by trippinglydotnet

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Ethno-mycological Studies

No.

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SOMA DIVINE MUSHROOM OF IMMORTALITY by R. Gordon Wasson

HARCOURT BRACE JOVANOX'ICH,

INC.

CHtCKE J

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TABLE OF CONTENTS PART

O.VE

SOMA: DIVINE MUSHROOM OF IMMORTALITY I.

II.

III.

IV. \'.

VI. \'II.

VIII.

The Problem The Fly-agaric of Eurasia The Ground Rules of the Search Soma Was Not Alcoholic The Roots, Leaves, Blossoms, Seed of Soma: Where Are They ? Soma Grew in the Mountains The Two Forms of Soma Epithets and Tropes for Soma in the Rg\'eda

la i

22 25 35

Soma and the Fly Words Used for Soma

XI.

Miscellanea

XII.

Mani, Mushroom, Urine

XIII.

The Marvelous Herb

IX.

ii\the^BigVfda

PART TWO THE POST-VEDIC HISTORY OF THE SOMA PLANT by I.

II.

III.

The

Wendy

Brdlimanas and the

Later Sanskrit

Doniger Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Flaherty

^rflwfa-sfitrfls

Works

95 pg

Early European References

xoq

IV.

Mid-Nineteenth Century

File

VI.

The Turn of the Century Mukherjee and the Bhang Theory

i^g

Later Researches in the 20th Century

130

VII. Vlir.

Number

118

VII

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART THREE

NORTHERN EURASIA AND THE FLY-AGARIC The

Fly-agaric in Siberia:

the Testimony of Explorers,

Travelers, and Anthropologists II .

The

III.

Europe and the Fly-Agaric

Linguistic Aspect: a Puzzling

151

Word

Cluster

172

Epilogue: The Tree of Life and the Marvelous

Herb

Acknowledgements

EXHIBITS 1.

164

205

223

AND INDEX

THE FLY-AGARIC IN SIBERIA

Preliminary Note

231

A. Explorers, Travelers, Anthropologists [I]

[2]

Kamiehski

233

‘Denbei’, a Japanese castaway

233

[3]

von Strahlenberg

234

[4]

Krasheninnikov

235

[5]

Steller

239

[6]

Georgi

240

[7]

de Lesseps

241

[8]

Sarychev

242

[9]

Kopec

243

[lo]

von Langsdorf

246

[11]

Erman

251

[12]

von Maydell

254

[13]

von Dittmar

256

[14]

Kennan

258

[15]

Lansdell

259

[16]

Jadrintsev

260 VIII

TABLE OF CONTENTS Patkanov

260

[17] [18]

Sljunin

260

[19]

Enderli

261

[20]

Vanderlip

264

[ 21 ]

Jochelson

265

[ 22 ]

Bogoraz

273

[23]

Itkonen

279

[24]

Lehtisalo

280

[25]

Dunin-Gorkavich

280

Karjalainen

281

[27]

Bergman

285

[28]

Donner

286

[29]

Worth and Jochelson: Koryak and Kamchadal Tales

287

[30]

Shamanic

[

26 ]

Hymn

translated

from the Vogul

302

B. The Linguistic Aspect

Preliminary Note

305

[31]

Boas

306

[32]

Munkdcsi

306

[33]

Kannisto

[28a]

Donner

[24a]

Lehcisalo

[34]

Uotila

[35]

Bouda

[36]

Steinitz

308

309 310 312 313 313

[37]

Hajdu

[3S]

Balizs

314 315

[39]

Pedersen 319

C. Secondary Sources [40]

Hartwich

[41]

Eliade

321 [

4i]

326

Brekhman and Sem

334

TABLE OF CONTENTS 2.

THE FLY-AGARIC

SCANDINAVIAN WRITINGS

Preliminary Note

341

43 ]

Odman

343

[

44 ]

Schiibeler

348

[45 ]

Mdrner and Hildebrandsson

351

[

46 ]

Nordhagen

353

[

47 ]

Kuylenstiema-Andrassy

355

CITATIONS FROM THE RGVEDA

359

INDEX

363

ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES I.

Soma

II.

The Immortal Hdri

III.

Tawny Yellow Pdvamdna

3 ('

IV.

Sur) a:

Agni: Fire

VI.

VIII.

He Abandons his Envelope He Makes of Milk his Vesture-of-Grand-Occasion By Day, He Dazzles; By Night, Silvery White

IX.

The Hide

The

XI.

Mainstay of the Sky

XII.

King, Having the Filtre for Chariot;

VII.

The Sun

Single

45 50

of Bull; the Dress, of Sheep

Eye

4« Sf>

With

his

Thousand Knobs

He Conquers Mighty Renown

Way

XIII.

Tongue of the

XIV.

Twin-leafed Ling

XV.

Twin-leafed Ling Chih from below.

XVI.

Noin Ula

Textile.

XVII.

Noin Ula

Textile, detail

XVlIl.

Rubbing of Stone Carving, Han Dynasty, with Nine-leafed

C/iili

from above. Ce/iectioH R. G.VVflsson

Courtesy of Hermitage

Museum. Leningrad

Yung-lo chen Mural,

detail.

Maid of Honour attending

Emperor and holding vase with Ling Chih

Celestial

nvo forms. Yuan

dynasty, early 14th century.

XX.

XXI.

Chtn Hung-shou

(1599-1652).

Mushroom.

probably in early years

of Ching Dynasty. Courtesy of Wango Weng. Esq., Fresco of Plaincourault. The Temptation in the

New

York

Garden of Eden.

Copied by XXir.

Philosopher Contemplating Ling Chih. the Divine Painted by

JLiHgC/»/t.

Courtesy of Rolf Stein, Esq. XIX.

Mme Michelle Bory

180

Hieronymus Bosch: the Hay-wain. Upper part of triptych. Courtesy of Prado Museum. Madrid

left

panel of 196

ILLUSTRATIONS

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT Fig.

Fig. 2.

Ling

C/ii/i,

Stifcifewsd-LL

Chill, in

Japanese

‘Soma’, as

ma Fig. 4.

Written by Suigetsu Kan-6.

‘reis/it’.

commonly

i)revistigtnij,

‘Haoma’:

Japanese book printed in 1850 discussing Ling 90

represented through later ages: Sarcostem-

Ephedra vulgaris, and Periploca aphylla.

from James Darmesteter’s

illustration

the Avestfl. 1890, Vol. Fig. 5.

Ling Chih with nine twin leaves. Reproduction of illustration

from

Fig. 3.

Normal and Abnormal Specimens.

Pi. 2, p. lvui.

Said to be of

105

translation of

122

life size.

‘Soma’ illustration taken from Zenalde A. Ragozin Vedic :

India,

1895. p- 172Fig. 6.

124

Wooden grave-markers

can-ed to represent bird and toad’s leg

motifs from 19th centur)- cemeteries in Lithuania Minor. (After

Fig. 7.

Marija Gimbutas: Ancient

Sytnfcolism in Lithuanian Folk Art, p. 32:

Mem.

Societ)-,

of Amer. Folklore

Toad motifs on 1.

Philadelphia. Vol. 49, 1958)

190

prehistoric pottery’.

Left: Neolithic pot with incised toad form. Second half of 3rd

millenium

B.C.

Danubian culture

in Czechoslovakia.

Right:

Figure of toad on bottom of early iron-age pot from Central

Germany. (After Marija Gimbutas Ancient SymMism in Lithuanian :

Folk Art, p. 35,

Mem.

of Amer. Folklore Society, Philadelphia,

Vol. 49. 1958)

191

Fig. 8.

Chimney-sweep and

Fig. 9.

Seal-skin vessel for gathering urine

ating virtue derived (After

Fly-agaric. {Courtesy ofGeorge L. Phillips, Esq.)

from

impregnated with

fly-agaric, in use

among

inebri-

the Koryak.

Waldemar Jochelson. The Koryak, Mem., Amer. Museum

of Natural History, 1908; p. 483) Fig. 10.

204

Drawing made by men'. (After

Museum

270

Chukchi of the wanderings of

Waldemar

‘fly-agaric

Bogoraz, The Chukchee, Mem., Amer.

of Natural History, Vol. vn. Part 2;

XII

p. 282)

276

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS AND LINGUISTIC CHART PÂŤJri ill

facing page A.

Map

of Eurasia, showing habitat of certain tribes in Europe

Siberia, B.

Map

and

and also the distribution of the birch and pine genera

of the

and Yenisei Valleys, showing the distribution of ^

Uralic tribes c.

and the Kct (Yenisei Ostyak)

The Chukotka: Far Northeast of

Siberia,

showing distribution

of the Kamchadal, Koryak. Chukchi, and Yukagir peoples

Chart of Uralic Languages and Others

XIII

166

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PART ONE

SOMA DIVINE

MUSHROOM OF IMMORTALITY

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THE PROBLEM

era a people who the second niiilenniuni betorc our Christian into themselves ‘Aryans’ swept down from the Northwest

called

I what a

Afghanistan and the \'alley of the Indus. They were people, fighting with horse-drawn chariots; a grain-growing

warrior

now

people: a people for

whom

animal breeding, especially

cattle,

was

of primary importance; finally, a people

whose language was Indo-

European. the \’edic tongue, the parent of

classical Sanskrit, a collater-

ancestor of our

religion,

European languages. They were

also heirs to a tribal

with an hereditary priesthood, elaborate and sometimes

complement of gods

zarre rituals and sacrifices, a pantheon with a full

and other supernatural

spirits,

and

bi-

mythology

rich

with the doings

of these deities. Indra, mighty w’ith his thunderbolt, was their chiet god. and Agni. the god of fire, also

were other gods too numerous

evoked conspicuous homage. There

mention here.

Unique among these other gods was Soma. Soma was time a god, a plant, and the juice of that plant. So far as

Soma

seem

the only plant that

man has ever deified.

at the

same

we know' now,

(The Mexican Indians

regard the hallucinogenic plants, whether mushrooms, peyoll,

The Nahua Aztecs and other groups speaking the same tongue - called the mushrooms teo-nandcatl, ‘god’s flesh’, but the mushrooms do not figure

morning

in their

glories, as

mediators with god, not

pantheon.) In the course of the

pounded out

Soma

as a god.

sacrifice the Juice w'as

on resounding planks and was drunk by the Soma -the three Somas- inspired hymns vibrant

w’ith stones

officiating priests.

with ecstasy, composed over centuries by priests

remote from each other. In the end, millennium before

who

lived in centers

an early period in the

first

hymns were gathered together, and come down to us intact. Compared with

Christ, these

the canon of that text has

ours, the Vedic civilization %vas simple,

but their verses - the figures

of speech with w'hich they embellished their thoughts and feelings, their play with the meanings and sounds of w’ords, the rules of their 3

PART ONE

CHAPTER

•

prosody- were sometimes subtle and sophisticated. Some of the hymns are of so exalted, even delirious, a tenor that the led to exclaim: ‘This surely

divine inebriant’.

takes

modern reader

was composed under the influence of

perception to sense the difference in

little

tone between the awe-inspired

hymns to Soma and the rowdy drinking

songs of the West prompted by alcohol. In the hierarchy of Vedic gods certain others took precedence over

Soma was a tangible, visible thing, its inebriating juice to be ingested by the human organism in the course of the ritual, a god come down and manifesting himself to the Aryans, Soma played a singular role in the Vedic pantheon. The poets never tire of stressing Soma, but

since

Soma’s sensuous appeal. In appearance

them of the Sun, of Fire, of the

was

rays of the Sun, of the

the heavenly firmament, ‘the back of the sky’. first

reminding

brilliant,

round bowl of

The dried

plants

were

They were then macerated with stone tawny yellow juice as it came coursing through the

freshened with water.

pestles,

and the

conduits of the press was compared, in the hyperbole of the day,

with thunder.’ The

known,

priests, after

imbibing the

juice,

for the nonce, the ecstasy of existence in the

seem

that spoke for

communion: Soma was

a spiritual

miraculous drink

itself.

book of 1028 hymns

our sole contemporary source of

mation about the period

deals with.

text,

but

have

World of the

Immortals. The Divine Element was not just a symbol of truth as in the Christian

many words

are of doubtful

their allusions that often escape us.

There

infor-

agreement on the

meaning and doubly so

They have been preserved

for us,

both words and melodies, by oral tradition; by achievements of the

human memory

that have

parallel in other cultures, preserved

better than our ancient learning in the manuscripts with which our Western scholars are familiar. When a Brahman schooled in the ancient tradition sings us a

precisely right, there

hymn from

the RgVeda, with intonation

reason to think that

listening to a tape recording 3,000 years old.

it is

though we were

These hymns,

still elicit-

IX 8i’, Parjanya. ihe god of thunder, was the father of Soma, according to one tradition. RgVeda

Abel Bergaigne, La

Religion V^dique, Vol.

pp. I72-3*

THE PROBLEM ing the earliest

constitute the utmost reverence among countless Hindus, monument in their religious and literary heritage, as well as

one of the

earliest cultural legacies

own Indo-European

of our

world.

whole of As the eminent French Vedist Louis Renou has said, the is present in mice in this immense collection, known as the RgVeda,

Soma presents to us.â&#x20AC;&#x2DC; But what manner of plant was this Soma? No one knows. For twenty-five centuries and more its identity has been lost. The Hindus, the themes that

probably for the reasons that will emerge allowed

this

authentic

Soma

my argument progresses,

such and that to

this

day are met with

were frankly recognized

resort to sundry substitutes, substitutes that as

and early on began

to fall into disuse

in India in their peculiar

The West discovered the Sanskrit and V^edic cultures almost two centuries ago. For two centuries we have been absorbing religious role.

the lessons that India has to teach us, in linguistics, in

philosophy and religion, in literature, archa^olog)^ This difficult assimilation

art,

is still

more sober pace than

sibly at a slower,

mythology and

history,

anthropology,

going on. though pos-

in the

enthusiasm of the

initial discoveries.

But the identity of

and what

tion.

in 1963

Here

this

poems

obscure today as two centuries ago,

mystery

could hardly believe what

a clear-cut botanical question

calls for identification.

the

compounded by what I will mystery of Soma. When I first embarked on

more,

the mystery of the

problem

Soma

The

found to be the

call

the

situa-

a psychotropic plant that

clues should be in the Vedic

hymns. True,

contain no botanical description such as a scientist

would The poet-

Those remote singers were no modern botanists. priests of the RgVeda were composing for contemporaries, certainly not for posterity 3,000 years away, and their imagery and terms often elude our understanding, just as our hymns would make hard going for our collateral descendants 3.000 years hence. But the hymns are all shot through with Soma, and 120 of them are entirely devoted to ask

for.

the plant-god. plant: I.

ever

Vidiquts

The hymns are not make-believe about there was genuine poetry about a genuine Pdmnitnes. E. dt Boccard. Ediicur. Paris,

tome u.

1961. p. 8.

a fictitious

plant, here

PART ONE it is.

W'as

much

possible that so

•

CHAPTER

could have been written by lyric

poets about a plant, over centuries, in ty,

and

its

identity not be revealed?

many It

centers of priestly activi-

was no

secret for the poet-

How extraordinary it would have been if all of them, number-

priests.

ing scores, perhaps a hundred, had withheld

from

their verses the

revealing descriptive terms, the tell-tale metaphors, that the trained

reader today needs to spot the plant! But this did not happen. All that has

happened

no ethno-botanist with an

that

interest in psy-

chotropic plants has applied himself to the examination of the hymns.

The Vedic

culture has been primarily a subject for Vedic scholars

and secondarily for those scholars

who

interest themselves in

parative mytholog)’ and religion.

The

specialists in

com-

Vedic learning

have included a handful of brilliant men, of extraordinary perception,

who

are assured of a lasting reputation

behind.

They have been

tilling a field, a rich field

frontier province of the humanities,

that they

were leading an

RgVeda were

of the

by the works they have

lations of the late K. F.

Only now,

Geldner and the

The

in the

annotated trans-

Renou, does a

late Louis

of the nuances of the original. ‘ (Certain

him

that

could have done nothing without Renou’s translation and tary.*)

Throughout the dawn and early morning of Vedic

many

the 19th century,

felt

early translations

student with no Vedic possess a rendering that permits

some

remote

and they must often have

isolated existence.

execrable.

true, in a

it is

left

to sense

for one,

commenstudies, in

cultivated people in the West, not merely

Vedic scholars but educated laymen,

knew

at least

what the Soma

problem was. More recently, whenever the subject has been broached, scholars and editors have sighed and wearily turned away: the

question has dropped into oblivion simply because

One would have thought

defy solution.

Soma

has seemed to

that students of religion

has begun an excellent translation into English, the with a lengthy commentary. Oriental Instinite, Baroda. 1957. i960. 1961. He has published 70 of 1.

The Soma-Hymns of

hymns

the

Soma, out of 114

RgVeda

S. S.

Mandala

Bhawe

IX.

August 19^, had been completed with him in before I had an opportunity to lay before him my thesis, in three long talks that I had thesis sidnisanu Paris and his country house in the Eure, in the spring of that year. He found my 2.

His translation, so far as

and encouraged

had gone before

his

untimely death

he did prepare as quickly as possible a full-dress presentation, but naturally

not commit himself.

THE PROBLEM would have focussed on

it.

but our contemporary religious thinkers

(with notable exceptions) have no religious experience,

such

sympathy with drugs

though accepting

as a

way

a role for other external aids

of course) music, architecture, and liturg)-; and (unconsciously historical of them are nothing loath to gloss over and ignore the

many

own religious history. Yet with Soma unidentified is the it cannot be gainsaid that \'edic culture play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. The identification of Soma role of

Soma

the higher reaches of our

remains one of the chief desiderata of Vedic studies. That the question continues to be slighted constitutes, as I have said, the mystery of the

Soma enigma. There

no sure evidence that

others than the priests.

times

in Nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;edic

Soma was drunk by

a deliberate decision the priests

must

have decided to discontinue the use of the Sacred Plant. That

finally

familiarity with the genuine

priesthood

Soma seems

have been confined

would make the enforcement of such

and the very

memory

of the plant itself

was

to the

a decision effective,

finally lost.

For

than two millennia the

hymns

Soma have been sung and revered

the absence of Soma.

The record of these intervening centuries

strangely, significantly, silent about the holy herb. In India discussions

of such matters were confined to the priestly circles: others

were unin-

formed and uninterested. The

have come

down

to us

stitutes.

show acute concern over the

but no concern over the plant

ditionally

them

priestly compositions that

relative merits of various sub-

itself.

have not been interested in the

irrelevant

when weighed

incarnation of the individual India have assured

that the

tutes.

known by

facts

tra-

of history, considering

in the balance against the future

soul.

Brahmans among

many

substitutes for

the large expanse of the sub-continent

always

Moreover, the Hindus

friends in

Soma used over

and through the ages were

the inner circles of the priestly caste to be substi-

This cannot be proved but

must have been

The contrast between the ecstasy of Soma inebriation as sung in the hymns and the effects, often vile, of any of the many substitutes was always too a fact.

glaring to be ignored.

the Europeans knowledge about 7

Soma came

late. It

was not

PART ONE until 1784 that the

European

CHAPTER

made

spelled 5om,

itself,

its

debut on the

scene, in Charles Wilkins’s English translation of the Bha-

giivad GitJ.

{The

gave was

ar)-

word

•

earliest citation for

1827.) In the i83o’s

Soma

that the Oxford Diction-

European scholars

finally

awoke

the myster)- of Soma’s identity, but their efforts to solve the problem from that day to this have been singularly futile. They have merely

worked over the Brahmanic discussions of the substitutes, apparently under the misapprehension that the original Soma must have closely resembled the substitutes,

was not

if it

in fact

volunteered suggestions pulled out of the text

and Brahmanic

flouting the RgVedic

air,

Pan Two of this book Wendy Doniger

practice. In

O’ Flaherty gives the revealing story of

And

one of them. Or they

so in the fullness of time

this search.

has fallen on me, a retired banker,

be greatly daring and to submit to the intellectual world a

theor)' of

Soma

identity.

entered into the extraordinary world

of the RgVeda, a suspicion gradually

grew into

a conviction:

came over me,

hymns, the epithets and tropes

pertaining to the plant, are abundantly clear. As

immersed myself ever deeper

in the

further evidence seeming to support Jove,

said, this

a suspicion that

recognized the plant that had enraptured the

poets. For this purpose the text of the

new

went on

to the end,

world of Vedic mytholog)',

my idea

kept accumulating. By

familiar territory!

At the same time there hovered constantly in my mind’s eye the admonitory finger of Tristram Shandy as he warned against the occupational hazard of those

who

advance hypotheses:

It is in

the nature of a hypothesis

when once

that

assimilates evetything to

itself, as

from the

first

moment

man

has conceived

it,

proper nourishment, and

of your begetting

it,

generally grows

stronger by everything you see, hear or understand.

And

so,

present

while well aware of the perils that attend

forgotten

case. If

If I

right, I

wrong, how quickly

enterprise,

proposal be

claim the privilege of adding a

new and

knowledge of the remote

past, the

exciting chapter to the w'orld’s

proto-history of our

will

my my

own Indo-European 8

culture.

THE PROBLEM word,

In a

belief

Soma

that

the Divine

Mushroom

Immortality, and that in the early days of our culture, before

made

use of reading and writing,

when

posed, the prestige of this miraculous

mouth where

far it

the RgX'eda

was being com-

mushroom

ran by

word of

and wide throughout Eurasia, well beyond the regions

grew and was worshipped.

THE FLY-AGARIC OF EURASIA

My candidate for the identic)- of Soma

Amanita muscaria

Quel., in English the fly-agaric, the Fliegenpil^ of the

ex L.)

(Fr.

Germans, the

of the Russians, the fausse oronge or tue-mouche or crapaudin of the French, the brilliant red mushroom with white spots familiar jÂťnfe/iofNer

in forests

This

Soma The

and folklore throughout northern Eurasia. the

time that a

mushroom

has been proposed in the

quest. fly-agaric

records go,

many

first

has been the Sacred Element in the shamanic

tribes of

valleys of the

an inebrianc but not alcoholic. As far back as our

and the

these tribesmen scarcely in the i6th

northern Siberia, tribes that are concentrated in the Yenisei,

and then,

after an interruption,

other tribes in the extreme northeast of Siberia. Apparently

rites

knew

some

alcohol until the Russians introduced

and 17th centuries, but the

fly-agaric

had been

their

precious possession long before then. religious role are

adequate to reveal

The available records about its its main properties but fall short

we would have them be in the light of the proposal made in this paper. Our earliest eye-witness account of its use is by a Pole, Adam Kamienski, in 1658, among the Ostyak of the Irtysh River of what

(tributary of the Ob), an Ugrian people of the Finno-Ugrian family.*

Today we know \'ogul, the

its

use

common

cific

tiny

make up the Uralic group), and

and the Kamchadal. Responsible

have reported that the Yukagir,

who

survive in Siberia in

communities near the Arctic Ocean, and the

land, preserve oral traditions of having

times past, though they no longer do

three

unrelated linguistically to the others, on the north Pa-

Coast, the Chukchi, the Kor)â&#x20AC;&#x2122;ak,

obser\'ers

Ostyak and their kin the

Ket of the Yenisei Valley, the Samoyed peoples (who

together with the Finno-Ugrians sister tribes,

to the

Vide Exhibit [i], p. 233. Throughout this

book the

the Exhibits.

Inari

Lapps

consumed the

in Fin-

fly-agaric in

so.

numbcn

between heavy brackets

refer to

THE FLY-AGARIC OF EURASIA The Russians began their conquest of Siberia centurv and our knowledge of these Siberian

at the

end of the i6th

tribes virtually starts

The use of the fly-agaric has been in retreat ever since the arrival of the White Man. It has ceded ground to the vodka of the Russians then.

and, until

whalers.

the Russian Revolution, the fire-water ot the western

A more

powerful influence has been the aggressive cultural

thrust of the Russians,

who frown on some

to the natives. (In a conflict of cultures the

right away, its

without examination, that

virtues, are

of the practices peculiar

stronger one always assumes

all its

ways,

its

vices as well as

incomparably superior.) To the Russian conquest of

Siberia, therefore,

we owe our knowledge

of the use of the fly-agaric

and also the approaching end of that use. In the Exhibits in tfxtenso

publish

the accounts of travellers, linguists, and anthropologists that

deal with the fly-agaric in Siberia.

There

linguistic

e\idence to indicate that formerly, in proto-history,

some

ot the

Indo-European peoples,

and

folkloric

was used by

as well as the Hungarians.

Ill

THE GROUND RULES OF THE SEARCH

y primar\- source, the basis of

Rg\'eda. as

made accessible to me in

poets of the Rg\’eda

knew

never strayed from

the original

for long.

the

the recent annotated translations,

Renou, Geldner, and Bhawe.'

to wit, those of

Soma,

identification of

Soma

certain that the

It is

hand, and they

at first

invoke later texts and the Avesta

know what the RgVeda means. identity of Soma must meet the following

only where they help us to

Any

suggestion for the

criteria; i) Is

with the RgVeda?

in conflict

into such descriptive terms as the

Does

RgVeda poets apply

into the indications as to the source of supply, etc.'i

the

it fit

comfortably

Soma, and

methods of handling,

Does the proposal happily resolve some of the many

RgVeda? On

all

three counts

hopeful that

cruces in

suggestion

meets the requirements. It

and

was only

after

my examination of the RgVeda text, laid before me her paper written at my

had finished

after Dr. O’Flaherty’

had

Soma since Vedic times (here published as how unorthodox I had been in my approach.

request on the history of Part Two), that It

realized

turns out that

relied

was unique. Everyone

composed

later sources, sources

Soma had been superseded by various

modem

vernaculars by

had had recourse

to guesses,

else, literally

at a

substitutes,

time

everyone, had

when

the original

and on plants

names derived from

‘Soma’.

called in

they

without supporting evidence; guesses

such as rhubarb, or hashish, or wild grape wine, in disregard of their incompatibility with the RgVeda. At a later stage to say

this.

shall

But here the question of substitutes

have more

calls for

some

discussion.

The Aryans came from the north but no one knows from where. 1. 1

hymns to have been written, the last to be included in These hymns differ from the others considerably in tone and lan-

exclude from consideration the latest

the canon before

guage. and there used, had

it is

was

closed.

reason to believe that substitutes, which

now almost completely

Mandala X from 85 through

replaced

Soma

191.

think had always been occasionally

in the sacrifice.

These hymns are mostly

GROUND

TUI-: si;.\iu;ii

Li-s oi

Thoni.is lUirrow m.Kle he.idway

question

this

latest liitguisiic

he niarshalleJ the

when

in 7 he SiUiskrit

evidence about the pre-

Indo-Huropean peoples. The Indo-lranian branch ot before migrating to the areas that they were to conquer, had

history of the

the race,

occupied the marches of the Indo-Huropean domains and had lived proto-Finnoin long and intimate contact with a race that spoke

whom

Ugric, with

they exchanged lexical elements.*

The words

that

they borrowed from their Finno-Ugric neighbors do not appear in

other Indo-European languages. If as

believe the .Aryans brought

homeland

The

tutes.

the sacred fly-agaric,

a cult of

had from the

their priests

flv-agaric

mushrooms, fore limited

down with them from

start

their

must needs follow that

wrestled with the problem of substi-

not always available. Like most species ot

does not lend

itself to cultivation.

The supply

and varies with the season and the year.

there-

can be dried

and thus preserved; the Rg\ eda .speaks on several occasions of water being added to the (presumably dry) Soma, so that again. ^

The

fly-agaric

mycorrhizal

mushroom:

would

in Eurasia

only in an underground relationship with the pines, the all

the birches.

grow.

Where

swell

firs,

grows

and above

these trees are not. neither does the fly-agaric

can be transported, but channels of trade must be set up

and maintaijied. cult to falter for

settlements, far

would not allow the want of the Sacred Element, and in the Indus \â&#x20AC;&#x2122;allcv but not too far from birch and conifer, the u.se of

substitutes, while

to arouse

well organized priesthood

always regrettable, must have been so

no comment. This would make the

the fly-agaric easier than

substitutes

final

common

abandonment of

had ever been used.

Wendv

Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Flaherty in her paper on the history of theSoma question has pointed out the consistent association, in early times, of the color red with the substitutes for Soma that were preferred - a significant pointer when the fly-agaric, flaming red. as the original

Friends in the Vaidika Saitisodhana

Faber

2. Ibid., 3.

Faber. London. 1955, Chap.

pp. lyij

Vide, e.^., IX 74*.

Soma is under consideration.

Mandala

in Poona,

where such

PART ONE

â&#x20AC;˘

CHAPTER

questions as this are studied, have told

III

me that three criteria governed

the choice of substitutes: the plant should be small, leafless,

and

should possess fleshy

how

easy to see

it is

leafless,

with

should be

stalks. If these are ancient criteria,

they were suggested by the fly-agaric - small,

juic)' stalk.

That the

criteria

seem

arbitrary

and per-

mitted the choice of plant substitutes bearing no outward resemblance to the fly-agaric

not incompatible with the sacerdotal habit of mind.

The substitute had this

to be constantly available,

and what plant that met

condition could resemble the fly-agaric? In the hot arid regions

of northwest India, Afghanistan, and Iran the available species of three botanical genera. Ephedra, Sarcostemma, and Periploca, to

meet these requirements with

widely used in the post-Vedic

Soma

There has been an impression

was

a creeper,

v<j//r

fair success

in Sanskrit.

seemed

and they came to be

sacrifice.

in India

and elsewhere that Soma

No RgVedic

authority exists for this

term, in fact none in the whole corpus of Vedic literature. But the three genera that I

refrain

deed to

have cited could be construed

from contending that

in the second half of the

was not used

Mandala

as in

v^ii/i

and therefore

RgVedic times.

X, in the last batch of

be added before the canon was closed, there

In-

hymns

a verse that

may

refer to such substitutes:

853

One

Soma because a plant is Brahmans know - that no one drinks.

thinks one drinks

that the

crushed.

The Soma

somam manyate papivdn ydt sampimdnty d^adhim sdmam ydm brahmdno vidur nd tdsydindti kds cand (For the convenience of scholars

shall

always add the Vedic text

we quote.) This verse, and the late hymn of which it forms a part, may have been composed at the very moment when the original Soma had already fallen into disuse, when only priests still remembered what it was, and when substitutes were currently of the verses that

accepted as the genuine

article.

SOMA WAS NOT ALCOHOLIC In the West

has been repeatedly suggested that

Soma was an

long been (The culture of the modern world has This can be denied with obsessed with alcohol as the sole inebriant.) of the The difference in tone between the bibulous verse alcoholic drink.

assurance.

West and the holy rapture of the Soma hymns literary discrimination

any

will suffice for those of

or psychological insight. But there are

stalks were other than the literary and the subjective. The finished the pressed as a liturgical act and before the liturg)- was could be made in one juice was drunk. Three sacramental offerings criteria

day.

Even

allow for the heat of the

summer in

the Indus Valley,

fermentation could not have advanced far in a religious rite repeated process thrice in a day. Moreover, those who know the fermenting

must

how

find

hard, indeed impossible, to imagine anyone, no matter

removed from our

far

culture,

a drink in active fermentation.

waxing

It is

lyrical,

even

ecstatic,

over

not as though the Indo*Aryans

were unfamiliar with fermented drinks. They had their surd, mentioned several times in the RgVeda but without reverential paeans; quite the contrar)': VII

86â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Âť*Âť

Malice has not been of it

ltd

was

siira,

my own

anger, dice, a

free will,

Varuna;

muddled head.

sd svo ddkso varuna dhriitih sd surd

manyur

vibhtdako dcittih

mere

difference

between fermented drinks would not cause the

gulf that separates surd

from the Soma

that inspired the great

hymns.

Yet it has been suggested, as will be seen in PartTwo, that recollections of the

mead

of their ancestors might have clothed this particular

beverage for the Aryans with rich associations entitling it to a superior footing than other fermented drinks. But

no one knows whether the ancestors of the Aryans had been drinking mead: many peoples knowing honey do not ferment it. In any case bees with their honey 15

PART ONE

CHAPTER

•

Indus Valley, and there would have been no reason to give up mead, if indeed it had been Soma, and even less to exchange exist in the

for the vile tasting substitutes that took

mentioned frequently for

its

ment

Soma. There

place.

RgVeda but mead

in the

sweetness and also

its

often applied as a

Honey, mddhu,

never.

Honey

cited

metaphor of enhance-

reason to think it was used on occasions to mix

with Soma, but the two were never confused. Honey offers no stalks

pound

in the course of the liturgy,

nor does

ferment in a

twinkling.

The most Aurel

Stein, the explorer-scholar, vi^.,

growing wild in

Soma was espoused by Sir rhubarb. He had observed it

astonishing of candidates for

in the

mountains. According to Stein himself, no Indian

recorded history has

made

fermented drink of rhubarb, though

of course with the addition of sugar or honey the juice lends fermentation. There

no reason

to think

itself to

any Indian ever did

so.

True, there are stalks to press, but the juice would not ferment and

become of the

Soma adjectives and metaphors when linked to rhubarb: resplen-

alcoholic at once. All the rich

RgVeda make odd reading

Born of Thunder, Mainstay of the Earth, Navel of the Way, Immortal Principle. Stein must have forgotten either his RgVeda or dent,

his sense of

humour.

In 1921 an Indian advanced the notion that

nothing but bhang, the Indian

hemp,

hashish.

placed

Soma only on

name

all,

was

for marijuana. Cannabis sativa,

the high mountains, whereas

Soma

RgVeda

hemp grows

lay in the stalks, whereas

the resin of the unripened pistillate buds of hashish that transport

one into the beyond;

mentioned

The fore

after

conveniently ignored the fact that the

everywhere: and that the virtue of it is

Soma,

in the

or,

much

weaker, the leaves, which are never

RgVeda. The

Indo-Iranians did not

stalks of

know

Soma could not have been

distillate

of grains.

scholars - Indian

hemp

are woody.

the distillation process and there-

a strong drink,

should be unnecessary to argue

and Western

alike

-use the terms

properly applicable only to distilled liquor. In ix pares

Soma with

i.e.,

107’*

brandy or the this point,

loosely,

but

terms

the poet com-

the 'intoxicating one’; Geldner supplies Branntwein 16

SOMA WAS NOT ALCOHOLIC (brandy) as

have meant, and Renou might he what of example an doubt whether (any distilled beverage). I

follows his lead with alcool

they would have

anachronism. V.

made S.

these suggestions

Agrawala

in his Itidui

had they been alert to the to as Known to Panim seems

when he mistakenly says distilling.' Dr. O necessary to record many of the Soma search finds it Flaherty

mean in

decanting

her account

such confusions and ambiguities. it is that distillation The Orientalist Berthold Laufer wrote, ‘Certain ancient Chinese. western invention, and was unknown to the

was

The Dutch lation^

scholar R.

Forbes in his

concludes that there

the distillation process

S/iort

no evidence

History of the Art of Distil-

for distilled beverages before

was discovered and practiced around

100 in Italy, probably at Salerno. (‘Alcohol’

A. D.

of Arabic origin but in

meant something other than what we mean by it.) The making of aqiiavitce (as it was called for a long time, and still is, in

Arabic

parts of Europe)

remained

a secret of the alchemists

nastic establishments for centuries, until the

and some mo-

Reformation,

the course of a decade, in the second quarter of the

when

6 th century,

thanks to the dissolution of the monasteries by the Protestants, the 'secret’

became common property, and the product,

changed hands for a king’s ransom, sold suddenly

was no contemporary comment on the

having

after

dirt cheap.

There

social implications of this

unanticipated fruit of religious reform.

2nd

Chinese Cwitriburijmi to the History of Civilisation in Ancient Iran. Field

E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1948, pp. 32, 88-89.

edition, Varanasi, 1963. p. lai.

Museum, Chicago.

1919, p. 238.

THE ROOTS. LEAVES. BLOSSOMS. SEED OF SOMA: WHERE ARE THEY?

In the Rg\’eda (excluding the

latter half of

admitted to the canon) there

no reference

nor to

plant,

its

leaves,

nor to

its

Mandala

X, last to be

to the root of the

blossoms, nor to

its

Soma

seed. In a lengthy

anthoIog>' of lyric poetrj’ written over centuries in the far flung Valley of the Indus and its tributaries, how odd it is that no poet ever speaks

of these conspicuous parts of almost

all

chlorophyll-bearing plants,

not even casually or incidentally. There must have been a conspiracy of silence, laid dow'n perhaps

by the

dictates of their very religion,

but why?

were speaking of a plant that had neither seed nor blossom nor leaf nor root; vi^., a mushroom. As for seed, there is Alternatively, they

Soma was thought to lack seed: Soma was from on high, the Somic germ having been placed by the

positive evidence that

procreated gods.

Soma was

divinely engendered:

833“*

The [gods,

those] fathers with a

commanding glance,

laid the [Somic]

germ. nrcdksasah pitdro gdrbham d dadhiih

In a

world where farming was already well developed one would

expect

Soma to be cultivated. A plant with properties so extraordinary

would

elicit

we would

the utmost attention, though owing to its sacred character

rather expect

its

growth

the higher priesthood. But the fact its it

cultivation.

grow. To

mushrooms)

Perhaps

this

day the

to be confined to the gardens of

that there

never a mention of

did not lend itself to man’s efforts to fly-agaric (like

refuses to be cultivated.

not sprout.

almost

Even

all

make

other species of

in the laboratory

will

ROOTS. LEAVES. BLOSSOMS. SEED Note.

While our argument

favour of the fly-agaric

squarely on the RgV'^eda, there

in is

one verse

in the

founded

Avesca that seems to

speak of the 'trunks’ and ‘branches’ of the sacred plant, and discussion of that verse

order

only to forestall objections. religion of Zoroaster

The Avesta is the Bible of the a religion that lingers

to this

Bombay. Tradition has

day

‘Zarathustra’).

community centered

most of the Avesta was

that

in the Parsi

lost

when

Alexander the Great overran Iran, but the surviving fragments are still

substantial.

Zoroaster.

There

Some

him

assign

early date being based guistics

no consensus among scholars on the dates of

to about the loth century B.C., this

on reasonable arguments derived from

and comparative cultural

tradition according to

studies.

which he was

Others prefer to accept the

living

around

posed dates being 630-553. or 628-551. or 618-541.

some of its

Religiously and linguistically the Avesta text of the

RgVeda

is,

however,

much

like the

I^gVcda

knew an

verba of

most of the

and RgVeda are

purer owing to

preservation through the ages by the disciplined

The Avesta

ipsissimrt

stem back long before

traditions

the pro-

B. C. 600,

The

the great Prophet are enshrined in the Avesta, but of later date and

lin-

text

his time.

siblings.

its

The

marvelous

human memory.

inebriating plant that

was the

object of worship, and the Avestan

were certainly 10,

and

identical, at least at

‘Haoma’ and the Vedic Soma the start. Three chapters, Yasna 9,

of numinous phrases of adoration addressed to collectively they are known as the Horn Vast. James Dar-

II, consist

Haoma; mesteter,

who gave us our standard

translation of the Avesta, felt sure

that the

Horn Vast had been interpolated

B. C. 140

and A. D.

by reason of

50.

One might expect

its

late into the text,

authority to be

between

impugned

but an interpolated text may incorporate ancient words and traditions, and precisely this is the situation here, the

this late date,

Horn Yast preserving

for us in its

words and matter some of the

truly archaic elements in the Avesta, perhaps antedating Zoroaster himself. Thus it becomes necessary to examine Yasna 10.5. which I give below in the original Iranian dialect peculiar to the Avesta, in

Darmesteter’s French translation, and in Darmesteter. The speaker is addressing

English rendering of

Haoma:

PART ONE

•

CHAPTER V ma

var?ca\avnha mana vaca

Grandis par

vispSsca paiti varpsajis

dans tous tes crones, dans routes

visphea paiti frasparoy? \'isp?scd paiti

parole tes

branches, dans toures tes tiges

dans tous

fravdxso

tes troncs,

dans routes

tes

branches, dans routes tes tiges.

the

(In the original text

last

three

Darmesteter's rendering.

lines are repeated.)

Grow by my word in all

thy trunks, in

in all in all

all

thy branches,

all

thy branches,

thy stems

thy trunks, in

in all thy stems.

of Darmesteter.

Englis/i translation

have underlined in the Avescan text the three words that Darmeste-

ter renders

‘trunks’, ‘branches’,

and

'stems’.

The question

how

(We reproduce on p. 122 the picture of Haoma chat Darmesteter gives us. in what he says is its natural size. It is a leafless plant without ‘trunk’ or ‘branches’.) I shall take up these certain are these meanings.

three

words

in the inverse

i.fravdxsi-. This

order of their appearance

word had

three meanings or uses:

membrum virile, and (c) antler. The forward movement, of growth, thrust, the

lifeless ‘stem’,

many

but

in the verse.

prefix

/r<i-

(a)

stem, (b)

conveys the idea of

erection. This

lacking in our

how felicitous for our fast-growing mushroom tribe

of the world’s cultures there

a semantic overlap between

‘mushroom’ and the membrum viri7 e. for obvious reasons; e.g., Greek puxYjC, Japanese matsutake. In mycology we use'stipe’rather than ‘stem’, but perhaps ‘sprout’ would convey better the thrust of the original. i.

fraspar^a-. According to the lexicons

‘sprout’, ‘sucker’,

ward

thrust.

this

word meant

and again the prefix fra- conveys the

There seems no warrant

‘shoot’,

feel of for-

for Darmesteter’s ‘branches

except for the later Pahlavi and Sanskrit translations of the word, which may have been influenced by the current Haoma-substitutes.

Darmesteter was presupposing that

Haoma was

a tree or

shrub and

word to conform to his presupposition. The meaning and feel of the word closely resembles /ravdxsi -. diffii.varssaji-. This word presents the Avestan student with translating the

ROOTS, LEAVES. BLOSSOMS, SEED culties. It

occurs only three times, in Yasna 10.5. Yasna 7 i- 9

\ah

The contexts are similar and do not help. The word is compound, noun + verb, viirasa. ‘tree’, and guv. ‘to live’. The gramntatical relationship between these two elements is not clear. The suggestion has been made that the word’s meaning was 'that which gives lite to 8.42.

whence ‘root’ seems a viable guess. Bartholoma^ suggested this meaning in his famous Old-lranian Dictionary, but he was not sure as he added a ciuestion-mark to the explanation. Darmesteter the tree’,

was following Middle-Iranian traditions when he translated the word as ’trunk’, and this meaning was confirmed by H. W. Bailey who at the

same time

.l.'ciutic

Society of Great Britain

clusion Imih

rejected the rendering ‘root’. (Journal of (he Royal

and

Ireland, 1934. pp. 507-8.) Bailey’s con-

was based on the Pahlavi translation of the word

‘stalk’

or ‘trunk’, and udvun

‘stalk’,

varosaji-

the latter originally

meaning ‘the upper part of a tree’, which rules out ‘root’. The Pahlavi tradition is not a completely reliable guide to the meaning of uncertain terms in the Avesta, but so long as no serious contradiction arises,

Haoma was

may help to make the rendering more probable.

mushroom,

must accommodate itself to that fact, and we are relying on the RgVeda to establish this. Now if Bailey’s ‘stalk’ be accepted as a possible meaning of varoSaji -. this is again close to the other two words that we examined before. Here then we have perfect harmony of style. Yasna 10.5 was written in an elevated rhythmic prose by a bard who was addicted to poetic parallelism. We have seen chat most of the verse was repeated word for If

word.

the translation

We have seen

chat in the verse that concerns us the second and third substantives virtually duplicate each other. Does it not therefore

become a poetic necessity that the first of the triad should be a close synonym? On this assumption and on the assumption that Haoma was a mushroom, I suggest the following translation: Swell, (then,)

my word

in all thy stalks,

and

in all

in all thy stalks,

and

in all thy shoots,

thy shoots, and in

and

all

thy sprouts.

in all thy sprouts.

For help in dissecting Yasna 10.5 I am indebted and grateful to Dr. Heinnch von Stietencron, of Heidelberg. 21

SOMA GREW Time

THE MOUNTAINS

and again the RgVeda speaks of Soma

as hailing

from the

mountains, from the tops of the mountains, which in the case of the Indo-Aryans meant either the Hindu Kush or the Himalayas: V43^" .

plant from the mountain,

mddhvo rdsam sugdhhastir giristhdm

Soma on

... he has placed the divt suryatn

the mountain top.

adadhdt somam ddrau

IX i8>* .

Soma

the

seated on the mountain top

pdri siivdno giristhdh pa\itre some aksdh IX 46 ’^' .

Somas grown on the mountain

these

top.

ksdrantah parvatdvfdhah

1X62** ... the

Soma

stalk

seated on the mountain top;

dsdvy amsiir mdddydpsii ddkso giristhdh IX 62 's* .

Bom on

Soma juice is

the mountain top, ... the

placed for Indra

girdjdtd ihd stutd (ndur tndrdya dhiyate IX 71 ** .

. .

[This

Soma]

that

grows

in the

mountain

pdri dyuksdm sdhasah parvatdvfdham IX

823*’

[Soma] has placed

at the navel of the Earth, in the mountains, his residence

ndbhd prthivyd girisu ksdyam dadite IX85‘^**»

... In the

firmament

of-

heaven the Seers milk

the bull-Soma

seated on the mountain top; divd tidke tnddhujihvd asakdto vend duhanty tiksdnam giristhdm

SOMA GREW Here

Soma

that

come from within

the most

yayau paramdd antdr ddreh

esd

the flow of

mountain

distant

THE MOUNTAINS

95^** .

This [Soma],

top

[this] stalk, [this] bull

seated on the mountain

flmiiim duhanty

uksdnam giristhdm

IX 98 ÂŽ* .

This

Soma

juice,

god

[himself], sitting

on the mountain

dev6 devl giristhd

The poets say a point of this.

that

Soma grows

They never speak of

must mean what they

say.

What

They make growing elsewhere. They

high in the mountains. it

a useless business

it is

for us to

chasing in the valleys after rhubarb, honey, hashish, wild

Afghan

grapes: in hot arid wastes after species of Ephedra, Sarcostemma, Periploca! For the Vedic poet this lofty birthplace

testimony to

its

divine origin, bringing

to Indra, to Parjanya. It

was additional

closer to the celestial sphere,

unlikely that the poets of the

should have conspired together to attribute a

RgVeda

fictitious habitat to

Soma. In Northern Eurasia the birch

of the

Oxus and

and conifer grow found only

in India they are

mountains, around 8,000 to 16,000

feet.

at sea level.

South

at a great height in the

have mentioned already,

the fly-agaric grows in mycorrhizal relationship with the birch and the conifer. (Centuries later, when the art of writing began to play a r61e in Indian culture, the bark of the Himalayan birch quickly

gained

renown

Northern India for writing purposes.) The indo-Aryans. having conquered only the valleys, did not control the source of their Soma supply. The mountains were stUl held by their enemies, probably the Dasyus. the hated and despised dark skinned Dasyus. Under the circumstances there could be no ceremony attending the gathering of the sacred Soma, such as had perhaps attended it in the homeland, and such as we know attended the gathenng of the hallucinogenic mushrooms of Mexico. All that had in

PART ONE been

left

•

CHAPTER

behind, and now. in \’edic times, a ceremony attended the

buying of the holy plant from the natives heights

where the birch and the

who came down from

the

conifer grow. In the ^atapatha

BralwhUhi (as well as elsewhere) there

an account, absurd bv our

standards, of the ceremonial purchase, complete to speckled cane to

beat the seller with, wherein a is

cow of a

particular

hue of skin and eye

e.vchanged for the Sacred Element.’ This barter price for

reminds

us. curiously,

Soma

of the high price paid for the fly-agaric by the

native tribesmen of the Maritime Provinces of Siberia: they are said to give as

much

as a reindeer for

one

reindeer.*

Eggcling translation, Parc

Vide in/rj, [iij, p. 151.

ii.

pp. 66ff.

fly-agaric,

or even two or three

VII

THE TWO FORMS OF SOMA I

now come The

its

to a crucial

fly-agaric

properties;

First

it is

argument

case.

the psychotropic plants in one of

among

unique

Two

an inebriant in

Forms.

Form;

Taken

directly,

and by

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;directlyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

mean by

eating the

raw mush-

and taken neat, or mixed with water, or with water and milk or curds, and perhaps barley in some form, and honey; also mixed with herbs such as room, or by drinking

Epilobium

its

juice squeezed out

sp.

Second Form:

Taken

in the urine

of the person

who

was

first

has ingested the fly-agaric in

the First Form.

The

Second Form, as urine,

Western World by

Swedish army

called to the attention of the

officer, Filip

Johann von Strahlen-

berg. after having served 13 years as a captive of the Russians in Siberia.

His book,

German in Stockholm, appeared

published in

first

London

and an English translation

a lengthy title beginning

in 1736

and again

in 1738

and anthropologists have

extremes

filthy,

many

other

set forth the facts, usually

going

in characterizing the practice as revolting, disgusting,

and the

like.

So far as our records go, none of

the urine, not even the anthropologists, ly

some who

Philip

tried

among whom there are usual-

their professional

a Pole, Joseph Kopec, a literary figure of

them has

pride themselves on participating to the full in native

ways and who consider

mushrooms

under

Historico-Geographical Description of the

North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia. Since then travellers

in 1730;'

duty to do

some

so. In 1798,

standing, tried the

(but not the urine) and published his remarkable im-

Johan von Scrahlenberg, Das

und

Osiliche Theil von

das gantze Russische Rtich mil Sibehon und dcr grossen Vide [3I. p. 234-

Tanary

Europa und Asia,

in sich btgreiffti.

in so \veit

wfchtr

Stockholm 1730

PART ONE pressions of the experience.’

•

CHAPTER

That he was

ill

VII

at the

time and running

from the value of his testimony. the RgVeda Soma also has Two Forms, expressly

a fever detracts

in IX 66*-

so described

3.5;

IX 66'-^

Cleanse thyself,

O [thou] to whom

peoples belong, for

all

won-

all

drous deeds, the praiseworthy god, the friend for the friends.

With

two Forms

those

[dual, not plural]

Soma, thou reignest over

all

things.

which stand facing

us,

Pavamana!

visvacarsane 'bbi I’lsvani kdvyd

p<ii’tJ5va

sdkhd sdkhibhya tdyah

tdbhydm visvasya

rdjasi ye

pavamana dhdmani

soma tasthdtuh

praclici

IX 663

The Forms

[plural, not dual] that are thine,

thou pervadest them,

O Soma, through and through, O Pavamana, at the appointed hours, O Wonder-worker! pdri dhdmdni ydni

pdvamdna

tvd'm somdsi vjh’dtd/i

rtubhih kave

IX 66*

Thy

shining rays spread a filtre on the back of heaven,

with [thy] Forms

[plural, not

Soma,

duaiy

tdva iukrdso arcdyo diva's prsthi vi tanvate

pavitram soma dhdmabhili In the

Soma

sacrifice

ioteer,

Vayu,

who

the First Form

are impersonated

drunk by Indra and

by high functionaries

The Vedic commentators, knowing nothing reached a consensus that the plant,

and the Second Form

Form

First

his char-

in the rite.

of the fly-agaric, have

the simple juice of the

the juice after

Soma

has been mixed with

water and with milk or curds. The commentators are agreed on

this,

the Vedic mythologies are so written, the matter is considered settled.’ 1.

Vide [9j. pp. 243

ff.

2 Sanskrit and Vedic possess three numbers, singular, dual, and plural. In 1X66^ the dual .

bcr

used speaking of the Tnv Forms, This

one the

juice of

5 he speaks of

natural as the poet faces two vessels containing,

Soma presumably mixed with

all

Soma's forms, the

celestial,

milk,

etc.,

Soma urine. In verses 3 and the Soma urine, and therefore

the other

the plant, the juice,

uses the plural. 3

Vide, e.g., A. A.

num*

Macdonell. The Vedic Mythology, London, i897» pp*

106

THE TWO FORMS OF SOMA While

in default of

was arrived

at.

any other explanation unsatisfactory because

how

easy to see

it flies

in the face

this

of the

the juice ol IRgVeda text. Indra and Vayu are repeatedly drinking Soma mixed with milk or curds, and. saving error on my part, they

described as not are never in the RgX'eda drinking juice expressly

mixed with anything. I

will cite four instances

with milk or curds.

The

where Indra and \'ayu drink Soma mixed

first

instance.

si-*'’, is

crucial because there

no mention of curds and the reader might think the poet was speaking of the unmixed juice, exactly as the commentators contend, is

until

suddenly

in verse 7, just

before the end.

seems that

many

all

along

instances

where

the poet does not mention the milk or curds, the omission

seems

the poet took for granted the curds! In the

The

accidental. it

was used

fly-agaric

was

in the sacrifice,

reinflated so to speak.

often, perhaps usually, dried

and

initially

had

Here are verses V

be soaked

up when in water,

51^-’:

V ji4-7»b

Here around .

the

Soma

[that] pressed in the vat

inside the cup. he dear to Indra. to

poured

all

Vayu.

Vayu, arrive hither for the invitation, accepting

it,

share in the oblation! Drink [of the juice] of the pressed stalk, .

to [thy full] satisfaction

Indra and thou, Vayu. ye have a right to drink of these

pressed [stalks]. Accept them, immaculate ones, for [your full] satisfaction! .

Pressed for Indra, for Vayu, have been the

requiring a mixture of curds. aydtn soma’s camfi swtd 'matre pdri sicyate

priyd indrdya vdydve

vdyav d ydhi vitdye jiisdno haxydddtaye plbd sutdsydndhaso abhi prdyah (ndrai ca x^dyav esam sutdndm pitim arhathah

tdiijusetkdm arepdsdv abhi prdyah sutd indrdya vdydve somdso dddhydsirah

Soma

plants

PART ONE The

CHAPTER VH

•

following three quotations say expressly that Indra and

drink

Soma mixed with milk

or curds:

The Athan, ans have mixed milk with thy sweetness, longing for the god, the god [Soma] for the god [Indra]. Cleanse the Soma, pressed out by the hand-worked stones; dilute the sweet one in the sweetness [milk or water].

Approach with reverence mix him with :

curds, put the Soma

juice into Indra.

abhi

devdm

tnddhund pdy6 'tharvdno asisrayuh dti'dya

devayu

hdstacyutebhir ddribhih siitdm

somam punitana

mddhdv d dhdvatd mddhu ndmased upa sidata dadhned abhi srinhana

indum indre dadhdtana

IX 62*'*

The

beautiful plant beloved of the gods, [the

in the waters, pressed

Soma] washed

by the masters, the cows season

[it]

with milk.

Then

like drivers [urging]

on a

horse, they have beautified

[the Soma], the juice of liquor for drinking in

the Immortal

One

common,

for

[Indra].

subhrdm dndho devdvdtam apsu dhuto nfbhih sutdh svddanti gdvah pdyobhih

dd tm dsvam nd hetdro 'susubhann amftdya

mddhvo rdsam sadhamdde

4 IX 109'*

All the gods drink this

Soma when

milk of cows and pressed by the IX 109”''* The prize-winning

Soma

cleansed by the waters,

has been mixed with

Officiants.

has flowed, in a thousand drops

mixed with the milk of cows.

Soma, march ahead tow’ard Indra ’s

bellies,

having been

held in hand by the Officiants, pressed by the stones!

Vayu

THE TWO FORMS OF SOMA pif>antv nrhliilt •

•

<i5y‘i

viive

rfex’tiio

hiuisya

gohltih

sutdsva ^

sd vdjy dksdii sithdsraretd iuiblur mrjdiw

gdbhih hindudli

prd soma ydlitiuirasya kuLui nfhidr yemdno diiribliih sutdii

then the traditional view of the

to be replaced,

what evidence do

first

and second ‘Form’ of Soma

adduce

in favor of

interpre-

tation?

Only the words of the RgVeda. In the hymns to Soma there comes time when the religious emotion reaches a climax, an intensity ot

overwhelming, and that after 3.000 years, in a world of utterly different orientation, even in translation, cannot but exaltation, that

move any

say 62 through perhaps 97, the

hymn,

74th

we have

hymns

perceptive reader. These

mood

numinous phrases

now

to recognize

for the

Maodala

then tending to ease

IX,

from

off.

when

contemporary

they occur singly, clearly

believers, cense phrases piled

one on the other. Pelion on Ossa, in portentous sequence, until suddenly read,

at the

end of verse

The

an enumeration of phrases that

in particular, consists of

learned by

are in

4. a

phrase not

met with

before

and not to be met again: 1X74^

Soma, storm cloud imbued with

life,

milked of ghee, milk.

Navel of the Way, Immortal Principle, he sprang into far distance.

richly gifted,

life

in the

Acting in concert, those charged with the Office,

do full honor

The swollen men

to Soma.

piss the

flowing

[Soma]i

dtmanvdn ndbho duhyate ghrtdm pdya rtdsya ndbhir amftam vijdyate samicindh suddttavah prmanti tdm ndro hitdm dva mehanti p^ravaft If

the final clause of this verse bears the

then

alone suffices to prove

Renou renders the

final

meaning that

suggest for

case.

phrase of

this verse

4 as follows:

Les [Maruts] seigneurs i la vessie pleine compissent en-branle.

[le

Soma] mis-

it,

PART ONE The [Marucs]

CHAPTER

VII

lords with full bladders piss [Soma] quick with

move-

ment.

Renou had

lived with the

ever)-thing that

RgVeda

had ever been

that the ‘swollen’

men had

ing Soma. But to give

said

full

meaning

and knew

text for a lifetime

by scholars about

it.

discerned

bladders and that they were urinat-

to the sentence

he introduced the gods

of rain, the Maruts. Certainly there are precedents for the clouds’ ‘urinating’ rain.

But

in this verse

Maruts are out of place. From

and

hymns

at this point in the

the

IX 68 to 109 there are 24 other citations

of nf in the plural (men) and in every^ instance they are the officiants at the sacrifice.*

So are they in

74^. It is

noteworthy that Grassmann

by ‘men serving

translates nf in this verse

.’ .

etc.,

in conformity

with

‘men serving the gods, such as singers and sacrificers’. He does not translate it by his 6th definition, which would include gods. The priests appointed to impersonate Indra and Vayu, his third definition

nf,

Soma mixed with milk or curds, are now urinating Soma. They in their persons convert Soma into the Second Form. having imbibed the

When Renou

translated this verse, he

berian use of the fly-agaric. Roger facts

when we dined with

Let us pause for a speech. urine.

The

had never heard of the

Heim and

apprised

him

Si-

of the

the Renous in the middle of April 1966.

moment and

dwell on a rather odd figure of

blessings of the fertilizing rain are likened to a

The storm-clouds fecundate

shower of

the earth with their urine. Vedic

scholars have lived so long with their recalcitrant text, and so close to

it,

that they

nation. Urine

second

remark no longer on an analogy that

normally something

in this respect

away and turn from,

only to excrement. In the Vedic poets the values

are reversed and urine

The

to cast

calls for expla-

values are reversed,

were thinking of urine

an ennobling metaphor to describe the I

suggest, because the poets in Vedic India

as the carrier of the Divine Inebriant, the

bearer of amrta. This would explain the role that urine -

bovine - has played through the centuries disinfectant of the Indo-Iranian world, the

rain.

human and

as the medico-religious

Holy Water of the

East.

Vide IX 684-7; 722.4.5; 753.S; 78*; 8o4(*); 86*®'»*-34; 87': 91*; 95’: 97*: 99®; lOl*: 107*®: 108**: I09*''*'*®-

THE TWO FORMS OF SOMA The

words of this

hymn IX

74 nre

the handling of the miraculous

redolent with a most holy mystery,

Soma

planted on the mountain tops

bv the gods. Those charged with the Office are the Guardians-of-theMeaning, the Guardians-of-the-Melodies. the Guardians-of-the-Mystery.

juice

The Pressing Stones, the woolen Filtre. the mingling of the Soma -all first with water, then with milk or curds in the vessels

this is set

from

us.

ceedings

forth clearly.

This

not in

knew every

the details of the Mystery are hidden

Then

my opinion

detail.

deliberate. Every party to the pro-

But when an event takes place that

people to their depths, a hush naturally terror

and adoration mingle. They speak

directs the clerg)â&#x20AC;&#x2122; to

at the

falls,

stirs

awe and

a feeling of

in a whisper, as the rubric

climax of the Mass. The details of the

Mystery are certainly not to be put into Hymns. Thus

we do

not

know what the dose of the juice was. nor how much water was added, nor how much milk or curds, nor what the effect was. We do not know whether the effect of the First Form and the Second Form was identical.

Chemists say

could well be different, the juice being one

thing and the metabolite another.

developing

its

might be the same, the juice

marvelous properties only

into the metabolite.

There

after

has been converted

a further possibility. In

modern

ience the fly-agaric causes nausea. If the agent that provokes is

exper-

vomiting

not the same as the one that leads to ecstasy, the former might be

eliminated in the digestive track and the urine be thus freed

from

do not know how the metabolite was taken, whether neat or with water or milk or curds or honey. In the RgVeda this inconvenience.

are not told

the priests,

who

shared in the divine beverage. Afterwards only or some of them, were privileged to imbibe, but must

there not have been a primitive age

when others who participated in the rites shared in the drink? We know that centuries later the Sudras, the outcastes,

were not permitted even RgVeda hymns, so holy were these.

to hear the

words of the

Bhawe caUs attention to three passages in the RgVeda him to stress the skill needed in the mixing of the

.. S. S.

Bhawe: TTu: Sema-Hymns of tho UVoda. Part m.

p. ,76.

comment on

that

seem

Soma juice.*

7o8<l; also 47..

This

and

997.,

PART ONE might had

•

CHAPTER VH

refer only to complicated ritualistic gestures

and postures that

with precision. But in his judgement

to be executed

likely that the blending of the ingredients

had to be Just

it is

right.

Perhaps

there was a secret recipe, the fruit of esoteric experience passed on

from one generation of

priests to the next. This recipe

to reduce or eliminate the initial nausea

Let us pause for a

moment and

might be able

provoked by the Soma juice.

consider the probabilities.

Some

3,250 years ago the Indo-Aryans living in the Indus Valley

were

worshipping a plant whose juice, pressed out and drunk immediately,

seems

have had astonishing psychic

effects, effects

comparable

those of our Mexican hallucinogenic mushrooms, comparable but far different.

The

identity of chat plane

not known. Hundreds of poets

living over centuries in different centers speak of syllables

but without mentioning leaves,

Its stalk (‘stipe’ in

well these

fit

mushroom! Nowhere

dimension given of the

mushroom.

roots, blossoms, or seed.

‘stalk’ that

grew only high

in the

who have drunk

How

thousand hymns

incompatible with the stipe of

mountains.

the fly-agaric in the latitude of the Indus Valley! the priests

hallowed

mycologists’ language) was obviously fleshy.

a wild

How well

The poet

this fits

says that

the juice of this mysterious plant urinate

the divine drink. In the traditions of Eurasia there

only one plant

that supplies a psychotropic metabolite - the fly-agaric. Could any

key unlock If

mine

Soma

combination save the

this

fly-agaric?

indeed the interpretation to place on the Second Form of

in the

RgVeda

text, this

should not be the only reference to the

potable metabolite in Indo-Iranian literature and Parsi traditional practice. In the

Avesta there

a verse in a

famous Yasna,

48: 10, sup-

posed to preserve the very words of the Teacher himself, which has never been

satisfactorily explained;

When wilt

thou do away with

this urine

of drunkenness with which

the priests evilly delude [the people] as do the wicked rulers of the provinces in

[full]

consciousness [of

[Translation by R. C. Zaehner.

what they do]?

- The text below corresponds

underlined part of the translation only.j

Kadd apn »iu8ram ahyd madahyd

to the

THE TWO FORMS OF SOMA of the The learned commentators, not knowing of the Second Form ‘urine’ Soma of the Iranians (called Haoma), have arbitrarily changed

and have puzzled over the meaning. Surely Zoroaster meant what he said: he was excoriating the consumption of urine in opened the Soma sacrifice. If my interpretation be accepted, there is to ‘excrement’

in Zoroastrian scholarship.

promising line of inquir)'

In the vast reaches of the Alu/iuh/iaruni. the classical Indian epic,

there occurs one episode - an isolated episode of that bears with startling clarity

on our Second Form.

was introduced

into the text perhaps a thousand years after the fly-agaric to be used in the its

Soma

sacrifice,

meaning, which only today

lated

Wendy

lineage -

unknown

had ceased

and perhaps the editor did not

are recovering.

Here

it is,

know

as trans-

O’Flaherty.

Mahdbhdrata,

Krsiw had offered

Asvamedha Parvan,

Uitoiifeti

a boon,

and

14.54.12-35

L/UanJl'a said.

‘I

wish to have

want it.’ Krsna said, ‘When you want anything, think on me,' and he went away. Then one day l/tfanfed was thirsty, and he thought on Krpia, and thereupon he saw a naked, filthy mdwater whenever

tafiga

[

canddla, an outcaste hunter],

dogs, terrifying, bearing a

bow and

copious streams of water flowing

smiled and said to

from me.

The

Utttjnfea.

from ‘Come,

surrounded by a pack of arrows.

his

lower

And

Uttdiifca

parts.

The

and accept

saw

matfliigti

this

water

feel great pity for you, seeing

sage did not rejoice in

you so overcome by thirst.’ that water, and he reviled Frsnu with

harsh words. The mdtanga kept repeating, 'Drink

!',

but the sage was

angry and did not drink. Then the hunter vanished with his dogs, and Uttanka’s mind was troubled; he considered that he had been deceived by ICrsMa.

Then Frsna came, bearing his disc and conch, and Uttahka said to him, ‘It was not proper for you to give me such a thing, water in the form of the stream from a mdtaiiga.’ Then KTsiia

spoke to Uttanka with honeyed words, to console him, saying, '1 gave it to you in such form as was proper, but you did not recognize it. For your sake I said to Indra, “Give the amrta to Uttaiifca in the

form of water." Indra

me, “A mortal should not become immortal; give some other boon to him." He kept repeating this, but I insisted, "Give the amrta." Then he said to me, “If I must give it, I will become a mdtanga and give the amrta to the noble descendant said to

PART ONE of B/irgu it

him

wise],"

[i.e.,

CHAPTER

agreed to

VII

he accepts the amrta thus,

todav.” As he continued to say. this,

amrta. But he took the

and

•

“I will

will

go and give

not give

[other-

and he approached you and offered the

form of

a canddla.

But your worth

great,

you what you wished: on whatever days you have water, the clouds will be full of water then, and they

will give

a desire for will give

water to you, and thev will be called

Then

L’ft<i»lfe<i-clouds.’

the sage was pleased.

We found the first in the liturg)'

reference to Soma-urine in the

where the proceedings and the

RgVeda

religious

at a point

emotion called

for frankness in utterance. This reference did not stand alone in the literatures of Iran itself,

many

and

India.

perhaps more veiled

There should be yet others in the RgVeda

as befits a

holy mystery.

such, but for the orderly progress of

their discussion until

argument

reach the third of the three

believe there are I

will defer

‘filtres’.

“.V

»:«r:^ iV.

'Sw- •«:'.

•

.r.v^

V.H -r '*N

tr,

.•'f

;jl

xvv

«.

!>•

'-fi

'jV

..;;..N>

i'%

•

-^yT

K" w«

.?rC

^...

V-X

y'{r\ '

^ *<.

V*'

1>I

og\

rni

4 v1

rniv r<;\ i.da

W’lih unl.iJin^ M‘sunv. hnlli.int, iu*ul\ cloihoJ,

wraps hiinwll

'•

l\lMOUT\L HAKi

1111

\II

s()\i

V^r:

\L >*•>

ivr

.f./.

V^'

r^'

•-^ ^N

s**

Vi w

all

ilu*

unmuri.il

luiri

anniiKi

>£K?

v’

.( •

»y

•vV

/ iV \u V ^1

Vi’

/a?

N-r

Z' -

^.rovv'

tJ*

cr.v. «."

v«

yylv

•.

4 ftvV

^ 4 /-**

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

\UI

EPITHETS. CONCEITS.

Until

this

AND TROPES FOR SOMA

verv day no poet in the English language has ever sung

the supernal beauties ot the tly-agaric; nor

believe has any novelist

or essayist paid obeisance to this remarkable

be said probably for ginal ‘toadstool’

the

was the

Basque languages.

name

all

Germanic and

fly-agaric, if

Celtic

judge by the French and

In the conservative provinces ot

of the fly-agaric

The same can languages. The ori-

Iruit.

France the dialectal

cmpuiiihn. ‘the toad,’ and in the Biscay

Guipuzcoa country the Basques

call

and

by the precise Basque equivalent

of the French provincial name, - umorofo. In .\l».s/irivms Ru.nsui und History (Pantheon Books. I

New

York. 195-)

wife V. P.

Wasson and

explored the folkloric and linguistic background ot the fly-agaric

throughout Europe, and showed the deep hold that

exerted

time on the imagination of the north European peoples. that a In

many West European

with it

shadow hung over the

fly-agaric,

own

In the

fall

e.xcept to repudiate

leave to the reader to

of the year, hard by a birch or pine, one

The

season in the temperate zone lasts

three weeks, with the climax

emerges

and bursts

explanation for this tabu.

the fly-agaric.

agaric

seemed

languages there are childhood ditties dealing

whenever occasion demands. At present

find his

one

an ancestral curse; yes, a tabu.

but beyond the nursery no one dwells on

it.

as a little

white

coming

in the

ball, like

apt to find

two or

most

middle week. The

cotton wool.

fly-

swells rapidly

white garment, the fragments of the envelope remaining patches on the brilliant red skin underneath. At first the patches its

almost cover the skin, but as the cap expands they are reduced in relative size and finally are nothing more than islands on the surface. In fact,

washed as a

under certain conditions, especially off altogether

resplendent scarlet

soon loses the

and the

its

dominant

lustre

fly-agaric

as a result of rain,

then shines without blemish

mushroom. When the plant

and takes on

they are

gathered

a rather dull chestnut hue.

fly-agaric in Eurasia

and

Such

it is

Washington. Oregon, and

PART ONE CHAPTER •

British

Columbia. There

rest of the

with

United

VIII

commonly

another variety found

States, a variety that is a brilliant yellow,

in the

sometimes

reddish tinge in the center of the cap. These nvo varieties are

not mutually exclusive: occasionally specimens of each are found in the other’s territor)', and attention

then drawn to the oddity in

mycological journals, perhaps in the miscellaneous notes for amateurs.

No one knows what

nvo

causes these

varieties in different sectors of

the temperate zone, nor does anyone

know whether

the difference

extends beyond the coloration and certain morphological features to the chemistry of the plant.*

When

the fly-agaric

comes forth

crushed and the juice milked out, the liquor

tawny yellow. As we

shall see, in the

^gVeda

it is

sometimes hard to say whether the poet, when he is speaking of Soma, has in mind the plant or the juice. The glowing adjectives of enhance-

ment

that he

Now A.

let

employs could describe

us see

how

either.

the poets of the

RgVeda

describe Soma.

INTRODUCTORY. There are no words

in the

RgVeda

Soma

that describe

as black, or

gray, or green, or dark, or blue. All the great Vedic scholars

Burnouf

Renou seem

agreement on

from

this.*

‘HARP AND RED.

Hdri

the

most common of the colour

RgVeda. Numerically

‘bull’ that

applying to Soma. The word hdri (g^ll)

mately with the English Hdri

Soma

far exceeds all the other colour

together and rivals the epithet

Sanskrit and with

epithets for

‘gall’

tire

cognate with htranya (golden) in in

Greek, and

employ

ulti-

‘yellow’.

the precise adjective that one

to describe the fly-agaric. Hdri

words put

the poets never

and /Xwpis (yellow) and

in the

would wish

in Vedic

not only a colour word: the intensity interested in

wiU not satisfy the mycologists. Those d ictaircir: cclui dc la tua-mouche. matter should consult Roger Heim: Un preWime

division of A. muscaria

pursuing

this

imo two

the Revue de Mycologie, Vol. xxx.

varieties

fasc. 4.

9d 5 . PP- 196 ffto include -green* I

seems among its meanings, but this usage came hdri later times OccasionaUy in a consideration. that we exclude from not to be RgVedic. except possibly in the late hymns

Pi AfP.

Ill

TAWNY YELLOW PAVAMAN

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

AND TROPES

EPITHETS of the colour

also expressed

resplendent, flaming. In colour

dazzling, brilliant, lustrous,

it. It is

seems

have run from red to

light

in this The mythological horses of the sun-god were hdri: chestnut but one context the word is usually rendered by ‘bay’ or would describe the doubts whether any mundane colour such as bay

yellow.

are flaming

They

steeds of the sun.

and

full

of brio. Hdri

of course

term of enhancement, and by being linked together. Soma and the breathtaking sun-god’s horses are mutually enhanced. How well the a

fly-agaric fits into this picture.

other colour adjectives are used from time to time for Soma. Thus on one of the many occasions when Soma is called a bull, the

Some

bull

‘red,* vfsd Idno (1X97‘»*).

arund: This according to

Others are:

Grassmann means

reddish, bright brown,

golden-yellow, red, the red of morning. arusd:

Again Grassmann: red.

fire-colour, applied especially to fire,

the sun, lightning, dawn. Soma, babhni: reddish brown, brown.

The

juice of the fly-agaric

often

The

etc.

Monier Williams gives ‘tawny’.

tawny yellow. As we have

said already,

we do not know whether the plant or the juice is being described.

dried fly-agaric

dull

by comparison with the

fresh specimen,

babhru rather than hdri.

The poets of the RgVeda not only use the same adjective for Soma and the sun-god’s horses. They compare Soma directly with the sun. The sun is a shining disc and thus a compelling metaphor for the fly-agaric, as

compelling

bearing plant. Here 1

it is

inappropriate for any chlorophyll-

a selection of such figures:

46*®*'*

Light has

come

to the plant, a sun equal to gold

dbkud u bhd u amidve hiranyam prdti sdryah 1

1353*'

This [Soma his in

is]

thy precise share, accompanied by the rays that are

common

with the sun

tdvdydm bhdgd rtviyah sdrasmih sirye sdcd

PART ONE

•

CHAPTER

VIII

IX 2*'

He [Soma]

shines together with the

sdm suryena

Sun

rocate

27^*'’

Here he

is,

racing with the sun,

esd suTvena hdsate

Pavamana

in the sky

pdvamdno ddhi dhdvi

He [Soma]

has

made

the sun to shine.

suryam arocayat pdvamdno vicarsanih

esd

37*^"=

has

made

the sun to shine.

pdvamdno arocayat jdmibhili suryam sahd IX 6i®‘

He [Soma] sdm IX

joins forces with the sun’s rays,

sfiryasya rasmibhih

63’***

Purify thyself with this stream by which thou [Soma] madest the

sun to shine ayd pavasva dhdrayd ydyd sftryam drocayah IX 63 ®**’

Pavamana has hitched EtaSa

[the sun’s steed] to the

Sun

dyukta sura eta’sam pdvamdno nunidv ddhi

1X64’ [the Soma's flowing liquor] like the rays of the sun.

pdvamdnasya

visva^ut

pra

sdrgd asrksata s&ryasyeva nd ra’smdyah

IX 64 ’=

thou hast whinneyed

like the sun-god.

dkrdn devo nd stiryah IX

71’*’

he has clothed himself with the fire-bursts of the sun. ddhi

tvisir

adhita stiryasya

IX 76 *'

who

has been cleansed by the sun’s ray.

ydh sdryasydsirena mrjydte 38

EPITHETS AND TROPES IX 86“^*

thou hast

made

the sun to

mount

the sky.

nrWiir vufa/i sfin’um dro/iuvc* divj

86"®'^^

Thine, Iiivii

Pavamana, are the

lights,

the sun.

jyotimsi p<jva>nan<i sfiryu/j

IX 863“

He [Soma] wraps himself all around with

the rays of the sun.

sd sCiryojya rasfmbliih pdri \yatd IX 97'“'

bom. thou [Soma]

[once]

didst

fill

the sun with rays,

silryum upinv*) arkaih IX 9733 **

O Soma juice, itrundijn?i

i/ti

...

go bellowing to the sun's

siirk’osyoptJ

ray.

rdimim

1X97^“' the Juice has engendered light for the sun. 'janayat siirye jyctir indult

IX Ill3‘'

[The Soma] races against the rays [of the Sun], vehicle beautiful to see, celestial vehicle beautiful to see.

stim raimi'hliir vatute darsato rdtho dai\-\'o darsato rdthah

For

the past century' students of the

link that ties

Soma

RgVeda have been aware of

god of fire. This

to Agni, the

tie is

intimate and

all

where Bergaigne even went so far as to advance the hypothesis that the nvo had been interchangeable. Hymns adperN asive, to the point

dressed to

Soma sometimes

the child of the

with the

him ‘Agni’. thunder-storm. The plant call

rain, its brilliance w-ith

lightning causes.

of flames.

‘Make

Its

the lightning

inebriating potency

(IX 66'’*“; 67 * 3 -“)

thought to

and the

48*)

fire that

rival the subtlety'

me to bum like fire started by friction

addressing Soma. (Viii

liquid nature

its

(IX 22*).

Soma

says the poet,

Some years ago I gathered together evidence

indicating that a peculiar relationship existed in primitive

man’s men-

PART ONE

CHAPTER

•

VIII

between the mushroom world and thunder-storms,’ extend-

taliry

ing far beyond the Indo-European tribes but also including them.

This relationship exists between fact

reaches an intensity no

Soma and

where

the thunder-storm, and in

else found.

The

flame-like plant,

child of the thunder-bolt, possesses inebriating qualities that

nize with

its

celestial

harmo-

appearance.

may have failed to conmarks Soma throughout the

These observations on the colour of Soma vey the

full

impression of radiance that

RgVeda, radiance without

example

a specific colour linked to

it.

Take

for

this verse:

IX 69*

With unfading wraps himself

newly clothed, the immortal

hdri

around. By authority he has taken the back

[i.c.,

vesture, brilliant, all

the vault] of heaven to clothe himself

cloud

in,

a spread-cloth like to a

dmrktena ruiatd vdsasd hdrir dmartyo nirnijdndh pdri vyata divds prsthdm barhdtid nirmje krtopastdranam camvdr

In the following verse the poet telescopes the agaric,

and

how

delicately

he does

it!

For the

life

first

nabhasmdyam history of the

fly-

time in millennia

the verse takes on meaning: IX 71*

Aggressive as a killer of peoples he advances, bellowing with power.

sloughs off the Asurian colour that

lope, goes to the rendez-vous

is his.

He abandons

his enve-

with the Father. With what

floats

he makes continually his vesture-of-grand-occasion. prd krstih^va iusd jdlidti

vavrim pitur

eti

roruvad asurydm

reminds us of the extraordinary strength

mushroom

against obstacles. 'Asurian’

with Asuras, which divinities.

The

id rinite asya tdm

niskrtdm upaprutam krnute nirnijam tdnd

In the first line the poet

displayed by a simple

vdvMm

at this

in forcing

not a colour:

it is

its

way

the radiance associated

period in Indo-Aryan history meant the

fly-agaric sloughs off the radiant

start with, the ‘universal veil’,

envelope that

his to

and prepares to meet with the Sky

Gordon Wasson. 'Lightning-bolt and Mushrooms: an essay in Festschrift For Roman Jakobson, Mouton, The Hague. 195^. pp« 605-^*^ I.

to the surface

Vide R.

early cultural exploration.

Pi mi*

R\â&#x20AC;&#x2122; l\

tie h.is

sCrVA:

Sun.

niAJc the sun in shine.

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

EPITHETS AND TROPES (=

of course his gorgeous apparel, his

He dons

Father).

vesture-of-grand-occasion’.

calls his robe d'appanit.

LX the poets speak of the

Mandala

times' in

what Renou

iiiriii;

Soma:

costume dazzling vesture-of-grand-occasion. Often his the fly-agaric while

the milk of cows: this

of snow, with tufts of

snowy wool. There

nirni). his

still

this

Nine is

his

linked with

studded with plaques

one occasion on which the

poet stoops CO a banal simile: *** IX 86

Like a serpent he creeps out of his old skin. dhir

lid

jiiriidm

d'ti

some of

least

sarpati tvacdm

the poets

mountains: could the

anyone

who

did not

knew

their fly-agaric in

phrase in

last

know

high

silii.

in the

verse have been written by

this

it?

IX 70’

He [Soma] bellows, terrifying bull, with might, sharpening his shining [/idri] horns, gazing afar. The Soma rests in his well-appointed birthplace.

The hide

of bull, the dress of sheep,

ruvdti b/jimd vrsdWids tavisydyd sriige srsdiie

d yonim semdf:

'The hide

him with

siifcrtflm ni sidati

gavydyi tvdg Wwvdti

The red

of bull, the dress of sheep.’

his skin; his dress

Often have

/idriiii vicdtsdiui/i

nirni'g a\'ydyi

bull of IX

97'^

supplies

of fluffy tufts of white sheep’s wool.

penetrated into a forest in the

fall

of the year as night

gathered and seen the whiteness of the white mushrooms, as they

seemed

to take to

themselves the

them

fast as all else

white

veil

over his is

from

of the setting sun, and hold

faded into the darkness.

of the fly-agaric

all else,

last rays

afar

still

cling to the cap,

you may

still

see

well-appointed birth-place close by

how three thousand

When

Soma,

some

fragments of the

though night has taken silver white, resting in

birch or pine tree. Here

years ago a priest-poet of the Indo-Aryans gave

voice to this impression: IX 97 ’**

By day he appears

hdri [colour of fire],

diva hdrir dddrse ndktatn rjrdh I.

IX 68«. 71 *. 8l>, 86*6.46. 95'. 99*. 107*6. and lo8>*.

night, silvery white.

PART ONE Soma’s

scarlet coat

CHAPTER

•

VIII

dominates by day; by night the redness sinks out

of sight, and the white patches, silvery by moon and starlight, take over.

THE BULL AND SOMA

The

bull

was the mightiest beast familiar

was the symbol of strength

metaphor

Soma.

for

in the

RgVeda and

to the Indo-Ary^ans. It it

was the commonest

exchanged attributes with Soma: both were

seated high in the mountains, both were gazing afar

off,

both bel-

lowed. both sharpened shining horns. Sometimes the image was

taken from Soma, sometimes from the bull, thus: IX

to’***

[Soma] bellows, terri^ing

shining horns, gazing afar

hallucinogenic

of Mexico act passively: the subject

be withdrawn in meditation. Soma,

in addition

one to Elysium, seems to have possessed a kinetic

to translating

potenq-,

filling

activity.

This

his

mushrooms

seems to an outsider

with might, sharpening

vrsabhds tavisydyd sfnge sisdno hdrini vicaksandh

nn'flti HiinKJ

The

bull,

one with the joy of extraordinary physical and vocal

shall see,

reported alike in the

phenomenal

RgVeda and

in Siberia, where,

displays of physical prowess sometimes

attend inebriation by the fly-agaric. It is

important that the modern reader

power

that

changes on

Soma gave to the poets

this

metaphor of a

the poets the bull are

many such

bull.

fix his

attention on the sense

of the RgVeda.

They

(Sometimes Soma

ring

all

the

a buffalo.) For

a creature that constantly sharpens his horns there

references.

We have just seen Soma compared to a

bull

‘sharpening his shining horns’. Once the poet resorts to synecdoche: IX 97’'

Soma with sharpened horns

[i.e.,

Soma

the bull] attains his

[full]

reach.

parinasdm krnute tigmdsrngo

Some have deduced from

this verse that

Soma must have been

nothing plant with thorns! But of course the ‘sharpened horns are more than the familiar cliche for a bull, and the bull is Soma. 42

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

HPITHETS D.

AND TROPES

THE UDDER AND SOMA

The swollen hemisphere of the

fly-agaric’s

cap naturally suggests

an udder to the poet: III aS’**"

Approaching the sharp

his

Soma

mother, he [Indra]

toward the udder.

upasthdyo mdtiiram

he looks toward

cries for food:

dnmm

aitta tiguuim aptisyad abbi

semam Mhah

IV 23“'’

What as

has [Indra] enjoyed, [approaching] the

kathd

mabdm avnihat

kdsya /wtur yiijiidm jusiind abhi

somam udhah

loi**'*

Raise the three voices that are preceded

udder, which tisrd

Soma

were an udder?

VII

priest’s sacrifice

and that milk the milked of sweetness ...[.. Soma]

vdcah prd vada jyotiragrd yd etdd

diilire

light

madhudogbdm udhah

VIII 9'®*

When the swollen stalks were milked

cows with [full] udders

ydd dpitdso amsdvo gdvo «d diibrd tuibabhih 1X68*

The sweet juices have hurried to the god like milch cows [to a calf]. Resting upon the barhis, noisy, with full udders, they have made the red ones their flowing garment. [This pressed. to

They

are resting in an

open

before the

space,

Soma

plants are

on the ground, waiting

be pressed.]

prd devdm dchd mddhumanta indavo 'Usyadanta gdva d nd dhetuivah barhisddo vacandvanta udhabbih parisriitam Jtsriyd nirnijain dhire 1X69«“>

The thought

placed like an arrow upon a bow; like a calf to the

udder of his mother he hastens. [The figure but the context suggests that

may

not refer to

Soma

does.]

WHr nd dhdnvan prdti dhiyate matir vaisd nd mdtiir upa sarjy

iidhani

Milking the dear sweetness from the divine udder, he has sat in his accustomed place. duhand

mar

divydtn

mddhu priydm pratndm sadhdstham dsadat 43

PART ONE

•

CHAPTER

VIII

THE STALK AND SOMA

Not only

Soma

the

plant likened to an udder; the stalk or amsu

(literally a ‘shoot’, a perfect

word

for the stipe of a

mushroom)

likened to a teat: I

137^*^

The

priests

milk

this atnsii for

you both [Varuna and Mitra, two gods],

hke the auroral milch cow, with the aid of stones they milk the Soma, with the aid of stones.

tdm vflm dhenum nd vdsarim •

•

«•

amum ••

duhanty ^ ddribhih soTnam

duhanty ddribhih II

13'“*

The

first

milk of the amhi

the best.

tdd dhand abhavat pipyusi pdyo 'mld/i piydsam III

prathamdm tdd uktkydm

36^*^

Indra

farther than this seat

when

the milked

amH,

the Soma,

fills

him. (ndrah sddaso vdriydn ydd fm somah ppuiti dugdho amsuh

liras cid

He has milk

tapped so to speak the pure udder of the cows, rendering the

clear as

the juice yielded by the amiu.

sucy ddho atrnan nd

V43" The ten

gdvdm dndho nd putdm pdrmktam amdh

two arms, harness the pressing stone; they are the preparers of the Soma, with active hands. The one with good hands [the priest] has milked the mountain-grown sap of the sweet fingers, the

honey [Soma] the amhi has yielded the dazzling ;

diisa fesipo yunjate

[sap],

bdhi ddrim sdtnasya yd iamitdra suhdstd mddhvo

rdsam sugdbhastir giristhdm cdni’scadad duduhe Uikrdm ai^uh

When the swollen amlii w'ere milked like cows with [full] udders

ydd dpitdso atnidvo gdvo nd duhrd ddhabhih IX 72 ^*

They milk the thundering’

atnsu

amiutn duhanti standyantam dkatam kavim kavdyo ‘pdso manidnah I.

The word

probably related to

from

Stan,

perhaps

thunder,

from the verb sun, to roar or to thought also to be denved the Vedic and classical Sanskrit word for breast, sum.

for 'thundering' here, sum^yaniam,

the image of the cloud.

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

EPITHETS AND TROPES 1X95^*“

They milk the

rtmsii. this

the mountain.

home on

giristluim

mi sdiiav iimiiim (lii/Mnly

i,im miiniiritiiiflm

bull at

107'*''*

With the milk of thy

rtiiiiii

mfltl/iuiciitam amsdli pdyasd mutiire utijtlgrvir dcchd fcosuiH

milking imagery that new meaning. pervades the Soma passages in the RgVeda acquires chlorophyll-bearing plant, whether leafy or leafless, does not suggest In the light of

fly-agaric hypothesis, the

The dominance of the word anisii - stalk, certain imstem, stipe -calls for comment. Over much of Eurasia portant species of wild mushrooms are dried and strung together on strings by the stipes, hanging caps down. (The caps shrink more than the udder and milking.

the stipes and are

friable.)

Vedic times and would e.xpiain, sis

on the

This

may have been

the practice in

explanation be needed, the

stipe in the vocabulary.’ Bogoraz, writing

empha-

about the turn

Chukotka the fly-agarics being it seems the trading

of the century, says expressly that in the

were usually strung up

in three’s, this

unit. (Vide [22] p. 273)

SOMA’S ‘HEAD’ In English

speak of the

‘cap’

of the

other languages including the Vedic ‘head’

mushroom, but is

many

used instead:

IX 27 ’

This bull, heaven’s head [murd/idn]. Soma,

by masterly

men

when

pressed,

escorted

into the vessels, he the all-knowing.

esd nfbhir vi niyate divo

murdhd vfsd

sdmo vdnepi vilvavit

IX 68^“*

While Soma enters into contact with the fingers of the protects his head [siros]. amsur ydvena When

was

officiants,

pipise yatd nfbhih srfm jamiWtir ndsate rdksate sirah

boy in Chesterfield County, Virginia, the farmen would call the leaves of the tobacco plam'stems’. When the time came for gathering the leaves, they would string them together by the principal rib or 'stem’, perhaps a score of them together, and take them to the tobacco bam I.

be dried by smoking, hanging each batch over rungs that stretched from beam to beam in the bam. Fires were then built in troughs on the ground. This is another example where handling practices led to a curious use of the word 'stem'. to

PART ONE

•

CHAPTER

VIII

IX 69*''*

For you are,

O Soma juices

erect, creators

ynydm IX

the heads [miirdhdn] of heaven, carried

of vital force.

soma pitdro

mdma

sthdna divo miirdhdnah prdsthitd vayaskftak

71-*“^

Soma’s head [miirdhdn] the cows with a full udder mix their best milk in streams, [i.e., milk is mingled with Soma juice.] d ydsmin gdvah suhutdda ddhani murdhdn chrimnty agriydm vdrmabhih IX 933»be

The udder of the cow

swollen; the wise juice

streams. In the vessels the cows

mix with

their

imbued with

its

milk the murdhdn.

utd prd pipya iidhar dghnydyd indur dhdrdbhih sacate sumedhdh

mfadhdnam gdvah pdyasd camdsv

abhi hinanti vdsubhir nd niktaih

FOUR POETIC CONCEITS In speaking of

Soma

the poets of the

peatedly to four conceits.

They

RgVeda have

recourse re-

They have never been adequately

are not descriptive in any

explained.

immediate sense: they express what

the poets considered transcendental truths. Let us see

how

the

fly-

agaric fares with them.

The Single

Eye.'

We speak because of our descent from the andent father; the tongue moves with pitiih

the eye

of Soma.

pratndsya jdnmand vaddmasi sdmasyajihvd prdjigdti cdksasd

IX 9 *

Quickened by the seven minds, he [Soma] has encouraged the free of grief,

which have strengthened

rivers

his single eye.

sd saptd dhitibhir hito nadyo ajinvad adruhah yd ekam dksi vdvrdhuh

IX I

10®**'

have drunk the navel

our sake. Indeed,

[i.e.,

Stnna] into the navel

the eye is altogether

ndbhd ndbhitn na d dade cdksui I.

In the .^tharvaveda, XIII

Wm.

D. Whicncy

there

cit

[i.e.,

stomach] for

with the sun. [Bhawe rendering]

sdrye sdcd kavir dpatyam d duhe

another allusion to the single eye that

s translation, p. 717.

relevant here.

AND TROPES

EPITHETS IX lo’

The sun

[i.e..

Soma] looks

the highest place of heaven. abki priyd divds

towards the dear places and

the eye .

rendering]

paddm adhvaryubhir

githd hitdm sdrah pasyati cdksasd

IX 97^*'

who

[Soma]

has for eye the sun

5v<irwksd rathirdh satydUimah

The one element in these us here

metaphor

less if

is if

some of them

difficult, that

concerns

Does not the photograph, reproduced

'the single eye’.

image that the poet had

Plate X. explain the this

verses,

we have

do with

How perverse How meaning-

mind?

a creeper, vn/lf.

deal with rhubarb.

Mainstay of the Sky. IX

The ocean

[of Soma] has

Soma

sky, the

been cleansed in the waters; mainstay of the the filtre, he who is favourable to us.

samudro apsu mdmjje vistamhhd dharuno divdh somah pavitre asmayuh IX

In the navel of the earth

mainstay of the sky

[is

situated the Soma],

which

also the

nibhd prthivyd dharuno maho divo 'pdm urmau slndhusv antdr uksitdh IX 74“*’

Mainstay of thing

the sky,

well

laid,

the

full anisu

runs throughout every-

div6 ydh skambho dharunah svdtata dpurno

paryiti vi’svdtah

1X86”“* .

thou

sittest in

the vessels, having been pressed for Indra, inebriat-

ing drink, which inebriates,

supreme mainstay of heaven, [Soma] who

gazes in the far distance. indrdya

mddvd mddyo mddah

sutd divd vistambhd

upamd vicaksandh

IX 86^*“'

has spilled forth, mainstay of the throughout the world .

dsatji

sfey.

the offered drink

;

he flows

skambhd divd udyato mddah pdri tridhdtur bhuvandny arsati

PART ONE

CHAPTER

•

father of the gods, progenitor of the

the sky,

VIII

moving

force, mainstay

foundation of the earth.

devdnam janitd suddkso vistambho divo dhaninah prthivydh

pitii

89‘“‘>

of the sky, foundation of the earth, in the

hand of

this

[Soma]

all

establishments are

vistambho divo dhaninah prthivyd visvd utd ksitdyo hdste asya IX io8‘^

Enter into the heart of Indra, receptacle for Soma, like rivers into the ocean, thou [O Hiflinstay

of heaven

Soma] who pleasest Mitra, Vanina, Vayu, supreme !

samudrdm

indrasya hdrdi somadhdnam d visa

iva sindhavah justo

mitrdya vdrundya vdydve divo vistamb/w uttamdh IX I09**

Thou Soma

art the mainstay of the sky,

divo dhartdsi sukrdh piyusah satye vidharman vdji pavasva

We have given only a selection of the

Soma

passages where

stay of the sky. Others have translated this

‘pillar’

main-

and ‘fulcrum’

of the sky.

What

poet could conceive of a creeper, a climber, any vine - some

species of

Sarcostemma or Ephedra -

as ‘mainstay of the sky’, ‘foun-

dation of the earth’? But the sturdy stanchion with capital that

resplendent

the fly-agaric lends itself well to this poetic conceit.

The Navel. ‘Navel’, ndbhi,

its

one of the most important words

primary meaning

hymn.

X90'*.

as the

umbilicus

As the ‘hub’ of a wheel

need not detain

was 'umbilical

most

us.

What we

call

kin’; in this sense

interesting citations of the

in the

RgVeda.

occurs only once, in a late

recurs three times; this use

‘blood kin’ for the Vedic poets

word

find

nine times. By far the

are the ones

where

it is

used

transcendentally, to express a mythological idea, in a reverential says and sacred context. Soma is the Navel of the Way (= ^td), word that the poet. By Rid he means the divine order of things, a

Pi \ii

\ii

•

\ ii

in.ikiA ot

•

K\* 1\

milk

hi\ vcslurcMil-ciMiKl-oiwision.

lu*

single eve

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

epithets and tropes the Tao of Lao Tze. seems to convey somewhat the same idea as Vedic times arrested This figurative use of the navel for Soma in

my attention. peoples

had come across the navel, and here

Soma was

because

was playing

a role

of the Arj-ans! W'as this accidental convergence, or was

in the India it

In the fungal vocabularies of various unrelated Eurasian

mushroom -the

fly-agaric?‘

True,

all

words

primirelating to childbirth play a bigger role in the vocabularies of tive

among others. Thus in ancient Greece the o{i-.paXo;, fixed in Delphi and now in the Delphi museum, was

peoples than

a stone carving

famed But

for centuries as the center of the it is

world.

who know

a fact that peoples

their

mushrooms and

live

with them in their daily lives are apt to see parallels between mush-

rooms and the umbilicus. The lexicographer Dal reports that pup means

‘navel’

and the derivative pupyri

in Russia

applied in the familiar

Cambodian the word and mushroom. This word’s primary meaning

language to fungal growths. In contemporar)' ps 9 t is

means both navel

navel and

it is

of languages,

clearly

borrowed from the Malayo-Polynesian family

where the hypothetical proto-Malayo-Polynesian word

was*pHS?g, ‘navel’, a word with far flung progeny in languages spoken off the east coast

of Asia, including

form was/eso, stemming back

/leso in

Japanese, whose medieval

to *peso in proto-Japanese. In standard

contemporary Korean the word recurs in the form

means only ‘mushroom’, but

two southwestern

may stem back to

the

same root mean the

There

dialects

only on the island of T§edju, in the province of Cholla that

p'sat.

spoken

Namdo, words

navel. In these dialects

the navel takes the forms potov and pdtov-ro.* In April 1966 Georges national,

of Paris. I.

Dumezil introduced

young Turkish

Orhan Alparslan, a student of architecture at the University He came from a village, Zennun, situated off the highway

One of our

valuable sources about the fly-agaric in Siberia

G. H. von Langsdorf.

found

use as an inebriant

among the Kamchadal. In discussing its fungal identification he writes: Kamchadal mushroom has a cap with a rmvcMiJaprotuberancc in the middle. .'! Vide [loj. The word in the German text is ncbtlfSrmig.

. .

the

147

indebted to Dr. Johannes Rahder of Yale Univenity for thU information about the Korean

^ dialects. He relied on the two volume work

on Korean

compiled by the late Professor Shinpei Ogura, Cfcwen-go Hogen no Katkyu (Studies of Korean Dialects); publishers, Iwanami. Tokyo iojj ^ PP-97-98ofVol. I.

dialects

PART ONE

•

CHAPTER

running from Ankara to Samsun,

was

a Circassian

shepherd boy

memory. He

in his

mane - Coprinus comatus

as gobek mantari,

Even in.

species of

was tinged with

mushrooms

cap or a protrusion. There

in the last

a pocket in the

local

middle of the

Omphalia, whose name

two centuries by

scientists,

but

scientific

youth of the science (such

in the

deep

case), often reflect facts lying

The

its

navel. True, these are neo-classical

names, especially those devised

of the race.

and gave

mycologists the navel has crept

a genus, the

comes from the Greek

here the

quickly turned

are either ‘umbilicate’ or umbonate’,

‘navel’

violet,

Turkish words meaning ‘navel mushroom’.

depending on whether the

words devised

the

explained that

in the scientific vocabulary’ of

Many

mushrooms that names for them. He drew

the various kinds of

know and gave me

was largely Qrcassian. He had been a childhood, and he possessed a remarkably clear

into black ink but the black

name

about the half-way point.

his village

described for

he had learned the shagg)-

and

VIII

in the consciousness

muscaria, for example, in Amanita mnscaria, expresses

the folk traditions of the Germanic race. It is

not

contention that these far flung analogies in vocabulary

have influenced each other; quite the contrary. is

believe a

mushroom

apt to suggest the navel to the primitive observer, wherever he be,

and that the Vedic people, obsessed applied to

as they

the navel analog)', and.

transcendental meanings. Already figures of speech.

were with the

imbued

fly-agaric,

with a multitude of

have seen a number of these

learned in 1X74^ that

Soma was

the Navel of

the Way. Here are others: IX 79 *^^

Your highest navel

attached in heaven; your fingers

grow on

the

back of the earth. divi

recall

ndbhd paramo yd ddadi prtbivyds

how

IX 10*; in that

ruruhub sdnavi ksipah

the sun in the single eye of Soma was tied to the eye of

same

verse the navel

now

figures intelligibly:

IX 10® I

have drunk the navel

[i.e..

Soma] into the navel 50

[i.e..

stomach] for

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

EPITHETS our sake. Indeed, the eye

AND TROPES

altogether with the sun.

have milked

the child of the wise. [B/itJwe rendering]

ndbhd ndHn»n na d dade cdferwi

Again t\vo hymns later

Soma is

cit siirye

sdcd kaver dpatyam d didie

called the all-seeing navel of the wise:

iz*

l.\

The sharp

heaven's navel,

seer, in

magnified in the woolen

filtre.

the wise, possessed of good intelligence.

Soma

divo ndbhd vicnfesdno 'yyo vdre mabiyate somo yah siikrdtuli kavih

In the following verse

cap) of the 1

who

Immortal One, according to the supreme of the Way, receive them on thy navel, O Soma, thou head [of heaven];

art the

prajd amrtasya pdrasmin

Soma is of heaven.

was

a practice of the

when speaking

fire-agaric’ (as

and

dhdmam

rtdsya miirdhd ndbhd

soma vend

repeatedly said to be in the navel of the earth, in the navel

one god

thets.

associated with the ‘head’

mushroom:

descendants,

institution

®***'

Thy

yds

Soma’s navel

‘navel’

RgVeda

poets to use epithets proper

of another. Agni and Soma, fire and the

tempted

to call the fly-agaric) thus

often applied to Agni. But

disputed that the navel figure belongs to

Soma and As we have

epi-

will not

Soma; the frequency of its

use with

the elaboration of the uses

Soma's.

seen, pp. 39

ff.

think

exchange

make

‘Agni’ for the poet

peculiarly a

way

saying ‘Soma’. 4.

The

Filtres.

In the

RgVeda

filtres figure

One of them, a filtre of lamb’s wool, presents no problem. After the Soma had been pounded prominently.

with stones and mixed with water,

was forced through

a filtre or

which caught the pulp and fibrous elements and allowed the tawny yeUow liquor to pass through and run down to the vats. But the RgVeda speaks of two other filtres that have always baffled strainer,

the scholars.

woolen

filtre is

Soma

the fly-agaric they present no problem. in fact the second or middle filtre. is

The

PART ONE CHAPTER •

The

VIII

First Filtre

In the order of their function, the verses speak filtre,

the

filtre

rays, escorting fiery

that

offer to the reader in Plate xu,

Soma down from

Soma

has the

shall

bhrsti,

sun’s

fly-agaric).

quote the poet says expressly that King

filtre for his chariot,

the thousand studs,

where the

the sky, are caught and held on the

back of heaven {= the pileus of the

In the first verse that

of a celestial

first

and immediately thereafter dtes

that carry

him

fame;

the white

i.e.,

patches on his cap. IX 86-^'^

King, having the filtre for chariot, he has attained the victory prize; a

thousand studs, he conquers puissant renown.

rdjd pavitraTatho vdjam druhat sahdsrabhrstir jayati

hdvo

brhdt

IX los (This verse has puns difficult to translate.

Soma

Its

plants are called ‘suns’, sdra. a natural

meaning metaphor

The

clear.

in the light

of our various plates. The heavenly Somas spread the strainer of their

the sun’s) rays for themselves to

apandso vivdsvato jdnanta usdso bhdgam

How clear this

would have been

possessed the key. Bhawe,

for

silrd

dnvam

vi tanvate

Geldner and Bhawe

commenting on

refers to the ‘mysterious sieve

come down).

they had

this verse in his Part

through which the sun

p. 53,

rays pass'.

Geldner before him had sensed that the Somas and the Suns are the same, and in

his

the sun’s rays

commentary had

divined that the

referred to elsewhere, notably in IX

filtre straining

66*, 76*,

and

86**.’

IX 66***^

Thy clear rays spread over the back of heaven, the filtre, O Soma,

tdva ^ukrdso arcdyo divds prsth^ vi tanvate pavitram soma dhdmabhih

poetic figure for the fly-agaric, there seems nothing to explain Agni, here. In this same hymn, verses 19-21, Soma is addressed as

As a

Harvard Oriental

Series. 35. p. i7» ftn. (o 5c.

I’l

•

U\ l\

The hiJe

ot hull,

the J^e^^ of sheep.

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

EPITHETS AND TROPES i

e.,

the fly-agaric as fire.

p. 39.) its

The

fly-agaric

already called attention to this on

(We have

both

and sun,

fire

catches the sun’s rays on

fibre the back and holds them there, where they

the plant.

The same theme

Soma

recurs in

distance, which This Soma, which today circulates in the

may The

juice into

a cleanser,

cleanse us in the filcre!

fibre that has

been spread in thy flame,

O Agni, with

it.

cleanse

our song.

Thy

fibre.

may

Agni. equipped with flames,

cleanse us, cleanse

us with the fruits of sacred songs!

With these both, the fibre and the cleanse me through and through! pdvamdnah

adyd nah pavitrena

fruits (of song],

vicarsaiii/j

O God

Savitr,

yah potd sd pundtu nah

ydt

pavitram ardsy dgne vitatam antdr d brdhma tina pumhi nah

ydt

pavitram arcivdd dgne tena punihi nah brahmasavaih punilii

ubhdbhydm deva savitah pavitrena savena ca

Here Soma

addressed under the

name

mdm

n<i/j

punflii visvdta/i

of Agni. Metaphorically the

miraculous plant seems to share every attribute of Agni. - flamecoloured. subtle,

purifies

with

its

In the following verse the strainer

fibre as fire does with is

its

flames.

not mentioned by name. Soma,

Lord of the Universe, cleanses himself

in the Sun's rays, the celestial

fibre: IX 76 *

Monarch of everything that sees the sun-Ught, Soma cleanses himself Triumphing over the Prophets, he made the Word of the Way to resound, he

who

cleansed by the Sun’s ray, he the father of

poems, Master-Poet never yet equalled! vih’osya rdja pavate svardfia rtdsya dhitim rdsdl avivaiat ydh

siryasydsirena mr)ydte pitd matindm dsamastakdvyah

Ss****

Thy

fibre has

pavitram

been spread,

Brdhmanaspati [Soma]

vitatam brahmanas pate prabhiir gdtrani pdry ed viivdtah

PART ONE CHAPTER •

VIII

The

of the burning [Soma] has been spread in heaven’s

filtre

mesh was spread

dazzling

Its

heaven

afar

They climb

pade socanto asya tdntavo vy dsthiran

dvanty asya pavitdram didvo divds prsthdm ddhi In this verse the ‘filtre’ that

flame of the

sacrifice.

see in Plate XII

How

easy

it is

the earthly to the transcendental plane.

Soma,

logy.

fire,

translated to heaven

for the poet to

How

compact

move from the cosmo-

celestial strainer,

thunder-storm, aurora - they

interlocked, meeting in our resplendent fly-agaric.

all

Here are further verses IX

tist/wnti cetasd

sun, sun’s rays, the navel of the earth, the single eye,

mainstay of the sky, are

the back of

in thought.

tapes pavitram vitatam divas

in the

home.

in the

same

tenor:

863»*‘*

for thee,

Soma-juice, thou art clarified in the

filtre

so as to

establish thyself [in] space for the gods. tvdfM pavitre rdjaso vidhannani devebhyah

soma pavamdna puyase

The Soma envelops himself

all

around with rays of the sun,

sd s&ryasya ra’smibhih pdri vyata tdntum tanvdnds trivftam ydthd vidi

IX9i3«‘

By a thousand paths free of dust. Soma, armed with knowing the Word, the Sun passes the filtre. ...

sahdsram fkvd pathihhir vacovid adhvasmdbhih sAro dnvam It

seems that

in this verse the

Sun

The Third

third filtre

mentioned

The Guardian of the inspiring force:

resume

I(td

vl ydti

metaphor, standing for Soma.

Filtre

two

brings us back to the discussion of the

which we promised

verses,

verses of the RgVeda, and this

Two Forms

of Soma on pp. 23

at a later point in the

argument.

[Soma] cannot be deceived, he of the good

carries three fibres inside his heart.

rtdsya gopd nd ddbhdya sukrdtus

trf

sd pavitrd hfdy dntdr d dadhe

ff.

EPITHETS AND TROPES IX 97^^

flowest Thou runnest through the three filtres stretched out; thou art the Giver of the the length, clarified. Thou art Fortune, thou the liberal.

Gift, liberal for 5

trt

Soma-juice.

dsi ddtrdsya datd

'si

becomes

clear: the

Soma

issues forth as sparkling

well founded.

juice that

‘Vayu’ in the course of the liturgy’

filtered

its

sphere on the sun’s rays into the plant

the liquor

their condition

its

inebriating virtue

down from

clear.

the celestial

That the Soma juice

through the lamb’s wool into the vessels at the place of

sacrifice is also clear.

sumed

the third

nauseating properties.

That the priceless ambrosia was filtered

filtered

Then

drunk by Indra and in their organisms and

yellow urine, retaining

but having been purged of

was

dsi b/idgo

maghdvd maghdvaiibhya indo

Let us assume the fly-agaric surmise filtre

puydmdnah

pavitrd vildttzny esy d'nv ^fcdin tfitavd5t

What happened

next? ’Indra’ and ‘Vayu’ con-

mixed with milk or curds and

would appear

was a matter of considerable anxiety.

to explain the poets’ preoccupation

with the

How

Soma

that

else are

passed

through their organisms? The poets do not stress the inebriation of the priests. Instead they take us with

Soma

into Indra’s heart, into his

belly or bellies, into his entrails. If these verses

the Vedic ritual the priests

they

do not mean that

were impersonating the gods, what do

mean?

Purify thyself in Indra’s stomach,

O juice

from

a river

with a vessel,

who knowest;

thou

who

nd yudhyann dva uo niddh

spall

enable us to pass to the other side, thou battiest as a hero, save us

disgrace!

[ars]htdrasyendo jathdram d pavasva

ndvd nd sindhum

dri

parsi vidvdit

c/ifiro

the preceding verse: IX 70« Clarify thou thyself,

who

Soma, for the invitation

to the gods.

art a bull enter into the heart of Indra, receptacle for

Enable us to traverse the

evil passages saving us

Thou Soma!

from oppression

PART ONE For he

who knows

CHAPTER

•

VIII

the country gives the directions to

him who

informs himself. pdvasva soma de\'dvitaye vfsendrasya hdrdi somadhdnam d Vila piird no

badhdd duritdti pdraya ksetravid dhi disa dha viprcchati

Obviously there was doubt about the outcome of the perilous passage. Tndra’ and his colleagues had to know their business, had to be experienced pilots. that

skill

Bhawe was justified in saying Soma juice with milk or curds in

looks as though

was needed

mixing the

the right way.

new meaning,

not the following verse imbued with

my 1

interpretation, - the

in the light

human waters being put into movement?

63 ’

Clarify thou thyself by that stream

movement

shine, putting into

the

by which thou madest the sun

human

waters!

ayd pavasva dhdrayd ydyd sdryam drocayah hinvdnd mdnusir apdh

Here

are other references to

Soma

in the belly of Indra:

IX 72“** .

the [Officiants]

draw the Soma by milking

into the belly of

Indra.

sdkdm vadanti bahdvo IX

tnamsliuz indrasya

sdmamjathdre ydd dduhiih

72****

Spurred on by the two arms of the Officiant, in

Soma

clarified

nfbdhubhydm

according to

codito

its

jets,

the pressed

nature, suitable for thee,

O Indra!

dhdrayd suto 'nusvadftdm pavate sdma indra

IX 76 ’*

O Soma

Pivamana,

indrasya soma

penetrate into the entrails of Indra

. .

pdvamdna urmfna tavisydmdno jathdresv d

So***

Soma, thou

clarifiest thyself for

Indra;

visa

indrdya soma pavase vfsd mddah IX 8o5* In the belly of Indra the inebriating

Frosya

kuksd pavate madlntama

Soma

clarifies itself.

\<\

•o'"

’Ih«»u .in ilu' n1.lMl^l.t\

ilu* sls\

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

EPITHETS Here

a clear statement.

AND TROPES

in the

other two

Soma

filtres.

clari-

preparation for a further step. fying itself in the belly of Indra. in IX

The waves of Soma Pavamana advance

into the belly of Indra.

pdYivndnasycrmdyii iiidrasya

yiinii jailiduvn supesiisiih

prd

sonitisyti

IX 85**^

Cleansed

winning race horse, thou hast

like a

belly of Indra,

spilled thyself in the

O Soma

marHiTjy'dMuIne diyo na sunasir imirasya sema jathdre

The 86th hymn

sam

afcsttnili

climactic for Indra as Soma’s filtre:

IX 86*

inebriating drinks, swift, are released ahead, like

Thy

in divers directions, like the calf,

so the

teams running

milch cow with her milk towards her

Soma juices, waves rich in honey, go to Indra. thunder-bolt

carrier.

prd

mddaso madirdsa dsdvo

'srtsata rdthydso ydthd pftlmk

dhenur

ud valsdm pdyasdbln' vdjrtnitm indram itidavo inddliumaiita urmdyii/t IX 86J

Like a race horse launched in

Soma, thou

whose mother above the have dtyo

who is

calf’s

movement

for the victory prize, flow,

procures! the light-of-the-sun for heaven’s vat,

the pressing stone: thou. Bull, seated in the filtre

wool,

clarify’ing thyself,

thou Soma, that Indra

may

his pleasure!

hiydno abln vdjam arsa svarvit kdsam divo ddrirndtaram

fid

vfsd pavitre ddhi sdno avydye somah

pimdnd indriyiya dhdyase

IX 86‘**

advances to the rendez-vous with Indra, the

Soma

juice

pro aydsid indur indrasya nisfertdm IX 86”“*

By the

action of the streams he has

made

the utensils resound while

penetrating into the heart of Indra.

krand sindhundm kaldsdh aviva’sad indrasya hdrdy avisdn

inafusiHii/i

IX 86” Clarily thyself,

thou

who

Soma,

in the celestial structures of thine essence,

hast been released roaring into the vessel, in the

filtre.

PART ONE Lodged

CHAPTER

VIII

in the belly of Indra, roaring

the Officiants, thou hast

made

with vigour, held in hand by the sun to mount the sky.

pdynsva soma divyesu dhdmasu STjdnd indo kaldk pavi'tra d sidann indrasya jathdre kdnikradan nfbhir yatdh suryam drohayo divi IX 86^3ab

Pressed by the pressing-stones, thou

when

Soma-juice,

clarifiest thyself in

the

filtre,

penetrating into the entrails of Indra!

ddrihhih swtd/i pavase pavitra dh indav indrasya jathdresv

dviUn

* IX io 8 's

may

For Indra, that he

drink, clarify thou thyself,

hand by the Lords, well armed, inebriating

O Soma,

held in

indrdya soma pdtave nfbhir yatdh svdyudho madintamah pdvasva

rnddbimattamah IX io 8

‘^

Enter into the heart of Indra, Soma’s receptacle, like the rivers into the ocean, thou, [O Soma,]

who

pleasest Mitra, Varuna, Vayu,

O thou

supreme Mainstay of the Sky! indrasya hdrdi somadhdnam d visa samudra'm iva sindhavah

jiisto

mitrdya vdrundya vdydve divo vistambhd nttamdh IX 109 '*

Soma, advance into the belly of Indra, having been held

by the

Officiants, pressed

hand

by the stones!

prd soma ydhtndrasya kuksd nfbhir yemdno ddribhih sutdh

H. ‘Tongue of the Way’.

The second jihvd),

verse of IX 75 begins with 'Tongue of the

and the poet continues

to apostrophize

Soma

Way’

(rtdsya

as the source of

eloquence. ‘The Way’ is Rtd, the divine order of things. Abel Bergaigne'

remarked that the expression, ‘Tongue of the Way’, was picturesque and said it meant prayer. Caland and Henry,* on the other hand, were baffled.

'Tongue of the Way’ could not be translated

way, but

how

could

Soma be

not visualize the fly-agaric: the clue to the t.

Abel Bergaigne. La

W. Caland and

little

its

any other

tongue? These scrupulous scholars did cap, the full

blown red tongue, held

mystery.

Religion VMi<jue, Vol.

p. 24X.

V. Henry, VAgnisfoma, Paris. 1906, Para. 221, p. 538,

fin.

ls\’

Sn*^

\\ k\\\

Mil

•

ilnuiN.nul kniih> lu* ic)iu]uri'N

K\ 1\

I\nii;uc

ihc* \\ .n

nu^lu\ rcnoNs n

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

EPITHETS AND TROPES I.

The

‘Knots’ or ‘Knobs’ or ‘Studs’ or 'Spikes’

we have

Already the

first

seen

of the three

how

well the spots on the fly-agaric serve as

for

‘filtres’

on the Fly-Agaric.

Soma.

spots are called in \ edic Wirsfi, a

In a

word

more mundane

that

sense these

used for the knobs or

studs on a cudgel, as on the cudgel ol Indra.

With

his

thousand

knobs or studs Soma conquers potent fame: so say the hymns

two

places. IX

There

83*'^

‘^nd 86

'“’'*.

vet another passage pertinent to this theme, and

itt

illus-

kind of problem that working in a language as remote

trates well the

my inquiries came upon a verse. IX that seemed to present an obstacle to my fly-agaric thesis. According to as \ edic leads

one

the poet of this

into.

hymn, when

through the woolen ‘nodules’.

(The

Early in

filtre, it

\’edic

word,

is**,

the

Soma

plant

pressed and then run

leaves behind in the filtre in the plural,

pdriisJ.)

its

'knots’ or

There has been

sonte difficulty with the sense of the sentence, but agreement on this particular word.

Now mushrooms

are characteristic of shrubs

was

and

have no knots or nodules, which

trees.

Here was

hurdle to cross or

in trouble.

The

latest translation

of this

hymn

is S. S.

Bhawe’s

(1957),

and

found that he had devoted two pages of concentrated commentary to all the

words that attend these

knowing the difficulties.

Suddenly, without

his

import of what he was saying, he cleared up my The ‘knots’, it seemed, had been ‘sticking to’ (piWcuul) full

Soma’s body, and they were shining is

‘knots’.'

(vasitni) also!

His verbal analysis

and seemingly sound. Without knowing of our fly-agaric he comes out with a sense that fits the fly-agaric perfectly.

original

thesis,

The shining

'rays’ (as the

Vedic poets are always referring to them), the scales or white patches or knobs or warts sticking to the cap (as

say) of the fly-agaric, are left

behind in the

strainer.

W^hether the

Vedic word pdriis covers a semantic area broad enough to embrace not only the knots in wood but also the ‘knobs’ on the fly-agaric's cap.

or whether the poet was resorting to a metaphor as we do in English, I leave to Vedic scholars to determine. For the Indo-Aryans the white spots of the fly-agaric were shining (vdsuni) knobs or studs {pdrnsd) 1.

Part

pp. 71-3; vide p. 6 fin. .

PART ONE

•

CHAPTER example

sticking {pibdana) to the cap. This

VIII

illustrates the delicacy of

the task of the translator, the rare prescience of gifted students are oft-times groping in the dark, and finally the help

the scholar

when

at last

its

will

be to

Soma and

he knows the identity of

familiarize himself with all

who can

and properties.

characteristics

word sahdsrapajas, an epithet for Soma that occurs twice in the RgVeda in almost identical passages. (RgVeda ix 13’ and 42^). The first part of this word offers As an instance of this help

no a

difficulty: sabdsra-

thousand -pdjas^

means

this

will cite the

'thousand’. But

there has been

what

the meaning of

much comment

but no

word meant ‘forms’, others have suggested 'colours’, and yet a third commentator sees in it ‘rays’. But in the light of our Plate xn and our discussion of the First Filtre are we agreement.

Some have thought

the

not simply viewing the thousand angle? This

from

a different

their heavenly

metaphoric

First Filtre,

the rays

abode and then

filtering

consonant with the imagery of the

Soma down from

escorting

‘studs’

the divine inebriant with midwifely solicitude into the plant.

not yet

know

the precise

poetic associations, but will do.

The Vedic

as ‘studs'

meaning of

-pdjas,

we do localize it and,

nor the anatomy of

do its

for lack of a better, rays

poets see the white spots on the fly-agaric either

or as sparkles of the divine

light.

(We

in the English-speaking

them as warts disfiguring a repulsive toadstool.) If I am right the whole in identif>'ing Soma with the fly-agaric, then in re-studying glow of of the RgVeda we must at all times be alive to the numinous

world

this

see

awesome

matched by

virtue fully plant, a plant with miraculous inebriating

its

vesture-of-grand-occasion.

When

still

in the

dark

Soma was the Soma was, like heart and soul of the RgVeda. If we know now what hymns - *sahdsrarc the holy osadhi itself the IlgVeda with its thousand

its

identity, great scholars like

certainly destined to

thousand

Renou have

glow again with

facets.

felt that

a rebirth of radiance

from

SOMA AND THE Docs

the flv-agaric help us in understanding this verse,

troubled the translators? 119

you, ¥

Asvins, that

vam matl/iamaa

The word Hitiif/iu.

for

‘fly’.

reads, in part, as follows:

betrayed the Soma.

flv ¥

•

maf'SiIirarapaH »»a»fe sewasyaiihji) /iiivaavati

matsiJlvi.

might mean bee. The word

metaphor

‘honey’, a Irequent

meaning

well be interpreted as

to the Asvins. This

ceptionable, but if a fly

which has

’“*’

Ilia

honey

FLY

betrayed

it is

tor

Soma

Soma. The verse might

that the bees have betrayed their

grammatically and semantically unex-

banal to the point of inanity.

Soma

for

to the Asvins.

the other hand,

are plunging to the depths of

Indo-European folklore. Throughout northern Europe, wherever the fly-agaric

linked to

flies.

to the Asvins. I

known, there is a folk belief that the fly-agaric is Here we find the statement that the fly betrayed Soma

well

Did the

fly

lead the Asvins to the fly-agaric?

have conducted experiments with the fresh Eurasian fly-agaric,

splitting the stipe (stem, dmsii) lengthwise flies

have access to such

and

stipes, the flies are

letting

drawn

bleed.

Where

them, suck the

and collapse helpless into a stupor. They do not die from the juice. On the contrary they recover completely in a matter of hours or one or two days. While in the stupefied state they may of course be juice,

killed

by their enemies or be blown away to their deaths

surroundings.’

non-viable

WORDS USED FOR SOMA The name Soma Soma is and

THE RGVEDA

derived from the root

the pressed one.

Another word

for

meaning

su,

'to press’.

Soma is dndhas. Both Soma

are used in the Rg\'eda to designate the plant and

dfhilitjs

juice, dndluis ‘flower’. (It

being probably cognate with as

the

avO-oc,

though the .Aryans called Soma

t/re

Greek word

its

for

flower.) In the

Rg\'eda ‘Soma’ and dndhas are used e.xclusively for the sacred plant

and

elevated to called

name

its

high station as a god and before

name derived from The

lost.

bv the word Kraut, one of the

name

but the plant must have carried a

its Juice,

before

was

could have been

the liturgical act of pressing; this early

Grassmann

\’edic le.xicographer

translated dndhas

‘herb’, such as ‘food for cattle’. In classical Sanskrit

common words

for ‘herb’

tfna, and, surprisingly, in the

A.D.

earliest Sanskrit dictionarv, the Atnarakosa (ca.

450),

defined

it is

not only as ‘herb’ but as ‘mushroom’. In the RgVeda tfna occurs from

time to time but no translator had ever found said

meant ‘mushroom’. But there

hvmn

a passage

where he

directed to the

Rbhus

that says: 1

161"*^

In the uplands

you have created tfnam for

this people, in the

lowlands

ingenious waters. uda’atsx’ asind

Because if

Soma

akrnotand tfnam mvdtsv apdh svapasydyd narah

repeatedly associated in the

Soma

right that

hymns with

the heights,

the fly-agaric, this sentence should be

reviewed to consider whether tnia does not mean here the divine plant, the fly-agaric. is

osadhi,

and the lexicographers

in the \’edic

to our

Another word often used

mind

small fleshy plants. Similarly, as

meant

us that

Soma in

also

the

RgVeda

meant herb

But

the plant categories did not correspond precisely

own, and the three terms

originally

tell

for

a fleshy plant,

for ‘herb’

seem

we shall see, but

have embraced

the Chinese term

time passed

be confined to a particular mushroom. 62

its

c/n7 i

all

meaning came

WORDS FOR SOMA

THE RG\ EDA

all ot them M.iny other n.iines are applied to Soma in the RgWda, metaphors stressing one or another ot its aspects. In passages where

the drink receives the highest

homage

cognate with ‘ambrosia’, the liquor pressed plant’.

‘stalk’.

The

juice

fluid',

pifii.

called

immortality. That which

Sometimes Soma

pii,

the

called simply

from the root

pu’wiMitlMii.

indu, the ‘bright drop’,

sometimes

‘clear flowing’,

or the

or sometimes drapsii. the ’drop’, or

the ‘beverage’, or imidu, inebriation’, or imh/Ziin honey’.

Soma vocabulary reflects the importance ot the plant and its sacred role. The ordinary word for a common or garden mushroom occurs only once in the RgVeda, in a hvmn addressed to Indra, w here The

rich

the poet says: I

8jb

When

will

he trample upon the godless mortal

humyiim

tirad/hiSiim

Yaska, the earliest of the

^.siiinpa

jlr-jilmpij?

and

name

mushroom belonging

genus Phellorina, close to or identical with not surprising, on the contrary

the market place of Old

a wild

lived

mushroom. The word survives

meant

this identification.

Delhi one buys under that

It is

commentators on the RgVeda, who

and Geldner accepts

contemporary Hindi

upon

ivu sp/uirat

not later than the 5th century B.C. said aliic/itttni’J,

P/iel/orinti

to the

Delestrd Dur.

to be e.xpected. that the

mushroom should be in a category by itself, segregated from rest of the mushroom world. This is what happens among the

sacred

the

Mazatec Indians

ot Me.xico, in

whose language there

are

two words,

one that embraces mushrooms belonging to sacred species, and the other that includes the rest of the fungi.

Among

the Mazatecs the

two words neatly divide the tungal world between them. ‘Mushroom’ in classical Sanskrit is c/tallrd. In thesenseof ‘mushroom’ this word may not have existed in Vcdic times: certainly the Aryans did not bring it down from the North. The word itself comes from the root chad, ‘to cover’,

and

its

primary meaning

‘parasol’.

For

southern peoples the parasol, furnishing protection from the sun, of importance, and from Cambodia to Ethiopia it

symbol’of

PART ONE authority, in India the

mark

rajputs. Until recently the

parasol or the umbrella.

they gave to

and

later

capped

CHAPTER

•

of the Ksatriya caste, the rulers, the

northern peoples have not known the

When

the Ar) ans invaded Iran and India,

newly discovered

this

utensil an Ar)’an

extended the meaning of that

name

embrace the

today

mushrooms do not play an important

the Northwest, in Kashmir and the Punjab, are they as well

among Muslims and

almost unknown, that enjoys

various of

its

where they

much

some popularity

for the table

imported from Afghanistan for

PI.Eryngii Fr. ex D. C.

forma

Kashmir there

tesse/atas,

that goes

relished,

The mush-

Pleurotus Eryngii in

sp.

sale in the market, is

a smaller variety,

by the name of hedar,

mushroom world

aristocrats of the

the champigtwn de Paris)

as well of course as Agaricus campestris.

are called dhingri. In

The

Only

role.

subspecies. In Delhi large quantities of Pi Eryngii

nebrodensis are

hhida.

fleshy

Sikhs in the Punjab and Delhi.

mushroom,

Agdricjis hortensis (our cultivated

room

chattra,

fungi.

In India

name,

Kashmir are the

morels, called kana-g^cb, the 'ear-morel’; recently they have become too expensive for the people of Kashmir to eat, and today they are

gathered only for export to the Punjab, still

figure in the folklore of

feasts, if

there are

means

Kashmir and must be served

expression, are the

and endless

dominant word throughout

guages derived from Sanskrit of modern India of a sacred

wedding

buy them. For mushrooms considered

inedible, feafear-Hial(t)d, ‘dog’s urine’,

same

New Delhi, and Paris. But they

variations of the India. In the lan-

have found no trace

mushroom.

The Laws

Manu, Chap. V

place a tabu on

mushrooms

for the

three upper castes of Hindus (= ‘twice-bom men’): ‘Garlic, leeks and onions,

mushrooms

[kavaka]

and

all

plants springing

substances are unfit to be eaten by nvice-born men.’ to say

whether

this prohibition

from impure

It is

impossible

related to a sacred use of the

agaric in Vedic times; probably not.

The hermit or

him

ascetic lies

avoid honey,

under

mushrooms growing on

the ground [Wiiimi kavaka], bhustpia

Elsewhere

Wiiistrn^i is said to

mean, among other 64

plants,

and

flesh,

similar inhibition. Chap.

14: ‘Let

fly-

mushrooms

WORDS FOR SOMA that are

grow on the ground, the same In the Punjab.

nnaiphobes.

THE RGVEDA

ClearK the Hindus

as Mitiini

Kashmir, and the Northwest, where

been Muslim and Sikh tor centuries -in the Indus Willev. south of the Hindu Kush - there is a deep-seated m\ cothe population

philia

has

running counter to the general Hindu attitude. This

the area

where the Rg\ eda was composed. There

one episode conspicuous

which mushrooms plaved. or death of Buddha

in the religious annals ot India in

may have

played, a decisive role: the

age ot 8o in the middle of the sixth century

at the

B. C.

wav with his followers, talking and preaching as he went, through the kingdom of Magadha. the present state of

He was making Bihar, a

his

and had paused for the night

at a place called

Pava.

metal worker, asked him for dinner and he accepted.

dishes

Chunda served

Hi.iHs.i.

Pali

sfiiLMr.i-nMifd.iVii.

called in

One Chunda.

Among other

one recension

siUmt.!-

(These words are from the Buddhist scriptures written in the

more later than the west. The Buddha himself

language, a tongue spoken a century or

events

are describing

and farther to the

must have spoken Magadhi

Prakrit, also closelv related to Sanskrit.)

The two terms mean the same thing, but what is that meaning? The first word means 'swine’, boar’, cognate with the Latin sus. English ‘swine’.

The second element means

Swine’s soft flesh?’

i.e..

soft flesh. ‘Soft flesh

the soft flesh of

which pigs are fond?

jective genitive or an objective genitive?

much

this,

but the two great schools.

have disagreed on ate pork,

it.

of swine?’

sub-

Buddhism has never made Mahayana and Theravada,

The Mahayana school has held

that the

Buddha

proved to be bad. and he died of the effects, after dvsentery. The Theravada school believes, on the other hand, that he died from it

mushrooms,

food of which pigs are fond.

Dig/M \il.M\M. including the

beginning of the erh,

tree

Buddha r

Book of the Great Decease, made

fifth cenrur\-

mushroom’.'

A Chinese translation of the

A.D.. rendered

siUMr.j-Hi.hf.f,iv.i

in the

mii

record the extraordinarv circumstances of death because they bring in mushrooms, but ! am not pre-

Vui« (,)

and the Buddha

Death*, by Fa

Chow. SiU er

Jubilee

Vol

of Annuls of

Bhandarkar Onental Research Institute. Poona. .942. pp. tar-m: and (1) -Nouniture du Dernier Repas du Buddha by .\ndre Bareau, .Mefjn|<y J-lnJiMume. Editions E. de Boccard. Paris. 1908. .

PART ONE pared link

•

CHAPTER X

time to advance an explanation for the myth that would with Soma: the sources - Chinese, Sanskrit, and Pali - need to

at this

now know,

are the

be associated with the triple-tiered

cbattra

be re-examined with minute Rg\'eda and (‘parasol’

Soma

care.

Nor. so far

and ‘mushroom’) that surmounts the great stupa

one of the

earliest

at Sanchi,

and most awe-inspiring Buddhist structures that

sur\ive; nor with the megalithic ‘mushroom-stones’ found in great

numbers

in Kerala,

and

less

often in Nepal.

misc:ellanea who devoted

the botanist

George Watt, flora of India,"

have declared that ‘no plant

said to

present [1884] which

study ot the

his lite to the

would

known

the requirements [of Soma], and

fulfil all

vague and poetical dehe lays particular stress on the fact that the scriptions given of the

Soma make any

Sanskrit,

Watt did not read

impossible.'*

scientific identification

much

less Vedic.

allow tor the deficiencies in the translations ot the

almost did not

RgWda on \\ hich he

may have been unaware of them. The early renderings oftheRgX’eda made the ancient poets sound like upper class Europeans depended: he

of the 19th centurv, trock-coated, with their inhibitions

Even today one hears

their etiolated religious outlook.

Rg\’eda

men who

huge

beast. Their reports

to say that the RgX'eda

what Soma

said that the

were contradictory indeed.

contradictory without

first

Who

knowing

is?

The hymns of the RgVeda must

vague and contradictory about Soma. This recalls the blind were defining the elephant by feeling each one a different

part of the is

and pruderies,

possess

the fly-agaric like a glove. True, one

fit

some awareness of the psychotropic

plants of the

orld

and their role in primitive religion. Given that familiarity, a reading of Geldner, Renou, and

Bhawe

Indians and Westerners feeling will perhaps be

who

leads straight to the fly-agaric.

reverence the RgVeda for

its

religious

revoked by the dual forms of Soma and

will

even experience a visceral resistance to this solution of the enigma.

Furthermore, regret. For

known

few Vedic scholars

almost a century and a

of Vedic studies, until this

permanent

may know a momentary pang of halt Soma has been the great un-

unknown had come to be considered

remote area of learning. Playing the Vedic game with aces wild has had its charms: it allowed individual a

Watt’s

built-in feature of this

monumental work.

Dirtionury of the Economic Froducis cf India, 1889-1896, edited

many volumes, is a major legacy of the British rule in India, Quoted from Max Muller. Collected Worts. London. Vol. x, 1888. p. 223. The

written by him, in 1.

tributed by Miillcr to

Watt do not appear

Watt's published statements.

and partly

of lasting value.

observations at-

PART ONE leeway in reading

•

CHAPTER

difficult passages. It

moment,

Bergaigne, in an unguarded

permitted even the great

suppose that Soma was

merely some plant or other expressly selected by Aryan

went looking high

priests

who

mountains for this purpose (an ‘Ecclesiastical

in the

we would

myth of Soma’s mountain origin might be fulfilled as though the myth came first and the plant was an afterthought This was possible only because Soma remained Commission’,

call

it),

that the

a blank. If Bergaigne ly of

Mandala

remark

flouted

right, the poets of the

RgVeda, and

must have been engaging

IX, all

was

that the poets

had to say

especial-

in make-believe. His

in praise of the

marvelous

properties of the plant and the divine inebriation that resulted from

drinking

its

juice.

Their religion was founded on a hoax.

the other hand the identification of Soma will give impetus to

Vedic studies. The religion of the RgVeda colour, a sharp bite. If

right, the

now

assumes body, fresh

whole corpus of hymns, and

the Avesta as well, must be re-read in the light of the discovery that a divine

mushroom was

of these poets. the fly-agaric lingers on, in tribes of the

How

at the center of these religions,

associate

we can still draw parallels with cult in Siberia, where as we shall see in Part Three it the last stages of degeneration among the peripheral

extreme north.

utilized

by the shamans.

safe in

In the Indus Valley

with an organized priesthood. This priesthood

have characterized Indo-European society

focus

astonishing that

In Siberia the fly-agaric

was the

assuming so?

May

in their

may

homeland, but are

not a shamanistic religion have acquired

an hieratic structure under the pressures of a tough war of conquest lasting centuries? In a world of enemies the shamans may have found it

in their

own

their ranks, to

interest

and the

interest of the

band together and organize

community

to close

a tribal priesthood, as a

about weapon of political power. The assembling of the hymn book, may which Vedic scholars know something from internal evidence,

have kept step with the organizing of the priesthood. I.

Abel Bergaigne,

U Religion Vidique, Vol.

p. 183.

The French ie«

reads:

Tnfin

choix que les

moniagncs pour cn tircr c reuvage u dc la montagne supreme. sugg^ri par le myihc du Soma, venu sacrifice, nc Icur avaii il pas nuages du del, 1 187’? IX 87^ c'c$c*^-dirc du cicl cc partieuWrement des Aryas v^diques

faisaienc

d'unc plancc croissani sur

Its

MISCELLANKA before was Sonia so soon abandoned in India, perhaps even RgX'eda? For one thing, the forms were closed on the canon of the awkward, became questions of supply, which must always have been impossible when the Indo-Aryans spread out over all ot India. The

Why

mushroom crop

Hindu Kush and the Himalayas was each \ear Of course for a time the priests could make do with

in the

a fixed quantity.

insufficient fly-agarics (as they

had had

do many times

Element by

of short supply), stretching out the Holy

Sicondform, and by mixing the precious fluid with ever

in seasons

utilizing the

more water

and milk until only a symbol of the Real Presence remained. Possibly

from favour and came under the condemnation of the priesthood, as it seems to have done in some quarters in Iran. The silence among later Indian writers about the true Soma would the Second form

fell

indicate that the decision to

abandon

was deliberate and universal,

and extended even to the discussion of

and

But the

alive in the inner circles of

must have stayed centuries. India

it.

a land

memory

Soma

Brahmans, perhaps

where the incredible sometimes comes

for

true,

should be delighted, but not altogether surprised, to discover

that there are

still

circles privy to the

As the substance of the as the

Sacrifice

knowledge of the true Soma.

became diluted and

finally vanished,

Divine Inebriant was reduced to a fading sacerdotal

memory,

inevitably

more and more emphasis was placed by

efficacy of

pure liturgy, and sacerdotalism proliferated to a point that

the world has never seen equalled.

profoundly cestors

moved by

the priests on the

The Brahmans

of those days,

the legacy they had received from their an-

and not yet possessed of an alphabet,

set up,

and copper-

method of preserxfing by sheer memory the words and melody of the original hymns that would withstand the vicissitudes of lime. Would it be too much to say that the psychotropic mushrooms stirred them to make this supreme effort? With the riveted in place, a

passing of the generations

Soma, the Divine Plant, no longer a part of Hindu experience, became sublimated in later Hindu mythology and took

its

place in the heavenly

firmament

tencron has asked whether the

as the

Moon God.

Dr. Stie-

Soma-Moon equivalence may not

have been suggested by several of the attributes of the fly-agaric 69

its

PART ONE all in

though quicker: rotundity before

appears

CHAPTER

from the egg stage through to its ultimate period comparable with the monthly qxles of the moon,

successive phases as

end.

â&#x20AC;˘

when

its it

passes

pock-marked

face;

its

breaks through the white

the cap

white veil

;

flesh;

its

white

the crescent that

bisected at a certain stage of

its

growth.

people richly endowed with poetic imagination would need only these features to see in the

moon

The sublime adventure of

a transcendental fly-agaric.

religious contemplation, the mystical

experience, which the priestly caste (and perhaps others) of the Indo-

Aryans had known through the mediation of the

fly-agaric,

could

now

only be achieved through regulated austerity and mortification of the flesh,

who had known to the full the bliss that contemmade themselves the masters of these techniques:

and the Hindus,

plation can give,

the price being counted as nothing

compared with the

prize.

XII

AND URINE

MANI. MUSHROOM, we

Possibly

can adduce evidence that will

show

vestiges of the cult

mushroom surviving in esoteric circles under Iranian down to the nth century of the Christian era. The evidence

of the sacred influence is

tenuous but in the light of

suggestive. For the first

time our

fly-agaric thesis trail

corrupt and confusing.

tantalizingly

leads us to China.

the sacred texts of Iran only a part survives,

survives

and much of what

A succession of religions marked

history of ancient Iran - the primitive religion that Zoroaster

took

reform,

Zoroastrianism.

the

under-

Mithraism, Manicharism, some

them preserving features of its predecessors and changing the emphasis, but all of them laying stre.ss on the dualism of this world, the conflict between light and dark, between good and bad. For some years before his conversion to the Christian faith in

others, each of

A. D. 386. St. visited Iran.

chaeans. in

them

Augustine was a follower of Mani, though he never

Immediately thereafter he wrote which there

for eating

his attack

on the Mani-

condemning other delicacies.* The Latin

a passage, seldotn noticed,

mushrooms,

as well as

text reads as follows:

Quid porro insanius

dici

aut cogitari potest,

homincm

boletos,

orizam, tubera, placentas, caroenum, piper, laser, distento ventre

cum

gratulatione ructantem, et quoiidie talia requirentem,

inveniri

quemadmodum

tatis excidisse

a tribus signaculis, id est a regula sancti-

videatur.

Writing to confound the Manichzeans,

who stuff themselves (a class

non

St.

Augustine speaks of those

every day, to gratify their appetites, with

mushroom),

rice (in

Rome

at that

boletos

time an expensive

Augustine. De Moribus Manichaonim ('About the Ways of the Manichxans'). Chap. 13. Para. 30. In imperial Rome boJetiis was the name applied to what we call the genus Amanita, including both the edible and the toxic amanitas. Vide: Miuhwms Russia and Histaiy. Wasson Wasson. New York, 1957, Chap, IV, Mushrooms for Murderers. So great was St. Augustine's inlluence on later churchmen that I think his mycophobic utterance may have had a part in shaping the virulent diatribes against mushroom-eaters of St. Francois de Sales and Jeremy Taylor. Vide our MR&H. pp. 21-2. 353. I. St.

PART ONE luxur)-)» truffles (or

known today

CHAPTER

XII

perhaps underground mushrooms of the genus

as Terfezia,

wine boiled until

•

common

now

North

Africa), fiat cakes,

and silphium

thick, pepper,

teemed, from a plant

sweet

(a spice, highly es-

allegedly extinct), and he asks whether

anyone can suppose that such people do not

lose their standing in

holiness.

Only an ethno-mycologist might remark, on coming

across this

sentence in the great Doctor of the Church, that of the seven cates

down

bringing first

his censure,

of the seven

that he

two belong

to the fungal tribe, that the

the Amanitas to which the fly-agaric belongs, and

writing against the Manichseans, an Iranian religion founded

by Mani about a century

Even an ethno-mycologist could

earlier.

hardly do more than

make a mental note of this; which note, however,

would spring

on reading about the Manichaeans

The and

life

Mani

Iranians introduced the religion of

719,

and during the

rest of the

in China.

into China in A. D. 694

T’ang dynasty and down through

the Sung this Iranian sect of Manichsans played something of a role in the religious life of the Chinese, especially in their

Taoists.*

They won

a victory

when

in A. D. 763

impact on the

they gained as a

convert the Khan of the Uighurs, a powerful Mongolian people.

Much 1209),

later

an unfriendly Chinese

wrote two reports on the

Manichxism

The two

they eat

Pelliot,

The information about

maniM^

and

(A. D. 1125-

and practices of the devotees their evil

ways he

lists

mushrooms:

always the red mushrooms, hung

who edited

could not be expected to

/i5»w

this text, Messrs.

know

that

it is

Traiii the activities of the disciples of Mani in China comes from Vn

Retrouvi en Chinf, traduit

especially 302-5

Lu Yu

Among

distinguished French sinologues

Chavannes and I.

activities

Fukien province.

their practice of eating certain

What

official,

annoti pdr Ed. ChAvannes

tt ?.

310-314, including chc foomoics. This study

PWliW, Paris,

was

first

pp.

published in the Jonnial

Novcmbcr-Deccmber 1911. On p. 304 the French scholars, translating the passage from Antiquity, as wc have said, the St. Augustine, render boUtos by cipes, thereby falling into error. In confuMetus was an amanita and the c^e was the sulKus. the Italian porcittQ. Linnxus created the Greek and Latin words sion: when he was naming the genera and species he resorted 10 the ancient Asiaiique.

but paid not the slightest heed to their ancient meanings.

mani. mushroom, urine Fukien province that there grows an abundance of an widely eaten not edible red mushroom, which is gathered there and mycologists cal only in Fukien province but throughout Uhina. Chinese precisely in

Russula riihra (Kromb.) Bres.. and anyone conversant with the pro-

mushroont of which Lu Yu speaks.

vince

would assume

How

astonishing was this charge of mycophagia. which

that this

against the little sect of

Mani

the

The Chinese know

disciples.

rooms and consume wild species

Lu Yu hurled

in t]uantities.

It is

their

mush-

not as though a

mycophobic Englishman had leveled the heinous accusation against, say, a band of Gypsies. To be guilty of this offense the Manichaeans must have been gluttons for mushrooms, and the local red boot,

and

clearly, since

mushrooms

he was speaking about their religion, the

Were not these mushrooms another substitute for Soma, a substitute more appropriate, in that it was red mtishrcoms, than any known to have been used in India? The second report of Lu Yu, probably submitted in A. D. ii66, is was

practice

a part

of their religion.

just as interesting.

They

[the

Manichxans] consider urine

as a ritual

water and use

for their ablutions.

MM. Chavannes and cow’s urine

known

Pellioc in

observe in a footnote that 'the use of

Brahmanism and, on

certain occasions, in

Mazdaism [Zoroastrianism]; but the context here hardly permits one to think of

rare

eat so

anything except

human

urine,

and analogies are more

Lu Yu goes on to complain that as the Manichteans many Russula mushrooms, the price of mushrooms of the this point’.

Russula kind goes up. For ‘mushrooms’, he here uses the two characters

/i5UM,

cliiiu.

The

first

Chinese character

the

same

used before. for

The second one is the other standard Chinese character mushroom. In the second half of the sentence he repeats the

two characters but

in reverse order:

As they eat fungi mushrooms, therefore mushrooms fungi grow dear. 73

PART ONE

•

CHAPTER

XII

Mani was born in Iran perhaps a millennium or more and

at least 1.500 years after the

composed

in the

Indus Valley.

period

when

after Zoroaster

RgVeda was being

the

anyone takes the attitude

that, be-

cause of the lapse of time, the practices of the Manichaeans are irrele-

vant to

Soma-Haoma-fly-agaric

In a part of the beliefs

showed

world and

thesis,

will not argue

period where religious practices and

in a

marked underlying stability and

esoteric religious circles the ancient practices

modifications for

The

more than

may

religion of Zoroaster

still

seems

human

chance. In

have lived on with

Bombay.

and only the urine of a

bull.'

pertinent to

It is

community

sur\'ives in the

drink urine in their religious

rites,

fectant, a religious or

of Parsis,

my argument that they

though only

token amounts

have already mentioned, throughout

the area that stretches from Iran to India cow’s urine

our

many centuries.

largely centered in still

persistence,

that the use in this Iranian cult of urine, apparently

and of mushrooms, red mushrooms,

urine,

with him.

used as a

disin-

ceremonial disinfectant, paralleling somewhat

West of Holy Water. laid on cows in the RgVeda and on the urine of

historical use in the

much emphasis is

bulls in the religion of the Parsis that the question naturally presents itself

whether cows consume the

affected

it,

fly-agaric

and whether they are

along with their urine and milk.

cannot answer

In early October 1966 with three Japanese friends, visited Sugadaira, in fast train.

Nagano

all

mycologists,*

prefecture, five hours west of

There were many birch

this. I

Tokyo by

trees scattered over the mountains,

and an abundance of fly-agarics growing at their feet. A herd of heifers was grazing in the lush highland pasture, and we took advantage of had in the opportunity to offer them some of the fly-agarics that we our baskets.

Two

of the animals ate

two or three turned away with

them from our hands

indifference.

avidly:

did not carry our

Parsees. 1913. md ed. i937: jamshedji Modi: The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the under 'Gaomez . Nirang Bombay. Vide p. 93 (in the 2nd edition) and other references indexed 1.

Jivanji

and 'Nirangdin'. ,, ,, Soneda, all wc l Masami and imazeki, Rokuya 2. Thc5e friends were Yoshio Kobayashi. c the Meguro Hig mycologisis. We were guests of Shlgcyoshi Iwasa at the lodge of hospitably cared tor by the unfortunately Professor Iwasa could not join us. Wc were most ,

the lodge, Mr. and Mrs. Mikiyoshi Moiai.

^ ^ hosts

‘

MANl. MUSHROOM. URiNK experiment turther,

a.s

owner was una\\ are

the animals were ot fine Frisian breed and the

our

scientific activities.

W'e did not ha\ e an

opportunity to catch the urine of the heifers that had eaten the

fly-

would have eaten many, many more, had we

agarics; besides, they

supplied them.

and again

In 1065

in 1966

tried out the fly-agarics repeatedly

them raw, on empty stomachs. We drank the juice, on empty stomachs. We mixed the juice with milk, and drank the mixture, alwavs on empty stomachs. We felt nauseated and some of us threw up. We felt ourselves.

The

disposed to sleep, and

could not rouse

When

world.

in this state

did not sleep at

not snoring, dead to the outside

once had vivid dreams, but nothing like

took the Psilocybe all.

ate

deep slumber from which shouts

into a

tell

us. lying like logs,

what happened when

where

were disappointing.

results

mushrooms

our experiments

Mexico,

Sugadaira there was

one occasion that differed from the others, one that could be called successful.

Rokuya imazeki took

his

mushrooms with

s/iiVh.

the

delectable soup that the Japanese usually serve with breakfast, and he toasted his rose

mushroom

caps on a fork before an open

fire.

When

from the sleep that came from the mushrooms, he was

in full

For three hours he could not help but speak; he was a com-

elation.

The purport of his remarks was that this was nothing alcoholic state; it was infinitely better, beyond all com-

pulsive speaker. like

the

parison.

did not

know

at the

time why, on

our friend Imazeki was affected in

this

this single occasion,

way.

In the cultural history of Eurasia has the reindeer

the attitude toward certain traits peculiar

played a part

mushrooms and also toward urine, owing to to the reindeer ? The northern forest and tundra

folk live in

an intimacy with the reindeer that is hard for us to imagine, an intimacy that amounts almost to a symbiotic relationship. Reindeer manifest two addictions, two passions, one to urine especially human urine, and the other to mushrooms including the fly-agaric.

human

When

urine or

mushrooms

are in the vicinity, the half-domesticated

become unmanageable. All reindeer folk know of these two addictions (how could they not know about them?), though not all beasts

PART ONE know

that the

mushroom

flv-agaric does not

CHAPTER

â&#x20AC;˘

Xll

addiction embraces the fly-agaric since the

always grow over the areas where reindeer abound.

Reindeer, like men. suffer (or enjoy) profound mental disturbances after eating the flv-agaric. In Part Three

and the Exhibits we

the testimonv of travelers on these points. first

time

in this context, to the

their possible bearing

on the

odd

traits

flv-agaric

now

call attention, for

mav

not the

human

the

of the reindeer because of

complex

in the religious life of

the Siberian peoples. In the give and take of the the reindeer

shall give

human

race have learned

species

from the

and

rein-

deer to esteem urine and the inebriating qualities of the fly-agaric also,

and

finally the

combination of the two?

\'edic times -C(i. B. C. 1500-1000- reindeer

How

conclusive

has been said that in

had not been domesticated.

the evidence for this in northern Siberia?

thought that the ancestors of the Aryans did not latitudes.

There

linguistic evidence that

live in the reindeer

may show

the Indo-Euro-

peans discovered the virtues of the fly-agaric before the Siberian

and

tribes,

are beginning to perceive the extent of the trade relations

that always existed across those vast land expanses of Siberia. In that

heyday of the

fly-agaric cult

may

the Indo-Europeans have mastered

techniques that encouraged cows to eat the resplendent heavenly mushroom? All these questions are speculative and at present unanswerable.

XllI

THE MAR\'HLOUS HERB 1

In the Shiihnameh of Firdousi there is an episode that bears on our quest for the genuine Soma. The Shahnanich (‘Book ot Kings ) is national legends

Iranian history

and

completed

prodigious

his

that interests us

all

work

known

called .Anushirvan ('the Blessed’),

reigned from A. D. 531 to 579.

Whether the episode

embroidered version

what had become

terms are what interest

us,'

sentence in

a legend

recounted

immaterial:

whether true or false. Herds

of the passage pertinent to our inquiry. a

or whether he merely passes on an

as told

have put

and the episode

attributed to the 6th century, at the court of the

by Firdousi took place

to the poet. Firdousi

just after A. D. 1000.

outstanding Sassanid king Khosru

who

a repository ot all

rimed couplets,

the great Persian epic ot 60,000

my summary why

be apparent later

will

italic.

the court of King Khosru there was an outstanding physician,

.At

one Bursoe, an elderly to be versed in every

nun who

loved to talk and

who was

One day he

branch of knowledge.

reputed

presented

himself before the King at the hour of audience and said: ‘O King, friend of learning, you who explore science and who keep it in

memory, today

said therein that as

Byzantine

and

if t/ien

/le

have perused

on a mountain

spreads

guide just

gathers

an Indian book.

grows

It is

a plant brilliant

and mi.xes

cannily.

on a dead man, the dead man recovers the power and forthwith. If the King permits. I am going to it

this difficult quest.

and

in India there

man

satin. If a skillful

of speech without fail

undertake

in a serene spirit

shall

make

use of

all

that

know

hope to accomplish this marvel. It would be only that the dead return to life, since the world has for king I

the

Whereupon the King but perhaps we must try.’

Blessed One.' will be.

replied:

‘It is

not likely that

this

The King added that as Bursoe would probably need a guide he should go amply supplied with gifts for the Indian Rajah. [Later in the story the Rajah i.

Firdousi:

identified as

verses 3^31-3568;

having his capital

Kanauj. the

have relied on ihe French iranslation of Jules Mohl.

its

PART ONE meager

ruins of

which

still

Kanpur, on the Ganges Bursoe set out on Rajah,

far

â&#x20AC;˘

CHAPTER

exist in

XIII

Uttar Pradesh,

fifty

miles from

south of the Himalayas.]

journey and arrived in the presence of the welcomed him and read the letter delivered to him.

who

his

assured Bursoe that

all

Brahmans

the

living in the

mountains

would help him. Bursoe went everywhere in the mountains on foot, and he chose herbs dry and fresh, faded and others in their full glory. After crushing them he spread them over corpses, 'but those herbs did not bring back a single one to

The

rest of the tale,

concern It is

embarrassing predicament, does not

his

us.

noteworthy

(i)

that the

book

that according to the Indian

(2)

of Byzantium;

and

(4)

(3)

book the herb shimmered

that in India Bursoe

The herb grew

was Indian;

that Bursoe had read

in the

like satin

had recourse to the mountains;

was promised Brahmans

that he

his guides. is

which recounts how Bursoe extricated himself

he could from

as well as

life.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

living in the

mountains

for

mountains of India -no other place

we are not do we not hear

mentioned. Bursoe had been reading an Indian book -

told

what one nor when it was

written. In the episode

a clear though fading echo of the

Soma

of the RgVeda, of the marvel-

ous herb that grew high in the mountains and for which the Brahmans alone held the key?

In Indian literature the Puranas contain legends and days,

all

them

religious

and

in verse.

tales of the

olden

different Puranas took

The

their present shape at different times, running

from perhaps the 4th

to the i6th centuries.

story

told in several of the Puranas that

Bursoe episode

in the

Shahnameh. The version

that

may I

bear on the

shall give

from

Scholars

the tell

40-63. Padma Purdna, Part 2, Book 6. Chapter 8, verses A. D. 800 to 1000. us that it assumed its present form between Sanskrit, ma Mount Drona figures in it: 'drona (from dm,

A e

certain

of woodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;)

vessels that

word commonly used in contain Soma. Here the word the

the

RgVeda

for the woodmen

has been transferred to

THE MARVELOUS HERB which the marvelous other receptacle for Soma, the mountain out ot herb grew. waging war Jalandhara was the king of the demons and he was their guru, against the gods. The spiritual preceptor of the demons, named Sukra; he had a magic incantation that he had received was

means of which he revived all the demons as they tell said to in battle. \'isnu. who was leading the army of the gods, Brhaspati, who was the guru of the gods. ‘Sukra has revived all the demons. W’hv do you not revive the gods?' Brhaspati said, 'I will revive the gods with herbs.’ Then Brhaspati went to the great Drona Mountain beside the ocean of milk, and he took the herbs that grew from

Siva by

means of yoga he revived the gods. Seeing this. Jalanto Sukra, ‘How can the gods be revived without your

there and by

dhara said

magic?’ Sukra said, 'There of milk,

atiii

MCiit t/iere Kittle.'

went

herbs

there that revive the liead.

Hearing

this.

and

/icri's

loef' l/ie

ijiiil

to the

grew

a moiinMin ndmed Droui hesuie the ocean

revivejl t/ie

The guru of the gods

gods

who had

fallen in

Jalandhara went to the ocean of milk and he

mountain Drona and beat

with his

fists

until

Drona

T am your slave; protect me.’ Jalandhara then commanded the mountain to go down to the nether world below the earth, and Drona went there; as he went, all the herbs cried out. Then Jalandhasaid,

returned to the battlefield and fought with \’isnu and conquered him. - Tnnis/iifeil by \\VH*ly Doniger 0‘Flaherty. ra

In the Sanskrit text the

often used

for.

Soma

word

in the

brilliant

and shone

herb

osadhi,

one of the terms

RgVeda. In Sanskrit there was

convention that precious herbs

were

for

(05<id/ii)

lamps

grew on the Himalayas. They night. There are hundreds of

such references, of which perhaps the most famous KitMidrrtStunl'luiva

Where

am mJebieJ

Kalidasa’s

who

lie

there with their

lo Professor Daniel

glow into the caves of mistresses, lamps of the

(osadlii) cast their

love-chamber that need no 1

to;

the magic herbs

mountaineers

a poetic

oil.*

H. H.

Ingalls for this reference.

He also supplied me with a which may go back to a Prakrit original: ‘On the sno«7 mountains grows the mape herb, but the snake is on your head.’ (Snowy mountains = Himalayas) Vide translation by D. H. H. Ingalls: .4 n .tnthoJogy cf Sanskrit Court pMry. Harvard Oriental Scries 44. verse 791 also

Sanskrit proverb,

td^m p. 522 for furiher references lo the proverb.

;

PART ONE

An Chinese know the ling chih

CHAPTER

•

XIII

a conception that goes

Chinese cultural history for thousands of years; just

how

back

far

back

in is

the question at issue here.

The

ling chih

symbol of happy augur)% bespeaking good

good health, longevity, even the phrase

immortality’.

translated

with the immortals. Conventionally

life

fungus -or

‘the divine

The ‘marvelous

fortune,

herb’

would be

or again the ‘herb of spiritual potency’.

mushroom -of

a simpler rendering,

one of that large family of Chinese expressions drawn from nature - animals, plants, mounIt is

- which seem to have constituted in a sense the

tains, clouds, etc.

The Chinese would

furniture of ever)^ Chinese mind.

distill

from the

chosen objects a conventional meaning, and thereafter the objects

were used

and

in literature

convey

art to

this

meaning,

like pic-

tographs. At an early date the Taoists captured the concept of a divine

mushroom

of immortality, and they exploited

in their writings in the first

until the original idea

was

millennium of our era and even

lost in a

Beginning with the Yiian Dynasty

been endlessly represented

lady’s

combs, perfume

found an outlet. versation. For

has

enough

to publish

will

(A. D. 1280-1368) the ling c/u7i has

in paintings, carvings in jade

bottles, in short

wherever the

known

has passed

ling chih

in the cultural history of China,

and

notes on these, looking to the time for

urge

artistic

a cliche in newspapers, novels, con-

become

and

designs, balustrades, jewelry,

two thousand years the idea of the

through various phases

someday

in art

later,

welter of imaginary divagations.

and carpet

deer’s antlers, furniture

fantastically

someone

hope

when

to write the biography of the

miraculous fungal idea.

now

ling chih as

Vide.

t. g..

students of Chinese culture have always regarded the

indigenous to China.'

Michael Sullivan: The

Birih

San Francisco and Los Angeles, 1962. p. index)

shall suggest that

came from

Prw the ling chih (vide references m his 52. Sullivan’s discussion of of Landscape Painting

China. University of alifomia

Granct. Ld Pensie the best that has appeared in recent times. Also. Marcel

1934, 'L'art

India

longue vic\ pp. 507

inoise,

ans,

THI-:

MAR\ KLOUS HKRB

Soma, the miraculous mushroom oi reached (..hina, tound the Ri;\eda. Certainly the fungal idea, once it literary’ ronection of

and was a

there fertile

soil;

'elixir

of immortality has

hemused many

peoples,

seem

such as the West Europeans in the i6th century, but the Chinese to

have been singularlv susceptible to

always

this will-o -the-wisp,

hoping to come upon a plant or mineral or juice that would prolong

and longevity. The novelty of the

virility

was

ntushroom. and

.\lfred

this

ling

cliilt

precisely that

our story.

India’s contribution to

in his .Aiu/er aiui Tongue' has called attention to the

Salmonv

accumulating evidence of the influence of India on the China ot the Late Eastern Chou, from the -ih to the 3rd centuries

pointed out that the influence could be solely the Chinese ‘heard

tell’

Needham Salmony

calls

number

them. This

what

‘stimulus dilYusion’.*

cites a

has

whereby

i.e..

of practices elsewhere and under the stimulus

reports sought to duplicate

of such

‘literary’,

B. C.

would

what Joseph

call ‘idea dilTusion’.

of examples and supplies the bibliographical

To this list I now pioposc to add the /iMg chili. First a word as to the vocabulary tor the divine, the miraculous, mushroom. This assumed such importance in Chinese culture that references.

alternative expressions evolved.

often called the ‘miraculous

With Chinese culture the idea Korea and Japan, where however it has tended to be conor'auspicious herb’,

c/n'/i’.

spread to

fined to the literate

and

intellectual classes. Ling

with the same Chinese characters, becomes the customary way. But

c/n/i

rei.dti,

more widely used than

in Japan, written

the

yielding to

reishi

today

r in

is fniui-

uenttdv

'ten-thousand-year mushroom’. Scholars say that in the archaic stage of Chinese culture the character for chili was

written

a pictograph of ‘herb’, a small plant that

In Japanese this in contexts

‘lawn’.

ling

meant

(A. D. 618-906),

current:

still

c/ii/i.

this in

when

where

pronounced spoken Chinese

c/ii/i

appears

and means

in the early

the Japanese probably

T’ang

borrowed the

Salmony; ‘Antler and Tongue, an essay on ancient Chinese s)mbolism and Arftbui Asia, Ascona, SwiizerUnd, 1954. pp. 51-51.

.•Ufred

lions*, 2.

other than

Presumably

Dynasty 1.

meaning

was not woody.

Joseph Needham: Science

dn.J

Cmfic«ion

in China.

pp. 144-143.

Cambridge University

Press

its

\’ol

implica

io6i

PART ONE word. But

c/ii/i

in the religious

The

tions.'

early

mushroom,

us in a recension dating Christ),

P/eiirotus ostreatus (Fr.)

known

edible

in recent

familiar throughout the

erh

temperate zone to those versed

his func-

meaning an

gloss this as

probably what

»m

the tree-ear,

food of the emperor, thus figuring

commentators trees,

Classics' of

ceremonies that were an important part of

mushroom growing on centuries

had already had

one of the 'Thirteen

Li Chi,

listed as a ritual

XIII

sense of 'mushroom’

in the specific

long history in China. In the China,

CHAPTER

•

mushroom

lore as the oyster

The Li Chi comes down to Han (the two centuries before

Quel.

from the early

but the contents are supposed to have been assembled

in the

Chou

period,

from the -th

Though

c/n7i in

the sense of ‘mushroom’ seems already to have

late

been

to the 3rd centuries B. C.

familiar, the idea of ling chih, a supernatural

miraculous powers, appears

first in

the Ch’in Dynasty

under the great Emperor Shih-huang. ‘First

mushroom

who assumed

(B. C.

the

who

unified

Wall

all

China for the

keep the barbarians out. Until

word about inscriptions

who built reign we find

time and

first

his

221-207)

of the

title

Emperor’, by which he has always been known, for

with

was he

the Chinese

not a single

the marvelous plant: no mention in the Classics, in the

on the bronze

vessels,

on the oracle bones. There are no

callings in jade or deer’s antlers, no representations in pottety or

jewelry, on halberds or belt buckles. If the conception had existed,

must assume an implausible

conspirac)- of silence in this singularly

articulate people concerning an idea that

prompts thousands of

tongues to wag.

Then, suddenly, there but only

talk.

a burst of talk

People busy themselves looking for

The great the source of most of our

mountains, but no one finds (B. C. 145- ’87) is this.

about the wonder fungus,

it.

There are many passages

it,

especially in the

historian

Ssu-ma Chien

reliable information

in his account of

Shih-huang

reign

between the Emperor and his necromancers: a magiwas searching cal herb (‘c/uTi’) existed, but where was it? Evetyone where the but it was nowhere to be found. Matters reached a point telling of talks

Chi,

Chap.

12.

Pi-ATi; XIV

.mJ Plate xv

•

T\vin-le.ifed

Ling Chih from above and from below.

(Ctfflecfion R.

G. U’d.wH)

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

THE MARVELOUS HERB disguise, go into the mountains alone, and in surprise it! We your might he perhaps and tip-toe, on obscurely, of the miraculous servants are trying to find dii/i. It is one to

Emperor was advised humble

upon easily.’ This is the medicines that even the gods cannot come Lu-sheng. one of the manner in which the Emperor is addressed by sages

who was giving advice.' The Emperor

has been told of a marvel-

find it, gets only evasi\e ous plant and, asking his necromancers to reports of its proanswers. They believe (or pretend to believe) the perties,

but have no idea what to look

humanity’,

again

Addressing the ‘master of

clearly believed the reports, they

who

their ignorance

for.

do not dare confess

telling the truth.

read that Shih-huang sends vessels into the Eastern

coast and far Sea to seek the mysterious fungus on islands off the have away.* One sage (or necromancer, or shaman), Hsii Fu, seems to rallied

hundreds of youths of both sexes to embark

have sailed away to the Southeast.

The

w’ith

him and

reports of this voyage are

numerous. According to one account, they never returned, but Ssu-ma Ch’ien tells us that Hsu Fu came back and reported falsely about as follows; ‘Your

servants sailed east and southward and reached

humble

P’eng-lai [allegedly

one of the three godly islands in the

your humble servants saw palaces

made

take

sea route;

The 1.

take

futile

Soma had reached

that the reports placed

the

Emperor by the

with China via Korea,

high in the

moun-

in the reign of

biography of Shih-huang.

chi

America must face these texts in the Orientals had reached as late as the

deliberate tran$*Pacific contacts with

Chin Dynasty. Contacts by were staggering

Soma

Soma probably reached China

considering the stage of development in navigation that

nium

were so

excursions into the mountains to find the plant.

reports about

From Ssu«nia Ch*icn: The proponents of early

ficulties

palaces

hence the voyages to establish contact with the source of

hence the

first

The

heavens.’’

that the reports of

information. tains;

up the

lit

There

of c/ii/i. There were servants,

copper in colour and dragon in appearance. bright that they

Seas].

sea

between India and China involved only plane

sailing,

but the

dif*

The Japanese had hardly established contacts Pacific. As late as the middle of the first millcn*

for the people of those times.

much

less

the islands of the

from Kyushu

Shantung were formidable adventures, exceedingly perilous. 3.0p.df.,Vol.n8,'The Biographies of Princes Huai-nan and HSng*shan* quotation from the biography of Prince Huat-nan, a grandson of the first Han emperor. A. D. voyages

PART ONE

•

Shih-huang-ti, but possibly they

Huang being

the

CHAPTER came

XIII

few decades

earlier,

Shih

to pursue the matter. In any case in China the

first

conception of the miraculous

c/ii/i

probably does not antedate the 3rd

century B.C.

Ssu-ma early

Ch’ien, the father of Chinese history, lived in the reign of the

Han Emperor

(B.C. 157-87), about a century after Shih-

huang. Contemporar)’ with Ssu-ma Ch’ien there was a famous gentleman-in-waiting at court by

man renowned a

work

name Tung-fang Shuo

for his ready wit. In the Taoist

attributed to him, the

S/ii/j c/ioit

chi

canon there survives

Ten

‘Notes on

Continents’, that gives another account of the voyage of Hsii Fu.

Scholars say that the attribution to Tung-fang Shuo ous,

and that the

S/ii/i

c/iou chi

a product of the second half of the sensit lato

taken from the

first

later. In short

millennium, therefore con-

S/ii/i c/icit

already quoted. In the following excerpt

c/n'

we have

underlined phrases that will

strike a familiar chord:

The

isle

of Tsu

situated close by, in the Eastern Sea. There grows

a never-dying plant,

four

cli’i/i

shaped

[feet] in length.

immediately w/ien

diis

like water-grass,

A man

plant

laid

with blades three to

wlio has been dead three days revives

lti»i.

When

it is

eaten

In the time of Shih-huang-ti of the Ch'in dynasty,

life.

prolongs

when mur-

the dered people lay broadcast in the ‘great preserve and across this plant in their roads, birds resembling crows or ravens appeared with that they sat and placed it on the faces of those corpses, with the effect bills,

up immediately, and

revived.

this Shih-huang-ti sent

this to the

Emperor.

out an envoy with a sample of

this plant

The

officers

reported

who interrogated the doctor of the Spectre Valley, and he [ 'is [ts'^ie]’. thus spoke the sage, lived near the north wall. 'This herb in the Eastern Ocean, the herb of immortality of the Tsu island

ts’tit*]

de Gmo.: Tk, ol .hi, epi,ode i, given by J. J. M. s iranslaiion except Uiden, Vol. iv, pp. 307-8. I have followed de Groot emended 11. on the advice of my Chinese friends I have

The Chine,,

it is

with Bursoe’s journey and with the Padma

we have

Puratm from which

certainly spuri-

could not have been written before the

4th or 5th centuries and probably several centuries

temporaneous

™ mac

THE MAR\'ELOUS HERB where

grows

in a red

marble

[spirit]. Its

feeds the slien

leaves

suffices to give life to a

man.’

enthusiasm spoke: ‘Can

both sexes,

which

c/ii/«

and one

stalk

grow

luxuriantly,

these

words Shih-huang-ti with

be fetched from there?’

one Hsii Fu, with

the island but they never

came

Here then we have three

The

call

And he

sent an

hundred young people of command of a ship with decks. They put to sea to seek

island,

envoy to the

Some

field.

five

back.

tales that

intermesh

Iranian version conveys a clear echo of the

an odd manner.

Soma

of the RgVeda.

There has been added to the marvelous herb one fabulous property: identical miit revives the dead. In the Indian tale an herb with the raculous virtue grows on

echoing the

word

tale

hundred years

makes

tale the

the dead to

one told by Ssu-ma Ch’ien perhaps

earlier

about the

First

and the

idea,

believe,

six

same

rise.

This

or seven

Emperor, Shih-huang, and

Here

fungus or mushroom with miraailous properties. idea diffusion,

of this mountain

Chinese revision of the Hsu Fu

attributed to an herb:

a variant of

name

the

RgX’eda that designates the receptacle for the

in the

juice of Soma. In the late

fabulous virtue

Mount Drona,

had

its

an example of

source in the

Soma

The marx^elous fungus of the Chinese, first appearing in the reign of Shih Huang-ti, must today be viewed in the light of Sino-Indian contacts and the evidence that Soma was a mushroom. the RgVeda.

The

next chapter in the history of the ling

109, a

century after the time of the

Dynasty

(B. C.

the throne.

206

A. D. 220)

The sources

for

now

c/n/i

takes place in B. C.

Emperor Shih-huang. The Han

rules

China and Wu-ti occupies

our information about the episode that

am going to relate are the same Ssu-ma Ch’ien whom we have already quoted and who was contemporary with the later event, and Pan Ku (A. D. 32-92), the chronicler

of the

Han Dynasty and

also a reliable

historian. In the imperial Kan-ch’iian palace building operations

been under way

in the first half of the year.

Then, in

late

had

summer

(probably August), in an inner pavilion of the palace, there appeared a fungal plant, a marvelous growth with nine paired ‘leaves’. The

Emperor

made

the most of the event. 85

identified the plant

PART ONE with the famous not locate.

chili

CHAPTER

â&#x20AC;˘

that Shih-huang

issued an edict

and

XIII his

necromancers could

and exclaimed that even the inner

chambers of the palace were not discriminated against. He proclaimed an amnesty of prisoners, served beef and wine to a hundred families, and composed an ode for the occasion, the

poem

earliest

about a

mushroom (but far from the last and far from the best) that comes down to us in Chinese history. Pan Ku has preser\'ed it for us:

secluded dwelling produces an herb.

Nine stems with twin leaves

The

palace pages busy themselves with

this

They

miracle; lay out pictures

and consult

records!

The

essence of the Mysterious Breath,

There

it is,

returned again to

this

residence,

Day

after

day

This

c/iih,

which unfolds

this

superb growth, its

beauties

most marvelously!

Under the Emperor

taxes

were levied harshly

meet

his

needs

and grumbling was widespread. He was hardly popular and perhaps he seized on the unusual appearance of a fungal growth inside the palace chambers as a public relations ploy, bestowing on this plant the

name

chili

to turn in his favor

its

good name and

prestige.

The

day by every'one familiar with Chinese history, somewhat like the vase of Clovis in French history and King Alfred and the pancakes in English history. The ode is No. 13 in the episode

known

to this

nineteen ritual odes that were sung to music on the seasonal occasions

of the Chinese year.

last

of Shih-huang-ti had found an identity, had retained to this day. Naturally this fungus

the unidentified

an identity that

has

nothing to do with

its

clii/i

had never Indian precursor, which Shih-huang 86

THE MARVELOUS HERB is safe to succeeded in locating in the mountains of China. I think it B. C. assume that the plant found growing in the imperial palace in

109

/iicidum (Leyss.) Karst., the

was

been represented

Fig.

without

species that has

Oriental art -Chinese. Japanese. Korean - time

Gdnodtrma

number

fication of the

same

Normal and abnormal

in recent centuries.

The

shapes.

definitive scientific identi-

fungus pictured in Chinese paintings since the Yuan

Dynasty was made by two Japanese mycologists, by Iwao Hino in 1937 and by Rokuya Imazeki in 1934 and 1939.'

May

Rokuya Imazeki: NuimmI Sdaue and Museums. 1934. No. 61, pp. n-15. ‘Good Omen Plant. Mannmufce also BHlletin a/iJie Teir>‘« Sri«ice Mtueum, March 1939, No. i, ‘Studies on Ganoderma of Nippon'. I wao Hino (Miyazaki): Botany and Zoology. May 1937. Vol. No. I.

that

grow

Europe and America:

'Roshi and GanoJenna Juridum

their Differences’. (All arc in Japanese,

with English summary.)

PART ONE Giiuoderma lucuitim

widely but

CHAPTER

woody fungus,

temperate zone.

in the

we have never made anything

stunning beauty, with ot

•

strange pileus,

its

it.

Europe and America,

In appearance

odd stem. Those unversed

often refuse to believe that the high polish of this

been

artificially applied.

There

But

peculiar virtue

its

the normal form, and there

example

poem by

Japanese

use of

this

day.

The Chinese character

ha.)

We know

ward

it is

has not

protean.

(or ‘pileus’) it

in Plates xiv

can give

and

always the

rise to

xv. {Vide supra,

mushroom w'as a sur\’ived down to our own

Wu-ti. In classic Chinese the pileus of a

and

‘leaf’

we show

that

attached to the stem (or ‘stipe’) eccentrically, and ‘paired leaves’ of Wu-ti, as

mushroom

grows under abnormal

The cap

in the dark.

matters

in these

the endless variety of other

shapes and consistencies that it assumes when conditions, as for

can be of

rich lacquer-like finish, the concentric lines

its

therefore inedible, that grows

see

Xlll

‘leaf’

has

Chinese reading yeh, Japanese

had been building operations going

that there

the Imperial Palace earlier in the year. This

for-

precisely

new wood was not seasoned and the grow’th made its the obscurity’ of the secluded chambers. The nine

the condition that might produce an abnormal chih inside the structure: the

appearance

‘double-leaves’

would be

a rare curiosity,

but

it is

certainly not at

all

unbelievable.

Pan ode

Han Emperors, composed

Ku. the chronicler of the to the ling

chili,

more than

a century after the

attentive reader will have noted that until

an ancient source for the c/ii/i

alone, or Is’ao

name

plant’. In the last line of the is c/iili

nation of three characters -

and

‘shaman’.

Combined

used either

chih

it is

first

made up by

in a single character,

the

character

the combi-

(three mouths) pra)ingfor

‘rain’;

Emperor

Ling has a long and compli-

ling

potency, a stirring of the soul. Pan the two concepts that the

The

ling chih. Ever)’one has

start with,

fifg,

now w’e have never quoted

Emperor Wu’s poem,

the next to the last

cated histor)' in Chinese.

Emperor Wu

‘plant chih’, or chih

c/n/i

a second

in his

they

mean spiritual

ode joined

ling

and

c/n7i.

had associated together

Plate xvi A. D.

NOIN ULA TEXTILE

(/tere 5/wu-?i

two parts),

From Mongolian tomb. Contemporary connoisseurs of Chinese

that the enigmatic plant tosvard

which the birds arc leaning

isx

century

arc suggest

Ling Chih, the

fjbulous Fungus of Immortalicy. (CoiirlÂŤy of the Hermitage Museum. Uningrad)

•

? K'

-*.

^^pii

•;

l^ ft.

•

B'l

PArM

‘V

THE MARVELOUS HERB the

same

common

verse, thus

minting the phrase that ever since has been

currency. Here

Pan Ku's ode: ling chih grows with the settling

dew,

The

sign of the three virtues,

omen's picture It

happy

fulfilled.

prolongs lives and glorifies the capital.

accompanies the Emperor on high,

Image of the Sky! Image of the sun and the moon, throws out bursts of

light!

The three Virtues of the Universe are the Heavens, the Earth, and Man. The pictures of happy omens were mythical documents from heaven depicting auspicious marvels such the dragon, and the ling

ciii/i.

Was

as the unicorn, the

phoenix,

not Pan Ku's ode intended to be

used as an alternative to Wu-ti’s in the liturgical year?

Lately the

art historians

development

have provided us with an unexpected

in the history of ling c/n7 i.

Russian archaeological

some remarkable artefacts in tombs now Mongolia. They date from the first century

expedition in 1924-5 unearthed at

Noin Ula

what is

Among the finds was a and xvii.' A single motif is

A. D., perhaps the early part of the century. silk textile,

reproduced in our Plates xvi

repeated several times.

consists of

two rocky

crags, a bird

perched

on each of the crags leaning down and outward, a graceful tree between the crags, and outside the crags, a plant with nine stalks terminating in

what Michael

The

Sullivan calls a ‘poached-egg’ design.

The

birds are so

and best dcKription in English of the Noin Ula finds as a whole was that of W. Perceval Yetu: Discoveries of the Kozlov Expedition’, Burlingnm Magd^'ne, April 1926. t66-i76. The I.

first

pp.

textile that interests us

Painting in

Cfiiruj,

was discussed

pp. 52-53 and

reproductions of bos

reliefs

some length by Michael

Sullivan: The Birth of

Undscape

other references to ling cluh in his index, with numerous representing the fungus. William Willetts: Chinese Art. London and PI. 35;

New

York. 1958. also accepts the identification, pp. 290-29Z. The Noin Ula textile hangs in the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, where the Museum authorities graciously photographed it for me.

PART ONE

CHAPTER

•

Xlll

placed that they are about to reach the ‘poached eggs’. Perceval Yetts in his description

of this textile refers to the plant as a ‘clumsv fungoid

form’. Sullivan has identified

Fig. 2.

From

SafcifcusJ-ko

with

(‘An Inquiry into the

Emperor

luci.ium

stems back

Happy Herb

parallel

by Suigetsu Kan-o^

of China discovered growing in the

in either

East and he suggests a derivation from at Ajanta dating from the

silhouette.

The

for the treatment of the rocky crags

Cave X

Sullivan sees

of inspiration for this representation that the almost 2.000 years to the specimen inner pavilion of his palace.

essay published in 1850 in Japan.

Gancde^ma

iiiig c/n7i.

Here

origin for the ling

independent

c/tili

Han China

or the Near

India, the wall painting

similar century B.C. showing a Indian support for my thesis of an first

notion.

L-*/-

v/r'l

k:?*'

tcil

^si3

•2L'> t.

'»tas PwC

ri:^ ••V-f'

«'.

Plate

xviii

Province. are

•

Rubbing of

Han Dynasty

The two hags with pendulous

Stone Carving. Found in Szechwan breasts, having

wings on their arms,

assumed to be Immortals. They are playing the board game, popular

that time,

known

art critics

today interpret as a

as li«-po.

Behind the figure on the right there

what Chinese

Han Dynasty conception of the Ling Chih,

fabled ‘Marvelous Herb’ or ’Divine Fungus of Immortality'. (Courtesy of Rolf Stein, Esq.)

the

• .

:^r*

^>11

•kM .r-

•

^fl

if »j*r-

Ilf'

K'a/

'IV

»« .#*

i»

•*«

»>•

•>

4^. » #

'n\

ri '••

%«>

•.

kh-

'/i

/I?nvV>

(>.

^,. x.x

M..id

<.f

kf. hand .he carries

and .he one

H<m<.ur a

vase

..h

«.

In her attcndmg .he Hcuenly Emperor. .he normal one tss (. of its shapes,

L.nc Cm...

coral branches. .ha. suggests deer’s antlers or

aintc

•

THE MARVELOUS HERB I

suggest that the fungal

Emperor Wu’s

form was the

artist’s effort to

with nine twin-leaves,

c/u7i

his

embody

knowledge of

the

being

the later Han, came more than only literary. (The textile, dating from reign.) And if India inspired the Wu-ti's in event the after century a the fungoid forms re-enact crags, perhaps the birds reaching down to the familiar Indian legend of the rape of celestial

Noin Ula

top.' Since the

mountain

assembled a number of

Soma by

from

finds art historians

representing the

reliefs

a falcon

have

same convention-

and the stalks or stems that support we show one of these, also having nine stems

alized motif, the ‘poached eggs’,

them. In Plate

xviii

or stipes.

If I

right,

see the genesis of the ling

chili

in the reign of Shih

when on the strength of verbal reports from India about a miraculous mushroom he sent his necromancers looking for it here Huang-ti,

there and everywhere in the mountains.

mushroom on

identity of this elusive its

fortuitous appearance in an inner

ling that he

was

see Wu-ti fixing the

Gunodertna lucidum thanks to

chamber of his palace -

successful in foisting

on the Chinese people.

change-

artists in

the later Han, obviously unfamiliar xvith the fungus

depicting

from verbal reports

see

itself,

a fungus every whit as fabulous as the

phoenix, the dragon, and the unicorn. If

failed to

ment

in this

make good my

case for the fly-agaric as

chapter has no base.

submit the probabilities favour Soma idea of a divine

mushroom

Soma was

as the inspiration for the

first

millennium of our era

Firdousi, the Mahdbhdrata, the Puranas, Kalidasa

when Wu-ti

Chinese

will

certain:

and the other poets

to that. In these centuries the Chinese picked

but only by hearsay. that

the fly-agaric, then

of immortality. That the idea lived on in

Iran and India well into the

all testify

Soma, the argu-

up the idea

not have escaped the perceptive reader

joined in a single verse the hug and the

c/n7i,

and

thus took a vital step in fathering on a certain fungus the vibrant I.

The

birds in ihc textile are probably the demoiselle crane,

China to Spain. This was the guess of Roger Tory Peterson

whose

when we

distribution extends visited

him

in his

from

home

Old Lyme, Conn., at Christmastide 1966. The legs are those of a wader. The black wing feathen and crest complete the identification. But of course the artist may not have considered

the species

of bird important, so long as

was big and spectacular.

PART ONE name

•

CHAPTER

XIII

of the Marvelous Herb, he chose one that, in addition to other

remarkable properties, was deep red

in colour

and that shimmered

The strange convolutions of its pileus suggested to Chinese mind the cumulus where the Immortals dwell, and thus

a satin of By^ance.

the

in the course of

which,

time there came about an

artistic

the Yiian Dynasty and later, the painters

convention by

made the clouds of

Herb of Immortality resemble each other extreme cases, it is hard to tell them apart.

the Celestial plane and the to a point where, in

have advanced one step toward

rasia for a religious origin

centres this

United Field throughout Eu-

underlying the supernatural folklore that

we will carry But meanwhile we invite our

on an hallucinogenic mushroom.

argument

into northern Eurasia.

In Part Three

readers to divert their attention to Dr. O’ Flaherty’s account of the

post-Vedic history of the

draw from her

Soma

question.

The

narrative about the futility of

lesson that one

humbling.

much

must

scholarship

Plate xx Painted by

â&#x20AC;¢

Chinese Sage Contemplating Ling Chih.

Chen Hung-shou (1559-1652).

(Courlesy of

Wango

VVeng. Esq.)

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

PART TWO THE POST-VEDIC HISTORY OF THE SOMA PLANT by

Wendy Douiger Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Fhherty

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

history ot is, properly, the Soma he Soma sacrifice was the local point \ eclic studies in general, as the history of the search for

of the \'edic religion. Indeed,

one accepts the point

view

through whole of Indian mystical practice from the L'pimis.i.ls reis merely an attempt to the more mechanical methods of yoga then the nature ot that capture the vision granted by the Soma plant, whole ot Indian religion, and vision - and of that plant - underlies the that the

everything of a mystical nature within that religion

pertinent to the

identity of the plant. In place of such

an all-inclusive study, the present essay attempts to

summarize what has been written since \ edic times about the physical nature of the Soma plant and the substitutes for Soma. I have worked in the

Bodleian Library and the Indian Institute at Oxford, the India

Office in

London, and the

Museum, and

British

of necessity

have

omitted the contributions of Indian scholars whose works are not available in those collections. Furthermore,

with the

Haoma

identification of

the study of

of the Avesta, since the

Haoma

has been

have dealt summarily

work done on

subsumed

for the

the botanical

most part under

Soma.

THE

BR.AHM.-INMS

AND THE

SR.ALTA-SC'TRAS

After the era of the Vedas there came a period when the centre of intellectual activity

moved from

Ganges and the Yamuna.

the valley of the Indus to the upper

spate of works, the direct outgrowth of

the Vedas and preserving ancient traditions, arose as a kind of corpus of ritual textbooks.

prose works dating

Surd sort -

- or

rice

them

These are the

lengthy,

Brulnntiiuis.

B.C.

wine or fermented liquor or beer or even

else to refer to alcoholic drinks in general.

say clearly that

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Soma

generally believed to have been an alcoholic drink of

wine or

spirits'

from about 800

many

Soma was

not

truth, prosperity, light;

Monicr-Williams* dictionary gives

'distilled

strong that the distilling process was not ^diaparlia firdijmanj,

Chowkhamba

The

siini.

and

siira

Brd/iiiiuiifls

untruth, misery, darkness.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;*

in India until a

edition. 5.1.1.10.

distilled

^atapatlia Bnlhimimi declares:

liquor as a primary

known

The

some

meaning of swrj, but evidence

much

later era.

TWO CHAPTER

PART The

Taittiriyn

two make

Brdhmana

a pair.’’

says,

'Soma

The sharp

rule out the possibility that

drink, and

•

male and surd

distinction

made by

female; the

the text seems to

Soma was simply another kind of alcoholic

would seem probable

that surd

embraced

all

the ferment-

ed drinks that rated mention in the RgVeda.

The

tutes for caste,

much

Brii/imanas are

preoccupied with the question of

Soma. They are books of ritual composed

and

in places they

seem

substi-

for the sacerdotal

to be deliberately obscure. If the priests

knew what Soma was, they never stated it clearly, and their references to the Soma plant are ultimately of little help in establishing its botanical identity. It may be assumed that Soma was none of the plants expressly suggested as substitutes for it, though of course it may have resembled any of them in some particular and probably did so. But

it is

draw any sure conception from

difficult to

bear

hints, for the substitutes often

little

these negative

resemblance to each other,

including as they do grasses, flowers, creepers, and even

The

^atapatha Brdhmana sets forth an order in which substitutes

should be used.

which

may

First

comes the reddish-brown

be used because

the bright red

(lo/iita)

it is

similar to

Soma was once

carried

{arund) phdlguna plant,

Soma {somasya nyaiiga), but

must not be

phdlgiina plant

used. If phdlgiina

may serve, for there is a tradition

unavailable, then the syenahrta plant that

trees.

away by

a falcon,

and

a stalk (amisu)

from the sky and became the syenahrta plant. The third choice is the the addra plant, which sprang from the liquor that flowed from the brown sacrificial animal when it was decapitated. Fourth comes fell

ddrvd grass, which

similar to

Soma, and

kiik grass. This being least satisfactory, a

last

choice

cow must be

yellow

given in

atonement.*

The Tdndya Brdhmana

says that the putika

the plant which

grew

through from a leaf (or feather, partid) that fell when Soma was carried substitute.’ In his comthe air, and that it is therefore a suitable

mentary on

this

Taiitinya Brahmana,

work, Sayana

Anand3§rama

says, 'If

edition, t.yyi.

z.^atapatha Brdhmana, 4.5.10.2-6, 3.

Tdndya Brdhmana, Bibliotheca Indica edition,

they cannot obtain the

Soma

the ‘BRAHMANAS’ and the ‘SRAUTA-SUTRAS’ whose

characteristics arc described

i[i

the sacred text, then they

use the species of creeper (hitd) which

cannot find

known

triKhii)

then they

piitifcd,

may

as pnlif'ii, if thej

known

use the dark grass

Yet another cetiological

as arjiimini.'^

ma)

(sytiinii/tini

myth

used to

fig or explain the substitution of the fruit of the nyugrod/iu (sacred banyan tree): the gods once tilted over their Soma cups, and the

nyrtgrodlni tree

even

when Soma

the

and

di1rv(i

more by

said that

one should use the j nice of the

iiyiigred/w

its

spilt drops.*

to drink.^

fcusu grasses,

virtue of

Soma

the

available,

non-Brahmans

fruit for

it is

grew from the

own

It is

Elsewhere

probable that

was accepted

this fruit, like

as a substitute for

Soma

sacred nature than for any resemblance to

plant.

Various other substitutes for Soma appear in the BrJ/uHdfKJS sydmaka :

(cultivated millet, said .

all

the

plants),'* nnoyti

and parna

grass),*

by the

Br<j/n»uJMrt to

grass (sacred in itselO.

(a sacred tree).*

be most

ktiltnirt

modern

as 5.

do the

Soma

fragrant

The European lexicographers -

Wilson, Roth, Monier-Williams - struggle to identify in

all

these plants

botanical terms but often arrive at conflicting conclusions, Brd/nurtMUS themselves.

Certain pertinent facts emerge,

however, from the Brahmanic literature: 1.

Red

The colour red is

consistently associated with the

the colour of the nyagrodha flower; the colour of the phillgutui

plant;’ the colour of the acceptable ditrvd grass;®

of the 2

cow used

There

in the

Brdhmana,

9.5.3.

Haug

3 tCdtydyana ^rautasutra,

4 iatapatha Brdhmana, -

C/.

edition, 7.5.30.

Albrecht Weber, cd., Berlin, 1859, verse 7.8.13.

5. 3. 3.4.

Hemacandra, Abhidhanadnldmani,

Cf. Kausitaki

between the identity of Soma and the For Soma one must look to the RgVeda;

a clear distinction

Tdndya Brdhmana,

. Aitareya

and even the colour

purchase of Soma.®

identity of the substitutes.

Soma substitute.

BdhtUngk and Roih. Brdhmana, Ananda&rama edition, 2.2. and cd.

Sc.

Peicrsburg, 1849, 1191-1192.

BrJhmdita, 6.6. 3.7,

H. H. Wilson: Sanserif Dictionary, 1832, defines phJiguna as *a red plane, Arjunana pentaptcra/ 8 Rudolph von Roth, in his 1881 article in the Zcitschhft dcr IVHisc/icn AlorgenWnJisciicn Cfstllschaji, 7.

Ober den Soma', identiHcd the red diSni grass with the Cynedan dactyhn which the Indians used, according to Roxburgh, to make a drink, 'a very cheap kind of Soma* (einc sehr Wiige Soma), as Roth remarked. 9. Taieririya SamFiitd,

Keith edition, 6,1.6; Satapatha Bralimuna, 3.3.1.15.

PART

TWO CHAPTER •

tor the substitutes, the BrJ/nfuinoi are the earliest sources of importance. but they contain

evidential value.

Thev •

nature of the

Soma

and

are concerned with the ritual and svmbolic ^

plant, not with

its

botanical identit}'.

WORKS

L.\TER SANSKRIT

II.

The

no passages about the authentic Soma of sure

writers of the post-Brahmanic period. Sanskrit lexicographers

commentators, continued to dwell upon

\'edic

of plants that seized as Soma, but most of

one thing: that Soma was a creeper

(vtilli

a multiplicity

them agreed upon only kitd).

Yet nowhere in the

Soma being there considered an herb Amara Simha, the earliest of the Indian

Rg\’eda do these terms appear. or plant

(dsad/ii)

lexicographers calls

(ca. all

as Ccccidus sojutinijf,

(virild/i).

A. D. 450) gives

what he

for

of which Monier-Williams has the courage to define

Amara

ccrdi/lifiiis.

also describes a plant that he calls

which Monier-W'illiams says

are distinguished

many synonyms

These

Vernonia

The later lexicographers generally imidiscussions of Soma: Medini refers to an herb, the

from

si'trJ.*

Amara in their Soma creeper.’ which Yaska had mentioned as an herb that caused exhilaration when pressed and mixed with water,* while Sayana, the tate

most famous of the

\'edic

commentators,

creeper.’ Sabarasvami. another great

Soma

as a creeper,

but one that yields milky

and the

discussions,

Hindu medical works r.

AmarakcU, Kielhom

JhJ.. 1.I0,3».

Amara

belief in the

may

refers

also

juice;* this

Soma

was

to be

from then on through

Bombay, svnonyms

2.4 ®i“3

and

the

in the

milky sap appears

for suru .he

2-4*95*

terms varu^tmnya. haUpnyd

an into.«cating liquor made from herbs or and Satapdlha Bruhmnna ix.7.i.7)u 3..\Wintfa?hi. Nathalal Laxmichand edition. 36latter

as the

as well.’

edition.

gives as

commentator,

retained as an acceptable attribute of Soma

European

refers to

refer to

to the

Soma

Yiskas.Vi|hjntu<irtJ.Viruhd,LaksmanSarup.cd..Universit)ofihePunja 4 ninmpana. is given as the etymologx’ for

of the \ edas (Rg\ eoa

.I927.JI-

•

pnnJti mnamdnaui 5-

Commentary on Rg\eda

in 48*.

Max

.Muller edition.

...

.Mimimn: Surra. Gaekwad edition. 1 Sabarasvami. commentary on the Purva

, , ,, 7. 2.2.,

^ma Soma

called

the

based upon %^r^P^n to soma of a 'milky quality was probably or that white when muted with milk,

Lma was t4ed with milk, or that Soma itself became

LATER SANSKRIT WORKS One might

tancitul expect the early medical treatises to be less

hut

than the g/iiiiitu,

medical work

this

cti.

Soma milk and

yields the

pungent, cool, black, sweet, and

quench

wounds

cause

thirst, to

detailed, but hardly

Soma milk;

symmetry and

for

semavulli.

Soma

etc.’

A more Sii.sru-

ultimate absurdity the passion

that permeates these writings.

Soma

and svetJbu

syenu/irtu)

cast-off snake-skins,

acrid,

from perhaps the fourth

was then divided into twenty-four

and

there was originally created one kind of

smells like ghee; mun/uru

garudiilirm

the semdvu/lr

description appears in the

its

classification

us that although

tells

KJjtniig/iiiiifu

dry up. and to purify.*

creeper

serves to dispel biliousness, to

scientific,

which reduces

D.,

Soma

seimivnlh has great clusters

a medical text in verse, dating

century A.

D/innvtinhiny'(jm-

dear to Brahmans.' The

bow-like creeper, yielding the

The

A. D. 1400. says that the

Soma: the

describes the properties of is

not the case.

varieties:

umsnnmii

has leaves like those of garlic;

(‘white-eyes’) are pale, look like

and are found pendant from the boughs of

trees;

Unfortunately, the enumeration of these varieties proves of

have the same qualities, in the

same way, and

all

are creepers with milky juice,

all

are used

have

per day during the waxing

them

one reads that

limited value for botanical identification:

fifteen black leaves,

moon and drop

off

which appear one

one per day during the

waning moon.'*

juice of

Soma was

in the niciaphorical sense

of a swollen container: for itself 1.

must be noted

of the supreme

that

nowhere

described as white or milky, but always as yellow or

liijuid,

or the liquid pressed out

Vedas

in the

the raw 5 oina juice

brown or red or golden.

Ananda&rama Series No. 33, Poona, 1890; verse 4.4. Ananda&rama Scries No. 33; verses 3.29*3o. The pertinent terms

DI?anv<intarfy<imgfKiiii«,

d/ttjnurv<j|IF:

katul iitJ

madhurd;

putddJliisirft (or alternate

(alternate reading: fcrsnJ viiosoidmjni);

and

are:

reading: pirtuddlMnui); trsnavilo^aiiirndm

pdv<inf (or pdeani).

SuirMtasamltitJ,

Education Press, Calcutta. 1834, chapter 29 have been unable to find the quotation in other editions of this work, but it is quoted in full in the itfMukdlpddruma (Vol. v. p. 417). 3.

Calcutta. 1814,

of 4.

Soma

which attributes

refer to substitutes

This lunar connection

in the

Vedas, and

to the Suhuta.

mentioned

in the

will

Siiirnfu’s 'varieties*

Brahmanas.

an extrapolation of the mythological association of Soma with the moon accounts for the name 'moon-plant* given to Soma by the Bengalis of the last is

century. Yet that the

be noted that several of the

Edward Balfour, in his Cyclopt^dia of India, published Soma plant itself derived its name from the Sanskrit word

gathered by moonlight.*

London in 1885. maintained for moon. soma, because *ii was in

PART

TWO CHAPTER •

III

Folk medicine and medical science in India are

Ayurveda (The Sacred Knowledge of Long

quoted Ayurvedic verse, found both

on Apastamba’s

known

Life’).

collectively

There

Dhurtasvami’s commentary

of the black Yajur Veda and in the Bhdva-

Max Muller cited in 1855 as the earliest of Soma that he knew. It describes the plant

prakdsa, that description

a widely

‘scientific’

as a black

creeper, sour, leafless, yielding milk, having fleshy skin, causing or

preventing phlegm, causing vomiting, and eaten by goats. In

spite of

‘

many

the admittedly late origin of this description, and in spite of the

equally authoritative descriptions in earlier Sanskrit works which contradict

it,

ser\'ed

European scholars

their favourite theories. Its sharp detail

as a

and

peg on which

hang

tone contrasted

‘scientific’

favourably with such descriptions as that of the

and

SH.^rut<j,

to agree with the descriptions of Soma given to Westerners

seemed

by Indians

of that day.

III.

EARLY EUROPEAN REFERENCES

non-Indian notices of Soma are in the Avesta, where the plant appears as Haoma, but these references are more obscure than

The

earliest

those of the ?lgVeda; the question of the ‘authenticity’ of the Soma cult of the Avesta will be discussed below as it arises in the course of

European

discussions.

earlier parts of the Avesta

The

refer to

Haoma

which

attended with piety rather than with anger,^

being strained for the

plant^ with golden eyes.*

Haoma (9-11), which it describes as growing in

Cited by

Max MuUer

MorgenlOndischm

in 'Die

No.

Gesellschaji,

Todtenbestanung

39,

i 8 s 5.

Yost fragment 11.9. This

Ashi Yost,

Siro^ah, 1.10.

2.5,

jnd Yasna,

Volumes

Yasna, to

fcsin>ti tvaci

MiWr

full

golden

hymns

the mountains,^ pressed

Zetuchrifi der

Deuucben

mdmali

somdkJiyd chdgabhojanam

10.8.

^.Aihi Yast. 6,y/, Ges Yast, 4*17. and 6.

vdlli

as a tall,

reads.

and the following arc from the

Mills, Sacred Backs of the East, 3.

vamarn

three

den Brahmancn,'

PP-

iyimald 'mid ca nispatrd ileftnald

bci

the only drink

sacrifice,* as

The Yasna devotes

-the Yaks-

Yast, 13 . 88 «

y 100

and L. H. edition of James Darmesieicr

EARLY EUROPEAN REFERENCES twice a day,' odoriferous.* possessing

many

trunks, stems, and bran-

mixed with milk;^ and yielding a yellow juice which is to be seems to distinHaoina is golden and has a flexible stem.* The rusnu beverages, of which it guish between Haoma and other intoxicating hated the Haoma disapproves, but it has been suggested that Zoroaster ches.^

drinkers as well as drinkers in general."

Beyond

this

general descrip-

and the evidence that the Soma cult was at least Indo-Iranian rather than simply Indian in its origin, the Avesta sheds little light on tion.

the

Soma problem.

Megasthcnes said of the Indians. sacrifices.’

They

distinguishing this sacrificial

quor - probably

.sura

wine from

their ordinary

li-

- which he describes as ‘composed of rice instead

McCrindle suggests that

of barley.’’

never drink wine except at

this

‘wine was probably

Soma

must in fact reler to Soma. Thus Megasthenes - misled no doubt by the similar rites among his own people - must be held responsible for the origination

Juice.’

and

as the passage

certainly pre-Tantric

of a misconception that continues to plague Vedic studies to the

present day. Plutarch speaks of a plant that the Iranians dedicated to a religious use:

For pounding in

mortar an herb

and darkness then having mingled ;

wolf, they bear

called it

fijiwtii

with the blood of a slaughtered

forth into a sunless place

Bernadakis conjectured that this

they invoke Hades

optojit

and

cast

was the same

away.® as the pwX’j of

the Odyssey x 305, a fabulous herb probably cognate with the Sanskrit uiii/rt

(root); Orientalists of note, including

have suggested that Iranians, the

Soma

5 ji<ojit

Paul Anton de Lagarde,*’

was none other than the

Haoma

of the

of the Indians. In 1929 Emile Benveniste dismissed

this notion: 1.

Yasna, 10.2.

Yasna, 10.4,

Yusna, 10.5;

Yasna, 10.13.

Yasna, 9.16.

supra, pp. 19*11.

6 Henrik Samnel Nybcrg: Die Religionen des AlUn Irans, Leipzig. 1938, pp. 188. 144, and 188 7. Megasthenes* Jndika, translated by J.W. McCrindle. Calcutta. 1887 (Schwanbcck edition. Bonn. 1846),

fragment

27.

Plutarch:

Vide infra, p. 108.

page

69.

Jside et Osire,

Quoted by Strabo.

15.1.53-56.

Squire edition. 1744, p. 117:

101

|ilj.

TWO CHAPTER

PART

III

•

We must beware of correcting the text on this point, as the majority of editors have done following

de Lagarde. The substitution of

the plant {iwXu for the enigmatic

and

interpreters

the

and the second absurd

which

the device of harassed

no better than the explanation

first is arbitral^',

name

used in the cult of Ahriman

by Iwuma;

ofS^KOfiii

another

as haxima

sacred to the cult of Ohrmazd.*

Anquetil-Duperron brought out the

In 1771 A. H.

the Avesta, after having spent

some

translation of

first

years in India in association with

the Parsis. For the Haonia plant, he observed, the Parsis used a tree

grew in

(arbre)

which, they

a vine

but never bore any

said,

fruit.

Persia but not in India

and resembled

Anquetil-Duperron thought the plant

kind of heather (bruyere), with knots very close together

resembled

and leaves

like those of jasmine. ‘All these details lead

that the Horn

to believe

the dptopo: of the Greeks and the rt»ic>»non of the

Romans.’* As the Indo-Iranian connection was not yet established, nor

Soma cult itself discovered, this Then in 1784 the first translation

the

suggestion was not pursued. of a Sanskrit

work

appeared, Charles Wilkins’s rendering of the Bhagavad

included a note: ‘Sum

commanded

the

name

into English Gitd. In

the earliest published citation of

of a creeper, the juice of which

This

at the conclusion of a sacrifice.

be drunk

Soma

in a

’

European language

that

moon

of the laws of Manu, Sir William plant (a species of mountain-rue).

H. T. Colebrooke then published

his translation of the Amarako’sa,

have found. In

his 1794 translation

Jones describes

Soma

as ‘the

saying that the semrdj was Vernonia n'cfl).*

but cautioning

his

diitlie/minticd

Texts. .919. p. 74 Persian Rehgicn: According to the Chief Greek

Emile Bcnveniste: The

thought to be the Indian spice plant. Nepaul cardamom.

10.

and

Theophrastes' Historia Pianiarum.

comts from 2. 3.

djit/ie/min-

descnbe readers that commentators seldom

(= Conyz^

9.7.1.

where

Persia.

It is it is

mentioned said to

m .Anstophanes

come from India ^

Anquctil du Perren. Pam. I 77 i. A- H. Anquetil-Duperron: Za^d•Ay<sta. traduitpar p. 80. note 42. Charles Wilkins: The Bhdgcdt Geeta. Scrampore. 1784. Manu or. the Ordinances of Sir William Jones: Inshrutcs of Hindu Uw. language. Cosh4 or Dictionar. 0/ the Sansen.

„ \oli. i*

The

eie

p. 5 J 5 .

.H-T.Colebrioke:

H. T. Colehroohe, Es,.. Serampore Cole the somamll. for ^^h.ch from plant thb distingubhed .Amara

interpretonon ani .Annonthons

should be added that

gives no botanical

I.,

name.

102

cardamom

EARLY EUROPEAN REFERENCES the plants they mention and that

inaccuracy of the

History

many

source of error remains in the

Commentators themselves

names with the

of Sanscrit

generick.

... the

correspondence

and specifick names

Natural

instances doubtful.’'

William Carey published his Hortus Bengalensis, which was summary of the manuscript that William Roxburgh was to publish In 1814.

Carey identified

1832.

Stircesfe»i»ui fcrevistigNui

Asclepias acula,

Sarcaste»uM<i tKuinm, Sarcostemma vijHin<i/e. Cy»i<i»c/iiji»i viimnalc) as the

known

plant

that Riifu gnn’eo/ens, a rue, bore the link

them with

did not

later

an observation that was

used Roxburgh's work to

Soma.

In his 1819 SuHsfcrif Dicno»mry’,

cardi/o/ia].’

Horace

Hayman Wilson

moon plant (Asefepius ucidHin) [=

'the

sonuivji//i

medicinal plant (Serrutnlu

which he defined

S<trcoste»HMm trevistigfMu],’

as Serrain/u fl«r/ieijm>itic(t.

[= I'ernomu he added semtirjjm,

fl»u/ie!»n«tic<i

the 1832 edition of the dictionary,

an alternative for somavallt as

Graves

identified

twining plant (MenispermuHi g/uftrnm) [= TiMOsporu

a»(/iWmi»ticrt]’; in

Sir

Sanskrit name.*

in Bengal,’

who

ignored by the Vedic scholars

sojjui as

same

remarked

also

the Vedas, but he did take occasion to observe that

Himalayan plants do not grow

identify

and

Bengali and Sanskrit as

though he

)

still

gave

this as

well."*

Chamney Haughton, in his 1825 edition of Jones’s Ordinan-

Mann, had corrected Jones's ‘mountain rue’ to 'swallow-wort (Asclepifls acidum) [= SttreosternHW hrevislignui],’ probably following

ces

Carey. Finally, in 1832 William

Roxburgh published

he identified Stircosfemmti brevistigma with somdiufa Bengali, a plant (as he said) of acid taste.

He added

much milky juice

his Flora Indica; in Sanskrit

and

of a mild nature and

that 'native travellers often suck the tender

Colebrooke, 0p, cit., p. lo. William Carey: Hortw Bengalensis.

icript Flora Indica, Calcutta. 1S14. pp.

Catalogue of the Plants Described by Dr. Roxburgh in JiU 20 and 32.

Mnnu-

3. !bid., p. xi.

Horace

Hayman

Wilson: SJBskrit Dictionary. Calcuua. 1819 and 1832. In ideniifying somavaHi with M^ispermum glabrum. Wilson was misled by Colebrookc, whose Amara Simha he cites for this r^ercnce: Colebrwkc. though giving no definition of samavallf. had given Moiispermum glabrum i-Tmospora cordifoha) for the plant guduci (guricha in Colebrooke s note) which appears in juxta^ position with in the Atnarakoia, 4.

103

PART shoots to allay their

TWO CHAPTER •

thirst.’*

This

hardly the description of a plant

that induces religious ecstasy, but

mentioned by Wilkins (as liaj. a

Roxburgh

as the sacrificial plant.

Colebrooke had done

in 1808),

identifies

which

with som

distinguishes

from

Vernonia anthelmin-

plant with an acid taste,* and he further distinguishes Calotropis

gi^iinteii

Asclepujs gigtintea) as the plant used

by the

natives for

medical purposes.

From tified

the

these beginnings

down

to our

own time Soma

has been iden-

with various species of Sarcostemma (= Asclepiads, related to

American milkweeds), of Ephedra, of Periploca,

all

of them leafless

climbers superficially resembling each other, yet belonging to genera botanically far apart. Botanists in India

would gather specimens,

them with scientific names, and add the vernacular names that local helpers would give them, such as sojjwfutJ. Linguists and serious travellers would occasionally bring back plant names picked

identify

in the various

stem back

languages spoken from India to Iran that seemed to

Soma

or Haoma-e.g.,

/nunrt,

yehma;

iim, nina; tim,

iimbur^-and, linking them to the plant to which they belonged, present to the world another candidate for Soma. Most of these plants were or had been at some time used as substitutes for Soma or Haoma to be eligible, plants

had to meet certain requirements, which may

and from century to century. R. G. Somas Wasson’s Brahman informants said to him that the substitute that are had to be small, leafless, and with fleshy stems, attributes and to varying degrees to the three genera listed above have changed from area

common

to area

medical texts. the traditional descriptions in the Brdhmanas and

IV.

For

the next

MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY Sanskritists

fifty years,

and botanists

alike

merely

Henry Piddington gives elaborated upon Roxburgh’s identification. tor scorn and ‘Asclepias acidum Bengali the for viminale’ •Sarcostemma I.

William Roxburgh: Flora

Indica.

Scramporc. 1852, Vo!,

n. p.

IW., Vo!. Ill, p. 406. India, Calcutta, Dictionary of the Economic Froducu of 3. George Wacr article on 'Ephedra/ Vide infra, p. 121 2.

•

104

1890, cites these

examples

In his

MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY

105

PART 50 »mhaii,'

same

TWO CHAPTER

but these two names are

now

Soma

Veda, says that

moon-plant’ and describes observing that according to

considered to represent the

John Stevenson,

species: Sarcoste»i»ui brevistig»m.

tion of the

•

in his transla-

'Sarcostemma viminale,' ‘the

some detail the method of its use, the commentator it is pressed and mixed in

how many do not know

with barley and allowed to stand for nine days, ‘but precede [the ceremony] and

how many

Soma, when properly prepared, Vedic studies had in

now begun

follow,

powerful

spirit

on Haoma, wherein he

trituration,

was the same

said that the

as the

the

assume considerable importance

Europe. In 1844, Eugene Burnouf published the

articles

days

of a series of

first

Haoma juice,

Soma of the Vedic

not venture a botanical identification.’ In 1845,

obtained by

sacrifice,

but he did

O. Voigt published

his Hortiis Siiburbanus Calcnttensis, a catalogue of the plants in the

H. E. tica

C. Botanical garden.

and

Once again

is S^lr^:osrem^^u^

soma-rdj

fcrevistigmfl;

Ventonia anthehnin-

Voigt also mentions that fields of

farmers use the Srtrcosteinnw brevistigma to rid their ants.^

He draws

white

attention to the use of the Asclepiads in general as

emetics and to their acrid and bitter milk, and points out that in the

West

Indies they are a popular

in doses of a

Friedrich

remedy

for

worms

in children, given

teaspoon to a tablespoon.*

Windischmann thought

Sflrco5te»nJW brevisIigiHC,

that the

Soma

plant might be

but he doubted that the Indian

Soma was

the

of the Persians, as the plant might have changed Avesta prewith the change in location. Yet he considered that the than the RgVeda served the tradition of Soma and the sacrifice better (remarked long ago by did, and he called attention to the Persian belief Christian Lassen Anquetil-Duperron) that Soma did not grow in India.^

same

as the

Haoma

Henrj- Piddingion:

Calcutta, 1831. p- 79 Engiish Index to the Plants of India.

John Stevenson: SduhitJ o/tftc Sima Veda. London. 'E.udc ,ur , l.nguo o. ,ur 3. Eugta Burnouf: Series. No. 4, December. 1844. p. 468. fia«e,

and

1841. p->v. .v:

Lo D,=u Horn.,

p. 9-

i„„nal As.a Asia-

4. J.

O. Voigt: Hortus Stihurbanus Calcnttensis.

Company

Catalogue of the Plants

Botanical Garden, Calcutta. 1845. PP- 405

and

541-

g;™odrich”ldischm,n„:X'bcrdcnScmakul.u.dorArior;dW»dl»^^ Akadamic der Wissaischaftcn, Munich, 1S46, pp.

106

fasi India

mid-nineteenth century and \\ illiam

Soma was Stira'steinnia Dwight Whitney wrote that Soma was added

his assent that

a certain herb, the .Asciepiai acida

[

Sarcostemma

which

breviJtigina],

hich. grows abundantly upon the mountains of India and Persia when fermented, possesses intoxicating qualities. In this circummatter. The stance, it is believed, lies the explanation of the whole .

people ... had no sooner perceived that than produce a temporan- frenzy liquid had power to

simple-minded Arian this

[sic]

they found in

something divine

Otto Bohtlingk and Rudolph von Roth accepted only tentatively SarcosfefMJHii brevistigjua as

seemed

Soma, and perspicaciously added that than the \’edas indicate.’

to grow’ farther south

Max

Friedrich

iMuller in 1855 published an important article in

which he quoted Dhurtasvami’s description of Soma* and said that this

seemed

to agree

most

strikingly with the accepted botanical

descriptions of various Sarcostemmas.

Vedic

Soma would be found growing

stemmas

But he doubted whether the in

Bombay (where

mountains of the North.

are found) rather than in the

the Sarco-

why would the Indians of the era of the BrJ/uHdfuis substitute for Soma if thev could find ‘Soma’ itsell-

Moreover, he asked, use

piitifea

i.e..

Sarcostemma

as a

spp. - right in

Bombay?*

For thirty years no notice was taken of of

Max

Muller’s doubts. Major

same

species.’

Stircosfemma

Elliot referred

to the

Martin Haug believed that the Persians had probably

replaced the original

Ayui^-edic source, nor

Heber Drur)- accepted

and Walter

bre\’istignui as

this

Haoma with something else,

retaining the

name.

Chhsdan Lassca: Jndiuhi Alunumskund^, Bonn. 1847. Volume i, p. 2S1. William D>^*ight Whitney: ‘On the main results of Vedic researches in Germany, Vv'unul efthe

American Oriental

Society,

No.

3. 1853, p. 199.

Otto Bohtlingk and Rudolph von Roth:

StfiufcnmxJrtrrfruch nebst alien SachrrJ$en,

St Petersburg,

*^ 55 -75 . 4.

Vide supTO^ p. 100.

5 . F. Ntax Muller: ‘Die dischen Gesellschaft^

No.

Todicnbcstatmng 39, 1855. p. xlii

bci

den Brahmancn/

Zeitschrift

der Deutschen Slcrgenlln-

ff.

Major Heber Drur)-: Vs^ Pltnts of India, Madras, 1858. p. 385. 7. Walter EUioi: Flora Andhrica, A Vemaailar and Botankal Ust of Plants Commonly Met with Tehgu District, Madras, 1859, p. 169. 6.

107

in the

PART

TWO CHAPTER •

and he thought that the present-day Soma of the Indians was substitute, but that the substitute retained in a

of the true V'edic plant, with

very nasty drink, but has tasted

some

leaves

and

measure the

in fact a

qualities

white sap: Tt

a bitter

intoxicating effect,’ he wrote, having

more than

several times but being unable to take

few

teaspoonfuls.'

George Christopher Birdwood, in

Sir

his Catalogue of the Vegetable

Productions of the Presidency of Bombay, including a

'drugs’, identifying .

of the drugs sold

of Western India, included Sarcostemma brevistigma under

in the bai^aars

quor

list

as the somalutd of the Vedas, a ‘fermented

mixed with barley and ghee

their religious ceremonies

This wine was drunk at

and was used as an intoxicant by the rishis

Water passed through a bundle of somalutd and extirpate white ants

from a

fied

Sarcostemma brevistigma with

'the

Som

of the Vedas and the

'the real plant

acida

mind

it.’“

bag of

all . .

salt will

Birdwood

identi-

and expressed the view that

Horn of the Zend

present to the

watered with

field

li-

Avesta’ were perhaps

of the writer ... of the

first

chapters of Genesis,'^ - an original contribution to the debate, and one of the few that

not echoed by anyone. In

this year,

Eugene Burnouf

published his Sanskrit dictionary, wherein he described juice of Sarcostemma brevistigma; the following year,

Soma

as the

Forbes Watson

plant as Sarcostemma brevistigma; the somalata (Telegu) as the same species; and the somalutd (Sanskrit) as Ruta

Soma

described the

graveolens.*

Paul Anton de Lagarde (Paul Anton Boetticher) maintained that and Sptopi was another word for poiXu or nviycc'/ov, the mountain rue,

by the Greeks when they no longer had to the the hdm itself, the original sacred plant.* Drawing attention and a describing the pwXu as a plant with a black root that

was a

substitute used

Odyssey verse I.

Aiureya Brdhmana, Bombay. on the Religiimcftlu Panees, i86i. pp. 219-221. and

Martin Haug:

l^Sir

Ltrge Chlmpher Birdwood:

Bombay. 1^5.

ifePrrridmo' Catahgu, o/thr V,gcu.blc Prodnrtionr 0/

p. 53*

I X ForL^^atson

PrcdacU. ond Othrr Economfr PJontr and

/ndtx to Noiivr ond Scicniijic

Londoia. 1S66, p. $30. 5.

Paul Anton de Ugardc:

Abhandlungen. Leipzig, iS66. p. 174-

I08

MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY mythological significance of rue/ flower white as milk,‘ and to the harmal (= haoma Lagarde maintained that the description of the

by Arabian botanists described the plant prewillow and flowers like those cisely: a shrub with leaves like those of a added that jasmine, with an intoxicating and soporific effect/ He o[i(ojiL

ptoAu) given

Soma and Haoma were not the same plant, though they had the same name and use, and he linked the Soma ot the RgVeda to rue by means of the Vedic

to the

which he related But no matter

costemma

thesis,

ters. In 1871 is

epithet siihdsnipJjas, 'possessing a thousand pdjas,’

how many

for rue.

botanists

and scholars accepted the Sar-

there were always reservations held in

John Garrett declared

no longer known

upon

Greek term

in India’.*

his earlier identification this plant

by observing that

flatly that ‘the

Nevertheless

Soma with

abounded

Soma

some quarof the Vedas

D. Hooker elaborated

Srtrcostefnnui hriinoniflmim

an acid milky juice and was

‘hence eaten by the natives as salad, and sucked by travellers to allay

thus forming a remarkable exception to the usually poisonous

thirst,

nature of the Asclepiadeous

room

there was

miiricatum (Ipomcea miiricata), a plant

are cooked as vegetables

work

standard

Calo-

whose swollen pedicels

and whose seeds are used

Hermann Grassmann, whose Vedic

Nevertheless,

new

for

Drury suggested that the ‘moon creeper’ might be

theories: iiyctiou

juices.’* Still

to this day, accepted the general

as purgatives.’

dictionary

the

view that Soma was a

Sarcostemma.* In

873 Rajendra Lala Mitra revived the case for

Soma as an alcoholic

The original Indo-Aryans drank ‘soma-beer and strong spirits,' which, when they moved to the hoc climate of India, tended to beverage.

Odyssey, x,

Jacob Ludwig

Grimm:

(Gottingen. 1835), p, 962. had mentioned that rue W2S

used in sdcrihces to the devil. 3.

Lagarde. op.

The term

cit.,

p. 175.

sahdsrapdjas, occurring only twice in the

lated as 'possessing a thousand 5.

John Garrett:

forms/ or

'colours'*

Classical Dictionary of India,

Rg\'cda

(ix 13^

and

423 ).

'rays*.

Madras. 1871,

p. 594.

^.Joseph Dalton Hooker: CurtisV Botanical j\taga^ne, London. 1872, Tab. 6002. 7. Major Hcbcr Drury: Useful Plants of India (2"^ edition). London. 1873. 8.

Hermann Grassmann: Wdrurbuch ^um

Rig Veda, Leipzig. 1873.

109

generally trans-

PART make them ill. ‘The and leaving the

TWO CHAPTER •

later Vedas, accordingly,

proposed a compromise,

prohibited the use of spirits for the

rites intact,

gratification of the senses.’*

Soma was ‘made with

the expressed juice

of a creeper {Asdepias acida or Sarcostemma viminale) [both

Sarcostem-

mixed with barley meal, clarified butter [ghee], and the meal of wild paddy [nivdra], and fermented in a jar for nine days. The juice of the creeper is said to be of an add fcrevistigHui]

diluted with water,

taste,

but

have not heard that

has any narcotic property.’ Mitra

was of the opinion that the starch of the two meals - barley and wild paddy - produced ‘vinous fermentation’ and that the Soma juice

promoted fermentation and flavoured the brew while checking acetous decomposition, in the

manner of

the

way Mitra cover every likelihood - except for the possibility that Soma

seemed

was not

alcoholic at

all,

hops.* In this

but a plant containing a psychotropic drug.

should also be pointed out that Mitra speaks of ‘soma-beer and strong spirits.’

Presumably he used

meaning In 1874

were

distilled alcohol.

this latter

This

Arthur Coke Burnell

term

in its

customary

an anachronism.

called attention to the fact that there

different ‘Somas’ in different parts of India, the

Coromandel

sense,

Hindus of the

coast using Sarcostemma brevistigma in their

rites,

and

those of the Malabar coast using Ceropegia decaisneana or C. ekgans.^ In the following year, Martin tions

Haug elaborated on his previous descrip-

by describing the Soma plant

row of

leafless shoots

as a

small twining creeper with a

containing sour, milky sap; he identified the

plant as Sarcostemma intermedium, mentioning

brunoniamim

as related varieties,

and he expressed

plants denoted at the present time

were

brevistigma his

and

opinion that the

by the terms somalatd and

somavalli

later substitutes.*

sent their In 1878 Friedrich Spiegel reported that the Indian Parsis that saw the priests to Kerman to obtain Haoma.® This was the year 1.

Rajendra Lala Mitra:

‘Spiriiuoiis

Drinks in Andcnt India.

Bengal, 1873, p. 22. Ibid., p. 21.

584-5955.

«-

Mangalore. PArthur Coke BuracU: Elements of South Indian Paleography. GSttittgische Gelehru An?eigen. Marlin Haug: in a review of Grassmann’s Wirterbuchi 1874,

1678, VoJ. to, p. 57^Friedrich Spiegel: Eranisclu Alunhumskunae, Leipzig*

110

1875. PP-

MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY Religion Ve.iupie Bergaigne thought La Bergaigne’s Abel of publication that milk was added to it to and drink fermented a was Soma ;

that

help the fermentation process.

calls

a spirituous liquor, the

word

being applicable in a broad sense

/igiieiir spiriliieuse)

spirituous (inic to

any volatile inebriating drink.'

Zimmer acknowledged that present-day Hindus nausea of Sarcostemma, citing Haug and adding that the

In 1879. Heinrich

used

kind

consistent with the

Haug had experienced was of

Soma: but he expressed doubts whether

Bni/inttiini

descriptions

plant,

this

found

Bombay and all over India, could have grown in the high site of Vedic substitutes to civilization. He quoted various Bni/nnuiia references to support his thesis that Sarcostemma was in

which had appeared In 1881

such a substitute,

course of time.*

in the

Mitra reiterated

tact just

his

beer theory.* and Kenneth Somerled

Macdonald wrote. ‘Soma is now admitted, we believe, by the best Sanskrit scholars to have been intoxicating. The numerous references Rg\’eda are consistent only with such an interpretation.

in the

in great detail,

proceeded to repeat Mitra’s theory give Mitra credit for

though he

tailed to

it.

The early i88o's saw the most enthusiastic and intense period of the Soma debate. Scholarly tempers flared, new and important nantes began to appear, and ingenious theses were advanced. Rudolph von Roth began

with an

Soma

theories about

article in

as well as

concluded that although

some

must

still

of the

- which grew

grow

in the

Br(i/imtni<js

people

Abel Bergaigne: La RtUgicn Vddique, Pahs.

Heinrich

was the Vedic

made

1878. Vol.

believed that the

necessar^’

home, he pp. ix

plant,

and

when

felt

which

Soma

the Vedic

that the true

148.

Aln’ndisches Leben. Berlin. 1879, p. 275.

3 Rajendra Lala Mitra: InJty.ir^'ans, 4-

seemed to be well there was no assurance

Though he

their original

plant,

in the plains -

substitute

moved away from

Zimmer:

the recent

of the BrJ/imuiui information: he

Soma

mountains.*

was a

all

Stircasteninui brevisfignui

established as the present-day that this plant

which he reviewed

London.

x88i. pp. 390-419.

Kenneth Somerled Macdonald: The Vedic Reli^cn, London. 1881. p. 66. Rudolph von Roth: ‘Ober den Soma.' Zciuchrift da Deutschm Morgmldndtschcn

i88k. pp. 680-692.

Ill

Geseflscbay).

No.

35,

PART

TWO CHAPTER

•

Soma was probably some

Sarcostemma or

species of

at least

Asclepiad, and he felt that any information about the present-day

Soma might shed

on the Vedic

light

In the following year,

that the plants used for

were

Edward William West expressed

Soma

in India

substitutes for the original

that the

most

common

and Persia

Haoma-Soma

growing upwards, with flowers

plant,

and he observed

West India was the

bush of green succulent branches,

like those of an onion,’

and resembling

when not in

flower.' In that

or thornless milk-bush

tinicalli

the opinion

at the present rime

substitute in South and

Srtrc(?stef?i»ia l)revi5tig»w. 'a leafless

Euphorbia

plant.

same year Angelo de Gubernatis, quoting Roth, expressed doubt whether the Soma plant could be identified at that time; he suggested that perhaps the

Soma

and Greece, and that

had

cult

shifted to

wine

no mortal would be tempted

In 1883 Monier- Williams in India.

defined

with succulent,

was taken by

in India in later times its place

beverage offered to the gods and deliberately that

in Persia, Asia Minor,

Soma

to drink

brought out

made

leafless stem.’

unpalatable so

it.*

his Religious Thought

Surcosfemum hrevistigmo,

‘a

but he added, 'And yet

and

Life

kind of creeper

it is

remarkable

Soma] has fallen into complete asked the Brahmans of North

that this sacred plant [the original, true

neglect in

modern

When

limes.

India to procure specimens of the true in

grow on

me,

was told

that,

and was only to be found to be the true Soma’ had

terrestrial soil,

heaven.’ Nevertheless a creeper ‘said

been pointed out

for

sinful condition of the world, the holy

consequence of the present

plant had ceased to

Soma

him by Burnell

South

India,

where

was being

used by orthodox Brahmans.’ In 1884 D. N. Ovsianiko-Kulikovskij published a

pages devoted entirely to

Soma and

containing a great deal of learned

and imaginative material; unfortunately,

since

was published

was not noted by subsequent scholars other European languages, though Ovsianiko-Kulikovskij

Russian and never translated, writing in

book of some 240

Pahlavi Texts. Sacred Bocks of the East.

Edward William West:

Aiigelo dt Gubcmacis: La

Sir

Mythohgu

Volume

i8. 1882. p. 164-

dcs Plantes, Paris, 1S82. Vol. n* pp.

Monier Monier- Williams: RWigioui Thought and

II 2

Life in India,

London,

1S83, pp. 12

MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY was familiar with

all

of the significant literature in

German. French,

reasoning, and English.' He maintained, on grounds of sound linguistic later to the juice that the word ‘soma’ applied first to the plant and

and went on to discuss

this plant:

At the same time, the terms Soma and Haoma did not cease to signify also the divinity, whose gift or attribute the intoxicating beverage was considered to be. As concerns this

last,

presently

obtained in India from a plant of the family Asclepias <icui*i. Whether another, it was obtained from the same plant in antiquity, or from

from another, from which particular one - all of these are questions that of necessity must remain for the time being without an answer. The description of the flower and the liquid of Soma in the RgV'eda is not applicable to Asclepifls acida and the beverage or

obtained from

it.’

Ovsianiko-Kulikovskij described the sacrament of collecting taking place at night,

‘in

Soma

the light of the moon,’ observing: ‘Perhaps

this feature

has

some

the moon.’"*

continued:

link wdth the later identification of

Soma with

was mixed with water, sour milk, and barley com. Then it undervvent fermentation, after which a strong, intoxicating beverage was obtained. The description of this procedure is met in a number of places in the ninth Mandala of the RgVeda, but always in a fragmentary and often obscure form.’ It

more or less conventional view of Soma, but then Ovsianiko-Kulikovskij went on to express his doubts that Soma had

This was the

been

a product of fermentation at

clear terms - that

Kul'c

Ancient India in

and to suggest -

Soma might have been some

D. N. Ovsianiko-Kulikovskij:

1884. Chast'

all,

ZdpuM

in cautious

but

sort of narcotic.

/mp^rdtorskojo jVovorosiiskogo

UnivmiKM, Volume 39. Odessa, bozhestva Soma v Drevnei Indii v epokhu Ved. (Part i: The Cult of the Deity •Soma' the Vedic Epoch] I am indebted to D. M. O’Flaherty for the translation.

2. Ibid., p. 7. 3. Ibid.,

p. 8.

Idem. This peculiar notion appears only

supra, p. 99). but 5. Ibid., p. 9.

it is

one year

later in the Cyclopeedia of

Edward Balfour (vide

most unlikely that he knew Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii’s work.

PART This

It is

such a possibility, and

appears in the writings of a Russian,

it is si-

who may

have

of the Siberian cults: possible that the narcotic

similar it

•

far the earliest reference to

gnificant that

known

TWO CHAPTER

power of Soma was greater than the

power of other drinks used

was of an

in the

essentially different nature.

time of the Veda; possibly

The

action of Soma

always

depicted in the most many-hued colours, as something fascinating, elevating, illuminating:

drink (sura)

on the other hand the action of

painted in far from such attractive colours ...

also quite possible that the superiority of

Soma was

portion of Soma (that

Soma,

is,

Soma must

most remote Indo-Iranian

Soma

still exist.*

antiquity.'

which he emphasized

his

But he acknowledged that Albert

employed by the Russian government, who had

Regel, the botanist

searched for

to the

and cultural psychological con-

Roth then brought out another paper, feeling that

fell

not Asclepias acida or any other sort of Indian

as a religious

ception) as early as the

It is

entirely imagi-

nary and rested solely on that religious sanction which plant, but -

common

Roth’s request in the Syr Datya and

Amu Darya

watersheds, had reported finding no trace of a plant meeting Soma’s description. Regel

Soma

that he

had expressed

his opinion that the closest thing to

had found had been rhubarb, though he admitted

that

rhubarb was not used by the natives to make any intoxicating drink. Roth had supplied him with Vedic descriptions of Soma, and from

was clear that none of the Asclepiads, Euphorbias, Ferulas, yellow Compositae. or Cannabis sativd (hemp) conformed to the Wilkens, a zoologist specializing in South Turkestan, had

them

formula.

reported to Roth that in his opinion

Soma might be Peganum harmala,^

and belonging to the Rutaceae, though it lacked the sweetness had. Nothing juiciness that the true Soma was thought to have today may daunted, Roth ended up with a flourish: 'Usbekistani them cheer. ... To drink their kumiss in cups in which Soma once gave

Ovsiamko-Kulikovskij, op.

Rudolph von Roth: 'Wo

No. 3.

cit.,

p. ii.

38. I88j. pp. I34-J39-

The

hartnal to

MorgM^chcn ^

vvachsi der Soma?'. Zauchrifi der

which Lagardc had

referred.

II4

Da,uch^

(ksdlsM,.

FILE find the

NL'MBER

a bocanL't: the plant will

Soma one need not be

recognized in

all its

juiciness rSaftrulIe]

have to be

ever)' eye.

NUMBER US

FILE

IIS

Chief Commissioner ot Assam, own remarks, translated Roth’s papers and forwarded them, ^\^th his Afghan Frontier Delimitation Commission. They in turn hand-

Charles James

Lvall. Secretary- to the

to the

them ed them over to the botanist George Watt, who published with Ills added remarks, under the heading. ‘A note upon Dr. Roth s suggestion regarding the

Soma

Plant

in a

document

issued as File

No. iiS of the Government ot India. Revenue and .Agricultural De-

panment. Simla. .August 20. 1SS4. Watt felt that Roth had produced no evidence that Soma was a species of Sarcostemma or anv other .Asclepiad: he considered it a great pirv that Dr. Roth, instead of

propounding

his

own

theon.* at

such length and in attempting to confute arguments against not rather publish briefly the leading passages descriptive of the plant

from Sanskrit

it.

did

literature

placing in the hands of the naturalist to the

. .

from the Sanskrit authors, and thus leave his mind unbiased bv anv theories.’ Watt was of the opinion that Soma was not necessarilv a succulent, juio* plant, but that it might be rather a drv branch used in a decoction, ‘either bv simple maceration or CommLssion

boiling.’

a brief abstract

He went

on: ‘Can any one

milky sap of the .Ascledpiada^ ever be used for the

Soma

more than

of the \ edas?

the .Afghan grape

It is

who

has examined the bitter

suppose that such a liquid could

medidnal purpose, and

much more likely that

imported into the

still less

become

the oblong fruits of

plains, as

thev are

the

present day, afforded the sweet and refreshing cup of which our .Ar\'an ancestors

enthusiasm.’*

became drunk while wTapt in the obli\ion of religious

He did not pursue

Composite or Umbelliferae more candidates for Soma.

ered the as

this suggestion,

That the .Aryans

knew

however, and consid-

likelv

ai such a £nai and o£ an akoboiS: drink

than the .Asclepiads

made from U

Pantm'i reiercntx to the sweet grape juice of Kipiii. north of KabuJ

Wnmi

4.2.99

establisfced

TWO CHAPTER

PART

20.

Max

Muller wrote to the Academy journal on 1884, misquoting Haug (‘it was extremely nasty and not

In reply to this,

October

•

where Haug had described the Soma he tasted very nasty drink, but [it] has some intoxicating effect’), referring

at all exhilarating’, ‘a

the Brdhmatui substitutes and the tradition that

by barbarians from the North,’ and he,

Max

Friedrich

'was brought

- that

finally getting to the point

Muller, had published thirty years earlier the

Soma

'oldest scientific description of the

hope of

Soma

finding, the

plant’ that he

knew of or had

Dhurtasvami description of the dark creeper

eaten by goats,'

On November scholar’:

said

Roth replied

did not, indeed,

‘I

had been

my mind

was impossible

in the

remember

same journal

to ‘the learned

the passage referred to; but

should scarcely have mentioned

to date the ’Ayurveda’, that

passage sounded like descriptions of ‘the

later,

Max

even the

Muller’s

latest date,

especially in the so-called MglitiMtHS,’ taking exception to the adjective

vamani by insisting that

‘it is

not to be supposed that the Soma, or

its

principal substitute in later times, should have caused vomiting,' and, as

blow, correcting

a parting

from ‘destroying phlegm’

Max

Muller’s translation of slesmald

to 'producing phlegm.'

concluded that

the plant described was merely the 'Soma of later times which

know

(that

as bearing

is,

the Sarcostemma acida [brevistigma]), correctly described

He still believed

leaves.’

would bear great resemblance Watt’s ‘decoction’ theory thus:

my views

to ‘I

its

that the 'genuine original later substitute,

Soma

and answered

sorry not to be able to conform

to those of the distinguished botanist.

The Aryans no more

It plant than they drank tea or coffee. and would be, indeed, a disgrace to the interpreters of the Veda hope that the Avesta if Dr. Watt were right.’ He ended with the arch home, as Soma, the botanists of the Commission 'will not bring us one’s notice, or any Asafoetida, which there obtrudes itself upon

drank

a decoction of the

Soma

other Ferula.’

Max

Muller replied

Academy, defending I.

VUe

supra, pp. loo

and

his

letter to the 17 'n another depassage as ihe oldest scietitijic

on November Ayurvedic

107.

II6

FILE

NUMBER

Soma, standing up

scription of the

118

for his translation of sUsnuila as

phlegm, and keeping

dissolving rather than producing

his original

reading for nuihini rather than the pJv.nn' (purifying) suggested by Roth. He admitted that 'this oldest scientific description of the Soma plant’

might refer

to a later substitute,

knew

which the Brahmans ever

it is

discovered,

(Rg\'eda x

whether

and concluded ‘As :

85*).

shall

in the valley of the

to the

welcome

Oxus or

Soma

when-

in that of the

Neckar.’

this

point the botanists entered the forum.

Kew Herbarium wrote

to the Acdiiemy

G. Baker of the

on November

15.

noting that

Dr. Aitchison had been selected as the botanist to attend the

Delimitation Commission and supporting

Sarcostemma, which, he pointed out,

throughout Sindh. Arabia, and Persia.

Pehplccii nyliylla are eaten raisins.’

Max

Afghan

Muller’s faith in the

eaten by

men and

animals

said that the flowers of the

by the natives of Baluchistan ‘and

T. Thiselton-Dyer of the Royal

Kew Gardens

taste like

then sup-

ported Watt’s suggestion of the Afghan grapes: ‘That the primitive

Soma was something not extracted

from

less

detestable than anything that could be

Sarcostemma

however, the original

Soma was

find

hard to believe. When,

unprocurable, and the use became

purely ceremonial, the unpalatableness of the

The Sarcostemma. according

immaterial.’'

chosen

when

plains)

because ‘there

though not

the

Soma is

Soma

substitute

was

to Thiselton-Dyer,

was

plant was forgotten (or unavailable in the hot a faint

resemblance

in texture

form, between the joint of a Sarcostemma and an

unripe green grape,’ the Vedic Indians having had guish a fruit

and appearance,

from the stem of a

no word

to distin-

plant, Thiselton-Dyer maintained.*

Max Muller answered this, on December 8, with a reference to the Vedic tradition that Soma juice was mixed with barley milk, a process he suggested, was incompatible with the grape hypothesis but not with a kind of hops; he added that 'a venturesome etymologist that,

niight not shrink even

!•

Here he

This

refers co

from maintaining

de Gubemaiis

II,

that hops

and Soma are the

352; xiJe supra, p. 112.

not true. Pkala, fruit, rccun in the PgVeda, referring to the fruit of a plant (not Soma) rather than to the stem. Cf. RgVeda 45**. iv 57^. x 71K x 97*^ and x 146S. is

TWO CHAPTER

PART same word,’ deriving

•

medieval Greek

humolo,

from Hungarian

hops

ably near

Now

medieval Latin

komlo,

and ultimately Sanskrit soma,

yo’j|isXrj.

‘which, for a foreign word, brought

from

Persia into Europe,

is toler-

hops mixed with barley would give some kind of

Whether milk would improve the mixture enough to know.’ beer.

not brewer

Charles G. Leland then wrote to the Academy to support the hops hypothesis with information about the soma or sumer (‘the pronunciation

not fixed’) of the

confirmation of gypsy,

much

this,

lemon

a very disreputable source as

worth much,’ but pointing out

that there was

Romany meant

'scent

thus the hop gives the suma or soma to the beer,

as the

grow

in the

Sanskrit in gypsy

or flavour

tongue, apologizing that ‘any

drawn from such

indeed, not

is,

Romany

to punch.’

words and that soma

He added

that the fact that hops do not

present dwelling place of the Hindus confirms rather than disproves

Max

Muller’s theory, since

would be using

(December

20),

if it

were

available there the Indians

still

instead of the present substitute.

this point

A. Houtum-Schindler wrote from Teheran with a tale

of a Sarcostemma that he had been

shown by

the Parsis in Kerman,

a plant with a greenish white juice and a sweetish taste that caused

vomiting w'hen taken

and that corresponded scription lected,’

turned

“

amounts of more than a dozen

closely with

was viewed only

Muller's Ayurvedic de-

‘several days after

had been

col-

by which time the stalk would have turned dark, the juice he sour, and the leaves fallen off. To this ingenious postulate

added several descriptions of the dictionaries, including

liked

Max

drops,

Hum

plant from various Persian

much one of a deadly poison the fruit of which is

by partridges and which resembles a tamarisk tree- the

qualities evidently refer to another plant.’

identified

still

T. Thiselton-Dyer then

another plant used by the Parsis

Ephedra vulgaris which, he

said,

latter

in their rites

-the

bore sweet red berries and somewhat the plant mentioned by Houtum^^

resembled Tamarix articiilata, like Schindler: 'But he [Houtum-Schindler]

also says

it is

"a deadly poison

not agree wit does This partridges). to not (though apparently

Ephedra, which

browsed by

goats.’

118

FILE

NUMBER

118

the argument note the Academy correspondence ended, but his 'Second Note on continued. On January 25. 1885. Watt published

this

Soma Plant.’ in which he said that a Dr. Dymock of Bombay had told had sent him a Haoma plant which was Periploca aphylia and him he thought that the plant was not used to obtain liquor but the

that a small portion of

to a liquor obtained

was added

he added that, according to the

Parsis. the

strengthened Watt’s opinion that

from grain;

Haoma never decayed.

Soma was not

This

a succulent plant,

Sarcostemma, an opinion which was further encouraged by a letter he had received from Rajendra Lala Mitra. who had suggested that Soma might have been used like hops as an ingredient in certainly not a

the preparation of a kind of beer, and that the Vedic phrase juice’

was merely

‘which has so safely,

puzzled the learned Professor von Roth,

nay appropriately, used

in a

was therefore convinced that the all.

that ‘the dry

beverages,

and

‘much

India.’ In passing.

‘The word “sweet,”’ Mitra wrote,

a figure of speech.

much

bitter twigs’

in the

may

poem in praise of bitter beer.' Watt Haoma plant was the Soma after

had been used

same way

Watt rejected

‘Soma

as Acacia

to flavour

bark

a suggestion

some other

used throughout

he had received from

Benjamin Lewis Rice that Soma might have been ‘sugarcane or some species of sorghum’;

Dr.

he concluded that Periploca aphylia - the

Dymock - was after all the most

likely

Soma

plant,

Haoma of

and he quoted

Baker’s description of Periploca aphylia as having ‘flowers fragrant,

eaten by natives, taste like

raisins.’

Surgeon General Edward Balfour, pcedia of India,

maintained that the

alcoholic fluid’

made from

in the third edition

of his Cyclo-

Soma of Vedic times was a ‘distilled

the Sarcostemma brevistigma which flowers

during the rains in the Deccan. In the same article he referred to the

Soma juice as

‘a

that this liquid

fermented liquor' and

was used

‘this

beer or wine’; he believed

at all religious festivals

and by the

rishis at

and he attributed to Windischmann the suggestion that the Soma plant may. have been the gogard tree.* their meals;

Surgeon General Edward Balfour;

meraal. Industriai, and Scientific;

and Manufactures

(3«> edition).

CyclopaJia of India and of Eastern and Southern arid. ConiProducU of the Mineral. V<gfM{.lr. and animdl Kingdoms. Useful Arts Tlie

London.

1885. Vol. ni, p. 703.

PART

TWO CHAPTER

Eggeling published the second volume of

In 1885 Julius

lation of the Satapatha Brdhmana,

identity of the

•

Soma

plant

was

his trans-

wherein he observed that the exact

somewhat

‘still

doubtful,’ but that

every probability seemed to favour the Sarcostemma brevistigma or

some other

plant of the

that the opinions of

all

same genus.

answer

to Watt’s suggestion

the ‘Sanskrit authors’ be assembled for the

botanists to use, Eggeling wrote:

‘One might

as well ask a

Hebrew

scholar to give accurate descriptions of the "lily of the valley” to

enable the botanist to identify and

classify the lovely

delighted the heart of King Solomon. accurate

flower which

want of an

exactly the

It is

knowledge of the nature of the Soma plant which prevents

Vedic scholars from being able to understand some of the few material allusions to

News after

(13 all.

March

1885) expressing his opinion that

modified

this,

Soma was wine

however, when he returned from Afgha-

and published The Botany of the Afghan

nistan

a letter to the Daily

Undaunted, Aitchison wrote

it.’*

Delimitation Commission,

North Baluchistan

wherein he informed

his readers that the natives of

call Periploca aphylla,

Ephedra pachyclada, and another Ephedra 'Hum,

Huma, and Yehma.' He

said that the natives eat the small red fruit of

these plants, but he hesitated to identify any of them with the original

Soma.*

Finally, in 1888,

respondence in

Max

his Biographies

Miiiler republished the Academy cor-

of Words and the

with additional notes by Thiselton-Dyer,

who

Home of

supported

the Aryans^

Max

Muller

drink by saying that Soma ‘was certainly in later times a fermented an made from grain, to which the Soma plant itself was only added as the Sarcostemma ingredient.’ Observing that, according to Roxburgh, rejected ‘not necessarily nauseous,’ he nevertheless

was

as a pos-

Houtum-Schindler s well as rejecting Soma, Primitive the sibility for tamarisk-hke Periploca aphylla) and his

Hum

(which he identified as

indistinguishable, he plant (which he identified as Periploca hydaspidis, with a except when in flower). He concluded

said,

from Ephedra foliata

Julius Eggeling: ‘Satapa.ha

Book. ofthcEast.

Volume n

the Delimiution Commifswn.Transacuonsof the Botany Afshan AitchisontTfte of E.

London. 3,

Brihmna, Sacred

Max

1887. p-

na.

Vol. Muller: Collected Works. London. 1888.

120

pp.i 2 a*i42

THE TURN OF THE CENTURY more

Sarcostemma was used. like hops, to flavour the was used not ingredients’ of fermented grain, and that it

belief that the effective

as a

absence of the origiceremonial reminiscence of the grape' but in the concluded this episode with nal Soma plant -the hop. George Watt his article

where he

on Ephedra

among

rejected,

gestion of the

in the

Didiomirvo/ t/ie Economic Products o/Zndhi. other hypotheses, his

own former

Afghan grape, though he could not

wild grapes are called *Um, Umhiir in Kashmir.'

sug-

noting that

resist

He mentioned

that

Ephedra vulgaris grew in the Himalayas, that Ep/iedra pac/iyc/iida and

were found

Garhal and Afghanistan, that Periploca aphylhi

was used sometimes

Bombay, but

E. joliara

an Ephedra. leaves,

said that putifeas (Basella spp.),

would resemble Sarcostemmas;

Pcederia feetida are

known

are emetics and are eaten

when

stripped of their

that Wrnoiiia aMt/ielmiutica

as somaraj in

He rejected

tation’ rather

Soma

its

place.

rare but

the Periploca. however,

on the grounds that the Arvans would have recognized not have used the Sarcostemma in

and

Hindustan; that Asclepiads

by goats; and that Sarcostemma

Periploca plentiful in Central Asia.

concluded that

was usually

that the Parsis /iiima

in India

And from

all

refers to ‘an early discovery of the art of

and

this

fermen-

than to any plant in particular. All the sound and fury

had proven nothing, after

VI.

all.

THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

Still the battle raged, if

quietly, over the

same ground. Adal-

Kuhn said that Haoma and Soma were separate plants resembling each other in name and external appearance, the Soma of present-day bert

India being Surcostemmu hrevisugmu (an identification that he chose to

which was not however the original or at least the only plant from which Soma was taken.* John Firminger Duthie then added an odd piece of information that went unnoticed: The Marwara attribute to Roth),

people

call

the spiked grass

known

as Seturia glauca

ter in his translation of the Avesfn referred to

Soma.^ Darmeste-

Haoma as

yellow plant

Wan:

George

John Firminger Duthie: The Fodder Grasses of North

Dictionaty of iJie Bronomif ProJuco of India. Calcutta, 1890. ‘Ephedra’. 2. Adalbert Kuhn: Siadien. Giitcnloh. 1886. Volume i, p. 106.

I2I

Indij,

Roorkcc. 1888. p.

i.j.

PART with very close-set knots’

TWO CHAPTER •

the Indian Soma’.* Monier-Williams’

‘like

Dictionary (1891) simply gave Sarcostemma hrevistigtna for Soma, and

Bornmuller mentioned that he had met with a Parsi priest in Yezd carrying /mmfl.* At once he recognized it as Ephedra distachya, and

thus he had solved at last the problem mentioned to

'Haoma' of the

Fig. 4.

Persians.

As pictured

He added

that the plant

and that large quantities of

Bombay

grew

life-size.

all

over Central Asia

were dried and sent from

Persia to

every year.

Alfred Hillebrandt then produced his extensive recent

by Max

first

James Darmesteter’s

translation of the Avesta, 1890-1892. Said to be

Miiller in Oxford.

him

Soma

Soma was

theories

summary

of the

own famous theory RgVeda. He explained that

and introduced

moon throughout the temporary Soma plants were probably the

his

not the same

that substitutes had been used as soon as the Aryans

that

con-

as the original,

home-

left their

land in the Sindh, and that the Vedas themselves were self-contradictory, since they

had been compiled

pointed out that

Soma was

in various times

and

places.^

not a blossoming plant and therefore

Muller had suggested; that Soma had a red stalk and reddish brown sap; and that the epithet 'with hanging could not be hops

Max

relibranches’ (naicdsdkhdy probably referred to the nyagrodha (Ficus even giosa) which was an important substitute. In fact, he concluded,

Vide supra, pp.

59^-

a picture of the plant as well (Wde 3. J,

u e gives *

1 introduedon, p. xv. James Darmesteter: Avesta, (ransladon into French, Paris, 1890-189^;

fig. 4)*

Batanischen Bornmuller: ‘Reisebriefe aus Persien/ in MilUilunsen des ThUringischen

Verlags,

93.

p. 42. 4.

Alfred Hillebrandt: Vedisehe Mythchgie, Breslau, 1891. Vol.

pp-

{m 53*^) and This word, however, occurs only once in the RgVeda Grassmann chinks that it may refer to the name of a sage. 5.

122

its

meaning

uncertain.

THE TURN OF THE CENTURY at the time of the

RgVeda

itself,

various plants

were already

in use.

Somas were used simuland he cited Burnell’s evidence that different taneously in different parts of India. that the oriHermann Oldenberg devised a new theory, suggesting wine but for the Indo-Euroginal Soma was itself a substitute, not for had long been pean honey drink, mead or hydromel.* Of course it

recognized that the Sanskrit

were cognate, and that

iim'd/m

the Greek

was applied

(isD-u,

and English mead

Soma

in the

RgVeda

the trouble over the bitterness of Sarcostemma). but was a general term applied to milk and rain as well as to Soma,

(whence iiidd/in

indd/iu.

all

Soma with infl'd/m had still left open the botanical identification of Soma as a plant whose sap was known as

and the simple

identification of

honey. Oldenberg, however, avoided this difficulty by postulating

mead

as a

forerunner and

Soma

from the Soma plant

attention

regarded as the

original,

as a later substitute; this distracted itself (since it

was no longer

the Ur-plant, that everyone sought) but

did not, of course, add anything at

all

what was known about the

Indian Soma.

become well known and widely accepted, but it had little immediate impact. Edmund Hardy maintained that Soma was neither any form of honey nor stird but most probably SarcosteniThis theory was to

brevistigma after

all.*

Vedic scholars generally clung to the Asclepiad

hypothesis^ or they hazarded even less: P.

Regnaud

liqueur enivrante,’ and cautioned against literally

when

called

Soma

‘une

taking the Vedic texts

they spoke metaphorically.'* Rustomjee Naserwanyil

Khory covered some very old ground by considering a Brdhmana substitute to be the original Soma;* he identified Soma (soniavalli in Sanskrit, amrtaval/i in Bengali) as a cordifolia,

climbing shrub called Tinospora

the extract of which (called

aphrodisiac, a cure for gonorrhea, Hermann Oldenberg:

Die Religion

gtirjo, gilo, etc.) is

used

and a treatment for urinary

diseases.

Veda, Berlin. 1894, pp. 366 ff. 2. Edmund Hardy: Die Vedische-Brahmanische Periode, Munster. 1893, pp. 152-153. 3.2cnaidc A. Ragozin: Vedic India, London. 1895. p. i 7 i; W. Caland: Aliindwche Zauberritual. 1.

Amsterdam. 4. P.

1900. p. x88.

Regnaud: ‘Remarques sur

IXime MandaU du

pig

Veda/ Re\ne de

VHistoire Religieuse, xun,

I902» pp. 308-313. 5.

Rustomjee Naserwanyil Khory: Materia Medica cf India and

1^3

their Therapeutics,

Bombay,

1903.

PART

TWO CHAPTER

Christian Bartholoma; in his

described

Haoma

as a plant

famous Alliramsches

Fig. 5.

as a plant that has

golden, and

enough

\'edas. use

to note:

‘It is

plant. W.W'^

/userpitiinji’)

Wdic

India.

New

mentioned

Aork, 1895.

wonderful properties, birds.'

He supported

linguistics

but was cau-

plucked by

argument with complex Indo-European

tious

(Latin

ionij’. .As pictured in Zen.iidc A. Ragozin:

grows on mountains, this

from identifying the

thought Soma was the

fragment of Aleman

in a

Worierhucli (1904)

used in medicine, for magic, and as an

alcoholic drink, but he retrained \\ ilson

•

the not improbable that even at the time of

and was made of more than one kind of plant. W. Caland

W. W. Wilson:

1906. pp. 188-195.

c/PhiMcgy. Soma offering in a fragment of -Alkman,’ Amfrkanjt^umal had occupic a Roih in his 1884 essay had suggested that Soma in India

No.

30.

‘The

position similar to that held

by the now

c.xtinct

01X910V plant of .\ncicni Greece, but

considered ihc two plants identical.

124

sacre

not

THE TURN OF THE CENTURY ot

Soma

che question of the identification \ ictor Henry considered Indo-Aryans had imported insoluble.' Henry maintained that the Northwest India, and chat of area the entered they since ever Soma

of India did not correspond to the Vedic dethe old definitions perscriptions of its taste or characteristics.* Still Bhishagratna in his 1907 edition ol the Siisriim defined

Soma

the present-day

sisted: K. L. seijiiiltKa

iHuiIica.

as Siircastemiiiii breristi^ma

and A.

regarded

as the tipple of the gods.’^

now be

\ eriioniti

identified.’-*

to defend Lagarde’s

as ‘an intoxicat-

and A. A. Macdon-

It is

very probable that the plant

Then Hermann Brunnhofer came forward

‘mountain rue’ (originally

Sir

William Jones

theory, though Lagarde did not say so and probably did not Jones’s opinion). Brunnhoter maintained that Lagarde

solved the still

Soma

He elaborated upon Lagarde’s description of a plant known as

acteristics that

had already

theory by mentioning possessing char-

suggested a kind of rue to Brunnhofer.*

attention to che RgVedic verse (iv to

know

question forty years previously, ‘though the Vedists

ignore him.’*

Pliny’s

(iiit/ie/-

concluded that the RgVeda descriptions were

B. Keith

‘inadequate to identify the plant ...

cannot

Maurice Bloomfield referred to Soma merely

ing drink ell

and .semanyi

3’').

He then

called

perhaps an oblique reference

Soma, that speaks of a black cow giving white milk; Brunnhofer

considered this a perfect description of the pwXy, a dark plant with

white milk. In 1911 Carl

Hartwich published Die menschlichen Genussmittel,

which he discussed various forms of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs.’ He included ‘Soma - Haoma’ in his study, but was uneasy about its status as a

drug or stimulant

W, Co land and

Vicior Hcnr)': Sona

(‘Genussinitfel’);

Victor Henry: et

Haoma,

Maurice Bloomfield: The

having described various

Paris, 1906-7, p. 471.

Paris, 1907, p. 52.

Religion of the Veda,

New

York, 190$, p. 145.

Arthur Anthony Macdonell and Arthur Dcrricdale Keith: Vedic Index, London, 1912, Vol. Hermann Bninnhofer: Arische Bern, 1910, p. 297.

Ibid., p.

300.

The quotation from

plants bearing the

ac-

11,

p. 475.

Pliny (Hisf^ria Ndtur<ili5 27.28.11) merely says that of several

name

of a|ji^poa(a. one has leaves around the bottom of the stem resembling those of rue (pliis ruroenrcd tmum C4u(m). Elsewhere (Historifl N<ttHr4lis 14.40), Pliny speaks of apt-

Ppoo(z as a kind of grape. 7*

C. Hartwich: Die mcfuriiliclicn Genussmituf, Leipzig, 1911, p. 806

125

If.

PART TWO

•

CHAPTER

cepted botanical 'Sonias’ (Stircostemma hrevistigma, Periploca Basella cordifolia,

etc.),

he went on to say: ‘Although

all

aphylla,

of these have

been tested - though not altogether thoroughly - none of them is known to have stimulating or sedative or other characteristics which could sible

mark

drug or stimulant.’ He therefore considered it posthat they might have been used as supplements, perhaps as it

spices, to the

and whey) bility

as a

other

known ingredients of the Soma drink (meal,

milk,

which alcohol might have been produced.* The possithat Soma might have been some other plant which did have in

‘stimulating or sedative characteristics’ does not

seem

have occur-

red to him. though he granted that the Persians used for their Haoma a

drug (ephedrine)

different plant {Ephedra vulgaris) containing a

which caused dilation of the gave

an alleged

pupil.*

Soma was

One

of the plants that Harnvich

Vitex negiindo,

whose

and

bitter leaves

root were used against fever. Since the plant was originally native to

Hartwich dismissed

tropical America,

served in conclusion that in India

as a possible

was known

as Indrahasta

and

may be

that

Indrasurd ('the hand of Indra’ and ‘the wine of Indra’).’ this association

(to

Soma, but ob-

with Indra - together with Indra’s fondness for Soma

which Hartwich

refers)

- recommended the Vitex negundo

Hartwich. for he gives no Sanskrit names for any of the other plants he mentions. Yet in this context it is surprising that he did not mention Indrdsana (‘the food of Indra’)^ which was a

Cannabis

saliva, the leaves

just the GeMussmitte/ that

common name

for

hemp,

of which were dried and chewed, supplying

Hartwich seemed to

Keith reassembled the old evidence but

still

seek.

considered the

Soma

H. Mills produced an odd throwback in which he insisted that Haoma and Soma grew independently from the

problem

insoluble,®

and

Hartwich, op. at, p. 809

1. Ibid., p. 808.

the SuSnita and Indrasurisa) is mentioned in the Aimrohld, vdih Soma. Samhitd, and the ^bdakalpadruma, but is nowhere associated mean t e confusion with Indra-iana. which would 4. IndTStana as a name for hemp (perhaps by appears m its in the Udokalpadruma) and (quoted Sabdamdld mentioned in the Indra) is hemp of in Dhurtasamd^ama 90.8. Indrdsana prakrit form j « and 19, 19 i 4 imroduciJon 18 Volumes Scries, Oriental Har%afd 3.

JndrasuTd (also

—

known

as Indrasurasa

—

•

A. B. Keith: The Taittinya Samhitd,

and

p. 119.

126

THE TL'RN OF THE CENTURY same

original,

and that ‘nothing humorous,

remember, attached those early days’.' The

let us

at first in to the idea of [alcoholic] stimulus

that the Parsis say that Soma Oxford History oflndia^ merely observed Hopkins concurred but questioned whether is Asclepias, and E. W.

and Plutarch, was the plant referred to in the Vedas, the Avesta, when substitutes suggesting that the names might have been retained without reference or the plant were used.' Chapman Cohen stated this

for

explanation his belief that the

Soma

drink

‘is

bound

flower of the lotus.’ an idea that was

prepared from the

to occur to

someone

view of the Odyssey tradition of the lotus-eaters and attracted the sanctity of the lotus in India, but which seems to have no supporters after this."* E. B. Havell then suggested that Soma w'as

sooner or

later, in

E/eusine corocana or rJgi, the

common

millet, an idea that

he sup-

ported on the basis of Vedic characteristics (shaped like udders, tawny, growing in the mountains) and the ^atapatha Brdhmam reference to dur^’^^

mon

and

as substitutes,

fcusti

millet

still

both of which resemble

rdgi, ‘the

com-

used in the Eastern Himalayas for making the intoxic-

He mentioned

ating drink called

that the Brahmans, while

preparing Soma, ‘sang a song which reminds one of a good old Aryan sailors’

chantey, with a refrain, “Flow. Indu, flow for Indra”.’* Havell

admitted

was so used

moved

a point

which

not very

but he was clear on

clear,’

its

had been the Aryans’ principal food and drink until

history: ragt

they

‘whether fermentation took place before or after

that,

to the

Ganges Valley and switched to

rice, ‘and,

perhaps

under the influence of Buddhism, gradually gave up intoxicating

“went

liquors, or

forgot

its

dry”.’

name and

Then they used

substitutes for the rdgi-SomtJ,

retained contact with

lowest caste, the Sudras. Havell said that is

only as the food of the

Marua when kept too long

nauseating and evil-smelling, in keeping with certain descriptions of

H. Mills:

The

Avestic

H(d)oma and the Vedic Soma/

Vincent Smith: Oxford History of India, 1919.

E.W. Hopkins: ‘Soma/

No.

1916. p. ^15.

p. 23.

in Hastings* Encyclopaedia

of Religion and

Ethics,

Vol. 11, Edinburgh. 1920,

p. 685. 4.

Chapman Cohen:

E. B. Havell:

RgVeda

Kcligion

‘What

and

Sax,

Edinburgh* 1919.

p. 57.

Soma?’, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1910, pp. 349

113.

127

ff.

;

TWO CHAPTER

PART Soma, but when fresh cates the uninitiated.’

Indo-European myth

'it is

VII

an exhilarating drink that easily

intoxi-

He then

administered the coup-de-grace: the of the bringing of Soma from heaven by an

explained by the simple fact that birds lined their nests with One would hardly think that this argument merited rebuttal, but

eagle rdgi. it

did in fact stimulate an answer that was to

Soma: Mukherjee’s theory

ficant theory of

become that

the last signi-

Soma was hemp.

(= Cannabis indica), known to the initiate as bhang Hindi term derived from Sanskrit bhaiigd, m., or bhangd, {.),

Cannabis saliva (the

ganja, hashish, marijuana, or pot.

VII.

MUKHERJEE AND THE BHANG THEORY

Braja Lai Mukherjee* picked unlikely grounds on which Havell's flimsy theory,

'which

may He

Soma was 5.1. 1.

was based upon considerations

there was no reference to cows’ udders in the

then supplied an elaborate 25-point argument to show that in fact

12 says that

Kiratas,’ a

said

be supplemented by others of a more important char-

acter,’ e.g., that

Veda.*

which he

to challenge

not

Eleiisine

Soma

mountain

tribe

;

prefixes; therefore usdnd

coracana but bhang: ^atapatha Brdhmana

u^dnd'd

Soma was

‘originally

amongst the

amongst the Kiratas, u and a were sana;iana

hemp;

the Tanguts

articular

hemp

call

hemp = Greek kanna [sic] = Sanskrit sana; the Tibetan word for hemp is somaratsa the preparation of Soma is similar by the name dschoma;

to that of bhang: the deity is

Mahadeva

(

5 iva)

a lover of bhang; bhang

used by the modern representatives of the Vedic people

celebration of worship of the goddess Durga, which

The

final link in the

tradition.’ In is

argument

is this:

'Bhang

in the

Soma sacrifice.^

sacred to Hindus by

sum. 'May we not conclude that the weight of evidence

in favour of the identification of

Soma with

Cannabis (bhang)? This

the purest strange argument, combining linguistic reasoning with I.

Braja Lai Mukherjee: 'The

This

untrue.

ViVie

Soma

Society. 1921. p. 241. Plant.' Jourruil cf the Royal Asiatic

ruprd. p. 43-

This verse does not refer to

Soma

...

all,

but verses

3-4.3-*3

4.2.5-t5

of the

yan ina

made.

uiarti. from which Soma is Sion of the ^'atapatha Brdhmana speak of a plant called late chathat Siva uses bhang, are aU celebration, the use of bhang, and the tradition

The Durga

raccerisdes of Bengal ^aivism.

128

MUKHERJEE AND THE BHANG THEORY Mukherjee in his book, The Soma twaddle, was further developed by Barnett, who was reviewed in a brief paragraph by L. D.

Plant,‘

which

said blandly that

ing case for

Mukherjee made out

hemp

good but not always convinc-

Somad

Soma could be Charles Eliot expressed 'considerable doubt that 'yellow juice of a strong smell, identified. He said it was a plant with Sir

and intoxicating properties,' and that the Parsis of Yezd Havell withand Kerman used Asclepiads.^ N. B. Pavgee rebutted as a foil out proposing any alternative, using the argument merely indigenous to the Saptafor his own hypothesis - that Soma was fiery taste,

sindhu region

(i.e..

and was not 'brought

India proper)

The Indo-Arvans were autochthonous

in India,

in’

by 'Aryans.'

he wrote, and ‘had

not immigrated’; the Iranian

Soma is.

of course, spurious, but kept the

Soma could not be any kind of liquor, for liquor is an evil, Soma - the true Soma - was ‘exhilarating yet slightly intoxicat-

old name.

while ing’

and ‘gave moral

done, nor does he identify the In 19Z2

Pavgee docs not explain

elevation’.

Soma

how

this

was

plant."*

Jakob Wilhelm Hauer published

work

that lent a kind of

peripheral support to the bhang theory, for he referred to the

Soma

most highly developed form of the use of narcotics

to in-

cult as the

duce ecstasy, calling particular attention to the late Vedic that describes a long-haired sage

Hauer believed

that

Soma was

who

hymn (x 136)

drinks poison with Rudra.*

the most important toxic

means of

inducing ecstasy, but not the only such means, and he suggested that the Vedic references hallucination caused

might be

traces of a primitive ecstatic practice of

Sarcostemmas, Afghan grapes,

remark

Whether these ‘plants’ were or hemp, Hauer neglects to say, but

certain plants.*

more suggestive of a hallucinogenic plant than of anything else: opium is no longer used in a religious context, but every time we light up a good cigar we experience a faint reflection

his final

Braja Lai Mukherjee: The Soma Plant, Calcutta. 1912.

. L.

D. Barnett: Review in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1923. p. 437. Sir Charles Eliot: Hindiitsm and Biidtlhism. London. 1921. Vol. 1. p. 69. 4 N. B. Pavgee: The indigenous far-famed Soma and the Aryan Au(hcichiht?nes in /ndin. Poona. 1921. and 'Soma juke is not liquor.* Third Oriental Conference, 1924. pp. 70-79. -

Jakob Wilhelm Hauer: Die AnJ^nge der Yogapraxis im Allen

. Ibid.,

pp. 57, 59. 61.

129

tndien, Berlin. 1922, p. 137.

PART

TWO CHAPTER

VTII

•

of the splendour of the rapture of the primeval ecstatic’ Though this ancient Yogic cult is clearly non-Vedic. presumably pre-Vedic,

Hauer

does not say whether he believes the

Soma

plant to have been the

ecstatic’,

or perhaps a substitute

same

as the

drug of the primeval

for

Yet

remarks are provocative

it.

his

a hallucinogenic

plant.

LATER RESEARCHES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

VIII.

Soma

in the context of the search for

Gilbert Slater advanced a novel hypothesis: that amrta

1924.

(Soma) was Egyptian beer,

a fermentation of date juice or

palm or coconut palm, brought

to India

palmyra

from Mesopotamia.* This

theory was noted but not accepted. Georges Dumezil maintained that

Soma was

native to India, and that

was the Indian

substitute for the

Indo-European ‘sacred barley beer’ rather than for the Indo-European

mead

Oldenberg had postulated.’ The beer was replaced by

that

wine in Greece and by Soma in

India,

for a beverage with a cereal base

sacred ritual

and the one word

which must have preceded

name: ambrosia, the Greek

hordeum, (Gallic)

Armenian gari, and various (Irish).

Dumezil referred

when

all

Celtic

was the

must have been Indo-

the linguistic evidence indicates: Greek

and cuirm

the gods

it,

and the Sanskrit

amrta, the elixir of immortality. Barley itself

European,

for this beer, or

words for beer,

Latin e.g.,

cervesia

for the sacred position of barley in India,

to the tradition that barley (yava)

the other plants had

left

them, thus enabling the

gods to conquer their enemies.^ The Mahdbhdrata gods once churned the ocean

had stayed with relates that the

order to obtain the amrta, but a

ter-

emerged and would have destroyed them all had Siva not swallowed it and saved them; in the light of Dumezil s theory rible poison

that the amrta

barley beer, this

myth

an expression of excessive

fermentation that must be arrested.* 1.

Hauer,

Gilbert Slater: The Dravidian EleTnenl

Guimet. No. Georges Dumezil: ‘Le Fesiin d immortaliti’. Annates du Musie

cit.,

p. 62.

4.Satapathd Brdhmana, 5.

Dum^il,

op.

cit.,

itt

Indian Culture.

3.6.1. 8>9.

p. 2$5«

130

London.

I9i4.

78.

34. I9i4. P- »79-

later researches Sinim/rtting Drugs included Louis Lewin’s P/miiMstica; Narcotic and rather than narcotics, mentioning alcohol on chapter the in Soma

Setaria glaiica. Periploca aphylla, Sarcostemma brevistigma.

and

£p/iedrii

had been identified with Soma, but he added: effects as have been ‘None of these plants is able to give rise to such strong alcoholic beveattributed to Soma. ... 1 regard Soma as a very he suggested rage obtained by fermentation of a plant.’’ Elsewhere

vuigdris as plants that

that the yogis

hemp

might have used some

sort of narcotic such as Indian

the or scopolamine, but he did not identify this practice with

cult of Soma.*

The Sarcostemma theory returned

who

L. L. Uhl.

yet again, this time in a paper

maintained that Sarcostemma, and not Ephedra, was

Soma, saying that he had found Sdrcosteinnm trevistigdid frequently at latitude 15° in South India, where it is called Soma and is used in sacrifices.^ Arthur Berriedale Keith c.xpressed the view that the original

the

Soma problem, though

gations. but to

no sure

insoluble,

result,

had led to

‘interesting investi-

and the only thing certain

that the

modern India as the Soma plant, is one which would not be considered by modern tastes as at all pleasant in the form of pressed juice mixed with water.’* Then, somewhat echoing de Gubernatis’ reasoning. Keith went on to say that although one can’t plant,

which has been used

be sure what was pleasant to a Vedic Indian, nevertheless that ‘the drink

was

originally a pleasant one; in the course of

long distance from which the shoots had to be brought

made

have

it is

less attractive, as

likely

time the

may

easily

certainly encouraged the use of

various substitutes described in the ritual text books.’ Keith agreed

with Hauer’s suggestion that RgVeda x 136 might be a reference to the use ‘of some poison to produce exhilaration or hypnosis,’* relating

Louis Le\^in: Phantastica: die betdubenden und erregenden Genui5mitr«f. Leipzig. 1924; published in

London,

isPhantastica: Narcotic drcdStimuldtirtg Drugs,

from which I dec che above information^

p. x6i» note. i.lbid., p. ti 7 . 3.

L. L. Uhl: 'A conenbution towards the idencLficacion of the

the

American Onentdl

Society,

No.

Soma

plane of Vedic times/ in Journal of

45, 1925, p. 351,

4 A. B. Kdth: Religion and Philosophy of the Vedas and Vpanishads, Harvard Oriental Scries, Vol*

umes 5

31-2, 1915, pp, 171, 183.4, 482.

Ibid., p.

402.

I31

PART this to a verse

about

TWO CHAPTER

VIII

•

hemp

in the Atbarvaveda,' but not to

Soma.

Elsewhere he observ'ed that the Avesta does not call Haoma mead, and suggested that mead was the Indo-European drink and that Soma was identified with it when Soma was discovered, in India, and found

produce

juice pleasant to drink or at least intoxicating.’*

In 1926 G. Jouveau-Dubreuil

was none other than Taliparamba,

Kollangod

who

article suggesting that

a species of Asclepias after

Nambudri Brahmans

that the

wrote an

He had discovered

(on the Malabar coast, in Kerala) of

practiced ‘pure Vedic ceremonies,’ sent to a Raja

at the foot

of the high mountains to obtain their

plant, a leafless, milky, green creeper that

change

all.^

Soma

was an Asclepiad.

Soma

P/hs ga

Yet neither the Sarcostemma theory nor the theory that

Sarcostemma was merely a beer theory of

Max

substitute

Muller and Mitra

was incompatible with the

(for the

with the Sarcostemma or the plant for which

beer could be

was

made

a substitute), nor

were these or the wine theory incompatible with Oldenberg’s mead theory (for the India),

mead

could have been replaced by any of the above

and so the theories continued to

live side

by side. Otto Schrader

and A. Nehring maintained that the Indo-European honey was placed by the

Soma

re-

plant -still called ntddhu- in Aryan times, while

wine and beer were P. V.

later substituted for

Kane was unconvinced by any of the

that in the Deccan a plant called rdnsera

throughout Europe.^

theories, but

was used

mentioned

as a substitute for

Soma.* In 1931 Sir Aurel Stein published a paper entitled,

the Asia

Hum

Plant,

AthaTvaveda, cd. Roth and Whitney, Berlin, 1855,

Keith, op. df., p. 172.

G. Jouveau-Dubreuil: •Soma’, cranslatcd by Sir R.

176.

cemetery

in Central

Haoma and Soma and quoting Wellcome’s Excerpta

with packets of Ephedra twigs. Recalling the evidence for

filled

Ephedra

and the Soma,’* describing

‘On the Ephedra,

Thera-

IV.5.

Temple

in the Indian Antiquary. No. 55

AJtrrtHmrfcimde. Otto Schrader and A. Nehring: Rejileriken der Indogermanischen

Berlin,

1926.

i9i9.

Vo), n, p. 139.

V. Kane: History of Dhormoidstra, 1930*62, Vo), n, part 2, chap. 33 PP* c l Bulletin of the London School Soma.’ the and Plant, Hum Sir Aurel Stein: 'On the Ephedra, the i

5. P.

Oriental Studies 61 1, 1931, pp. 501 »

ff.

132

ojr

LATER RESEARCHES evidence that the Chinese use an Ephedra called Ma-ZiiuiHg then followed this with the to get an alkaloid drug (ephedrine), he it assertion that Ephedra could not have been the original Soma, tor

peutiCii for

and Soma sweet, and Ephedra was not mountainous. He then concluded: 'The only result of these inquiries has been to direct the wild rhubarb.’ which grows in nty attention more closely to was

bitter

the mountains, has a fleshy stalk,

and can be made into rhubarb wine,

though Stein admits that the Indians do not do so.' Granting that the Vedic descriptions of the Soma plant could apply to Asclepias or rhubarb -or to anything

for that

else,

maintained that the descriptions of the rhubarb. cilitate

He added

that the juice

matter -Stein nevertheless

Soma

juice best applied to

might be mixed with milk

fermentation, ‘which alone could

endow

to fa-

a juice like that

obtained from the rhubarb with the exhilarating and exciting effect so clearly indicated in the Vedic

hymns.’*

Perhaps the strangest episode in the history of io 1933.

Soma

research

came

with a truly Twentieth Century theory of Soma. Dr. Paul

Lindner of Berlin published an article entitled. ‘The Secret of Soma'.^

referred to a statement

decoction of barley or millet, into

had been added it

as a catalyst for

Hubers that Soma was merely

which the juice of the Soma plant

fermentation (Gtirungserreger). though

was unclear what kind of fermentation took place.^ Lindner’s

studies of the

own

micro-organisms of the Agave in Mexico, particularly of

Thermohacteriiim mobile,

had brought him

to the conclusion that yeast

played only a secondary role in the fermentation, after the fermentation-bacteria

had prepared the

bacterium mobile can

field.

He went on

produce alcohol in grapes and

to say that Thermoin

cane sugar, and

concluded that since the ‘purity of fermentation’ took precedence over the material fermented, even S<ircosfei»ni<i trevistigjnu, Calotropis gigantea, or

Ephedra distachya, which had been considered as ‘the holy

Aurel noted that Albert Regel had suggested rhubarb in i88j. Vide supra, p.

Sir

Stein, op,

cit.,

14,

p. 513.

Paul Lindner: *Das Geheimnis

um Soma/ jmd Foruchrilte. No. 5, 1933, p. 65. Hubers: 'Schildeningen der Bierbercitung im femen Osicn/ in Alillcilimgen dor Gesellschaft fUr Bihhographie und Geschichudes Brauwosais. Lindner also died Arnolds' Origin and History Beer and

4- E.

Brewing.

133

TWO CHAPTER

PART Soma

•

VIII

might have yielded the juice ‘which was enjoyed by young and old.’ Lindner was convinced that Tbermobacterium mobile plant,’

was the most important fermenting agent of the

Soma

songs of praise to Bacterium.’

tropics,

must have been

really

and that the

‘dedicated to this

suggested that the tropical explorers try ‘TM’ in the juice of the Indian butter tree. Bassia latifolia, or the Ceylonese cowtree,

Gymnema

lactiferum,

latter bitter.

which have milky

When Lindner himself had

saps, the

former sweet, the

tried a spoonful of

had

resulted in ‘undiminished feeling of well-being and almost odourless

excrement.’* Dr. Leo Kaps had treated patients in the Wilheminenspital in

Vienna with

TM beer and obtained extraordinary results,

Swedish firm and a Viennese brewery’ were about to produce beer with small alcoholic content.

Soma-TM-beer was

in fact

have found no evidence

TM that

manufactured nor any further reference

the Lindner theory after this

and a

initial publication.

original and. in retrospect, provocative contribution to the ar-

gument was made in 1936 by Philippe de Felice.* He was unable to identify Soma but he described the plant in terms that seem remarkably up-to-date: he would probably have called Soma an ‘hallucinogen’,

had the word

existed.

He deduced from

the record that

Sarcostemma brevistigma and similar plants had ser\^ed to replace

Soma

toward the end of the Vedic period, when the Indo-Iranians in emigration were forced to use new drugs in place of Soma. Alcoholic

drinks such as surd, he thought, might also have

come

to be used.

Then he continues: Instead of indulging in suppositions that no

document

ought we not rather to ask ourselves whether,

to arrive at the drink

supports,

not into ecstasy, the ancient Indo-Iranians did plant have recourse, like so many other primitive peoples, to some examinwhose toxic properties they had discovered? This is what the that plunged

them

ation of the texts

speak

seems

always drawn from

mountains which,

liquor about which they on the a plant. This plant grows

make

clear.

The

and more time passes, seem to become more

'unverminderus WcMbeJinden undfast geruchlose Exkrematu.’ 2.

Philippe de Filice Poisms :

formes wJihTeures Ivresses Dirines: Essai sur quelques

Paris» 1936, pp. 265-166.

134

LATER RESEARCHES more and more

distant,

What

inaccessible.'

serves to produce the

the neither the leaves nor the fruit, but always It must be filtered or stems. The juice is cither red or clear yellow. disturbing or that decanted, to eliminate certain elements that are a bad taste or perhaps risk rendering it too to.xic. Sometimes it has mystical potion

even smacks of carrion: thus drinks

it.

it is

certainly not for pleasure that

one

provokes can present grave dangers: wanders, the drink can lead even to madness. It happens

The

the spirit

inebriation that

sometimes that the inebriation is accompanied by organic disturbances. which are in reality symptoms of an acute intoxication. Men know and fear the baleful effects of the drug. and. though he was

a god. Indra himself did not escape

them, since one day the Soma

from every opening in his body. This emeto-cathartic effect is confirmed in an old book of Hindu medicine. One may conclude from all this, it seems to us. that from the most remote antiquity the Indo-Iranians. when they were still dwelling

came

forth

together in their original

home, possessed

a special

exclusively for the ceremonies of their religion toxic plant.

The information

that

beverage reserved

and drawn from

possess about

this

plant

unfortunately does not permit us to determine the species; but is

enough

which

for us to classify

among

the toxic plants the use of

widespread, for reasons of a mystical nature, in

all

parts of

the world.

Felice’s reference to the

emeto-cathartic effect of

epithet vdiHauf in the Ayurx'edic description

story in ‘all

and from

airs,

Meanwhile the more conventional L.

van

Itallie

ma acidum

alkaloids, carbohydrates

The

to the

his

mouth and

his urinary tract’.*

Vedic studies continued.

published an article in Dutch investigating the Sarcostem-

stalks in the light of the

but drew no

line of

and to the Brdhmam

which Soma injured Indra and flowed from

the openings of his vital

Soma

plant; he described acids and

and phytosterins, tannic

new conclusions.’ Johannes Hertel

Indo- Aryans, spreading out east and south

acids

and glycosides,

pointed out that there

from the Indus Valley, were finding themselves

remote from the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas. W.D.OT. i.hatapatha Brahmana 1.6.3. 1*7. increasingly

3.L. van

Itallie,

•Somd-Heerme. dc heilige plant der Indiers en dcr Perzen/ Natuurwftmschapp^Ujk

tijdsckrift

No. 19

(i 937).

pp.

and

9-11.

135

TWO CHAPTER

PART were many

different kinds of Soma

to distinguish.’ icating drink

which

VIII

scientific

botany was unable

Henrik Nyberg referred to Soma-Haoma

made from

a plant

no longer

an intox-

identifiable, but

he con-

tributed obliquely to the bhang theory’ with his suggestion that Zoroaster was a shaman who drugged himself with hemp.* Nyberg himself, however, distinguished clearly

plants, explaining Zoroaster’s aversion to

belief that

Haoma-drinking induced a

Haoma and hemp as Haoma in the light of the

between

state of intoxication (Riimc/t)

rather than ecstasy.^ Joges Candra

Roy then developed Mukherjee’s bhang hypothesis, adding to the original argument the facts that Soma is actually called bhang in the RgVeda;^ that Soma is called a creeper nowhere in the RgVeda, but rather an herb (osadhi), a term which could apply to

and

h/irtug;

and the drink added casions.’® Delli

finally that the

hilarity;

Roman

Soma

sacrifice ‘was a feast

bhang has been in use on similar oc-

Regni repeated the argument that Soma was

not a fermented liquor but rather a non-alcoholic ‘syrup-like thing, I.

Johannes Hcrtcl: ‘Das Indogcrmanische Ncujahrsopfcf im Veda/

Akadfmie dtr Wissensekafun, Vol. 90, 1938, z.

p. 83.

Henrik SamncI Nyberg: Die ReUgicnen des Altai

cites several

Avesian references 10 hemp,

in Miftnlun|en der S^chsischen

Irans, Leipzig, 1938. pp. 177. 190. 290

among them

Ytiit I3-I24t

Vaididad

15.14,

and

341.

Vendidad 1910,

Henning rebutted this argument in his Zoroaster: PoMcian or Witch-Doctor^, Oxford. 1951; he considered Nybergs thcor)' one to be rejected ‘without further consideration ... if one reflects on the effects of hemp, the physical, mental and moral deterioration most scn'c it brings/ and he maintained that the Avcscan citations, ‘if correctly interpreted, can at the Yasna 44,10, and Vendtddd 19.41.

show

that they cultivated

world over 3.

Nyberg.

— op.

i.e.,

to obtain

eft.,

p. 188.

hemp,

its

possibly for the purpose for which

hemp

cultivated

all

the

fibre/

break, Bhangd here seems to be an epithet meaning ‘intoxicating (from bhahj, to uncertain. Macdonell suggests i.e.. to disrupt the senses), but the reading occun only once and is to designate that the word bhangd first applied to Soma, meaning ‘intoxicating/ and then came prized for hemp {Vedic Index. Volume n. p. 93 )- Otto Schrader suggesti that bhang ‘was originally 4.

RgVeda

from of the Aryan Peoples, translated questionable Vedic occurrence. the German and published in London, 1890. p. 299). but after the one with no reference to any bhanga appears in classical Sanskrit several times only to designate the plant, 1888: i.4.!9) is the narcotic effects. The 8th century- A. D. ’Sdrngadhara Samliiui (Bombay i.e.,opium(pfifn<i«M isamH that considers bfi4ngJadrug:it likens it to 'the saliva of a snake, the intoucating effects of

its

decoctions' (Prchisieric

source

inebriating liquor {madyav^aya\at bhavam) and the commentator adds that the effect is like that of into.xicating an The Bbdvaprakdia (Chowkhamba edition, i.i) refen to bJiaiigd (matulSni) as DhflnvanMriya-nigkflnm desenbes bhanga hallucination (mokti) and slow speech (mandavdky. and the hallucinations. stimulating talk, inducing sleep, and producing

as intoxicating, bitter,

5. Joges Candra Roy: 'The Soma

6 Delli .

Roman

Plant,’ Indian Historical Quarterly.

India.' Regni: 'The control of liquor in Andcnt

1940. P« 381.

136

No.

Sew

15.

Rmw.

9 PP- ^ 97 ove Calcutta,

June

LATER RESEARCHES both the Vedas Raja maintained that, according to Soma produced happiness (mdda) while siini produced

CKunham

and

and the Avesta.

and that Soma was a creeper with leaves, time to ferment and no longer available. Soma, he reasoned, had not Indians would have substituted for if it had been an alcoholic drink the evil intoxication (diirmddu)

when

another alcoholic drink

unavailable, instead of the

became

non-alcoholic substitutes that they in fact used.' ^et the

known

wine

Ernst hypothesis - dead and killed again so often - reappeared in that in 1931 Herzfeld’s Zoroaster and his World.* where he remarked

York gentleman who believed - was Persepolis - the Stilvid persepolitana

New

he had received a letter from a

growing only

that a plant

Haoma, but

the

that nothing

means

Homa

Aryan Dionysos; and that

the

Aryans and

after]

[cultivated

could remain

[common

cultivation of

all

wine.’*

adds that

Haoma

wine, a reality

from grapes; that the god

‘to

;

thus define homa

means

over Iran before the advent of the

unknown The

to the Avesta,

solution

and how the

could disappear in Iran is

evident: homa

vine,

could not possibly be Witing because ‘the

use of hashish in Zoroaster's time

homa

communication.

a fermentation

in the Avesta]

long before the Arab conquest.

this

bunch of grapes

‘shoot, tendril, or

how wine

explain

had ever come of

Soma must be

Herzfeld maintained that that

Nothing

an imagination. The mysterious

known

of the use of

hemp

as a

narcotic prior to the Arsacid period.'* I.

Kunham

Raja:

Was Soma

an inioiicating drink of the People?", Adyar Library BulUihi, No.

lo,

pp. 90-105. a.

Ernst Herzfeld: Zarcasur and his World. Princeton, 1947,

Bracketed material appean elsewhere in Herzfeld.

The

European reference

hemp

Volume

n. pp. 543

drug

(T.

Garda d’Orta's record of a conversation with the Sultan Badar in Goa in 1563. The Sultan confessed that whenever in the night he had a desire to visit Portugal and Turkey and Arabia, 'all he had to do was to eat a little banguc../ In 1676 Hcnrich van Rheede (van Draakenstein). the governor of Malabar, published his Hartus Indicus Malabaricus in Amsterdam (written in Latin and Dutch), in which he called attention to a plant named bangi that was smoked like tobacco and caused inebriation (Vol, 10, 4

p. 67).

first

certain

George Everhard

sativa (also

Rumph

known as gtnji) upon

to the use of

as a

in India is in

in 1755 described at length. In Latin, the effect of the Cannabis

the natives, likening the plant to the

Homeric vrine^i;:

For the

inhabitants of these regions, not content with the natural virtue ofwine, which, hovever, they do not possess in great quantity, or with the other types of wine tree of that place, on the ground that In their opinion

one for a short time only, have devised from this plant such things as are able at a moment to remove anxieties of the heart, grief, or fear of dangers: yet this cannot be, except by a violent commotion of the senses and clouding of the intellect, which they themselves call it

elates

137

TWO CHAPTER

PART Still

R. N.

•

Chopra held

VIII

Sarcostemma

to the

also the possibility of Periploca aphylla;^ earlier,

theory,' mentioning

Chopra had

done

also

work with the Ephedras.' Karl Geldner in his translation of RgVeda maintained that Soma could only be a species of Ephedra,

extensive the

probably Ephedra intermedia or

pachydada, the fruit of which

red

and eaten by children and the stem of which is dried and taken in water as a treatment for fever.-* Though he himself admitted that the juice

was described

as red,

he nevertheless reiterated the old

that the ‘milk’ of the plant

must be

white, citing as support for this

the verses that he had translated as {rx

Soma

gan:^ klar‘) or

Soma

juice mixed with milk

delighting us with the ‘milk’

the expressed fluid) of the stem (ix

Chinnaswami

tradition

(i.e.,

107'*).

Sastri published, in 1953, an article

demonstrating

Soma was not wine, reviewing the Brdhmana substitutes, and concluding that the Soma juice was neither an intoxicant nor a stimulant.* that

The orthodoxy

of Sri Chinnaswami’s position

fact that his article

may

written in Sanskrit. Reinhold

out the references to

Soma in

be indicated by the

G. Muller pointed

Hindu medical books and concluded

the

that fermented drinks, surd, and brandy could have been used as

remarked that evidence of the process of

substitutes, but he

lation in India before Islam

presses the

view that

drunkenne&s buc wc

phius, Hcrb^rinm Ambeinatse, that

Lord Neaves honored

had not been proven.® Mircea Eliade

which

Amsterdam^ with

this bit

ex-

by means of hemp, opium,

ritual intoxication

call inanity^

distil-

usually followed by mania or a stupid condition.*

(Rum*

bhang was so well

known

1755;

volume

p. 2o5).

of doggerel:

— with which we used to hang Our prison pets, yon felon gang — The hemp

In Eastern climes produces Bang,

Esteemed 1.

R. N. Chopra, S. C. Nayar,

R. N.

Chopra

<jI.

drug

divine.

C. Chopra: Glossary of Indian Medicinal Plants, 195^.

Poisonous Plants of India, 1949, Vol.

p. 683.

Pharmacology.' Chose, 'Indian Ephedras, their Chemistr>’ and and T. P. Chose. Indian purnal of Medical Rtsearch. No. 19. i 93 i-a. PP- 177- 219 and ef. S. Krishna ^7 the Indian Society of Chemistry, No. 48 t. 19291 P'Indian Ephedras and their Extraction .’ 3.

R. N. Chopra. S. Krishna,

and T.

Volumes 33 - 35 i 95 >. Vot Karl Geldner: Der Ri^-Veda, published in Harsard Oriental Series. in Leipzig in sw* Part I of an earlier version of Geldner s translation had been published

ui.

tJt

p. 2.

Geldner died before the completion of Part 5.

(which included the

Soma hymns).

80-W. -Soma-svarupavimarSa,’ in Our Heritage. No. i. Calcutta, ‘953. ne nc Festschrift fUr Reinhold F.G. Miillcr: Soma in der Altindischen Heilkunde,' Asiatica.

Chinnaswami

Weller, Leipzig.

Sastri;

9 S 4 p- 428-441.

138

LATER RESEARCHES and other plant drugs

decadent period of sham-

characteristic of a

reluctantly admitted into the only were means such that and anism. Patahjali’s referupon however, remarks, He Yoga. classical sphere of and on the RgVedic as a source of meditative powers

ence to herbs

description of the sage drinking poison.’

and hashish

in ecstatic

comment on Soma’s

Haoma

but he does not

upon

possible status as such a drug, nor indeed

Vedas - and of ecstasy -

Basham

points to the use of opium

orgiastic sects in India,

and

the nature of the ecstasy induced by

A. L.

Soma, though he

at great length.*

says that

Soma

now

not what the Parsis

has no inebriating qualities), nor

(for the latter

treats of the

is it

call

alcoholic

was consumed on the same day that it was pressed), and he goes on: 'The effects of Soma, with “vivid hallucinations" and the those sense of expanding to enormous dimensions, are rather like attributed to such drugs as hashish. Soma may well have been hemp (for

from which modern Indians produce a narcotic drink called Wunig.’’ Several Indian works were then published which investigated certain 1. ignored plants as possible Soma plants: Nadkarni and previously Nadkarni identified the ‘moon-creeper’ with P(cderia

plant

foetida, a

used for the treatment of rheumatism;* P. V. Sharma called Crinum Iflti/c'lnim,

a plant

whose

leaves

and roots are emetic and purgative, the

so»H-vcI.*

combat the alcohol theory, insisting that rjlsd and tiroahnya^ show that Soma did not

V. G. Rahurkar arose to the Vedic references to

mead

have time to ferment: he supported Oldenberg’s

seems to be an

and concluded: ‘Soma

juice, thus,

alcoholic syrup-like

enervating drink.

KaH

Patanjall

(herbs) 2.

orgiastic

non-

was not even a fermented

Sanskrit Series No. Ss, Benares. 1931; verse 4.1) states that au^adhi

and samddhi (meditation) are methods of obtaining

MirceaEliadc: Lt Yoga,

hypothesis

ImmonaHU €i Uberti, Pins,

siddhi (perfection

1954: republished

through yoga).

by Bollingen,

1958, in English

translation as Yoga: /mmorMlitv and Freedom, p. 338. 3.

A. L. Basham: The Wonder That

rjisd

Was

London, 1954, pp. 235-d. M. Nadkarni and A. K. Nadkarni. Indian Maiaia Medica, Bombay. V. Sharma. Dra^ya Gun Vigyttn, Benares. 1956. (which occun only once, RgVeda

stalk left over after the juice has freely*,

India,

and, as

32^)

thought by some to refer to the part of the

been expressed: Grassmann takes

applies to Indra rather than

through yesterday*,

an adjective applied to

1954.

Soma, Soma.

139

this is

mean

Soma

'rushing forward

likely, lirdalinvj.

'having lasted

PART liquor.

•

H. Kapadia says that Soma’s

TWO CHAPTER

and

and that

stalks. Still. Pentii

it is

seems

VH1

‘fruit’ is

red and fleshy and

have been a creeper (he

cites atasd

an inflexible bush with dense, upright,

Soma fermented

Aalto states that

for

leafless

one to nine

days; ‘the alcohol percentage cannot have been high. Perhaps the juice of the plant contained narcotic ingredients.’*

The

possible nature of these ‘narcotic ingredients’

of an article that the

Soma

golden red

Hummel rhubarb

by Karl Hummel, who gave plant

in color.®

known

\^edic citations to establish

must be mountainous,

yielding copious sap, and

Noting the opinions of Regel and

maintained that rhubarb best

grow

in the

satisfied the

brown

while, and, of course, to be bright red. or, in is

known

to contain the

of the supposed sweetness of the

rhubarb juice,

easily solved

mixed Soma with honey,

Sir

Soma

Aurel

Stein,

requirements, for

mountains of inner

copious green-gold sap which turns reddish

Moreover, rhubarb

was the subject

Asia, to yield a

after standing for a

some

species, golden.

drug Emodin; the problem

juice, a quality absent

from

by the assumption that the Indo-Ar)'ans

as well as

with barley and milk.

And

as for

from the rhubarb juice, Hummel maintained that these were sufficiently supplied by the mere sig/it of the glorious red stalks in the eyes of 'the naive people.’ A more conventional source of intoxication - i.e., fermentation - was cited by

intoxicating properties, also absent

N. A. Qazilbash to support

his choice for

Soma - Ephedra

pachyclada.^

Qazilbash maintained that the absence of latex in the Ephedra did not disqualif}' it, for only the later Sanskrit writers, and never the Rg\'eda, attributed the presence of latex to the

V. G- Rahurkar: *\Vas

2. B.

H. Kapadia:

*959» PP* 4

^nd

Soma

a spiricuous liquor?',

Orimwl

Thoughts No.

plant. Ephedra

a, C955*

PP*

A Criiical Inurpretatiim and Invistigation cfEpithets cfSerna, Mahandyalaya,

35.

atasd

'tree

Valiabha,

Ke Their relationship svith Soma in t .

means 'bush, undcrgrowch, or shrub*; vdna means Rg Veda is inconclusive. 3.

Soma

•

ttava ri ntcr

’Madvam apeyam,* in Jehanna Scbel Cemmrmaraticn \ clume, Jfianam national Academy of Indian Culture, New Delhi. I959» PP* *7*37. PQanac sccUten die arischen Indcr den 5. Dr. Karl Hummel. Tubingen: 'Aus welchcr 4. Pentii

Aalto:

und der PhamayO^tisc her?\ Mituilungen dcr Dcutschen Pharma^eutischni GeselUchaJt

DDR.

April I959» pp. 57-^1* N. A. QazUbash: Ephedra of ihe Etig^eda/

der

TV PkarmareuticalJcumjl.

pp- 497-Soi.

140

^ London. November

i960.

LATER RESEARCHES along the Eiindu Kush and Sulenian Epheof alkaloids, including L-cphedrinc.

grows abundantly ranges and yields a

number

all

and Pseudo-ephedrinc. which

dra.

act similarly to the

hormone

adre-

form of crushed green twigs of Ephedra aphrodisiacs; it was pachyclada) in Khyber and parts of Afghanistan as Ephedra plant Qazilbash’s belief that at the time of the RgVeda the alcohol and allowed to ferment, yielding a liquor that contained nalin and are used (in the

was

and posephedra alkaloids; ‘the liquor, therefore, was intoxicating sessed invigorating

and stimulating

effects

[and]

aphrodisiacal

effects.’*

Patil

remarks upon Soma’s unparalleled intoxicating and

made [the Vedic people] talkative made them forget their mental and

invigorating nature. ‘This intoxicant

and inspired them to fight. It physical agonies, and therefore,

Gonda

reiterated the

hydromel

was

theory,®

wonderful herb

and Alain Danielou

Jan at first

supported the theory of Soma as the creeper Sflrcosfeinma brevistigmu,-* but later he seems to have amended his views in favor of Indian hemp (‘le

chanvre Indien) as the plant

was made.® Yet the growing

from which the ancient Soma drink

dissatisfaction

with conventional theories

of Soma and increasing familiarity with drug-induced religious experiences have led

many modern

scholars to venture onto

new

territory;

Leopold Fischer suggests that the state of mind evinced by the Soma texts 'comes much closer to alkaloid drug experiences than to alcoholic intoxication.’®

one of the earliest Vedic beliefs about Soma - that it was brought by a bird’ - appears as a scientific criterion in two of the It is

ironic that

R. Hegnauer. in his ChcmoiaxoncmiederPJtan^fn (Basel, 1961. Vol.

the toxic elTects of various Ephedras, identifying several of

pp. 45 im^). discusses in detail

them with

the

Soma

plant on the basis

of Qazilbash's work. 2.

M. Patil: 'Soma the Vedic Deity/ Oriental Thought, No. 4, i960, pp. Jan Gonda: Die Religionen Indiens, Stuttgart, i960, Vol. 1, p. 64. G.

4 Alain Danielou: -

U Polytkrisme Hindou, Paris,

69*79.

i960, p. tit.

Alain Danielou: L'Erotume Divinu/, Paris. 1962, p. 53.

Agehananda Bharaci (Leop>old Fischer): The Tantric Tradition, London. 1965, p. 2S7. 7 Videiupra, p. 96. The belief that the Soma was brought from heaven by a falcon appears frequently throughout the RgVeda and other Indo*European sources, cf. A. Kuhn. Mylfiologische Studien, I: Die

6. >

Herabkunft des Fevers vnd des G^ttertranks. Gutersloh, 1SS6. Also cf. RgV^eda

45^.

U 68^ n

77*. IX S6*4 X ,

Xi**,

X 99®, X

144**, etc.

I4I

So*,

111

43^, tv 18* 3 , tv

26^

TWO CHAPTER

PART most recent

studies of the

Soma

plant.

aphylla as a possibility because

cii

mountains, contains a

gummy

which disperse the seeds

the plant.’'

Varro E. Tyler discards

‘occurs only at

low

Periplo-

altitudes in the

latex not utilizable as a beverage,

lacks fleshy fruits attractive to birds

birds

VIII

•

[Soma’s] fruits are eaten by

mountains, thereby propagating

in the

Ephedra theory because

also discards the

and

very

‘it is

much juice from these xeromorphic plants,’ though Ephedra pachyclada when boiled in milk is used as an

difficult to express

he adds that

aphrodisiac and that ‘the ash of the plant

duce an intoxicating mixture which

mixed with tobacco

to pro-

applied to the gums.’ Bringing

similar objections against the rhubarb plant, he concludes: ‘Either

the ancient

hymns

of the Rigveda and the Avesta are gross exaggera-

tions of fact or there

grows

in the vast

whose CNS-stimulating

India a plant

the old inhabitants,

still

mountain ranges of north-west properties, so

well-known

remain hidden from modern man.’*

A far more thorough article was published in the same year by J. G. Srivastava, but bird,

he too held

fast to

the importance of the agency of the

and to another long-disputed

criterion: the

RgVedic verse

that

some have misinterpreted as attributing to the Soma plant a thousand boughs.^ He supports the latter implication with a verse from the Rdjani^hantii which according to him describes the climber as having ‘several stems from the root-stock’,* and with a verse from the SwirwM S4]m/nfd which gives the Soma plant ‘a tuberous root’.* Granting however that the a

RgVeda itself never attributes

climber or milky

latex, Srivastava goes

plants with which the

to the plant the qualities of

mention several other

Soma has been identified,

including the Centella

Cocculus hirsutus (used as a laxative and a cure for venereal

asiatica,

and Chemical Constituents of Some HabitDecember Forming Plants; Soma-Homa, Divine Plant of the Ancient Aryans Lhydia, Vol. 29. No. 4, I.

Varro E. Tyler, Jr:

The

Physiological Properties

1966. p. 284. 2. Ibid., p. 285. 3.

RgVeda

L vdnaspdtim, which refers to IX s’®. Sahdsravaliam, the adjective in question, modifies

the tree of

sacrifice,

not to the

Soma

<•

plane.

nQuarurly Journal of Crude Drus Research. So. 6 (1966). h pn e as having great c usiers This seems to be a translation of the phrase died above and translated 4. J.

G. Srivastava.

The Soma

Plant.'

supra, p.99)' 5.

Srivastava does not

amiuman

give the Sanskrit for this particular

(vide supra, p. 99).

142

phrase but

may

t f* « nf e a trans a 10

LATER RESEARCHES Psor.i/e.i corv/iyi>/ui diseases). FnixiiiKs j?en/>n»di<s-.

Ccvsiilpiniii crisui,

TVicspesui /.n»p*is

He disqualifies

Ayurvedic Kosh. Cii

and

(used to cure leprosy),

- most of these cited by the

the genus Sarcostemma and the Periple-

disqualifies because birds do not disperse their fruits: he twigs and stalks that the \’i»i/crii because it does not have the

iiphylla

\'i(is

Kif^-vedii

clearly states’ to have

upon the Ephedra, whose

Soma

‘seeds are covered

finally

settles

back

red. succulent, edible

and whose medical properties length - are commensurate with the fame of the

bracts, and are dispersed

which he describes

been used; and

birds.’

plant.'

Most recently an briefly the

article

major Soma

Koogcr appeared to suntmarize

theories, including

Wasson’s AnmniM uniscurm

based on the note presented by Wasson in 1966 at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University. Referring to Wasson's thesis,

theory as ‘sensational’ (op:^tVM/>areMde) and likely to deal a great to e.vtant theories,

he nevertheless concluded that the mystery sur-

rounding the identity of the

Some

plant (from

its

Haoma

plant

was by no means

in these rather qualified

description as yellow

very like our rhubarb, which .

Soma

solved.*

years ago. R. C. Zaehner revived the rhubarb suggestion

by referring to

day)

blow

recently,

found

in the Iranian

he mentioned to

actual fact,

what

this

else

Haoma

and glowing probably something mountains

to this

me the possibility that Haoma

might be the wild chicory, which grows though he considers

terms: ‘The

in the

mountains of

Persia,

suggestion merely a shot in the dark. But in

have

all

the other theories been but just that?

Some ingenious, some thoughtful, some obviously silly, some plausible, some vague, some stubbornly wrong-headed, some Procrustean, some groping toward the truth - but all shots in the dark. Not knowing what plant the poets of the RgVeda had in mind, modern scholars have often jumped to the conclusion that the hymns are vague and obscure in speaking of Soma. The BrJ/inmnas, dealing as they do with involved chains of substitutes, add to the confusion 1.

almost

Srivasuva, cp. dr, p. 8i6.

2. J. P.

Koogcr, 'Hci Raadscl van dc Hciligc Sonia^Plant dcr Indo-lranicrs,* PhanruiYuKidi Tydidin/t

vooT 3*

R> C.

445h year. No.

7, 1967.

pp. C37-iJ3.

Zachner: Th^ Danit end Tmiight cf Zoroastrianism London, 1961,

p. S8.

PART

TWO CHAPTER •

VIII

geometric progression; the few Avestan parallels are rendered more or less useless by the overlay of purely Iranian elements; and by the

time the Europeans enter the scene, with their fixed ideas and various axes to grind, the situation approaches bedlam. Handicapped by a

rudimentary knowledge of the vernacular and ancient languages of India and by inadequate communication in the academic world, scholars

covered the same ground over and over again.

same

again the

were pro\ cn

ideas appear, are disproved,

theories; scholars

Time and time

and reappear

draw upon the work

as if

they

of their colleagues

and occasionally upon newly discovered primary materials, but there is remarkably little attention to the RgVeda itself. (Hillebrandt, Roth,

and Geldner are notable exceptions.) Even within these seems to have been

little

limits, there

contact between botanists and Vedists,

Indian scholars and Europeans. Fairly convincing evidence that

was established quite

Soma was not an

alcoholic beverage

Europeans continued

early, yet

to identify

with various forms of alcohol, and Indians continued to put pen

paper

order to assure the world that wine -which

anathema

an orthodox Hindu

toxication

ambiguous both

languages; cohol, but

it it

alcohol.

appears

-was

not Soma. The

in Sanskrit (mdda)

and

for in-

European

denotes drunkenness or inebriation resulting from

may

also apply to a

Thus the statement

in various discussions

state similar to that

mental that

and

Soma was

in the

RgVeda

al-

produced

‘intoxicating’ as

itself

of course

word in

does not really

exclude any plant capable of producing a state of exhilaration, including narcotic or psychotropic plants. The further vagueness of such

terms

as 'liquor'

and 'strong

fermentation and the term

siini.

spirits’

distillation, as

does the uncertain connotation of

All of this served to

identification of

Soma with

blurred the distinction between

mask

the inappropriateness of the

alcohol.

of the Often scholars tended to confuse the question of the identity was made from plant with the nature of the process by which the drink theory, the mead theory, and the it, overlooking the fact that the beer

opposed, while Sarcostcmma theory are complementary rather than or bhang exclude all wine postulating those as theories such only 144

LATER RESEARCHES others.

And. on the other hand,

attempt

led several scholars to

from method

substance

this failure to distinguish a

combination of various

theories that are in fact incompatible. It

was

with the plant actually

how many

Vedas, no matter

and

in fact

tionship

plant the temptation to identify the Vedic used by the descendants of the authors ol the

difficult to resist

one

original

which resembled

this identification,

argued against

inclined to believe that there

between the

substitute

facts

must be some

and the substitutes, some quality

a quality of

Soma enough

for

rela-

in the

have

absence ol Soma, but the question remains as to which quality - taste or colour or effect or shape -this might con-

been chosen

in the

ceivably be. B.

H. Kapadia remarked.

Ephedra,

etc.,

‘Many Latin names

we do

but

not

know

are given for this plant

exactly about

it.’

and

this

could surely stand as the epitaph for the greater part of the research done in those halcyon days of science - the nineteenth century, parti-

Germany- when one still lelt that by giving a categorizing Latin name to an unknown quantity one had somehow settled something. To argue whether Soma was Siirceslemmu

cularly the nineteenth century in

brevishgimi. or

Ephedra pachyclada, or

oneself that the

mained a

Soma

Perip/ecti aphylla

was

to assure

plant had been found and that there only re-

few messy details to be cleared up;

this led to

smugness and

general disinclination to delve further that might not have existed

had one been forced to It is

call

the plant ‘milkweed’ or ‘some sort of rue’.

Wmng was not considered as a possibility until more understandable when one takes into consideration

at first striking that

1921,

but

it is

the greater attention that the psycho-physiological effects of drug-

taking have received in recent times, especially in contrast with the universal disapprobation with

Only

in the last

which they were formerly

associated.'

few generations have the anthropologists, botanists,

and pharmacologists of the West entered

fully into the

problems

presented by psychotropic plants and their role in the history of

human I.

cultures.

In ihis context, it

possibility for the

The use of hashish

interesting to note that

Soma

in the

Middle East

by 18^4 Regel had rejected

plant. V'ide supra, p. 114.

145

has, of course, (CdnndNs

indica) as a

TWO CHAPTER

PART

•

VIII

long been known, but until twenty years ago only

by the modern world

discover)- of mescaline

and

for

some

as a curiosity.

The

almost a century

old,

years has provoked widespread attention.

Aldous Huxley, one of the leading writers on this subject in recent times, gave the name 'Soma’ to an unspecified marvellous drug in his novel

Bmve New World,

depicted a Utopia that

language of the

in 1932. In his last novel. Island (1962),

clearly Indian throughout

cult, ^iva is

philosophy of the islanders. Island

based

worshipped, and Yoga

And

- Sanskrit

he the

essential to the

upon which the cult of the an hallucinogenic mushroom. That the mushroom is the drug

yellow and traditionally collected high in the mountains might suggest that

Huxley had Atnanita muscaria

thinking of the

Soma

mind - even

that he was

of the RgVeda, although he says expressly that

the ‘moksha-medicine’ (as toadstools that

it is

gnomes used

called)

sit

on.’'

not

one of 'those lovely red

Later in 'Culture and the

Individual’* Huxley, discussing the genesis of Island, says that he had

been thinking of the divine

‘a

substance akin to psilocybin’, the active agent in

mushrooms of Mexico. The Wassons played

in the re-discovery of the

had discussed

Huxley

his

Mexican psilocybin

cult

major part

and Wasson himself

Mexican mushrooms and the Soma problem with

in the late 1950’s.

Certainly as soon as one rids oneself of the assumption that anything

an hallucinogen of some kind seems the likely candidate for Soma, far more likely than millet or Afghan grapes or rhubarb or any other of the many plants that have been 'intoxicating’

suggested.

must be

Few Vedic

alcoholic,

scholars

knew any botany and some

them

not have realized that they were dealing with a problem read primarily botanical. The botanists on the other hand could not

may I

most important source about Soma, and so seem they permitted themselves to enter upon speculations that often of both ludicrous in the light of the Vedic hymns. But on behalf most part the Vedists and botanists it is only fair to recall that for the the RgVeda, by far the

Aldous Huxley:

Island,

Penguin

cd., 19^4. P*

by George An fcws an essay published in The Book of Crass, an aniholog)' cdiicd The passage cited is on p. aoo. Vinkenoog, Grove Press Inc., New York, 29^7, pp*

146

LATER RESEARCHES question had for

Soma

the identification of

them merely

Soma remained

peripheral interest.

Though

desideratum of Indian studies,

and fully to the soluno outstanding figure applied himself directly of religion seem likewise to have tion of this enigma. The historians given

only glancing attention.

of Philippe de Felice in 1936 offered a significant description establishment, as he was not a member of the academic

but.

notice

was taken of

it.

Much

writings on the subject.

the

same

professional scholars attached small im-

the

satisfactory alternative.

Soma

native chapters in Vedic studies, clarification.

must be

most

spirited

and

repetitive,

Wasson’s novel solution of

its

become

this old

increas-

and throws important problems of Indo-

European and even Eurasian cultural history into This

and imagi-

has also resulted in considerably

question revivifies a body of speculation that has ingly sterile

said that they

effort to identify

Although the

plant has produced one of the

more confusion than

little

true of Hu.vley's speculative

portance to the theories of these ‘outsiders’, offered

Soma

indeed a welcome contribution, and

new

perspective.

be hoped that

implications will be exploited in wide-ranging debate and fresh

syntheses.

147

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

PART THREE

NORTHERN EURASIA AND THE FLY-AGARIC

*•*

4»«l

«•»«!

»«!

AND ANTHROPOLOGISTS

EXPLORERS, TRAVELERS.

the Exhibits

we have assembled

all

the basic sources that

inebriating purposes could find on the use of the fly-agaric for of travelers (a few' of them in Siberia. They include a miscellany governmental misInnocents Abroad), explorers and scientists on

and anthropologists; also some linguists nating w'ord cluster that relates to our theme.

who

sion,

discuss a fasci-

have added three

secondary sources for particular reasons.

The

earliest of our authors [i]

poor Polish

not

lad,

endowed with

education, w’ho kept a diary of his stay in Siberia as a prisoner of

much

the Tsar.

entry in that diary records the fact that in 1658 he saw

paper

by two Soviet

Our latest Vladivostok who in the

drunk on the

the Ob-Ugrian Ostyaks getting

fall

scientists [42I living in

fly-agaric.

of 1966 contributed an epitaph to the ancient practice;

The minor

nationalities of Siberia

use any psychoactive drugs.

and the Far East

now do

not

After the October Socialist Revo-

and the establishment of Soviet Power these not numerous peoples have embarked on a new way of historical development. lution

Formerly backward

nationalities

borderland of Russia, w'ith

the help of the Russian people and Soviet Power, they soon reached the socialist phase of social development.

The

Soviet

Union has never allowed foreigners

to visit these ‘minor

nationalities’.

The testimony of our writers is of course worth only as much as the writers are worth. A few of them -notably the English-speaking contingent [14. 15, 20] and the one Frenchman [7] - lack understanding. They are superficial and disdainful, and most of their information seems to come from local Russian informants of dubious reliability, or from earlier writers whom we have also quoted, or else read and discarded as worthless. {Vide,

who

in turn

mushrooms

e.g.,

Kennan

[14] citing

paraphrased von Strahlenberg

13].)

The ignorance about

of these writers in English and French 151

OliverGoldsmith.

seems

have been

PART THREE complete.

quoted

When Erman number of baby saw them some

CHAPTER

what they had

reprint

as sources

•

to say because they are often

but they are worthless.

[ii]

informs us that Toyon’s wife transplanted a

fly-agarics

from the

forest to her

garden where he

days later flourishing in their big scarlet caps, the

mycologist raises his eyebrows.

When

he says that a native pays a

reindeer for one fly-agaric in the off-season,

this, as

other

witnesses testify to the high value placed on the marvelous plant by

who used it. Some of the Siberian

those

tribesmen

live in filth

that shock and revolt those Europeans

and indulge

in practices

whose sense of

scientific

detachment is not phenomenally developed. If in addition the observer is

mycophobe, taught from childhood

from a

‘toadstool’, his

away with

impulses will surely overpower

Europeans have long held the our writers on

to turn

his objectivity.

lethal.

and among the most trustworthy expressly acquit the causing death; in effects.

When

fact,

shudder

The testimony of be found surprising. Many of them

fly-agaric to

this will certainly

they testify that, properly dried,

fly-agaric of

has no bad

few of the writers mention deaths from the

each of those deaths should be weighed carefully.

fly-agaric

there a single

witness (some of whom spent not months but years and even a decade

among

the natives)

was present

in a

who saw

man die from

fly-agaric eating, or

settlement at the time of such a death?

who

think not.

Does the reported death come from a native informant or from a only fellow European, probably a mycophobe? If the latter, is it death that hearsay in the foreign community, perhaps the very same was reported by Krashemnnikov

[4] in his

book published

in the

mid-

reported as hearsay? dle of the i8th century, a death that he himself - highly significant - that is If the source is native, is it of the kind

upper Yeni according to Kai Conner [28], in the those that only shamans and sei among the Ket and the Selkup; vi^., fly-agaric with impunity, the eat can shamans become are to who records similar shamanic (Lehtisalo [24] surely die. will all others translates us to a he statistics: vital discussing beliefs.) Conner is not remote fossil survivals of of presence the in different realm. We are accepted

as veridical,

152

THE FLY-AGARIC beliefs, a sanction for violating a tabu, (at

and

it is

precisely the sanction

wife the time a projection of a surmise) that led niy

own remote

cades ago to suspect that our

on eating

forbidden

and

Death

it.

will

come

the

layman presumes

the Fruit of Knowledge, the Divine

fruit,

de-

ancestors had worshipped a

had been

that a heavy tabu, surviving to this very day,

mushroom and laid

IN SIBERIA

to eat the

Mushroom

Immortality that the Taoists talk about and that the poets of the RgWda celebrated. The fear of this ‘death’ has lived on as an emotional residue, long after the

memory, and here

shaman and

his religion

the explanation for the

prevailed throughout northern Europe, in the

have faded from

mycophobia

that has

Germanic and

Celtic

worlds, in particular for the macropsia with which the north Euro-

peans - and not least the mycologists and toxicologists - have viewed the poisonous properties of the fly-agaric.

There

consensus

among our

writers that the natives of Siberia

Von Strahlenberg [3] says that water is poured on it, then the water and mushrooms are boiled and the liquor is drunk. He does not mention dried mushrooms, but as he is speaking of winter they must have been dried. He and von

consumed the

Langsdorf

fly-agaric only after

[lo] are

Krasheninnikov

the only ones

[4I says

cooking the

mushrooms

later writers

kiprei, Epilobiiim angustifolium.

Krasheninnikov

it.

who mention

that the dried

must of an Epilobium, which Russian

drying

fly-agaric.

are steeped in the

have identified

(The ‘must’

as the

not fermented.)

the only source to mention Epilobium, but there

seems no reason to doubt

his

word.

It is

natural, given the scattered

population in Siberia and the poor communications, that customs vary

from settlement from shaman

to settlement,

shaman.

and even within the same settlement,

Steller [5I says that ‘the fly-agarics are dried,

then eaten in large pieces without chewing, being washed down with cold water. Georgi [6], on the other hand, is responsible for the

statement that in the

Narym

region the natives either eat one fresh

mushroom or drink a decoction of three but he is suspect as a witness. ;

According to von Langsdorf

mushrooms

[10],

the

Kamchadal prefer

to leave the

dry in the ground, exposed to the natural air and the sun. Small ones with many warts, he says, are the best and the most to

153

PART THREE powerful.

They

CHAPTER

•

are swallowed whole, being swallowed with the juice

of bilberries ( V't3cdMi«»i i(/iginosnm), either one large small. dry,

Erman

[ii]

and von Maydell

[12]

von Maydell adding that they

Enderli’s [19] description

classical

mention that they are taken

are

mushroom or two

smoked and

shrivelled up.

this point:

At the man’s order, the woman dug into an old leather sack, in which all sorts of things were heaped one on top of another, and brought out a small package wrapped in dirty leather, from which she took a few old and dry fly-agarics. She then sat down next to the two men

and began chewing the mushrooms thoroughly. After chewing, she took the mushroom out of her mouth and rolled it between her hands to the shape of a little sausage. The reason for this is that the

mushroom has a highly unpleasant and nauseating taste, so that even a man who intends to eat it always gives it to someone else to chew and then swallows the

little

sausage whole, like a

pill.

When

the

mushroom sausage was ready, one of the men immediately swallowed

greedily

by shoving it deep

filthy fingers (for the Koiy'aks

The Koryak

into his throat with his indescribably

never wash

in all their lives).

told Sljunin [18] that the fresh fly-agarics are highly

poisonous and hence they do not eat them. They are dried, either the sun or over the

them down.

fire,

and then consumed with fresh water

Karjalainen

[26].

wash

speaking of the shaman’s ways among

the Irtysh Ostyak, says that they swallow whole either three or seven

mushroom

caps,

may be fresh or dried: the among our witnesses in that

which

counter to the trend

take fresh mushrooms. Kannisto reports that the

mushrooms

[33]

are dry

Irtysh usage runs

the

shaman may

speaking of the Vogul cultures

when they

are used. Lehtisalo

Yurak shamans (northern Samoyeds), tells us that also the mushrooms must be fully grown and dry. Jochelson [21] confirms that they are taken dry. There is no aspect of the fly-agaric [24],

discussing the

on which there

more testimony than

this,

almost unanimous. Particularly impressive give in [30]

and the witnesses are the quotation that

the from an heroic hymn of the Vogul people, where

hero, the 'two-belted one’, addressing his wife, says,

three sun-dried fly-agarics!’ 154

Woman,

bring

THREE MAPS The data

for

our maps arc drawn from the following sources:

A. the ethnic distribution

M. G. Levin and

from the

map accompanying The Peoples of Siberia,

L. P. Potapov, Editors, originally published in

Leningrad in 1956 under the

title

der the editorship of Stephen

l^arody

Silx'ri

Dunn and

;

Moscow and

translated into English un<

published by the University of

Chicago Press, 1964; B. for

the distribution of the genus Bctula

Shrubs of the USSR.

S. Ja.

Leningrad, 1951. vol.

we have

relied chiefly

Sokolov, cd., Ac. of Sciences, USSR,

u, text fig. 72. p. 267:

supplementing

Trees

Moscow and

this source

data from the Gray Herbarium; C. for the distribution

of the genus Pinus

of the Pines of the World, by Service of the U.S. 1966.

The

fines set

Wm. B. Crichfield

rely

on Geographic

and Elbert L.

DistrihMtion

Little. Jr., Forest

Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., February

distribution of

by the

pines.

firs

and other conifers

generally within the con-

TUNDRA AND TAIGA MILES

c.rw^

ETHNIC GROUPS Zyf^an

0$tyak

Ci>eremi$

Mordvin

Distribution of the

Genus

llllllllllll

Vogul

Ostyak SarT>oyed Yenisei Ostyak

Yurak Samoyed

6etula

Distribution of the

Genus Pinus

ARCTIC

OCEAN

Last StBLRtAS St A

ss\\%

cC?

TAIGOMOS PCN^NSUIA

(5«

®^

^*1

GIzhigmsk

HER INC SEA

‘THE CHUKOTKA' (

Sedanka'

SEA OF

OKHOTSK

^Yetovka

Collective

name

for lands of the Chukchi,

Koryak, Kamchadal. and Yukagir,

the

far Northeast of Siberia)

ETHNIC GROUPS

KAMCHATKA' PENINSULA

MILES

y n

Yukagir

Koryak

Kamchadal

Chukchi

Distribution of the

Genus

Betula

Distribution of the Ger»us Betula

—I and the Genus Pious

>•

m wHW'

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC Thus

seems that drying

of the essence.

The

natives think that

inebriating. at least not satisfactorily or dangerous, arc ones the fresh you. but how do fresh mushrooms will kill

Some

say that eating

we know?

many

when

did not realise this

1965 and 1966,

went

and with Japanese friends

to Japan

the

tail ot

tried the fresh fly-agarics^

the drying. I had known of for me prepared not had The Rg\'eda mixed with water before being course that the Soma plants were

pounded with the pressing freshen

when

stones, but

the plants so that they

pressed.

The

desiccation.

had supposed that

this

was

would be capable of yielding

juice

thought, was an inevitable conse-

and keeping them on quence of bringing the mushrooms from afar desiccation was a sine qmi non hand. There was nothing to tell me that of the

Soma

rite.

The reader may think

that

should have familiarized

myself with the Siberian practice before going to Japan.

who by

zeki,

chance toasted

them, alone had

his caps

on one occasion before eating

satisfactory results, insistently declaring that this

nothing like alcohol, that this was far superior, in world. Alone

agree. Ima-

among

he has known

all,

was

fact in a different

the ambrosia of the

nnirfij,

Immortals.

for the

harm

that the fly-agarics

might be expected

our witnesses give revealing testimony. Georgi

feel

[6]

says that the natives

much less head after this method of intoxication

by spirituous liquors; nor

the use of

to provoke,

than

produced

followed by any dangerous

consequences.

Kopecâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experiences

[9]

with the mushrooms, for what they arc worth,

were benign and pleasant; he was not moved to violence. Von Langsdorf [to] says

that although he

made

great efforts to find out something

about the harmful or possibly deadly

effects

of the fly-agaric, he

could obtain no satisfactory information on the subject.

The Koryaks [he goes on]

greatly prefer fly-agarics to the Russiansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

vodka and maintain that

after eating fly-agarics a

from headaches or other

ill

cases (of which

no one could

effects. It

recall

consumed an extraordinarily

man

never suffers

true that in extremely rare

any speafic example) persons

large quantity of the

155

who

mushrooms

are

PART THREE have died

said to

eight days.

CHAPTER

•

in convulsions, senseless

However,

it is

and speechless,

after sis or

not reported that moderate consumption

e\er produced any harmful after-effects.

If.

contrary to expectations,

immoderate consumption of fly-agarics should nevertheless be followed by pressure on the stomach or some other disturbance, two or three spoonfuls of fat, blubber, butter, or oil are reputed to

be an

infallible

remedy.

(Sljunin [i8] gives an alternative antidote:

the

totally oblivious of his

mushroom, completely

a native

vodka or

a glass of

A quarter of an hour after swallowing the vodka, the

diluted alcohol.

Koryak who

environment under the

regains consciousness.’)

Erman

effect of

[iij

quotes

informant as saying that

mushroom

intoxication

had a quite

different effect

from

alcoholic

drunkenness, since the former put the Kamchatka natives into

peaceful and gentle (skromne in Russian)

how

differently

Von Maydell

I12J.

mood, and they had seen the Russians were affected by spirits.

who

passed the decade from 1861 to 1871 in Siberia,

confirms the impression conveyed by ... the

his predecessors:

mushroom produces only a feeling of great comfort,

with outward signs of happiness, far the use of the fly-agaric has results,

satisfaction,

together

and well-being. Thus

not been found to lead to any harmful

such as impaired health or reduced mental powers.

In a footnote

he adds that he had been told of one

who died after eating rather He ‘had been told’: again we Von Dittmar

Mukhomor splendid.

fatal case, a Russian

large quantities of fresh mushrooms.

are in the realm of hearsay.

[13I says substantially

the same:

eaters describe the narcosis as

The most wonderful images, such

their lives otherwise, pass before their eyes

most

beautiful and

as they never see in

and

lull

them

into a

most intense enjoyment. Among the numerous persons myself have seen intoxicated in this way, I cannot remember

state of the

whom

raving or wild. Outwardly the effect was For always thoroughly calming -I might almost say, comforting. a single

the

one

who was

most part the people

to themselves,

and

all

sit

their

smiling and friendly,

movements 156

mumbling quietl)

are slow and cautious.

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

the Kory^ik maintain that the continued mushroom has no ill eflcct on the person s health.

According to Sljunin

consumption of the

[[8],

^nd monotonous Enderli I19] reports that after a period ot lethargy with a frenzy, raving singing, the mushroom eater is suddenly seized and calling for drums, and then begins

deafening spell of singing,

drumming, and running around within the confines of the yurt. He immoderate consumption involves concludes with this sentence: .

the danger of

cases occur rarely.’ If he

madness or death, but such

seen or heard of an actual death, he

such an e.xcellent reporter that

he would certainly have told us about [21,

22I

report

had

it.

Jochelson and Bogoraz

no murderous outbreaks by

fly-agaric eaters,

and

Jochelson says that to his question as to which they preferred, brandy

many Koryak

or fly-agaric, 'Intoxication

from the

latter

answered. is

‘Fly-agaric.’

considered

Jochelson added:

pleasurable, and the

reaction less painful, than that following brandy.’ In these

comments

of various observers there

gests the berserk-raging of the Vikings.

nothing that sug-

Murderous

the Viking seizures almost always, whereas

ferocity

murderous

from our eye-witness accounts of

spicuously absent in Siberia. In

most of the reports the

sometimes there

effect

a noisy inebriation.

marked

ferocity

con-

fly-agaric eating

soothing, sferonuto;

Both are familiar to us

expressions of alcoholic inebriation and both are harmless.

The ardent must

advocate of a link between the fly-agaric and berserk-raging

content himself as best he can with the testimony of Krasheninnikov UJ: ‘The Kamtschadalcs

and the Korcki eat of it when they resolve to

murder anybody.’ This

generalisation

particular episode, he

four Russians

who

hearsay: had he

would have reported

it.

ate the fly-agaric, three of

Thus he

them

known

tells

in his

of a

us about

entourage

and one by hearsay. They were a menace only to themselves. This the consensus of selves

the witnesses,

and even here the threat

them-

often hearsay, perhaps a reflex of the conventional attitude of

Europeans

some

all

when speaking

forty years,

of inebriation. Reguly and, after a lapse of

Munkacsi took down from native Vogul singers an

Heroic Song concerning the Creation of the World. This song

drawn from the depths of the Vogul 157

culture,

[30],

alone enough to

PART THREE CHAPTER •

demolish the berserk-raging notion of the Scandinavians. Our Hero had eaten three sun-dried fly-agarics and lay in a stupor when there

upon him a messenger with news of the enemy’s imminent The messenger urges the 'bemushroomed' Hero to throw

bursts in invasion.

off his inebriation

that he has

brothers.

and to come and lead the

fight.

no strength and sends the messenger

It is

only on the second

call

that the

The Hero

to rally his

Hero

replies

younger

pulls himself out

of the fly-agaric stupor and calls for his arms.

far as

Kopec

we know, only two

of our witnesses ate the mushroom:

whose colourful narrative we publish for the first time in and Donner [28], who unfortunately and rather primly gives

[9l,

English,

us no details other than that of the urine. But a

it is

number of the

powerful intoxicant. None drank

Russians

who settled in Siberia

took

Many of our witnesses speak of sentence in Erman [ii, p. 253] reading as

to the fly-agaric, at least for a time. this,

and there

a startling

follows:

the Russians of Klynchevsk,

who

according to the

man from

Yelovka pick whole packhorse loads of this valuable plant, prepare an

e.xtract

by decocting it in water, and

try’

to take

away its extremely

disgusting taste by mixing the extract with various berry juices.

What

surprising in this passage

the formula that the Russians hit

on: extracting the juice with the help of water and adding various vehicles to

make

the drink palatable. In ancient times

mixed with water and pounded with

stones, then

Soma was

mixed with milk or

curds or barley-water or honey; in Klynchevsk they mixed the extract

with the juice of berries.

A fairly consistent

picture of the fly-agaric

syndrome emerges from

reading the accounts of our witnesses. Krasheninnikov

moderation

raises the spirits

and makes one

cheerful, but if indulged in to excess,

or melancholic

mood

[4J

says that in

brisk, courageous,

leads to trembling, a

and

merry

a according to one’s disposition, and macropsia. them as a great pit, and a spoonful of water as a

small hole appearing to lake.’

Von Langsdorf [10] confirms

step the macropsia: If one wishes to

over a small stick or straw, one steps or jumps 158

though the obstacles

THE FLY-AGARIC tree trunks.’

were

[12, i8, 22, 21].

IN SIBERIA

Jochelson So do von Maydell, Sljunin, Bogoraz, and

There

often vomiting and at

some

stage sleep su-

visions, pervenes, during and after which one sees marvelous

erotic

iiof

to Enderh according to von Maydell li2]; ‘highly sensuous’ according [19].

Kopec

the fly-agaric did not give erotic pleasure.)

knew

how von Maydell A number of our

seems to confirm Enderli. (We wonder

[9]

expected, witnesses testily to the increase in strength that can be Langsdorf [lo] met eye-witnesses who said that a man inebriated

von

with the

mushroom had been

10 miles,

and Bogoraz

[22]

able to carry a 120-lb. sack of flour

describes one under the influence of the

fly-agaric:

His agility increases, and he displays

physical strength than

normally. Reindeer-hunters of the Middle Anadyr told

made them more nimble on

fellow-traveler of mine, after raking agaric,

would

that

would chew

before starting in canoes in pursuit of animals, they agaric because that

native

lay aside his

snow-

the hunt.

snow hour after hour by the side the mere pleasure of exercise, and without any feeling

shoes and walk through the deep

of his dogs for of fatigue.

Von Langsdorf natives, those

[10]

who have

traordinarily light

bodily

declares that according to the statements of the

on their

movement and

There

strength’,

room three

taken the fly-agaric in moderation feet

and are then exceedingly

physical exercise.’

no doubt

which the

man

Erman

[11]

still

skillful in

confirms

about a ‘marvelous increase praised as

feel 'ex-

this:

physical

another effect of the mush-

Tn harvesting hay’, he said, 'I can do the work of men from morning to nightfall without any trouble, if I have intoxication.

eaten a mushroom.’

The Chukotka tribesmen personify the mushroom as little men or women. Krasheninnikov [4] was the first to call attention to this. ‘It is

that,

observed, whenever they have eaten of this plant, they maintain

whatever foolish things they

did, they

only obeyed the com-

mands of the mushroom.’ (We quote from the i8th century rendering by James Grieve.) Jochelson and Bogoraz 159

[21 , 22] ratify this.

The former

PART THREE writes: ‘The idea of the

what the

fungi does

and the

latter:

‘The

Koryak

CHAPTER

that a person drugged with agaric

spirits residing in spirits

them {wapaq)

tell

him

to do;'

of the fly-agaric have an outward appear-

ance similar to that of the actual mushrooms, and the agaric-eater

impelled to imitate them.’ The Koryak and Kamchadal

feels

tales

we reprint are shot through with this personification of the mush-

that

room.

Among

the Ob-Ugrians Lehtisalo

phenomenon. The mushroom

them what he wishes

the future, the outlook for a sick person,

character.

mushroom seems

etc.

Among

myths of

seen, there are vestiges of stern tabus

its

creation and, as

its

little

know

the Ob-Ugrians

to have retained

plays a role in the

same

the

observ-es

eater enters the realm of the

people, talks with them, learns from

the divine

[24]

sacred

we have

use by unqualified

persons.

Of all that has

son

the properties of the fly-agaric as

drawn the most

who

eats

the urine,

it.

The

attention

is its

it is

effect

inebriating virtue of the

whence the custom

in the

used in Siberia, the one

on the urine of the

mushroom

per-

passes into

Chukotka of drinking

the urine.

our best sources and there can be no comdoubt about its truth. No one knows to this day the chemical drug in the position of the inebriant. No one can say whether the mushroom is identical to the drug in the urine. Perhaps alien elements This

in the

amply confirmed by

mushroom, such

all

sometimes cause nausea, are

To von Langsdorf

in the urine.

[lo]

filtered out

alone goes the credit of having

asked some of these questions: consumption of fly-agaric is the whether ascertain able to not was 1 increase or decrease followed by constipation or diarrhoea or by an in the urine.

was

also

unable to obtain any

satisfactory

answer when

asked

been change e\ eryone had whether had drunk his »'™ was probably ashamed to admit that he improbable that strikes me as not the taste or smell of the urine

someone

else’s.

Nevertheless

fly-agarics, like turpentine, asparagus,

and other

things,

™P*''

By taste to the urme and smell pleasant, special, possibly quite whether other narcotic investigating worth would be it

aLlogy

i6o

esp^'C’i.v tor zzi z\-izir:c.

.ev

cr.

ir:er..i:£

Reiz-etr hive i v-ssicT. for unr:e ir.z err^cillv huri'.ir h’dir.aa 'criiie

there, to

irr.rre-^.::ei

be served to

ufO:

:ne“'j^_v

u“e

r'v-i^ir.c. ~<r:iz i recil

uvctirei reir.deer:

i:eher

^h:

c"e sr^v;

behind in SiberU

^ this

when Krisheninrikov [.i] remmed :o Rui^i wii h to call art en non to tins. Von L.mci'drr: [:;] hne L—rorTinoe and quotes Meller m £xnr--.v on Erman [n] hears r.iererie:

witness to the laots in an astonishing rara^anh. Bc'Crraz [an] <tre^ the pas^%a of the reindeer tor human unne. which L< likelv :o make •^^^^^crous to relieve oneself in

the open

when

there are reinie

srouni The curious account of the death of rwo reindeer even Saiychev tSl. slightly garbled though i: must be. seenns to relate ici

;

PART THREE same phenomenon. Before

the

CHAPTER

â&#x20AC;˘

had read

Steller (5]

and Erman

[11], I

made my suggestion on pp.75-76 that living as some of these tribesmen do

intimacy with the reindeer, almost in a symbiotic relationship

may

with them, they

have found

easy to indulge in the drinking of

the urine in imitation of the beasts. Here then would be the genesis of the urine-drinking that has astonished the West.

What

the relationship between the hallucinogenic

Middle America and the

The mushrooms The

sacred

The

are utterly different.

mushrooms

Mexico are

far

Siberia?

fly-agaric

an Amanita.

removed, belonging

to the

and Conocybe genera, these genera being

Stropharia.

Psilocybe,

complex of

fly-agaric

mushrooms

closely inter-related.

The drugs

locybin and psilocin.

in the

Mexican mushrooms are

do not know what the drug

psi-

in the fly-

agaric, or

perhaps the drugs. The Mexican mushrooms keep one

awake

about four or

for

five hours,

and then one

falls

into a deep,

dreamless slumber for a couple of hours there is no hangover. Though ;

one remains awake and experiences hallucinations, one has

little

or no

no macropsia. At the very moment one can talk about the marvels that one sees, and exchange comments with oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neighbors, but there is no kinetic agent in the mushrooms. desire to

move

about. There

some tribesmen

contrast, in Siberia

feel

an urge to talk loudly or

shout and sing, to dance, to run about, to perform activity. In Siberia stress

profound sleep

on the

laid

most of our

that, according to

end of ten or twelve hours, and

visions

feats of physical

one has during a

sources,

also during the

comes

at the

waking hours

that

follow.

There

one point of

occasionally occur in

similarity. In each case nausea

some

persons.

When

the

and vomiting

mushrooms

act as an

ingested, it is emetic immediately or a few minutes after they are has no effect on a remarkable fact that in both cases the vomiting

the later inebriation.

Langsdorf .

[to] is

people

have experienced

our witness for

who have

this

myself

Mexico. Von

Siberia:

mushrooms often eaten a large quantity of

suffer an attack of vomiting.

The

rolled-up

162

mushrooms

previously

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

swollen, large, and swallowed whole arc then vomited out in a single mushroom remains gelatinous form, but even though not a and stupor nevertheless continue, in the stomach, the drunkenness

and

all

There

symptoms of

the

fly-agaric eating are, in fact, intensified.

a striking similarity in the

imaginative world of the Mexi-

created a comcan Indians and the tribesmen of Siberia: both have

Mexico the mushrooms command. not They speak through the ctinindero or shaman. He is as though about the present. The mushrooms answer the questions put to them

munity of dwarfs who take over.

sick patient,

about the future, about the stolen

money

or the missing

donkey. The mushrooms take the fornt of dneinies, to use the Spanish

term dwarfs ;

the

command

of the

two areas

asked whether there

that to harbor such a thought

fly

amanita

amanita.

any genetic relationship between the

in the light of the similar

New World

comes under

mushrooms, and they are personified

or amanita men, the size of the

girls If

in English. Similarly the eater of fly-agarics

mushroom

practices,

should say

would be hazardous. The Indians of the

have shown themselves supreme in the arts of the

herbalist, discovering properties in the plant

kingdom from which

we Europeans have learned much. The Indians were certain to discover the divine mushrooms (as they think them to be) and it was natural, given their cultural background, that they should personify them as tiiiendes

and think they were speaking through the shamanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s words.

The same thing was in

true with the Siberian tribesmen. Both cults are,

opinion, thousands of years old and

163

autonomous

in origin.

A FAR-REACHING SIBERIAN WORD-CLUSTER

remarkable pattern of

cabular)'

marks the fungal voof many Siberian tribes and the European peoples. Specialists linguistic evidence

in the Uralic

family of languages have greatly contributed to the Uralic aspect of this problem, but no first class scholar has dealt with the linguistic and cultural aspects of the entire pattern of fungal words that are scattered throughout northern Eurasia

peninsula to Bering

Strait.

from the

Iberian

more than assemble some

can do no

the evidence and pose the questions that call for answers.

THE ANTIQUITY OF FLY-AGARIC INEBRIATION

In the Vogul language

from the word

all

words relating and

for fly-agaric, pavx,

its

drunkenness are derived

innumerable variants

ac-

cording to the dialect. This means that Vogul speakers, when they talk of getting drunk, say that the

important

to note that the

‘bemushroomed’. But

getting ‘drunk’ on fly-agaric, ‘drink’ the fly-agaric. If the

word it

it is

not aware of the ety-

without thinking of the

man was ‘bemushroomed’ on

similar to our use of the

Vogul speaker

molog)' of the word: he uses

whether the

man

fly-agaric,

alcohol or fly-agaric. This

‘drunk’. If

would not occur

say the

shaman

to us that he does not

Vogul speaker says that that foreigner

was ‘bemushroomed’ yesterday on vodka, it never occurs to him that one drinks alcohol, instead of eating a mushroom. Just as our basic

word

in English is a

secondary meaning derived from a beverage that

one drinks, so

in \’'ogul the basic

The

was the

fly-agaric

Vogul

word

original inebriant

derived from the

and probably the only one.

an Ugrian language. In Zyrian (= Komi), a Finnic language,

there are a

number

of words,

p^Jgal-,

consciousness as from alcohol. Uotila

pagav-,

etc.,

[34, 38] tells

derived from *pag-, and are cognate with the Vogul

fly-agaric.

not use the fly-agaric today,

meaning

to lose

us that they are patjx.

The Z) rians

that but these words would indicate

their ancestors did so.

164

THE LINGUISTIC ASPECT when fermented It seems alcohol) were either not known distillate, their of speak drinks (not to the fly-aganc was t/ie when time a to unimportant, were at all or certain that these

inebriant.

words go back

seems that they go back

Finnic languages

became

to a

time

time before the Ugrian and

differentiated, centuries before Christ.

[24a] in the last century But our story does not end there. Castren 'to be drunk', in the Tavgi language, reported the word attestation is sound, belonging to the northern Samoyed group. It this go back far and Uralic scholars treat it seriously, then the beginnings

and the Samoyed indeed. For between the Finno-Ugrian languages find there e.xists precisely the same pi>ot shift that we languages

distinguishing the Latin and

Germanic languages:

The Tavgi word, manifesting this borrowing from Vogul or Zyrian.

English ‘father’. therefore be a

common

e.g..

Latin

basic shift, cannot It

goes back to a

ancestor, before the Uralic peoples divided into the

Samoyed

and the proto-Finno-Ugrian. certainly thousands of years before Christ. We cannot say when the fly-agaric was first used in the north-

We can say.

ern reaches of Eurasia.

Castren

be relied on, that

was being used when the ancestral tongue of the Uralic peoples split up. In any case we feel safe in saying, on the evidence supplied by the Uralic languages, that the fly-agaric

was being invoked

as a divine

home and

long before

inebriant before the Aryans left their ancestral

the

RgVeda was composed.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF FLY-AGARIC INEBRIATION

So on

far as

know. Franz Boas

this subject

when he

initiated the

pointed out

accumulation of evidence

[31] that the

three languages of

the Chukchi group, in the far Northeast of Siberia, used for ‘mush-

common root was pov. He made no mention of Ob Valley, and he was probably not aware of it. His

room’ words whose such a root in the

book appeared

in 1922

but the materials for

had been accumulated

from the turn of the century.

The Finnish

linguist Artturi Kannisto [33I

the Vogul in the

first

decade of

was gathering data among

this century.

165

recorded the names

PART THREE pa :vx and p?:vx for the

'fly-agaric’

•

CHAPTER

used by shamans to achieve

ecstasy.

His papers were published only in 1958, long after his death. kacsi, the

Mag)-ar scholar, working in part with collections

the second quarter of the last century by Antal Reguly,

drew

attention

the Ob-Ugrian and Volga Finnic cluster of fungal words having

[32] to

identical origin,

room, the generic,

though

fly-agaric,

Ob-Ugrian they meant

whereas

a specific

‘mushroom’. He suggested an Iranian word, banha,

Lehtisalo [24a], e.vpressed doubt about

more concerning

one of his

least

this,

as cognate

colleagues,

and now that we know

the Iranian word, Munkacsi’s suggestion seems to

be ruled out. Apparently Lehtisalo

Samoyed languages:

in 1928 [24a]

‘to

was the

first to

was he who drew attention

discovery that in the Tavgi tongue

favkd^am means

mush-

Mordvin and Cheremis they were

with or the etymon of the Uralic words. At

in the

Munmade in

(in

the North

be inebriated’ and that

bring

to Castren’s

Samoyed group)

must be cognate with

the other words. Uotila in 1930 I34] then added the Southern

Samoyed

language, Selkup, seeing in pdver and psvgar, the ‘drum’ and another

musical instrument used by shamans, derivatives of the root detects a connection

between our

'to lose consciousness’.

for the

Bouda

paper Balazs

words

that

word

for

have

thought that the link with the

‘to lose consciousness’,

[38] in 1963

etc.,

confirmed Boas’s findings

summed up

etc.,

was unclear.

the Uralic evidence.

rather inclined to accept Uotila’s judgment on the Zyrian words,

about Munk^csi

than Steinitz’s hesitant position.

He is

concerning an Iranian origin for

this cluster, leaving

word

pagal-,

for the first time linked the

in 1944 [36]

Zyrian pagal-, pagyr, meaning In a notable

and the Zyrian

in the far Northeast with the Uralic

been discussing. Steinitz

[35] in 1941

Chukchi group and he

‘mushroom’

cluster

pot).

to Iranian scholars.

sceptical

view

however the

last

Apparently he was unaware of Walter

word Henning's pronouncement, published in 1951, on the Iranian bang. {Vide Eliade [41])

past in our distribution of these tribes in the recent slowly over the location their changed have C. They maps A, B, and Yukagir, for example, past centuries, and are now disappearing. The now they are confined to three shrin

show the

were once an important people;

166

CHART OF URALIC LANGUAGES AND OTHERS

) mushroom

Chukchi

OTHERS

AND

LANGUAGES

ORAL.C

CHART

THE LINGUISTIC ASPECT The

ing areas.

Finno-Ugrian peoples,

on the strength of hngt

st c

zoologists, stent to and ethno-botanists eUdence as interpreted by Volga Rtver, where hotne in the bend of the

have had their original tribes the Mordvin and Cheremis

now

are.

The Ob-Ugnans and

migrated to the east, presumably Magyars the of linguistic ancestors Magyars under Turcothe Later East. the to the Magt ars furthest

where

to the Pannonian p am West migrated domination Khasar Turkish domination in surviving the succeeded They are. now they as dominant. and their own language emerged the linguistic fanulies and the show we page this facing chart In the added a time scale but of the pov cluster. We have even

distribution

hasten to add

that

it is

linguistic history that

generations

some

idea of the

are dealing with.

emerge from our evidence. The centuries. Until a few fly-agaric has been shrinking for and Samoyed ago it was deeply rooted in the Ob-Ugnan

A number role of the

speculative, intended to give

cultures, the

of conclusions

seem

words related to pov having given

to these peoples

many

instruments of the shaman, derivatives for â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;inebriationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, the musical Itkonen [23! among the Inari Lapps etc. In the tradition reported by as an inebriant, we that they were once familiar with the fly-agaric practice enjoyed. It is to be get some idea of the wider range that this inferred

from the distribution of the pov root

these peoples

were once adjacent

in the

Chukotka

that

to the Ob-Ugrians, far to the west,

and that they were pushed into their present location by the

infil-

Tungus and Yakut from somewhere to the south. We must not think of this movement as resulting from wars of conquest to which precise dates might be given. It is much more likely to have

tration of

been a relatively peaceful occupation of inhospitable wastes punctuated by occasional clashes with the sparse inhabitants.

The Tungus

Lamut) and the Yakut have been where they are now for as far back as we have records. Perhaps a score of centuries have passed since the peoples of the Chukotka were living adjacent to the Ob(with the

Ugrians.

The

knew

fly-agaric

was

accessible to

man in

the forest belt ages before he

the art of distillation. For the gathering 167

was

available to

him

PART THREE probably before he possessed thereof, liquors.

CHAPTER

•

facilities for

storing berries and the juice

and before he had mastered the technique of fermenting It is hard to see why the shaman should not have been

resorting to the fly-agaric for inebriation and ecstasy since the receding ice-cap of the last ice-age permitted him and the birch to exist together in the northern reaches of Eurasia.

THE ‘pop- CLUSTER AMONG THE INDO-EUROPEANS

Now

In 1901

shift

the scene to the Indo-European world and Europe.

Holger Pedersen, then

one of the leading figures

in the

young man and destined

become

comparative study of the Indo-Euro-

pean languages, published a lengthy paper

in Polish I39I in

which he

found that the Proto-slavic *goHba, the Old Church Slavonic

Old High German

the

two Greek

and the Latin/ungiis were cognates. The

the

variants sphongos and sponge,

late V.

Machek, distinguished

Slavic philologist, accepted this correlation in his Etymologicky Slovnik

(Prague, 1957) of the Czech language. So does Jan Otr?bski, the Polish philologist, in a

paper that he published

where he

Indogermanische Forschungen, the identical metathesis.

Among

in 1939 in

Vilno entitled

gives scores of examples of

weight of evidence

Slavists the

favor of this interpretation; only Berneker held that, though Pedersen’s case

was tempting,

Boisacq, following Berneker,

was

‘unclear’.

did not elaborate.

deduced that the Pedersen

thesis

should

be discarded. Professor

Roman Jakobson,

solicited for his opinion

this matter,

said:

The etymology of Holger in the

Pedersen, the great Danish specialist

to comparative study of Indo-European languages, seems Czech other linguists, e.g., the distinguished

and to many

to interetymologist V. Machek. as the only convincing attempt

pret the fiingal serious

name

single of the European languages. Not one

argument has been brought

explanation, as Berneker defines

it.

against Pedersen's ‘attractive and not one single defensible

hypothesis has been brought to replace I.

Vide Botanical

Leapt, Harvard University, Vol.

168

this one.

19.

f'"-

the LINGflSTlC ASPECT perhaps Uralic peoples borrowed, the of cluster pov the Was not neighboring Indo-Europeans? back as Uralic times, from the

as far

book

the thesis of this

right, the

fly-agaric in

Aryans were using the

Indo-lranians left their homeland. The their religious rites before they under tabu inbecause cluster, pey the of word a possess

do not

fluences they had replaced

word was

by Soma or Haoma. and the original

lost.â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;

But even

supposition

this

designated the fly-agaric

there remains the further

meaning

question as to what the original it

right,

when

pov was, and whether

was borrowed.

We may

take

definitions: i.e.. granted that specific meanings precede generic classes of names for individuals or species precede the names for for

things.

But

this

not

species to

help, for

mushroom names

easily

change

and from the name of one another, and meanings often shift when words go wanderspecific to general,

meaning from

their

much

ing from one people to another.

For the cultural evolution of man, the shamanic use of the agaric

may

have been

vital,

perience.

making known

real

in short

life,

spark, even

been

laid

men

purpose

,/i>Âťientrtnus.

knew

that he

generated

early

fire in

wooden members

know the two times -by percusall

together. But not

enough

to catch the spark, a tinder

bursts into flames at once.

The

best tinder for

northern Eurasia has always been the dried Fomes

This

At Maglemose,

very survival.

on the primary tinder

inflammable that

this

him horizons beyond any

vital for his

or by rubbing two

stress has

greatly broadening the range of his ex-

sparking his imagination. But there was another

ways by which most sion,

fly-

a shelf fungus

in diggings that

most commonly found on

date from soon after the

birch.

last ice age.

Femes /omeiUtirius has been found close by the hearth stones. At Star

Carr in Yorkshire, in diggings of the

what I.

earlier. Fogies

R.L. Turner in

his

same culture but perhaps some-

/omenmriHs, sometimes

Comp.

Diet. 0/

!nd>Aryan

still

attached to the birch

Ldngitagts, Enir>* 7643, assembles a

group of

cognate words in contemporary Indian vernaculars derived from Sanskrit that stem back to the hypothetical Sanskrit â&#x20AC;˘peggak-.

'mad\ 'madness'. He suggests the

pMgw.

*lame', 'crippled in the legs*, of

origin.

May

these be

possibility

a link to Sanskrit

which the variant forms suggest to Turner

remote descendants of our pat>X duster?

169

non* Ary an

PART THREE hose,

•

CHAPTER

have been found next to iron pyrites and the hearth

stones.

These archaeological diggings date back almost to the last ice which began to recede ca. 12,000 B. C. As the ice cap receded and

pushed fusion.

his

and

way this

touchwood or ‘punk’ (which this

in the style of this

amadou or yesca or Zunderschwamm or

^hagra or taplo was what assured

men

man

north, the control of fire defined his range of

we should spell psvk), Perhaps the

age,

him

warmth and

dif-

book

trut or

cooked meal.

of Maglemose or Star Carr, whoever they were,

they busied themselves about those ancient hearths, were already

The discovery of Foms fomentarius and the simple methods of preparing punk for use had marked a long step calling their tinder ‘punk’.

forward in man’s material progress and the comforts of human existence. *

NOTE

cluster?

Ismo-kit, written

It is

either^

^ M

the ordinary market-place

throughout China. The word earliest citation that

mushrooms Chinese. The

for edible

not found in

can find

word

^ rn^rnber of the pop

classical

in the Rules of Cooking

written in 1330 and published in 1456. These were compiled by

Hu Ssu

Hui,^-,® M.,the senior chef of the Mongol Emperor and himself also a Mongol. (The Dynasty in 1330 was Mongol.) In Mongolian the same

word

in various dialectal

forms

also

used for mushroom. Philologists

have not been sure which culture borrowed the word from the other. It seems to me that the circumstances indicate a Chinese borrowing

from Mongolian. The Chinese

characters possess different meanings,

but in sound they lent themselves to express the Mongolian word. In Pekin mo-feu

mushroom ported

means

delicious specifically Tricholoma mongolicum, a

highly prized

in large quantities

which means

all

over China, which was and

from Mongolia.

It is

also

still is

known

im-

the Kalgan for the Chinese ‘brought through

J|, gate’; in other words,

With through the Great Wall from Mongolia.

the passing of time the sense of mo-feu has

become

general, especially

outside of Pekin. If

then the word

Mongolian, will the Mongolian experts 170

tell

the linguistic aspect whether mo-k„ could go(s)

come from

,.ou’ (s)po«go^

*!««««

mogu.

and on August 6 was in Zealand NOTE 2 In 1963 island, a Maori community. northern the of center the Rotorua, in people. Kcta Ehau. 7-1 years Maori the of elder an with was chatting around to mushrooms time. Naturally the subject came I

was

visiting

New

old at the

him remarkable, and to me and he volunteered a story that seemed to South Siberia with two Canadians and a been in had He so. more even he in the Government service, and war. world first the during African Maons still using touchwood, as the were there natives that the found was called it piiyke or do in New Zealand. The natives where he impression on him because in Rotorua the piiyfca. This had made an without the fc. But of fungus that serves as touchwood is called pave, frequent. This fungus course vacillation between y and vg or yfe is myrtle grows on the rdtti tree, Metrosuieros rolnistii. a member of the Rotorua, touchwood is family. At Ruatoria, on the coast to the east of

made from

a fungus

the fungus so used

How

growing on the tdwyi

called pu:finv<i,

strange to find a

word

that

tree,

Nothofagus spp. There

and pave

might be

unknown.

member

of the pov

among the Maori of Rotorua! I looked the word up in Williams’s A Dictioimry of the Maori Language, of which many editions have appeared since the first in 1844. Pii.-tawfl was in them all. In the fifth edition, 1917, I found 'Pange, pangi: tinder, touchwood, made from

family

spongy fungus.’ In a copy of the fourth edition, 1892, that

lies in

the

Trumbull Library, Wellington, there are the editor’s notes made in anticipation of the fifth edition, and among them is this entry written by hand, probably around 1914.

Ill

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC 1

have established

case that

Soma was

the fly-agaric- that the

amrta of the Aryans was until only yesterday the divine inebriant still currently consumed by the shamans over vast reaches of Siberia,

then

na and

once the

by which

initial steps

on our

my wife

Valentina Pavlov-

more than forty years ago take on relevance and a cutting edge. For we did not begin by looking for Soma. Decades were to pass before Soma drew my attention. We I

started out

inquiries

started out by accumulating purely chiefly philological

twenty years

and

later to

folkloric,

make

European ethno-mycological data,

and those European data

a bold,

many would

led us

say a wild, surmise:

the striking pattern of our evidence would be understandable

when a mushroom had played a role in the religious life of our own remote ancestors, perhaps some 6,000 years ago, millennia before they could read and write, when the postulated a period

last ice-age

gatherers.

was

yielding the frozen wastes to the pioneer food

still

did not

know which mushroom

have been hedged about with

all

our

own

folkways,

must

the sanctions that attend sacred

things in primitive societies. Judging survivals in

nor why, but

by what we considered

must have been

vestigial

instinct with mana,

an object of awe, of terror, of adoration.

Our

later discoveries in Siberia

and mine more recently among the

Indo-Iranians were an immediate sequel to those early hesitant stumbling steps that we were taking in the 1930â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, and they lend

credence to our 'wild surmiseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; about our for

it is

ancestors,

would unlikely that a foolish misinterpretation of evidence

lead us to these rich finds.

It is

early evidence, constituting as

proto-history of our

own European

wife and

our therefore in order to re-examine

and does an exploration into the pre-

own European

embarked on

stock.

this

our

intellectual foray late in

Valentina Pav episode started us on our way. an birth. I was of Anglo-Saxon by Muscovite Russian, a was lovna

August

1927.

little

172

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC now a year and we were than less married cestrv We had been Catskills. On that first day. the in Indian Big at on our first holiday, forest set out for a stroll, the we West, the in as the sun was declining had known each we Though right. our on on our left, a clearing never discussed mushrooms years, it happened that we had off

other for

cries ot sudden she darted from my side. With discovered mushthe forest glade, where she had the ground. Since Russia she had

together. All of a ecstasy she flew to

rooms of various kinds carpeting seen nothing

Left planted

it.

her to take care, to

come

back.

on the mountain

They were

ing, poisonous, putrid, disgusting.

trail.

toadstools she

called to

was gather-

She only laughed the more:

can

adoration. She spoke to them hear her now. She knelt in poses of gathered the toadstools in a with endearing Russian diminutives. She

brought them to our kind of pinafore that she was w-earing. and and dry for winter use. lodge. Some she strung on threads to hang up or the meat, acOthers she sensed that night, either with the soup This episode, a cording to their kind. I refused to touch them. .

of our busy small thing in itself affecting only a peripheral aspect that the northern Slavs lives, led us to make inquiries, and we found

mushrooms, having learned them at their mother’s knee: growths with a theirs is no book knowledge. They love these tungal passion that, viewed with detachment, seemed to me a little exag-

know

their

gerated. But

Anglo-Saxons reject them

without deigning to

make

built

up extensive

files

Slavs’. Little

with revulsion,

and our attitude

their acquaintance,

even more exaggerated than the 1

viscerally,

little

wife and

concerning this modest corner of

human

behaviour, not only about the Slavs and Anglo-Saxons but about

all

the peoples of Europe, even to the Basques, the Frisians, the Lapps,

and the Albanians. Years passed. 'wild surmise’, since

we were

even a

trifle

We had reached and

then gave utterance to

afraid of appearing ridiculous to

touched.

Our

we pronounced our

the 1940’s before

only to each other,

our friends, perhaps

evidence was airy and insubstantial, but

possessed a poetic consistency that carried conviction with us.

resolved to cast our net further afield and to explore the tribal cultures 173

PART THREE

CHAPTER

III

What was our amazement when we found, right on the doorstep of Europe, a mushroom -the fly-agaric - occupying the center of the stage in the shamanism of many northern tribes. We were hitting pay dirt and for long we thought we had reached the end of Siberia.

of our road. In 1952 our attention

there was a historically

living

was diverted

mushroom

to Mexico,

cult to be explored

where we learned

and studied

in situ,

through the centuries or even the millennia, and

anthropological practice in

many Amerindian

that

both

also as a

cultures of

Oaxaca, Puebla, and Vera Cruz. The mushrooms used in Mexico

were not the

fly-agaric of Siberia

and we could not discover any

umbilical cord linking the Mexican and Siberian

ample opportunity inebriant.

The

cults,

but

to dissect the modalities of a divine

we enjoyed mushroom

ten rainy seasons - 1953 to 1962 - spent in the remote

mountains of Mexico’ were a rewarding experience but they were only a diversion from our Eurasian preoccupations. In the course of these years Valentina Pavlovna’s fatal illness manifested

died on the last day of 1958, in the evening. Meanwhile

our Mus/irooms Russia

History into print in

May

she

itself:

we had

rushed

1957. In

expressed our 'wild surmise’ hesitantly, by implication rather than directly,

and not

a single reviewer caught

to sponsor openly the notion of a divine ancestors.

Only one

critic,

it.

were

still

unwilling

mushroom among our own

a first-class mycologist, hinted at the point

not succeeded in establishing our theory prone to measure as to the origin of 'fly-agaric’.* The scientific mind is

when he

said that

we had

evidence by austere

scientific standards,

phenomena. But the myths and verbal

calibrating quantitative

origins of pre-literate

com-

poets and those munities are sheer poetry, to be understood only by those societies the play of imagery. There are values in calibration. This is where quantitative to themselves not lend that do fly of divine pos the that certain were We wrong. critic went

with a

gift for

our

session

was the

fly

of the fly-agaric, and this

fly

has

now

led

Soma. 1.

plan to do this These expediiions remain to be written up and I 392-395. R. W. G. Dennis: Kew Bulletin. No. 3, I9S7 (1958): PP-

174

in the

coming

years.

ELROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC I

do not

was

recall

when

certainly after

our

Soma Soma by our

had

’

until the

50 ’s.

lain

From

attention:

to press. .\ly wile

had net cr

Tom

brother

father in the

case the question

memory

book went

first

drew

possibility hrst

Soma

mystery.

heard of the told about

the

decade

first

uas

we had been

ot this centur\

in the

dormant

i955 on

and

depths of sleeping intermittent cor-

New

often when he visited respondence with Aldous Huxley, and Street and have lunch with me. Wall to down come would York he in this strange historical interest my revived who he was Perhaps it the hallucinogens/ and I and I were discussing he day One enigma. might prove remember tossing out the fanciful suggestion that Soma him the red and yellow phases to be the flv-agaric. and describing to which I remarkable mushroom, and its role in Siberia, with

of this

think he was already acquainted.

moon. When

Soma

to the

and to aspire

that time,

knew nothing about Soma

secret

was

appeared some years

Tlie /sLiiid

to be reaching lor the

later,

was surprised

with ^iva discover that Huxley had set his stor\- in an Indian setting, worshipped and voga being practiced, and the drug that is the being

focus of the cult in the stor\-

a yellow

Huxlevsays expressly that

fly-agaric:

than the red one on which close to the truth:

gnomes

mushroom,

it is

the yellow

surely the yellow

mushroom

In his ston'

sit!

rather

he was coming

he possessed the poet’s intuition. Later, in ‘Culture

and the Individual’ Huxley explained* that he had had in mind the mushrooms that yield psilocybin, the Mexican mushrooms that my wife and

in rediscovering

had played a part

the world. ...

remember

that in these

and making known to

same

years, in

the late

Hallucinogen Huxlev luncheon Stephan F. de Borhcg>i was also present. and ‘hallucinogenic’ >scre words coined by a group of physidans preoccupied with these mysterious drugs - Abram Hoffer, Humphrey Osmond, and John Smythies in America, and Donald Johnson j.

this particular

England.

To Johnson

goes priority. In 1053 he brought out a pamphlet. The Hallunncgmu: Drugs,

up the word from the oihen, who however did not get into print until Januaiy- 1954. in an article on 'Schizophrenia: A New The word quickly took hold and now Approach’, in The jeurrui of Slenui Hralrk. London, Vol. trips off even*one*s longue os though U had been used for generations. The uninitiated layman is published by Christopher Johnson in London. But he says he picked

apt to think of the halludnogens os merely a new* kind of alcohol but by devising a fresh radical difference

may seem senses 1.

and

esiablished

inadequate but

from the

it tits

start.

so long as

For those

who know

Vide supra, p. 146.

175

the

their effects, 'halludnogens'

one remembers that the hallucinations

also the emotions.

name

affect all the

PART THREE also discussed the

’50’s,

New

York.

After

CHAPTER

•

III

Soma problem with Mr. John

P. C. Train, of

my conversations

with Huxley and about the time when The 1962, but before I had read it, in July, I engaged

Island appeared, in

Wendy Doniger

mitted her report on Februar)typescript. In

she called

Soma

to write a precis of the

16, 1963. It

question, and she sub-

was 33 pages of single-spaced

my special attention to RgVeda ix 74*, where

the priests urinate Soma. This had astonished her and plussed:

little

did she suspect

Siberian background. finally retired

from

what

Her report

bank

lay

at the

would mean dormant

her non-

me, with

for

left

months

until

end of June of that year and

translated myself to the Orient for a stay of

some

years.

I shall begin

by saying where

cult of a sacred

have not found the

mushroom.

Mushrooms do not

that raged in

Europe’s past

Europe

figure in the various witchcraft epidemics

in the late

mediaeval and renaissance times.

The evidence here is voluminous and circumstantial, extending from Spain CO Hungary and from France to Scotland and Sweden. That a role for

mushrooms

never mentioned seems to

conclusive.

we possess of the shadow)^ Druids. Our sources are meager. If we knew more, mushrooms might figure, but the evidence now is negative. have found no mushrooms

In Viking times,

in the records that

from the 8th

special category of the

to the loth centuries, there

Viking warriors known

was

as the Berserks. Big

a wild powerful men, they fought in the forefront of the battle with

fury.

They would

famous and

feared.

circles that this

‘go berserk’

Today the

and

this

berserk-raging

made them

Scandinavian belief prevails in certain by the fly-agaric. In

berserk-raging was provoked

assert this

Sweden and Norway even text-books and encj'clopaedias propounded [43] the as a fact. Samuel Odman, a Swede, first 176

idea in

EUROPE AND THE ELY-AOARIC of travellers in Siberia accounts the from notion ,784 deriving the Steller [5], and there is and Georgi [6] cites He earlier in the century. Strahlenberg [3] and Kravon knew he that every reason to assume Christian Schubelater, in 1886. Frednk century A also. sheninnikov [4I throng expressed the same view. In Exhibits [43I ler, a

Norwegian,

statements in favor of the U61 we merit. The opposition has not their pass on to reader the fly-agaric, for Fredrik Gron. a specialist in notably advocates, able been without give in translation the principal

the medical history of

Norse traditions and Certain

reference books.

The

opinion, that the fly-agaric

no time should be

Berserks, and

First.

literature.

it is,

on Norway, and Magnus Olsen, the authority

was

expunging

lost in

not

this

used by the

yarn from the

reasons are two-fold.

fly-agaric

never mentioned

in the Sagas or

Eddas.

variworld only punk or touchwood (kiiosk and dialectal or unidentified plant ants thereof) appears in them. No mysterious historians Saxo Grama part in the berserk-raging. The early

the fungal

plays

maticus and Olaus

There such a

Magnus made no mention of any such

agent.

no record of an oral tradition antedating the 19th century of practice. Odman said expressly that he was basing his view

on Georgiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

[

6 ] and Steller's

[5I

account of the Siberian shamanic

usage.

The advocates of the

fly-agaric as the cause of berserk-raging are

shadowy episode alleged to have taken place in 1814. The story goes that in a brief war between Norway and Sweden the Swedish soldiers of the Varmland regiment

constrained to place excessive weight on a

were seen by at the

their officer to be seized

mouth.

soldiers

inquiry the officer

had eaten of the

fighting pitch.

vember

But

1918, a

this

fly-agaric, to

a raging

said to

madness, foaming

have learned that the

whip up

their courage to a

episode has not been substantiated.

Swedish physiologist

named

Carl Th.

paper on the higher fungi before a learned society

No-

Morner read

in Upsala. In the

oral discussion that followed the

paper a meteorologist, H. Hilde-

brandsson, disclosed for the

time the story of the Varmland

regiment. Later,

first

when Momer published 177

his paper,

he cited what

PART THREE Hildebrandsson had

said,

and

this

happened. But Morner did not

CHAPTER

â&#x20AC;˘

III

our only evidence for what had

seize the opportunity, at that time

possibly available, to ascertain Hildebrandssonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s source and to confirm

with additional

his story

details.

one has ever heard of the episode

other than from Hildebrandssonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s account told offhand, in the

more than

cussion that followed a lecture,

and half

a century after the event

century ago. Bo Holmstedt, Professor of Toxicology

Karolinska Institute of Stockholm, has lately to verify

remember field

made

Varmland or elsewhere, without

that Professor Hildebrandsson

dis-

at the

rigorous efforts

success.

must

was speaking outside the

of his special competence and was merely contributing to an oral

discussion.

The symptoms of

Second.

fly-agaric inebriation are the opposite

of berserk-raging, and the Norwegians and Swedes

who

they are the same would do well to read Exhibits

[i]

The

effect of the fly-agaric

At one stage there

lizing.

our

case-histories there

hymn

an heroic

[30]

[38].

a feeling of physical exhilaration, but

not a single report of wild

of the Vogul a

sumed three sun-dried

through

soothing, comforting, quieting, tranquil-

imagine that

fly-agarics

myth

told: the

and is lying in

bellicosity. In

Hero has con-

a stupor.

A messenger

announces the imminent approach from the North of the fearful Mocking-bird Host with the red rump, and calls on the Tworushes

in.

Belted

One

Hero

gate, our

go forth and

fight.

But though the enemy

at the very

says he cannot stir because of his inebriation, and sends

out his two younger brothers. The peril grows desperate and the messenger, returning, implores the Hero his inebriation, sallies forth, and This time he throws off the

messenger

to seek

to fight.

off

slays the

enemy

right

and

confirms what the travelers

them

describes a

syndrome

left.

The testimony

of the

myth

only

of us over and over again. Not one corresponding in the remotest degree to tell

berserk-raging.

At the

October

Mycologique de France held on photograph presented to the attendance a

session of the Societe

1910, there

was

chapel that had belonge of a Romanesque fresco from a disaffected 178

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC It was later in the center of France. Plaincourault de to the Abbave Vol. xxvii, ot the B.d/etu. 31-33. on published pp. note subject of a

the

familiar tempt-

the fresco, crude and faded, is of The Societe. the of presented the who gentlemen The Eden. of Garden ation scene in the

statement Mycologique made the sensational Tree, the artist had given us the fl\customary the of instead ihat. a gigantic fly-aganc and was around entwined was serpent A agaric.

fresco to the Societe

engaged

in a colloquy

with Eve.

the mycologists has made by The particularly in England. Thus an impression on their colleagues, fungal message in Mus/iroi)iHS John Ramsbottom endorses the Larger Britis/i Fungi also R. T. and Toadstools' and in A Handbook of the the Fungus World;’ The Illustrated London F. W. Rolfe, in T/ie Romance of interpretation put

on the

fresco

Frank H. Brightman more recently in in 1966.* My wife and I visited the T/ie Oxford Book of Flowerless Plants, Berry, between Plaincourault chapel on August 2. 1952. It is in the the Ingrandes and Merigny. facing the Val de I’Anglais. hard by

News, Nov.

21. 1953; finally.

Chateau of Plaincourault. The Chapel bears the date 1291 and the thereabouts. On April 2, fresco must come down from that time or Mme Michelle Bor)-, of the Museum National d’Histoire Na1959.

turelle. visited the

fresco that

chapel at

offer

our readers

request,

and made the copy of the

in Pl.vte xxi.

The mycologists would have done well to consult arc historians. Here is an extract from a letter that Ei^vin Panofsky wrote me in 1952: ... the plant in this fresco has

nothing whatever to do with

mushrooms and the similarity with Amuniw muscuria is purely fortuitous. The Plaincourault fresco is only one example -and. since the style is provincial, a particularly deceptive one -of a conventionalized tree ty-pe, prevalent in Romanesque and early Gothic art, which art historians actually refer to as a ‘mushroom tree’ or in German, Pilzbaum. It comes about by the gradual sche.

matization of the impressionistically rendered Italian pine tree in 1.

Collins.

London,

1953, pl*

P* ^4 •

Museum, London, 1949. p. 26 3. Chapman Hall. London, 1915, p. 291. 2.

British

4 p. 112 .

179

PART THREE

CHAPTER

III

Roman and

Early Christian painting, and there are hundreds of instances exemplifying this development - unknown of course to mycologists.

medieval

What

artists

the mycologists have overlooked

hardly ever worked from nature but from

that the classical

prototypes which in the course of repeated copying became quite unrecognizable.

Professor Panofsky gave expression to

unanimous view of those competent

what

have found

Romanesque

the

For more

art.

than half a century the mycologists have refrained from consulting the art world on a matter relating to

art.

not read books about mushrooms. Here failure of

The

communications between

Art historians of course do is

good example of

the

disciplines.

misinterpretation both of the Plaincourault fresco and of

berserk-raging must be traced to the recent dissemination in Europe

of reports of the Siberian use of the tators

have made an error

than they have allowed

for,

fly-agaric.

in timing: the

think the

span of the past

and the events that they seek

commenis

longer

to confirm

took place before recorded history began.

Traditionally the European peoples vary like night and day in their

toward wild mushrooms. There are two areas that are on and excellent terms with them. The northern Slavs and Lithuanians, attitude

the Mediterranean littoral from Majorca and Catalonia to Provence and including apparently the whole of the lan^ue doc area of France, these are the areas

where wild mushrooms

where children gather them where no adult

feels the

are considered friends,

for fun before they can read and write,

need of

mushroom-manual, where imin in-

mense quantities of mushrooms are prepared for the table gentle art of numerable ways, and where accidents are unknown. The Mushrooms are a accomplishment. universal a is mushroom-knowing women. Novelists introduce them conversation piece

among men and

and they recur in prover into their narratives, poets into their verses; references the telling thing - all the

and

ditties.

Moreover - and here is

are friendly, favorable,

wholesome. 180

Fresco ot Plaincourauh.

Plvh* XXI

â&#x20AC;˘

fadnp the

\\\\

Abbasc Jc

Plaincouraiilt. McrijiON, InJic,

Mnie Michelle Anglais, in the Berry. (Copied April 2 ig59. b\ nteniber of the Laboratoire de C.ryptogainie. ,

Rorv, staff

Museum

National d Hisioire Naturclle. Paris)

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< t

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC Celtic peoples arc infected and Germanic the hand other the

coming down from prc-lnstory. In reimprovement as the traveled some been has there generations cent and as have begun to spread a diflerent gospel, with a virulent mycophobia.

and educated

classes

to leaven the

mushroom amateurs have begun

groups of zealous

by which to judge

mass of a

this aspect

of the population.

The

people's culture

writers and of the pronouncements of the older

criterion

the untutored country folk.

The educated element does not ofler a pure

Kussui C- Historv strain of the native ways. In AlHs/iroeins

presented

such expressions and

have assembled other

quotations since that book appeared. Here

shall cite

an anthology of

many

only

a few.

The English people to begin with had no name lor a mushroom word and that would permit them to eat it: ‘toadstool’ was our chief one does not eat a toadstool. The Court under French influence in the 15th century introduced Miousseren, which became mushroom and ,

from then on the English, or ones, could

at least a

consume one or two

unenthusiastic.

The

few of the more enlightened

species.

But even the French were

Crete H^rball of isi 6

a translation

from the

French, voices the hostility of both peoples:

Fungi ben mussherons

maner

deedly and sleeth

There be two maners of them: one

them

that eateth of

tode stooles, and the other dooth not. grosse

gleymy

[slimy]

They

moysture that

that

them and be

be not deedly hauc a

dysobedyent to nature and

dygestyon, and be peryllous and dredfull to eate

good So

called

therefore

it is

eschew them.

mushrooms

are of

two

classes, those that are

deadly and those *

had best be eschewed. In Diderot’s Encyclopedie the Enlightenment

that

had not yet spread

mycophagy:

But whatever dressing one gives to [mushrooms], to whatever sauce our Apiciuses put them, they are really good but to be sent

back to the dung heap where they are born.'

Anicle on Champignons by Louis dc Jacoun, I7S3 quclquappret quon Icur donne, i quelquc sauce que nos .Vpicius les puissent mettre. ils nc sont bons riclcment qu'i ^tre ^cnvoy^s sur le fumicr I.

ou Us

naissent.

181

PART THREE For Keats, in Endyimon Chill

his

smelled thing’.

‘a

III

'fungous brood’ sends up. 'sickly and pale,

mushrooms coloured

one of

CHAPTER

•

like a corpse’s cheek.’

Tennyson makes heroines, Lynetce, turn away from Gareth as though she foul-flesh’d agaric’,

Spenser

deeming

‘carrion of

some woodland

The Sheplieanies Calendar identified the

‘grieslie

Todestool’ with winter, and so does Shelley, thus also doing violence to nature, in The Sensitive Plant:

And

agarics

Started like

and

mildew and mould, mist from the wet ground cold;

Pale, fleshy, as

With

fungi, with

a spirit of

the decaying dead

growth had been animated

Their moss rotted off them, flake bv Till

flake.

the thick stalk stuck like a murderer’s stake,

Where

rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high,

Inspecting the winds that

wander

by.

Montaigne, that giant of the Renaissance, pouring forth the contents of his

world. Here

mind and

rich

feelings in his Essays, ignores the fungal

a son of Perigord

who

never mentions

truffles. Rabelais

presents to his readers an obnoxious character called Lent-observer

who sists

has a potiron,

and whose excrement connever a kind word for mush-

for a chin,

of morels and toadstools. There

rooms as

mushroom,

in Rabelais, this native of

Chinon

in the heart of France. So far

know, neither Chaucer nor Milton mentioned them, and Shake-

spere barely.

For the modern poets mushrooms are unchanged. Emily Dickinson repeats the old refrain:

Had

nature any outcast

Could she

Had

a son

nature an

contemn,

Iscariot,

That mushroom - it

Or D. H. Lawrence

How

face,

him.

Beastly the Bourgeois Is.

beastly the bourgeois

especially the

male of the spedes 182

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC Nicely groomed, like a

mushroom

eycable and erect and sleek so there scanding of bygone and like a fungus, living on the remains sucking his

And even

life

out of the dead leaves of greater

so, he's stale, he’s

just like an old

mushroom,

life

than hts own.

been there too long.

you’ll find he’s all

Touch him, and

life,

all

gone

wormy

inside

inside,

and hollow

under a smooth skin and an upright appearance. Full of seething,

wormy, hollow

feelings

rather nasty -

How

beastly the bourgeois

is!

damp England

Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in what a pity they can’t all be kicked over like sickening toadstools,

and

left

to melt back, swiftly

into the soil of England.

The poets invoke mushrooms only when they seek

loathsome figure

Of course mushrooms decay, but why pick on mushrooms? Everything that lives will rot. The poets never see the infinitely subtle, fresh colouration, quivering with life, of the mushroom vvorld, vary-

of speech.

ing from species to species and from individual to individual; the delicate softness of their texture, their shapes, graceful, grotesque; the

aroma of each its

own

species different

from

all

others, conveying

its

scent

proper signature.

Wild fungi cophobe

are an emotional

alike,

and

in the poets

contrast in the response to fungi

trip-hammer

for

mycophile and my-

with their heightened is

sharpest. Professor

was spending the summer of 1919

sensibilities the

Roman Jakobson

Pushkino, near Moscow, with

who would go out almost daily into the forest to look for mushrooms. He would usually return with a large basket-full of them. He knew them all and where to look for every kind. He told his companion that mushroom gathering offered the poet Vladimir Majakovskij,

the ideal

accompaniment

course of that Million,

for the composition of poetry,

summer he composed

while engaged in

this

and

in the

the best parts of his epic, ijo

pastime. During the previous season, in 183

PART THREE he had conceived

1918.

the

his play

â&#x20AC;˘

CHAPTER

III

Mystery Bouffe in the woods among

mushrooms.

In the

beginning the Germanic world was steeped

cophobia. Certainly nowhere in European literature perfect expression of loathing for

mushrooms -

in darkest is

more eloquent

the

all

there a

my-

because taken for granted - than in the writings of Saxo Grammaticus,

who

the Danish historian

of a military campaign \vaged in loth century, and

how

He was

flourished about A. D. 1200.

Sweden by Hadding

the

Dane

telling in the

the Danes ran out of provisions, and were

extremities of hunger. Here in

Book

driven to the

last

Sflxonis Gesta

Danorum we discover the low opinion

vii:

7 of his

which the

Danes of olden times held wild mushrooms: .

After the spring thaw, Hadding returned to Sweden and there

spent five years in warfare. soldiers,

having consumed

ally to starvation,

By reason all

of this lengthy campaign, his

their provisions,

were reduced

and resorted to forest mushrooms

virtu-

to satisfy their

hunger. Finally under pressure of extreme necessity they ate their horses,

dogs.

Now

and

in the

end they

satisfied

themselves with the carcasses of

Even worse, they did not scruple

that the passing centuries have

sufferings of Haddingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s host,

to eat

human

dimmed

we may permit

limbs.

for us the personal

ourselves to be amused

by the graduated stages of their desperation as reflected in their diet, have and our thoughts turn to what soldiers of other origins would done in a like pass. Had they been Celts, they would surely have foul fungi of eaten horses, dogs, and each other before turning to the would have been the forest. If they had been Slavs of the North, they

long on those noble mushrooms from the outset of their have engaged campaign, and. fortified by the delectable fare, would feasting

the

enemy

like lions,

and most certainly turned the

General Bernadotte. a son of Pau in the Pyrenees

tide of war. Until

who became King of

Swedes ate mushrooms. Sweden, spoke well of ceps, neither Lapps nor on the fungi Linnaeus tells us so. In the section

We know this

because

in Sweden only forei^ers that observes he Lapponka, in his Flora himself from mushrooms fit for eating, nor does he except

consider

the general rule.

What

a pity that the great

184

Linnsus was

my-

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC the famous LncMniis naming was he when cophobe! It is Mediterranean a Lactarius of the naming was he thought he ,ielici05i,s. eating: he thought the excellent as him to described that had been said that

specimen before him was the same hfcmisf ro

fiJ-'ite

smelled

its tlierigli it oiiglit

gooil.

tabu are far from sensing that to the tabu is in the natural order of it is a tabu. Their obedience wood. As i am writing for the things. It lies along the grain of the my book, English-speaking world. I fear my readers will put aside

Members

of a

community observing

saying: ‘The poor idiot just doesn’t

mushrooms. Come, what’ll breathtaking aspect of

get poisoned

from

highball or a Martini?

The

know you may

he,

the unanimity of the witnesses. Those

from mycophilic peoples are invariably mycophile; those from mycophobic races are invariably mycophobe. The only exceptions are have those who have traveled and read widely, and because they traveled, at least intellectually, they are not really exceptions. In the i92o’s

and

i93o‘s this subject

was

a frequent conversation piece in

Russians, but

was only

table-talk.

gatherings frequented by

White

deserved better than that. Today everyone

wife and

thought

aware that deep-seated emotional attitudes acquired in early life are of profound importance. It seems to me that when such traits

betoken the attitudes of whole tribes or peoples, and traits

when

those

have remained unaltered throughout recorded history, and

expecially

when

people, then

they differ sharply from one people to a neighboring

you are

cultural importance,

face to face

with

whose primal cause

phenomenon is

to be discovered only in

the well-springs of cultural history. In this instance

from the artifacts)

inside (not

of profound

are exploring

through cave paintings or mute archaeological

one aspect of the religious

life

of our ancestors in proto-

histor)'.

‘Toadstool’

an astonishing folk-word. For centuries

has in-

capsulated the inspissated loathing and fear of the English-speaking

people for wild mushrooms. For the Englishman, as 185

commonly used

PART THREE

CHAPTER

•

III

means any mushroom he does not know and therefore distrusts, which means all or almost all wild mushrooms. One of the two most ic

important words less lost

almost everywhere

the sinister

mark

vocabulary.

You

Swedish; in

and

in the fungal vocabulary^ of

Irish. It

its

of the toad

has neverthe-

application to a particular species. For is

not confined to the English fungal

Norwegian and Danish, though not German. Dutch, and Frisian; in Breton, Welsh,

will find

Low

Europe,

cannot be translated into standard French, and the other

Romance languages know it German, though

lingers

citadel of the ‘toadstool’

Nor does it survive in standard High on in High German dialects. Thus the not.

who

in the ring of peoples

dwell around

the shores of the North and Irish Seas, a gigantic and evil fairy-ring, as

were, embracing the surviving Celts,

many

of the Germanic

peoples, provincial France (where the ‘toad’ figure

down from and

may

have come

the Gauls), and the Spanish Basque country of Guipuzcoa

Biscay.

The

Bretons, let

Britain to their present

home

sixth centuries after Christ,

be remembered, emigrated from

across the

Channel

and

in the fifth

heirs, folkwise, of

and are thus remote

old Britain.

Not

all

of these peoples use the figure of the toad’s

Norwegians and Danes speak of the

toad’s hat; the

stool.

The

Low Germans,

the frog’s stool; the Dutch say toad’s stool; and the Frisians refer to

an old fungus as a toad’s hide. The

Irish

term

the frog

pouch; the

of Welsh, toad’s cheese: the Bretons, toad’s cap, but by the addition this is a a single initial sibilant, their term becomes toad’s stool, and in these recognized variant in their language. Here are the words

tongues; in Norwegian and Danish, paddehaf, in gensroftl; in

Dutch, paddestoel; in

Low German,

pog-

Frisian, podde/iild: in Irish, bolglosgainn,

with bolg meaning pouch; in Welsh, caws

llyffant,

with caws meaning

cheese in Breton, kabell msec, and also skabell msec.

The Pennsylvania

;

Dutch speak

a dialect of

High German

that

comes down from

the

and in Pennsylvania language of the Palatinate in the i8th century, foot: grottestuhl and grottetoad’s and stool toad’s both we find Dutch was used for wild toad’s bread, pain de crapault,

fuss.

We know

that

fungi in i6th century France, and this 186

same expression has been

re-

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC ported in

in the

modern times

Calvados region of Normandy.

indeHnite in their application, seem toad the on hinging these names are two contiguous or almost there But pejorative. are and all of them specihc meaning. The fly-aganc term the give that areas contiguous and in the lorm gr<ip<uuidni crapd.uin. in many parts of France called

this

as far

word has been reported

south as the Herault. on the Med-

Guipuzcoa and Biscay the

iterranean. In the Basque of

fly-agaric

of crtjpuudin. the toad-like thing the (imoroto. the precise equivalent preserve archaic traits and Often the peripheral cultures of the world

communication, meanings better than the throughways of trade and fly-agaric in Basque and when we find that the toad is linked to the alerted. and in French provincial usage, our attention is e.xhale a All these words, in varying degrees,

bad odor. Tliey de-

or wrongly, signate wild fungi that the speaker considers, rightly

and dangerous. The English toadstool, freighted with evil, is of the class. In the dialects of England there arc numerous

inedible typical

and these are interesting because they echo the figures of speech that arc current in our list of foreign words. Thus we find toadchecse or taddecheese. toad s bread, toad s cap or toadskep, and variants,

toadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meat. For the toad itself there

an ancient variant, pad or

paddock, which gives us paddock-stool and puddock-stool. This pad is

the

same word

and Danes,

for toad that the

use. This

Dutch and

the witchesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

word

Frisians, the

in the

Norwegians

opening scene of

Mticfcd/i:

Padock

calls

anon:

faire

foule,

Hover through the fogge and

Here

our argument

interrupt

and foulc

faire.

filthie ayre.

its

course for a necessary di-

version.

Today

civilized

men

have a kindly feeling for the toad. Lewis

Kenneth Grahame have planted the seeds of their benign influence in the minds of successive generations of well brought up Carroll and

English-speaking children.

sympathy trial

for the

The

Victorians

were inclined to

whole animal world. (Was

revolution released increasing

numbers

187

this

foster

because the indus-

men from

slavery to

PART THREE CHAPTER •

the

from intimate

soil,

with cantankerous nature?) As

conflict

the toad, there has been an additional influence:

undertaken to show that

it is

III

the farmer

men

for

of science have

friend.

Far different was the repute of the toad in times past. There was no other member of the animal kingdom that inspired such revulsion

and

Chaucer spoke of the

fear.

and venomous toad. 'A pad

in the straw’

when they meant ‘a nigger in is

banned

in polite society

'foule tode’,

and Spenser of the loathly

was what our

ancestors said

(Now that this last phrase and perhaps vanishing, why not revive the the woodpile’.

earlier expression?) Shakespere reveled in the toad as a potent

of abuse. In Richard

III

the toad

play about a king described

a recurring

theme,

term

fitting for a

as:

That bottel’d Spider, that foule bunch back’d Toad.

Among all of Shakespere’s many references one that

Edmund when

neutral,

as 'a

much

less friendly.

most toad-spotted

Edgar

traitor’;

to the toad, there in King Lear

and the witches

not

denounces in Macbeth,

they concoct their hellish brew, give to the toad pride of place

in the cauldron:

Toad, that under cold stone

Days and nights hast thirty-one Swelter’d

venom

Boil thou

first

symbol of lechery,

supposed

the charmed pot.

medieval mind they were also were warts and moles, with which toads were

Not only were toads venomous; a

i’

sleeping got.

to the

be covered.

not yet dead. There are English circles The where ‘Toad!’ flung in anger would be a fighting insult now. hypocritical derivative 'toady’ brings to mind the sycophantic and

The

evil

repute of the toad

squat of the creature, with of the toad survives

its

upturned watchful

The bad name

among untutored countryfolk in England and

where farmers

States,

toads

poisonous, and that warts

has touched. French peasants

the

spittle of cling to the belief that the toad will grow on the skin where a

United is

eyes.

down

to recent times,

i88

and perhaps even

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC meth-

cruelty,

shocking for their now, put toads to death by methods torture ordinarily reserved by ods that reveal an ingenuity in

man

tor

fellow-man.'

his

toad, as well as the serpent, the on heaped abuse unpleasant The In Old French le bet was a Christianity. of fruit a been have seems to a word derived trom a term, evasive an as to resorted Satan, name for or the splay-footed, or root, meaning the club-footed one.

Germanic

the limping one.

causing

him

(Among Satan's

to limp.)

was

traditional attributes

That same word

bet

bad toot

was a designation

also for

thus a sinister trinity linked the toad and the toadstool, constituting the Ukraine the together in verbal identity. In the Carpathians and

with theme recurs in the mushroom vocabulary in conjunction ‘mad-mushroom’. which as we shall see can be traced to the fly-

toad the

agaric, povx. ptWX,

name

of the Ostyak. Surprisingly, in China the

for the fly-agaric

bu-mii

c/n'iii,

common

toad-mushroom

is country suffering from deforestation the fly-agaric today foul found chiefly in Manchuria, along the Amur River. But the

in that

reputation of the toad in Western Europe

absent, significant!)', in

Russia and China.

One

asks oneself

why

the toad of heinous crimes.

honoured place

in the

Was

in the

West convicted

because the toad occupied an

Pagan pantheon? So

paper’ Marija Gimbutas has Lithuania long after

Churchmen

the early

seems. In a remarkable

shown how paganism lingered on

had disappeared elsewhere, until the

century, and one can study the surviving practices there.

The

last

Lithu-

anian peasants in the conser\'ative areas continued to regard toads

homes and conhappy augury. Only a hundred making wooden grave markers

and snakes gently, encouraging them to

welcome presence a ago these peasants were still

sidering their

years

live in their

carved in the shape of stylized birds and of toad’s hind legs (Fig.

6).

Gimbutas shows her readers prehistoric pottery from central Europe with the toad motif incised on the clay (Fig. 7 ). The toad Professor

1. 2.

Vide

U Fclklore de France, Liu Po;

by Paul

S^billot, vol.

Mo-ku

K'o-hsUeh Ch'u-pan ShS 3.

chi ch'i

m. La Faime tsai-p’d

el la Flare, Paris,

Peking.

Memoirs of the American Folklore

189

flf.

[Mushrooms and Their Cukivaiion].

(Scientific Publication Association].

Ancient Symlwlism in Lilhiuinidn Folk Art.

1906; pp. 280

196.J;

pp. 11. 88.

Society. Vol. 49. 1958.

PART THREE seems

•

CHAPTER

III

have been a beneficent deity, a chthonic spirit compact with earth force and sexuality; the snake likewise. But Christianity changed to

all that,

and not for the

better.

How strange it is that the most spectacular, the most potent, mushroom lacks a name in the English language. A people priding ourselves on our love of nature has not bestowed

Fig. 6.

name on

this regal plant

grave markers car\’ed in bird and toad’s leg motifs from the

Wooden

19th centuiy cemeteries in Lithuania Minor. (After Marija Gimbutas: Andeiit SyiHfcolism in Lithuanian Folk Art, p. 32,

Mem.

of Amcr. Folklore Sodecy,

Philadelphia, Vol. 49, 1958).

bedecking our woods in the is

not a name.

circulation

ing world.

use

among

fall

in this

of the year. {For

book

as a

'fly-agaric of course

term of convenience.

has

the genuine country-folk of the English-speak-

post-Linnaean invention, 'fly-agaric has led

its

exsan-

mushroom guinated existence mostly beuveen the pages of pallid word in manuals.) On the other hand, the most important fungal on the Continent, English, ‘toadstool’, has no specific meaning; though association, the link with in those regions where it retains a specific 190

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC the fly-agaric

unmistakable.

northern Europe, and already

adoration that

had

word

are

had introduced writing into

lost its

moorings.

suggest that

originally the fly-agaric in the Celtic

was

the ‘toadstool’ in

earliest citations for the

Christian fathers

of course after the

the ‘toadstool’

Our

world; that

shamanic role had aroused such awe and fear and came under a powerful tabu, perhaps like the Vogul its

apprentices alone could eat of it’ their and shamans the where tabu that people hesitated to and others did so only under pain of death; time it became the very name of this mushroom, so that in

pronounce

nameless and the

Fic. 7.

name

Tond motif on

formerly carried hovered thereafter ambi-

prehistoric potter)’. Left: Neolithic pot with incised to.id

form. Second half of 3rd millennium B. C. Danubian Right: Figure of toad on (After Marija

culture in Czechoslovaki.1.

bottom of Early Iron Age pot from Central Germany.

Gimbutas; Ancient Synilwlism

Amer. Folklore

in tiifinanian Folfe Art, p. 35,

Society, Philadelphia, V'ol. 49.

guously over the whole fungal tribe so that

all

the

Mem.

1958).

mushroom world

under the same floating tabu. This tabu was a pagan injunction belonging to the Celtic world. The shamanic use of the fly-agaric

fell

disappeared in time, perhaps long before the Christian dispensation.

But

any case the fly-agaric could expect no quarter from the mis-

sionaries, for

whom

toad and toadstool were alike the

Enemy. (We

remind the reader of St. Augustine’s censure of mushroom-eating by the Manichjeans supported Francois de Sales

with I.

much

later

and of Jeremy Taylor,

by the excoriations of p. 71-)

Today we

St.

arc dealing

deep-seated emotional attitude born in a tabu long forgotten,

Vidt supra, pp. 152*153

;

also Kai

Donner

[28] p. 286.

and Lehusalo [14]

P-

^0.

;

PART THREE a

•

tabu on a Sacred Element, the

CHAPTER

fly-agaric, a

III

tabu overlaid by and

mixed up with the venom of the Christian Church’s anathema. The truly lethal mushrooms - AmaniM phalhides, A.verna, A.virosa ~

have played virtually no role

importance only

from

it.

and to

purpose.) In

name

in Eurasian history.

who

to the rare individual

his kin.

eats

They

one of them and

(They have occasionally served the

many

of the languages of Europe the peasants have no for them: they pass them by and ignore them. But everyone

purely religious tabu thousands of years old

dies

assassin’s

knows the notorious reputation of the fly-agaric and shudders thought of eating it. Thus in our own day a sanction having its in a

are of

origin

known and

better

at the

effective than the lethal properties of the deadly species.

In the spring and again

in the

summer

Gulya, in Budapest, to consult with

him

of 1967

visited Dr. Janos

in the field

where he

the

master, the Finno-Ugrian languages, and especially the Ugrian cluster

-Magyar, Ostyak, and Vogul. Out of remote languages he drew to

may

his

knowledge of

these, to us,

attention a usage in Ostyak that

have relevance for our inquiry into the

fly-agaric.

The word

tul-

pavx' occurs in two Heroic Songs, in one as part of the hero’s name,

and

in the second, repeatedly in the course of the narrative. In both

cases the pa})X

word

signifies

means of course

the fly-agaric, ‘tuW meaning Tool’ and

'fly-agaric’.

Magyar there

specific sense has is

down the meaning centuries in many parts of

This serves to nail

of expressions that have circulated in past

Europe, but whose

long been up in the

in rural areas, as

asks of a person behaving foolishly, ‘Have

mushroom?’, or when one I

have eaten

air.

a phrase, a conversational cliche, bolond gomba,

'fool-mushroom', circulating especially

think

‘foolish’

when one

you eaten of the

rejects a proposition

saying,

fool-mushroom, that I should do such Reguly A.

fool

Do you

a thing?

Pipay

hagyatika

J. The citaiions arc in Osztjdk HcsineM [Ostyak Heroic Songs]. Reguly Konyvtir i. [Reguly Library i.J [The Ugacy of Anton Reguiy and J. Pdpay]. i. koiet. [Vol. i.] from the first heroic song. pp. 2-165. on Edited by Mikl6s Zsirai, Budapest. 1944- The first citation is song was from second song. pp. 392. 398. 400. The first pp. 2-3. The second citation is from the Sosva river basin. Obdorsk, now Salehard. The second was from the northern I.

192

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC again, ‘He

laughing

though he had eaten fools mushrooms,’

same nss^eny, is said to use this jauu ’wise-woman’, Hungary the sends the philtre on lover angry the and philtres, mushroom in love request considerable effort has our At passion. his of object to the region of find out whether peasants in any to Hungary in made been with a particular species, but geniKi i>o/onii the identify that country discovery of a linguistic link Gulya’s Dr. why This is success. with no The link bridges the cenwith the Ob-Ugrian peoples is gratifying. of the properties securely fixes a knowledge in former times and

turies

Plain of the fly-agaric in the Pannonian

The one

mushroom'. gegesseti,

Ijidi/i gijiv.i,

says, Najeo se

gnize the

meaning of

kinson in his

liiit

Nnrreiisc/nviinim.

T/ieiilricinn Boltimciiin

room’. but he Polish poet

verriicfcfe Sdnwimtiierl may hear, Er mad mushrooms.’ and all Germans reco-

Vienna one

‘He has eaten the

the Hungarian people.

was widely known. In Yugoslavia 'He has eaten enough of the fool-

fly-agaric’s peculiar virtue

still

among

‘fool-mushroom’. John Par-

{1640) speaks of the ‘foolish

leaning on his Continental sources. his readers in

Waclaw Potocki warns

The

mush-

17th century

The Unweeded Garden

mushroom called seiner, lest it render the reader foolfrom opium’. He was clearly passing on hearsay, since

against a kind of ish (s^iilec). ‘as

no mushroom could be confused with opium.

from near the Tatra Mountains by

are variously called haddei huby /tiiene /nil)y,

and

/indiinfce

his

Slovak informant

us that rejected

tells

people ^abaci

/iiiIj}',

/nil>y,

mushrooms

toad-mushrooms,

both meaning viper-mushrooms and

mad-mushrooms. The toad and

serpent, prehistoric deities

chased away by Christianity, are thus associated with the inebriating

mushrooms. To the

east of Slovakia, in the Ukraine, the natives

mushroom

call

any wild

mushroom.

that they reject :^habjachyj hryb the toad-

The Hungarians invaded Europe and late in history, at the

today

settled in the

Pannonian plain

end of the 9th century. Their ‘mad mushroom

bolond gomba, establishes a link with the fly-agaric of the Ob-Ugrians,

but not with European pre-history.

Whether

‘mad-mushroom’ that we have found are sources, via the

Magyar

peoples,

193

the verbal traces of the

all

cannot

derived from Ugrian

say. It

seems probable

PART THREE CHAPTER

III

•

that a

knowledge of the properties of

survived independently.

How

of the fly-agaric in Catalan -

this

otherwise are oriol foil,

extraordinary fungus

to explain the

name

the ‘mad-oriole’, the ‘oriole’

being AhkihiM casarea and the fly-agaric thus being the

‘fool’s A.

or the mujolofolo around Toulouse, or the coucourlo fouolo in the Aveyron, or the ovolo matto in the Trentino, all meaning ‘mad

ctxsarea-,

mushroom’? the

devil

In the dialect of Fribourg, Switzerland, the fly-agaric

hat

Eugene Rolland reports

bo as a

designation for any gilled fungus in the Haute Saone and

botet in

tsapi de didblhou.

the Loire, both presumably

room. by way of

bot, ‘toad’

two words designate the room’, and fHO-monscos, the

meaning and Satan

fly-agaric,

originally the Satanic in

Old French.

Aude

the ‘mad-mush*

rtujoulo folho,

‘fly-killer’;

In the

mush-

they are synonyms.

T his discussion of the fungal vocabulary of Europe has us to the second of the two important

European languages tongue), the in all the

‘fly

Fliegenpil^ (or

finally

brought

mushroomic words of

Fliegenschwamm in the older

mushroom’ of the Germans and corresponding words

other Germanic languages, except English in which

trace of the

the

‘fly’

figure.

The word

in the

find

Germanic languages

simply ‘fly-mushroom’. In Russian and French the mushroom popularly called the

‘fly-killer’.

for this conspicuous

In Russian

mnkhomor

the only

and decorative mushroom. In French,

name as we

have seen, tue-mouche competes with the more important fausse oronge. the ‘false Caesar’s amanita’, and also with the crapaudin of the provinces. In

Mushrooms Russia

explanation of the

was

History

German

we gave what for our time was a new

‘fly-mushroom’: the

fly,

certainly the fly of madness, of divine possession.

our opinion,

The

association

and particularly with the fly, sensii throughout Eurasia. lato, is exceedingly old and can be documented Jochelson [21, p. 267] In the course of our Siberian readings we found of madness with insect

activity,

reporting in the Chukotka that

the people believe that the spirits

the eater of the fly-agaric vomits, be of the demonic mushroom can

194

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC then quickly vanish into the which ‘worms', as vomit the found in Bogoraz in turn says ot the Koryak. the of speaking was earth. He are the shamans think psychic disturbances

Chukchi

[22. p. 2771 that

and they use

caused by

insects,

disorders.

The shaman

treatment of mental

insects in their

catches an insect

trom

off his

drum, swallows

head of the victim. He then sucks it. the insect is imaginary, sometimes Sometimes head. man’s sick the that insects cause madness was based, notion widespread This real. natural phenomenon: the herdswill venture to suggest, on a as spits

up. and applies

to the

men saw

and sheep driven into a trenzy when insects and procreated there, and the animals did not

their reindeer

lodged in their nostrils

new

recover until the

generation emerged from the nose.

the insect world short, larva: in kinds of Bugs, flies, order of nature constituted for our ancestors until recent times an

moths,

all

with supernatural powers, mostly malevolent and always incrediawesome. Their strange shapes and stranger behaviour, their

instinct

ble

numbers and countless

may

metamorphosis,

faculty of

most of all

kinds, perhaps

at the root ot this role that

played in the thinking of untutored mankind. possessed and so

was the

meant the Lord of

Already

Fhegenpil^.

the neighbors of the Israelites Flies. In

for the Prince of

The

in the

the Greek

New

Demons. The

Fiiegeugott, Verderber, Liigner heijit .’ .

appearance of a

name was

Biblical

In the

'When one

pricks her.

detaches her necklace and steals

thought of

it.

Whatever

as a housefly, for the housefly

demons in

the shape of flies.

of Europe’s painters of the illustration

calls

e«c/i

you Fly-god.

that

‘fly’

starts, deftly

was. no one

bite.

was the convention

Hieronymus Bosch, the greatest

demonic world, presents us with

of flies in their demonic role. 195

mod-

apartment of the

does not it

WVun uum

and when she

Middle Ages and the Renaissance

represent

used as a syno-

god Loki assumes the

to enter the tightly closed

sleeping goddess Freya.

Old Testament

term crops out

In Nordic mytholog)' the

‘fly’

was divinely

Testament, where that

ern literature, as in line 1334 of Goethe’s Faust:

Destroyer. Liar

fly

they

worshipped Beelzebub, whose name

heathen god does not appear, the same

nym

their undeniable

find

superb

in the left

hand

PART THREE CHAPTER •

panel of the

Hay Wain, where

III

momentous events that took place up to Man s First Fall are portrayed

the

Garden of Eden leading with moving beauty. We reproduce the upper portion of in the

that panel

in Plate xxn.

wherein the observer sees that the angels expelled and tumbling down from Heaven assume the form of 'flies’ a diverse lot of winged demons, Beelzebub’s host. In recent times the poet echoes

this

theme

skeptically

when,

few years ago, he uttered

in The Times

Literary Supplement the following sprightly lines:

Has Freud not Is

the Devil on the snout?

hit

not Beelzebub destroyed by

Are we important?

Immortal souls

Do we

really sprout

that priests

flit?

may manumit?

Mackintosh, issue of Oct.

2, 19J3.

Sometimes accidents of sound led to confusions in names. In English flea’ and 'fly’ are words of different origins, but the phonetic simicaused

larity

Henry

them sometimes

Falstaff lay dying,

dolph’s flaming nose,

he saw a

whereupon he

What he saw was

ing in Hell’.

be used one for the other. ‘flea’ stick

said

of course a

was

part, the

Demon

domiciled

not linked with the

word been

survive.

every

fly-agaric, the

fly.

Bar-

and the black soul

its

incorporeal counter-

Though

in English the fly

supernatural associations of the

The Oxford Dictionary

reports that

a designation for a 'familiar spirit’,

ally 'fly’ as

upon the toper

a ‘blacke Soule burn-

fly,

hell was, according to the beliefs of that day,

When

and one

'fly'

has always

stiU hears occasion-

an adjective meaning nimble, dextrous, sharp, with the

suggestion of an uncanny faculty in those directions. of the most interesting examples of the Satanic fly in European literature is to be found in that classic of the Danish stage, Ludvig Hol-

One

Two physicians are conugly versing. One of them speaks of his Lordship, who has had a strange, berg’s Jeppe of the

Hill, first

produced

in 1722.

dream.which so excited him that he imagines himself a peasant. Where-

upon the other physician

man who

thought

his

recalls a

head was

remarkable case ten years back: full

of flies.

could not rid himself

of the delusion, until a most clever doctor cured 196

...

him

in the following

Pi-Mt- XXII

â&#x20AC;¢

Hicronvimis Bosch; the

Upper part of (Coiiricsv

lav-w.iin. 4

left

panel of triptych. .Mii.vckhi,

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< t

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC He covered his patient’s whole head with a had embedded masses of dead flies. [Query; were

manner. he

flies

of the Pharmacopoeia?] After a while he

showed the

been drawn from

Here

cured.’

his

plaster and

removed the

own head and

therefore concluded that he was

of the

way

dramatist (or physi-

an outworn belief that lingers on

cian) puts to use

they the Spanish

naturally believed that they had

a beautiful instance

which

who

to the patient,

flies

plaster in

in the

penumbra

man’s consciousness: an outworn belief, but one that has survived until only yesterday, as we have just seen, in the Chukchi country.

Middle Ages delirium, drunkenness, and insanity were attributed to insects that were loose inside the head of the victim. This belief, strange for the modern mind, survives in many familiar loIn the

A man

cutions.

has a bee in his bonnet, a

demonic bats (= their

'bots’) in his belfry.

heads or put

means

him

to fix

demonic intent

flies

scarcely fossilized.

climbing up into his head.

angry, that

phrase for saying that

and the

flies

being afraid, he

Down

when

used to be said in French, mouche

lui

monte d

la tete,

to recent times «n’uler

someone had summoned up

braver than

he had eaten

John’s

St.

colloquial expression that circulates

where: Ne prends pas

man who

he has

on someone’

‘put a bee

makes the coward Panurge

the pastries of Paris betwixt

into

flies

les

his

a fly

moiiches

courage,

thus swallowed were of course demonic. Rabelais at the

very end of Book iv

get

willy nilly for a given purpose: in this locution the

man was becoming a

The Norwegians

into others’ heads.

was

(or bug) in his ear. or

fly

a spider in his ceiling,

i.e.,

all

Day and

the

flies

All Saints’.

says,

There

else-

don’t get excited.

a I'araignee dans

upper

in his

fly,

from

cooked

around Lyons and perhaps

mouche: don’t catch a

unbalanced one

protest that, far

story.

plafond,

The Czechs use

an identical phrase: mifi nionc/nt (or pavouka) na mo^ku, to have a fly (or spider)

mosca

al naso,

upset.

When

on the the fly the

The

brain.

jumped

Dutch

say,

Italian

apt to say, Gli e saltata

to his nose, that

^iet ^e vliegen,

to say,

he became

he sees them

flying,

he has bats in the belfry, does not the turn of phrase refer to the flies’

that he sees? In Russian they say of a

mufe/ioj,

so-and-so

‘with

fly'.

There 197

man who

tipsy: o» c

a gesture peculiar to the

PART THREE we

Russians that

stems from

feel sure

session with flying insects.

alcoholic drink

the ear: this

that familiar

III

of psychic pos-

this association

The Russian when he perform

like as not to

suggests having an

a fillip against his

neck below

become a Pavlov reflex. Does not invoke the demonic ‘fly’ entering the mind? Ac-

so habitual that

fillip

CHAPTER

•

it is

cording to the Icelandic-English lexicon of Cleasby-Vigfusson, under fluga, in Icelandic belief sorcerers

would bewitch

to kill their enemies. This explains the

swallow the

man

in a

fly’

or ‘to carry the

wicked

fly’,

modern

meaning

'to

and send them

flies

Icelandic phrases, ‘to

be the tool of another

Basque folklore, sorcerers and other

business’. In

malevolent beings would work their will through demons that

sumed

the shape of

flies,

as-

and sorcerers would carry the demonic

creatures in a sheath such as anglers use for their

flies

today.

Everyone who knows the

why

the fly-agaric

modern times This

what

all

so called:

was used

thing about wild

first

as a

it kills

household

the books say.

Europe where the untutored

the

What

flies

mushrooms knows

that feed

insecticide

more, there

rustics, the

people

and

until

on the Continent. is

who

a large part of

read no books,

also accept the story as part of their legacy of folk knowledge.

belongs to that curious fund of

‘facts’

that people keep repeating to

each other and believing, without verification or analysis, saying that

all

Russians are good linguists.

our folk belief prevails

like the

The area of Europe where

extensive but not all-inclusive.

the Slavic world, the Germanic world except the British

embraces Isles,

the

where Franco-German bilingualism prevails, and one or two have enclaves elsewhere in France. The ancient authors, though they modern say about the fungi, never refer to a fly-killer, and in Vosges,

much to Italy among

the country folk

believe the association with the fly

unknown, but our inquiry has not been

among

the Basques, and apparently to

It is

unknown

the rural population of the

in his we judge by Eugene RoUand’s evidence ‘kill-fly’, is indigenous Populaire, in France the name tue-mouche, manmushroom the to thanks though Aude. the and

Iberian peninsula. Flore

all

exhaustive.

only in Alsace

198

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC iials

Frenchmen

familiar to a sprinkling of educated

now

else-

the natives at Val-d’Ajol in the Vosges that reports (Rolland where. says, it draws flies to he where, ceiling, the from fly-agaric hang the F/iegeiipil^ or ‘fly-fungus has German the contrast By their death.) German dialects, and also in Dutch and the its variants in all the languages of Scandinavia, but not in English.

Germanic

supplies us Albertus Magnus, the Universal Doctor of the Church, properties to the with our earliest citations' attributing insecticidal Other learned fly-agaric: his writings date from the 13th century.

down

clerks follow suit certingly.

The

genus having

Clusius

was

They

differ in details discon-

distinguished Carolus Clusius, for example,

some consider the as a

the centuries.

whom

father of mycology, describes the fly-killing fungi five or six species,

of which one

man and

a widely travelled

the fly-agaric.*

he places the use of the

The

agaric for fly-killing only in Frankfort-on-the-Main.

great Lin-

naeus in Flora Svecica repeated the statement about killing instead of Frankfort he said

was

custom

fly-

flies,

but

Smolandia. a Swedish

province where he had spent his childhood. This

reference to the insecticidal agaric in Linnaeus. In his

not the only

famous

Sfeanske

Resa ('Journey through Scania’) published in 1751. on page 430. he tells

how

a certain

Swede

Upsala got rid of bedbugs from two of his

rooms by the use of Amamta then concludes with what

miiscaria.

describes the

remedy and

consider a most significant statement:

One takes in the autumn fresh specimens of the fly amanita, pounds them with a pestle quite small in a jar, lets them stand well closed until they become slimy or like gruel. Then one takes a feather or brush and smears

all

the cracks and

keep themselves, and

monthly

intervals.

this

comers where they (the bedbugs)

procedure

The room

stinks for

repeated several limes at

two or three

the smell disappears. These nasty creatures die of

days, but then

as if the

had come amidst them, and whole bug-families perish Black Death. Although this remedy

simple,

anything else hitherto invented, and with Upsala have 1.

now become

Book

its

as if

free of bugs.

199

from the

surer than

aid several houses in

Chap. 6:87; Book vi, Chap. 7:345. Rdriorum Piantarum Historia, 1601, Genus xn of ihc Pernicious Mushrooms. Ve^eiabilibus,

plague

PART THREE CHAPTER •

III

on the next page Linn^us adds that he has learned of this method for the first time from a Mr. Bern. Cashier of Interests in In a note

The

Upsala.

text

Swedish.

For us the striking thing about

this description

a no\elty. Certain families of Upsala

reputation of the fly-agaric to a

Why had

enthusiastic.

and

test,

they not been using

Was

that

it is

a report

were putting the popular their first impression it

for centuries?

their final conclusions, say five years later?

questions are not vouchsafed to us.

What were

The answers

to these

not Europe in these

centuries finally reaching a standard of living that

made

was

last

people more

impatient with insect pests, and as the older and original meaning of

was being forgotten, were they not now misinterpreting the name, and experimenting here and there to try out the mush-

Fliegeupill

room’s

insecticidal virtues, only to discover that they

were of no

practical value?

After Linnaeus the references to the

mushroomic writings

agaric in

fly killing

potency of the

fly-

are innumerable. All the mycologists

- with one dissenting

to a test - with

one exception. The French mycologist Jean Baptiste

Bulliard. in his

believe in

voice.

None

puts

Histoire des Plantes Veneneiises et Suspectes de la France,

which he

dares to strike a sceptical note. Speaking of the

in 1779.

finished

fly-agaric,

he says: I

have never noticed that

it kills flies,

had specimens, raw and cooked, Flies light

But

as several

authors

for long periods in

have

my apartment.

on them, and seem even to eat them, without bad

intend to repeat this experiment with certain

We know

assert.

effects.

new precautions.

not the results of the promised experiments, but

we know

when Bulliard died in 1793, he held the view that a new scientific name should be bestowed on Amanita miiscaria, and he suggested that

‘Agaricus pseudo-aurantiaais’

old

nor

name

false.

presumably because he considered the

The mycoiogical world

until the last

has not deferred to his wishes,

few years even tested

his premises. In the last

as have been taken to remedy this. As long ago Eckblad of the Botanical 1953, on our suggestion, the mycologist F. E.

fifteen years steps

200

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC Rolf Nordh.igen, perProfessor under ^^orking Museum of Oslo, tentative conclusion that the to him leading experiments

formed

in the fly-agaric. More virtue insecticidal of evidence there was no supervised experiments by some of recently Professor Roger Heim has his assistants

seeking the answer to the problems that

we have

raised,

and Enghas been in progress also in Switzerland, Japan, make-up of the fly-agaric land. It seems that the complex chemical and the inebriating varies, perhaps materially so far as the fly-killing and work

constituents are concerned, according to place

Albertus

placed the fly-killing at

John Ramsbottom

Ramsbottom*

Poland. Bohemia, and Rumania. Mr.

was â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;formerlyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; used

bedbugs, as though

had been an habitual practice

was reporting

name 'bug

for killing

in those places,

agaric

Sweden, and bug agaric

a novelty in

also says that the

England and Sweden

thus justifying the occasional use of the naeus

was Lin-

Mr. Bern about bedbugs. Most writers have place. a distance from themselves in time or

Clusius in Frankfort. Linna.nis in Smolandia.

fly-agaric

growth.

relying on hearsay, and so indeed

Magnus was

when he quoted

iiieus

and season

But Lin-

in English

cannot be old. since Linnecus by his great authority imposed the

name

wc summarued The EckbUd resulcs arc in a Icitcr ihat he wroic me dated Sepc. 8, 1953. & History, p.iiy in Muiljwmi More recently, the Revue de Slycologte, Roger Heim editor, has carried the following articles under 1.

the general heading of

Tome

XXX

*L*n

Probleme d

iclatrctr: cclui

nommec? by

Etude dc Taction de TAmuMiru muscuria sur

Tue*mouche*:

les

Oabrielle Bazanie, pp. ti6-iai.

mouches, by Monique Loequin, pp.

122*1 23-

(1965), Fasc. a, 1966:

L'Amanite tue*mouchc nord-am^ricaine n is

(196$), Fasc, i-a, July 15. 1965*

L'Amanice tue-mouche, bicn ou mal

Tome XXX

esc pas la Muscdrid.

by Roger Heim, pp.

294*298. This

a mise an point of the various forms of A. muscaria that have been reported in the journals.

Tome

XXXI, Fasc.

Nov,

30, 1966:

Continuation of Gabrielle Bazante's paper, pp. 261*268. Continuation of Monique Locquin*Linard*s paper, pp. 269*276.

Tome

xxxn

(1967). Fasc. 5. July 1968:

Continuation of Monique Loequin-Linard

paper, pp. 428-437.

For the papers of the EugstcrAVascr team in Zurich, the

Bowden team in England, and

the Takemo*

team in Japan, vide bibliographies that accompany the papers by Conrad H. Eugstcr and Peter G. Waser published in Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychcactive Drugs, a volume edited by Daniel H. Efron, Bo Holmsiedc, and Nathan $. Kline. 1967. Public Health Senlce Publication No. 1645; to

being the 'Proceedings of a 2.

Symposium held

Vide his Poisonous Fungi. Penguin

Books

San PrandKO.

Ltd., 1945. p. 21.

201

Calif.,

January 28*30,

1967,*

PART THREE CHAPTER •

on the

'agaric’

his findings

can add

and ‘bug’ for 'bedbug

gilled fungi

the English language.

III

Only

modernism

Bulliard put the fly-agaric to the

were negative. But

and

test,

support of Bulliard’s scepticism we story told to us by a Russian friend. Ekaterina Apollinarievna

Bouteneff.

Her nurse

in childhood

was an unlettered peasant

woman

from the region of Riazan. Our friend remembers having seen this good woman time and again put out a saucer with a crushed cap of the fly-agaric in

going to

it,

lump

the

kill

of sugar on top of the fungal mess. This was

she would always say. But our friend always

flies,

When she would ask her nurse why

observed that the

flies

they did not

the reply was always the same: ‘They are sure to

die,

did not

die.

die later.’ In the past ten years

much work

and pharmacology of the

fly-agaric

has been done on the chemistry

by Drs. Conrad H. Eugster and

Peter G. Waser of the University of Zurich. Switzerland, and by Dr. T.

Takemoto and

his colleagues at

acid has been isolated

from Amanita muscaria which

named

possesses slight insecticidal properties.

‘ibotenic’,

and

favorable conditions

mens,

fall

flies,

if not,

the Japanese

imbibing the juice of the freshly cut

into a stupor. In the stupor they are apt to

enemies, but

Sendai University in Japan.

succumb

Under speci-

to their

they recover after some hours or even days.

Twenty-five years ago we had gathered, Valentina Pavlovna and

much

of the information that has been offered to the reader in

chapter. ‘Toadstool’ and Fliegenpil^ were folk-words coming

from our remotest

ancestors, for

supernatural meaning.

set

that

whom

this

down

they were freighted with

To amplify our information

concerning them

out to explore the primitive cultures of Siberia, with the results and reader. This in turn led me to work up

now

lie

before the

and here present an interpretation of certain aspects of the RgVeda, the depths of of the Soma that lies at the core of the RgVeda. Out of now finally Asia we gain the vast perspective of an ancient cult, must have meant for man’s imagination disappearing, and

what

and emotional

past. in the pre-literate phases of his

life

202

How strange

EUROPE AND THE FLY-AGARIC to the of the Aryans should be linked that no one has suspected ways subtle in day our of ‘toadstool'

Soma

and stirring that the

until

now!

was the fly-agaric. The primordial inebriant of northern Eurasia the astonishing lyrics of This was the divine inebriant that inspired the Vogul in our Mandala IX of the RgVeda. and the Heroic Hymns of inebriant own time. Through a different set of circumstances the same world throughwas responsible for laying a blight on the mushroom

the ‘toad’ figure of out the English-speaking world. I suppose that the Celts, and the tabu the ‘toadstool’ was peculiarly the property of sanctions. must have been enforced by singularly eflcctive religious to The high reverence that must have accompanied the tabu changed under the intense revulsion when the divine inebriant became

Christian dispensation

demonic

possession.

These are only speculative

guesses, of course, but the strength of the tabu

even today

im-

pressive. In the English-speaking

world there are victims of allergy

who are peculiarly among mycologists

mushrooms.

sensitive to

even said that

must

their study, for fear of reactions.

a physician specializing in allergies

and with

refrain

wife,

a large Russian

who complained of sensitivity mushrooms. There have been many distinguished mycologists in had never heard of a Slav

practice,

there are those who, poor souls,

from eating the objects of

who was

would not incomparably more talent if ‘toadstools’ had not been of its theme?

the English-speaking world, but

have flowed into

The

this field

attitude of the

Germanic world has been somewhat

different

Whether Albertus Magnus believed the story of the fly-killing mushroom we cannot say. As time has gone on and the world has become increasingly fly-conscious it has become easier to from the

English.

believe that the fly-agaric

named

because

kills flies.

Perhaps

this

alternative explanation served the Church’s purpose, diverting at-

tention

from the awesome

when with pest, this

truth. Certainly in recent generations,

come to be considered a name has completely won

increasing education the fly has

watered-down meaning of the

the day for mothers, governesses, nursery maids sitters),

and children. 203

(now

called baby-

PART THREE CHAPTER •

There and the

a further distinction to

‘toadstool’.

No one

but the attitude toward

it is

III

be drawn between the

eats the fly-agaric in

Fliegenpilz

Germany, of course,

not unfriendly. The red

mushroom with

white spots appears frequently on greeting cards to convey good wishes and a seasonal message of happy augury, precisely as the

chih

used in China and throughout the Chinese

noteworthy thing:

the Fliegenpil^

this attribute

Europe.

One

occasionally sees

orbit.

of happy augury belonging to

regarded by chimney-sweeps

chimney-sweep pursues an ancient

ling

craft that

as peculiarly theirs.

still

lingers

The

in Central

devotees hurrying through the

its

streets of the ancient cities, dressed in their

formal black garb, the

leader wearing his top-hat, with ladders and brushes, the utensils of their trade.

The

fire

of the hearth

Has the chimney-sweep made the

their traditional preoccupation.

fly-agaric his

reason that the Vedic poet identified

own

Soma with Agni?

for the

same

THE TREE OF

EPILOGUH LIFE AND THE MARVELOUS HERB

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< t

EPILOGUE THE TREE OF

AND THE MARVELOUS HERB

LIFE

the reader I have laid before Exhibits Siberian the and In Pdrt Three fly-agaric as a divine incbriant in the by played part the evidence for

evidence Eurasia. A recapitulation of this the proto- and pre-history of tended to obscure out aspects that the more detailed account will

bring

and

will chart the

course for further inquiries.

surprising discovery in Siberia

Our

European stock say today that so-and-so

from the fermented beverage that we

shaman

the Siberian

linguistic. Just as is

drunk

‘drink’,

that he gets ‘drunk’

word derived

and just

fly-agaric

of Indo-

say of

without giving

corresponding word in thought to the semantic contradiction, so the Ob-Ugrian and one (at least) of the Samoyed languages can be the

translated as

‘bemushroomed’. and where that word survives

philological used for alcoholic inebriation with no awareness of into anomaly. Moreover we can assert that that word goes back far

the past.

The Finno-Ugrian languages and the Samoyed group

to-

make up the Uralic family. There is a characteristic consonant family; an f shift between Samoyed and the other languages of the 'p‘ in the others. As the reader wfll perceive in Samoyed turns up as gether

when he

reads

[34].

Samoyed language, both

Tavgi, a north briation. (This

the Ob-Ugrian root patjx appears as

them connoting inesame shift that occurs

happens to be precisely the

betxveen the Latin and Germanic families, -e.g.. the

and the

‘f’

in ‘father’.)

The

this characteristic shift,

later

cluster of

and therefore

time but must go back to

words that

some

was not borrowed

common

Uralic.

seem

to have been the

visible,

and

this

first

in the

to devise a

some

ca.

6000

B. C.,

At that

re-

world: the Sumerians

method

they did shortly before 3000 B. C, 207

shows

According to the

authorities as recently as 4000 B. C.

mote period there was not yet writing

in pater

interests us

weight of scholarly opinion, Uralic ceased to be spoken or according to

for

making speech

EPILOGUE The use of the period age.

fly-agaric as

an inebriant therefore dates back

when common Uralic was last spoken, but

There

no reason

this

the

to the

minimum

to suppose that the peculiar virtue of this

miraculous herb went for long undiscovered after it became common in the birch and pine forests as these spread over the Siberian plains

pursuit of the retreating ice cap of the last glacial age, ca. 10,000 After all. the first inhabitants probing the northlands

B. C.

were food

gatherers, and

how could

they

fail

to see this spectacular plant with

its

growing around the base of the noble birch? And given mental equipment and physical appetites, how could they fail to

solar disk their

discover and then to take advantage of its inebriating qualities? None of our writers, not even the able anthropologists Bogoraz and

Jo-

chelson (who as Russians were surely mycophiles), seem to have discerned the role that it must have played in the past of the north-

Eurasian peoples. Perhaps the Soviet authorities,

under able,

less

the

that they are

pressure from urgent problems, will be disposed to allow

sympathetic observers to go

what they

now

still

know about

normal inebriant over

their

among

the tribesmen and learn

former practices with the

fly-agaric,

that vast expanse of the earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface for

thousands of years.

must be thankful

possess but

we must

for the anthropological testimony that

not exaggerate

practice that has lasted

six,

its

importance. For a shamanic

or eight, or ten millennia our soundings

reach back only three centuries, ripples on timeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface.

Some of the

observers were supercilious and none of them saw the implications of their obsen'ations.

None

them seems

have been prepared

botany and none probed the questions that are compelling

The circumstances

that brought

them on

time bringing about the end of the

beliefs

for us.

the scene were at the same

and performances

for

which

they were to be the sole witnesses. They were observing the fly-agaric cult only in its dying phase, when the area of its diffusion was being

lopped away, when in some places the integrity of belief in it had been undermined, and w'hen the tribes themselves were mostly in a pitiful state of physical

that the ethnic

and psychological

disarray.

There

ample evidence

movements, often gradual and more or 208

less peaceful.

TREE OF LIFE AND MARVELOUS HERB taiga of Siberia have been continuous, and tundra inhospitable in the In recent centuries the peoples them. unraveling from far are and we living in areas to the north of practicing the Hy-agaric cult have been on or close to the them of some heyday, their in were they where

Arctic Ocean.

They have been displaced from

Altaic tribes

who do

former homes by

their

who

but

not, apparently, take the fly-agancâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

corpus of beliefs that have absorbed into their shamanic practices the the ecology ot go w ith the tly-agaric. beliefs that seem to accompany For the histoforest belt, especially the reverence for the birch. the

rian of

human

cultures

modern world

it is

matter of regret that the impact

inevitably brutal, bulldozer-like, in

and contempt for the beliefs and ways of

whom

our industrial

civilization

its

disregard

of primitive peoples

life

wrenches trom

their traditions

usually without success, to bring into step with our

tries,

porary ideas. This holds true for the pitalist

communist

world: witness the authors that

In northern Europe there

ot the

wc quote

contem-

as well as the cain [42].

circumstantial evidence that in former

times, long before the advent of literacy, the fly-agaric held

over our proof,

own

was enough to launch us on our inquiry, and the

our

field I

own

sway

ancestors. This evidence, suggestive but falling short ol

confirmation that as to

and

we found

ancestors.

in Eurasia

in Siberia buttresses

The

where the

mightily reenforced by

our

picture that begins to fly-agaric

evoked

collateral

supposition

initial

emerge of a united

religious adoration

discovery that the Aryans, hailing

from

northern Eurasia and settling in the second millennium before Christ

on the Iranian plateau and in the Indus Valley, brought

them

one of their gods the

fly-agaric,

incorporating

elaborate religion of basic Indo-European pattern. pears to have given those elation, of ecstasy, so

For this conclusion

who spedalUed patin. also

the

who

ate

(or

powerful that they

drank felt

its

The

down with

into their

fly-agaric ap-

juice) a feeling of

they were sharing, for

on negaiive evidence. Anthropologists like S. M. Shirokogorov, ihc Tungus and Yakut cultures, make no mention of the fly*agaric. Ivan A. Lorely chiefly

with extensive personal experience, has assured

Tungus shamans know nothing of the

practice.

209

also

in a personal

cominumcation that

Brekhman and Sem

[4a] p. 334.

EPILOGUE the nonce, the

renown of

of the immortals. As

life

this divine inebriant

and the Aryan world. First

Emperor

we shall see, we

think that the

spread far beyond northern Eurasia

have already suggested that under the

of China, Shih-huang, toward the end of the third

century before Christ, rumours about the mar\'elous herb erupted in the Imperial Court and led to the conception of the ling chih, the

Mushroom of Immortalityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, which the Taoists made peculiarly own and which survives to this day throughout the orbit of

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Divine their

Chinese culture.

There

is I

be plausibly

perties that could

sponded

one of manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deepest desires

intellectual

development. The superb

horizons beyond any that he of planes of existence far besetting cares.

world and

Now

knew

his religious

we known

uncovered by the cinogens

in his harsh struggle for survival,

removed and above

becoming familiar

to us heretofore only

task,

To weigh

by the mute

to us

all,

artifacts

the effects of those hallu-

today rendered doubly

the students of religion.

admit even the

round of

are vouchsafed a glimpse into the subjective

archaeologists.

formidable

among

his daily

life.

even impossible) by the emotions they inspire not least

gave him a glimpse of

fly-agaric

that the hallucinogens are again

of peoples

in the early stages of his

contributed to the shaping of his mythological

perhaps vicariously life

we may draw: a plant with pronamed the Herb of Immortality re-

think an inference that

difficult (perhaps

our own community,

Some

of these seem loath

possibility that the hallucinogens

encouraged the

have led to the genesis of the Holy Mysabomiteries. For them the hallucinogens are the abomination of alcohol, nations. Moreover, the fixation of our Western world on birth of religion, and

may

closes often a stultifying intoxicant and seldom an invigorating one, our inebriants, older perhaps for the race than

our minds to other

fermented drinks and

in their effects utterly different.

hymns, I am at In the face of the Siberian testimony and the Vedic partial failure of my own a loss to explain what I write down as the these experiments have conexperiments with the

firmed that

its

fly-agaric.

True,

reputation as a lethal

210

mushroom

only a super-

TREE OF LIFE AND MARVELOUS HERB stition, a

tabu handed

down

‘tabu’ not as a figure sense.)

why

But

describe,

of speech but in

did

after eating the hallucinogenic

between the

its

forebears.

use

anthropological

strictest

not feel the elation that the writers and poets

comparable with what

difference

from our remote

to us

companions and

mushrooms

experienced

of Mexico?

fly-agaric of continental Asia

there a

and the Japanese

must remember that and European specimens? This is possible; we fly-agaric displayed a von Langsdorf [lo, p. 240I thought the Siberian •navel’ lacking in the

European ones,

in short, to use the mycologists’

was Timbonate’. But it seems unlikely. There was the on October divergent experience that Rokuya Imazeki once enjoyed, that we have in Sugadaira. (Vide p. 75) All the fly-agarics

word, that

1965.

We find evidence' off. We must either

end

eaten were gathered in October.

that at the

of the season their potency

greatly increase

falls

the dose or try specimens gathered in

summer. The

mony about

the fly-agaric in Siberia

the astonishing lyrics addressed to

In her recent

little

see

how

this fits

Soma

myths

testi-

compelling, not to speak of in the

RgVeda.

book* Miss Barnard has driven

the need to seek the genesis of

affirmative

in natural

home

brilliantly

phenomena. Let us

the case of the Tree of Life and the

Wondrous Herb of

Immortality. In the Siberian

and Altaic

plays an exalted role,

The

tall

give

Urals

a it

sometimes

Siberian birch with

white bark

cultures,

its

wherever the birch grows

also the pine,

delicate dancing foliage

a thing of ethereal beauty,

and

this

rarely the

and

alone

its

fir.

dazzling

enough

favored place in the affections of the Russians. But beyond the enlisted

more than

the affections of the tribesmen:

it is

the

nodal point for their shamanism, for their beliefs about the supernatural. All or almost

all

of the serious writers about these cultures

speak of the conspicuous place of the birch in their practices and

Brekhman and Sem [42] p. 33$; also [10] p. 247. Dr. Conrad Eugster informs chemical analysis shows more ibotenic acid in the (ly-agarics gathered in mid-summer. 2. Mary Barnard: The xVIythmokm, Ohio University Press, 1966. 1.

Vide

2II

ihac

EPILOGUE thoughts.’ Yet not one of agaric.

The cially

them

links that special place with the

Not one of them perceives why the birch

the Tree of

fly-

Life.

mycorrhizal intimacy with the birch, espethe birch: sometimes with the pine, occasionally with the fir. fly-agaric lives in

Moreover, while Fames fomentarius grows on several kinds of trees, it is popularly associated with the birch because the birch is the most

common

of its hosts. FoHies/t)»ie»tflrins

ing huge

size,

the shelf fungus, often reach-

that has always supplied the north Eurasian tribesmen

with punk or touchwood, the primary tinder that catches the spark

from the

fire-drill

to play:

among many

and bursts into flames. This

also has a mystic role

primitive peoples the procreation of

analogous to the sexual

act. In

French ‘punk’

fire is

amadou, a word that

goes back to Latin amare, and in English a ‘punk’ until only a few centuries ago was the harlot parallel ‘spunk’ has to this ‘spark’, a different

meanings. In the

who

sparked her lover into flame. The

day the scabrous meaning of ‘semen’, and

grade of the same word,

carries various erotic

We shall see that in Siberia the same associations hold good.

northern latitudes

and punk (cognate

was only

ready

that

fire

made

life

livable

have suggested with Ob-Ugrian pavx. povx;

with Chukchi pov) seems to have captured men’s emotions. The

birch,

parent to both fly-agaric and punk, naturally held pride of place the Tree of Life, providing in

punk

the key to fire for the body* and

in the fly-agaric fire for the soul.

conspicuous facts of nature for the Siberian

What must have been

food-gatherers arc almost completely ignored by the Europeans

who

not surprising. Europe’s intellectuals are soon become largely recruited from the urban culture and are or fly-agaric in strangers to the countryside. Of all the writers about the

have

visited

them. This

vast bibliography of primary Here are three $econdar>- works chat wiU introduce the reader to the Siberian peoples: sources about the place held by the birch among the I.

The AlytWogyo/all Races. John

Holmberg. Chap.

Amoit MacCulloch.

'The Tree of

Life’.

et Flore Saa-ies

Editor: Vol.

iv.

Archarological Institute of

dans

les

SxiMs

Jean-Paul Roux: Faiine

Vide pp. 52-62 81. 89. 186. 359-36t. o/Ecstosy. BoUingen Niircea Eliade: Shamanism: Archaic Techniques

U, a.

VM,

York.

.,<.4;

Techmioer

pp. X.V, 7e,

212

Uno

Boston. 1927. ans.

Scn«

Tr.nsU.ed from .he Freneh. ie

3 lExmt. Payot. Pad,. . 9 !.: PP.9. 78. pnnk'.p.aSi aUo Jochebon no.e on efc-sro, a Ro»ian word for

ArMq„tJ

Editor', l4l. .he

744-446. 40,-

Amenca.

Alulques. Adrien-Maisonneuve.

New

fmno-Ugriar..S.{.enan.by

[a.], p. 76,.

AND MARVELOUS HERB

TREE OF LIFE Siberia that tve

assemble

nection with the birch. that

'it is

only three tnention its confly-aganc Maydell in .803 wrote ot the birch trees', and almost a century

in the Exhibits,

\on

among

said to occur only

observed that 'isolated Langsdorf von earlier, dry plains (Probably the grow in Kamchatka, in birch forests and on the habitat ot the dwarf birch ot were Langsdorf von of plains’ dry grow with any lutihi; for the tly-aganc will in

1809.

the Arctic regions,

Betiihi

implieven von Maydell did not perceive the he reported as having been cations of the accurate observation that the tly-aganc made to him by others. \'on Dittmar also associated

species of birch.) But

Russians and Poles tailed with birch forests but vaguely." Even the fly-agaric^ and the place of to point out the connection between the mycologists have recogbirch in Siberian folklore. Since 1885 the

species ot nized the mvcorrhizal relationships between certain certain species ot trees, but this

rooms and

mush-

important advance

nothing to broaden and deepen the knowledge

their science did

to themof anthropologists because mycologists are prone to keep 'folklore’ about selves, and thev often look down their noses on

and irrelevant diversion from the grave questions of taxonomy and scientific nomenclature that preoccupy them: and most anthropologists, strangely, seldom study botany and

mushrooms

as a childish

never mycolog)’.

say ‘strangely’ because plants

universe of the peoples

The

birch

we commonly

VW<

There

[12], p. 154; [10], p. i47. is

call primitive.’

need not argue the case and

will

only

[iy\, p. 256.

a traditional sa)ing. e:tceedingly old. in

a large part of the

preeminently the tree of Siberian shamanism. This

so widely recognized that

fill

Russian:

On the pike's bidding. On the Hyoganc's orders.

vclatiju sfirhudi'einu.

Po prika^ mukhomoravu.

The pike plays a potent r61 e in Russian folklore. Here it is yoked with the fly-agaric. Is this couplet borrowed from a Finnic or Ob^Ugrian people? Do we hear in the fly-agaric’s 'orders' a distant echo of the orders of the fly-agaric chat are reported in Jochelson and Bogoraz? [21], pp. 26S tT.; abo [ii], pp, 274 ff. 3. There are of course notable exceptions to this criticism of anthropologists; e.g.. the studies in cchno-botany carried out by Harold C. Conklin among the Ifugao on the island of Luzdn. in the Philippines. Vid<{i) Studies inPfii/ippine .‘Inthrcpofojy; in honor o/H. Otl<y Beyer, edited

mora. pp. 204^262; and

(2)

by Mario D. Za-

Tfugao Ethnobotany i9os-i96$: the 1911 Beyer-Mcrrili Rep>or(

spective', Economic Botany, Vol. 21,

No.

July- September 1967, pp. 243-272.

213

in Per-

EPILOGUE summarize

it.

among

read, for example, that

west of Lake Baikal the inhabitants

the Buriat north-

bow morning and

birches that they have planted in front of their huts.

birch with seven or eight or nine branches

evening to two

We read

that the

favoured, these symboliz-

ing the successive gradations in ascending to the ultimate heaven;

and

it is

earth.

held that the

As though

trees’ roots

penetrate to the very depths of the

symbolize the reach upwards and the reach down-

wards, an eagle (or a mythological bird that

conventionally

surmounts the tree and a serpent dwells

eagle)

read that the

shaman

selects a stout birch, fells

center of the yurt that he

at its roots. it,

going to build for

cuts seven or eight or nine notches in

eight or nine heavens through

it,

which he

Again

and places

his

call

in the

performance.

representing the seven or will ascend. Later in the

course of his ecstatic performance he climbs this tree making use of the steps, and passes through the hole in the roof through which the

smoke from

the fire finds

way, going on

its

his

symbolic journey

summarizes the

Si-

the other world.’

Uno Holmberg

myths about the birch

berian

of the birch

spirit

in the Mythology of All Races

in his chapter

middle-aged

on the Tree of

woman who

Life.

The

sometimes appears

prayers of from the roots or the trunk of the tree in response to the grave, she has her devotees. She emerges to the waist, her eyes are

flowing locks, her

bosom

bare,

and her breasts are

swelling. She

his Youth who approaches her. He drinks and which is repeated in myth, This hundred-fold. a grows strength fly-agaric. But none of Holmthe to refers clearly variations, myriad

milk

offers

to the

berg’s sources have

called this to his attention.

What

are the breasts

swelling pileus of the full-grown the RgVeda, the of ‘udders’ the but liquid. a 'heavenly yellowish yields tree the tale another fly-agaric? In of the RgVeda Repdvamana yellow tawny What is this but the of Ljfe. the Lake oi Water the Life, of Food peatedly we hear of the near the roots Milk that lies, ready to be tapped, Earth, the Axis of the the of Navel the There where the Tree grows is

J.-P.

Roux, Faune

at., pp.

ei Flore

Soato dons Us SocUUs

French edition, pp.

59 . Altafques, Paris, 1966, pp- 54 .

xiv, 116-120.

214

Eliade, op-

HERB TREE OF LIFE AND MARVELOUS PUlar of the World. World, the Cosmic Tree, the doublets. rich in synonyms and

Mircea Eliade believes that an oriental origin, or that orientalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; prototype

its

The imagery

u has probab scheme cosmological y this mythical features go back to a palieo-

toponymic designation that

assigning to a specific location;

apparently

lies

have difficulty

somewhere between

or (after Uno Harva) that the China), and Mediterranean eastern the tribes comes down ensemble of initiation rites among the Siberian

from

a Mithralc source.'

It is

the consensus of

all

who have

written

fathered the myths on the matter that the Siberians could not have thought and practices that they have made their own. Or, to put the have more accurately, the very idea of such a possibility seems not to

been entertained by them.

On of

all

the contrary these

now

myths and

suggest that the source and focus of diffusion tales

and

figures of speech - all this poetic

The peoples who emigrated from the forest belt to the southern latitudes took with them vivid memories of the herb and the imagery. The renown of the Herb of Immortality and the Tree of Life spread also by word of mouth far forests of Eurasia.

imagery - were the birch

and wide, and

in the

South where the birch and the fly-agaric were

more than cherished tales generations and a thousand miles removed from the source of inspiration, the concepts were still stirring little

the imaginations of poets, story-tellers, far

from the birch

for

Herb and Tree. Here is where

legends,

and

sages. In these alien lands,

forests of Siberia, botanical substitutions

where fabulous

absurdities

were made

were introduced into the

variations proliferated,

where peoples who

had never known the North such as the Semites were influenced by

way or another incorporated them into their religious traditions. The end-products of these extravaganzas have caused scholars much (and I think needless) trouble as they subjected them to sober exegesis and tried to reconcile them.

the ideas and in one

In the north to this

day

find a notable consistency in the

and poems of the Siberian people, having regard to the Their imagination never takes I.

Mircea Eliade, cp,

df.,

facts

myths

of nature.

them more than one or two removes

pp. xiv, 245-6. 60-70, 120. French edition, pp, 9. 247, 79, 121,

215

EPILOGUE away from the

history of the fly-agaric, the birch (or pine or

life

fir),

and punk. The contradictions and wild embellishments begin only

when Near

the corpus of myths East.

translated to the exotic world of the

Mesopotamia, Iran and

the umbilical cord with the natural is

and China;

India,

phenomena

when

in short

broken. Here then

nature’s triangle: Birch

FLY-AGARIC The fly-agaric holds the would be nothing.

Its

also indispensable.

Punk

place of honour in this Trinity: without it there

beauty marches

Some

will find

its

magic powers. The birch

astonishing that the Siberian

peoples obsen-ed and understood, according to their corrhizal relationship, only rediscovered

lights,

by mycologists

my-

the

For

in 1885.

the tribesmen the roots of the birch tapped the lake of the Waters of Life

and

filled to

overflowing with tawny yellow milk the breasts of

The noble

the fly-agaric.

stance of the superb birch befitted

host and divine guardian. in the

in the

North but meaningless

making ple

The punk

fire

role as vital

the least of the Trinity,

South where other methods

were used. But we must not disregard

a legend

its

about punk that survives

it.

many

Here

for

exam-

recensions

from

Central Asia.

Speaking of the Uighur, a Mongolian

They of

say of their

human

bark of

Khan who

first

tribe,

ruled over

Marco Polo them

that he

tells

us that

was not

the but was born of one of those excrescences on all the and that we call esca. From him descended

origin,

trees,

other Khans.’ In another version of the

same myth we

learn that

two

trees played a

the Uighurs, a birch an part in procreating the royal family of

'•

per

Trcccani, Milan

and Rome, 19}^,

pH„. non e„ d,

p. 73*

216

HERB TREE OF LIFE AND MARVELOUS evergreen resembling a

pine.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Esca

the Italian

Siberia FoÂťies JojiieuMriits.

Roux, the

J.-P.

for ptink', in

word

on the role of the

latest writer

flora

among

a i the Altaic

of the place that the Speaking question. inevitable the peoples, raises at the animal sacrifices, he and seutices shamanic the birch holds in observes;

chosen because of its Nothing permits us to think that the tree is acquires by reason of the capabilities or its appearance or because it

ceremony the nature of a venerated

tree.

The only

point that merits

of a simple coinciour attention is perhaps without value, the effect that is to say, as dence: the shamanic tree is most often a birch, people who everyone knows, a tree whose bark is whitish. With

accord so great an importance to the colour white, of the birch motivated by its flashing bark?*

No one had

pointed out to M. Roux that the birch

not the choice

host to the

fly-

and touchwood. True, the quality of whiteness has an almost magical meaning for the northern Eurasians. But the question pre-

agaric

sents itself

enjoys

its

fly-agaric

whether

this

not secondary, and whether whiteness

exalted status partly because

and punk. Or.

put

characterizes the host to the

differently, the fly-agaric

and punk and

are primary in the hold of the birch on the souls of the natives

must follow fitting

The

as night the

day that the whiteness of the birch

and wonderful harmony with Siberian legends and

They never

in recent generations.

to the birch.

myths

Perhaps

this

its

most

supernal attributes. possess

them were recorded

cite the link that ties

the fly-agaric

because for the Siberian tribesmen the

connection wâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;as self-evident; any cretin would

know as much. Students

of the Siberian cultures, unaware of the thesis that

developing,

have only by chance, occasionally, asked a few of their Siberian

in-

formants a few of the relevant questions, and they have not followed through.

The

inquirer

the questions to pose, receives,

must probe

I. J.-P.

Roux,

op.

1. J.-P.

Roux,

op. rir, p. x86.

cil.,

w ho

goes

must

sloxvly

among

primitive people

must know

see the implications of the answers he

with utmost patience and

p. 359.

217

tact, especially

EPILOGUE where

religious beliefs

and

practices are concerned. (The anthropol-

no matter how thorough he

ogist has a thankless calling:

cessors are certain to reproach

that later

him

for not having put

seem imperative.) Even

all

is.

the questions

could hardly ask for better

than Holmberg’s essay on the Tree of Life in Siberia, as sented in the Myt/iology of All Races.

hymns

of the

RgVeda supply

his suc-

The

fly-agaric

it is

pre-

and the Soma

the key that unlocks the

myths of

his

tribesmen.

The word

for ‘birch’ in Sanskrit

is bhiirja.

Scholars have sometimes

expressed mild surprise that the Aryans remembered, after their

long migration, all

this

Indo-European name, with cognates

Indo-European tongues;

in fact, the birch

the few trees of which this can be said.

must have

is,

almost

significantly,

one of

The migration of

lasted for generations, even centuries. Yet

the Aryans

when

they

first

we bhiirja!’ Of

caught sight of the birch in the Hindu Kush or the Himalayas,

must assume

that right

away they exclaimed, ‘What,

course communications with the homeland pre-literate Asia than

imagine:

we may

may

the

have been better

be victims of the

Tree of Life held quickly forget.

there was complete isolation, bbnrja as the

a place in their subjective life that they

the other hand bhurja

RgVcda, and Abel Bergaigne

was the

bias of

we know

the literate world against periods in man’s past about which

almost nothing. But even

would not

not mentioned in the

a century ago pointed out

how

trifling

also role of the Tree of Life in the Vedic hymns.* This should

not surprise

us. In the

mythological pattern that

are discussing the

and the Tree of Life was secondary. bought The Indo-Aryans possessed the Marvelous Herb, which they

fly-agaric held the central position

from aborigines high

in the

mountains. With the fly-agaric

in hand,

sight was for the what need had they of the birch? What was out of Middle East the moment out of mind. But elsewhere in the Near and

renown of both poets and sages had neither and from the

their imagi-

nations could embroider endless patterns.

On of the I.

Chinese-

recensions - Indian, Iranian. three gave we 77-84 pp. of the Aryans. going back to the Somacofly-agaric

same

tale

Abel Bergaigne: La

Religion Vidique. Vol.

p. i99-

218

HERB TREE OF LIFE AND MARVELOUS These versions

after Christ.

nium

how many

the fly-agaric. In

duced: the notion

Thus they were

late,

and

we may

first

mil en-

ask ourselves

Southern latitudes had knowledge o element was introeach of these versions a novel Immortality, it placed that the leaves of the Herb of

at that

on corpses,

the second half of the

came down from

would

time

in the

restore

them

life.

This absurd accretion was

it back a thousand however of ancient provenience: we can trace composed, to the Sumerian fragyears before the Vedic hymns were hymns are unique and ments of the Epic of Gilgamesh.- The Soma Immortatheir textual integrity, but tales of the Herb of

precious for lity

(that

is,

of the fly-agaric) long antedate the RgVeda.

When man

first

devised a

method

of inscribing words

clay, ca.

other items, the 3000 B.C., he poured forth on his tablets, among but ideas not ideas that seemed to him deserving of perpetuation,

from sources not necessarily known who were shaping the characters. There is a

necessarily indigenous, derived

men

to the learned

scholarly bias, as understandable as

it is

mistaken, to trace the origin

of ideas according to the literacy of peoples, and sometimes to give to the Near Eastern and Mesopotamian cultures credit for conceptions that they

were merely the

first to

record. This

with the Herb of Immortality and the Tree of

were brought down from the

nium before

is, 1

Life,

suggest, the case

whose archetypes

forests of Siberia in the fourth millen-

Christ or earlier.

The

Hittites

and the Mitanni rulers

were Indo-European invaders from the north who preceded the Aryans, and the Sumerians long preceded them, and there were doubtless

others even earlier of

whom we

have no historical knowledge.

must avoid the temptation of supposing that the tribesmen of Siberia could not have possessed a rich world of the imagination simply because, not having mastered the art of writing, they are for us inarticulate.

When

the Sumerians wrote

Geo Widengren: The King and iheTree of Life in

down

h'ear Eastern RWigicn (King

Ease graves of prehistoric cultures running back to ca. 6500 D.

had

its

origin in the

of the sacred osjdM

crimson if

has been suggested to

placed on a

219

IV),

p. 11. In the

me that

Herb of Immortality, and corpse would in some way assure

fly-agaric, the

and Saviour

Near and Middle C. have been found in which the

Uppsala Universiicts Arsskrift 1951:4. Acia UnivcrsUaiis Upsalicnsis;

corpses were painted with ochre or cinnabar.

the Epic of Gilga-

this practice

may have

in the notion that the 'leaves it

of Eternal

Life.

EPILOGUE mesh, we should not think of it to the

as a fresh creation. It already

world of mytholog)- and he

a rash scholar

say with assurance that that corpus of in the

myths

first

who

belonged

today would

saw the

light of day

Near East or Mesopotamia.

Was Uno Harva mistaken and did the Mithraic beliefs and rites come down from the forests of what we now call Siberia? Let us look again at what is known of the Orphic mysteries, and reconsider the archetype of our devotees

own Holy

Agape.

commune, long before

On what

element did the

original

the Christian era? Certainly the overt

vocabulary relating to the birch and the fly-agaric carried great prestige over millennia throughout the south and east of Asia: the Tree of Life,

the Pillar of the World, the Cosmic Tree, the Axis of the World,

the Tree of the

Knowledge of Good and

stemming back

The Herb Tree of

to the birch

and the

(or Plant) of Life, the

Life, the

Divine

Evil

all

these

were variations

fly-agaric of the northern forests.

Herb of Immortality,

Mushroom

the fruit of the

of Immortality - these are alter-

natives ultimately representing the fly-agaric, no matter

removed the poet or sage or king might be from

how

the real thing. In

remote China we have seen the devotees of the Manichaean late as the 12th

sect as

century eating ‘red mushrooms’ in such quantity

arouse the indignation of a pillar of the Chinese Establishment: this

far

as to

not

an echo of Siberian shamanism, not having passed direct from

Siberia to China, but tortuously, through successive Middle Eastern religions, until

Iranian

reach the last of Mani’s followers, far from

home? The Water

(or Milk) of Life

and the Food of

his

Life are

doublets, the former being the pdvamdna expressed from the latter, the resplendent Soma. If I am right, here is striking confirmation

of the ideas advanced by Miss Barnard. of myths,

we should

chercher,

not

When we

seek the source

femme, but nn phenomene de

nature.

In the

opening chapters of Genesis

are faced with the conflation,

of the Garden of clumsily executed, of two recensions of the fable Knowledge of Good and Eden. The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Paradise. Evil are both planted in the center of trees

but they stem back

to the

same 220

archetype.

They They

figure as

are

two

two names

TREE of one tree.

The

LIFE

Oi-

AND MARVELOUS HERB

Fruit of the

birch. The Serpent

Tree

the fly-agaric harboured by the

same creature

the very

we saw

that

in Siberia

dwelling in the roots of the Tree.

Genesis the attitude of the redactors of leads Adam and toward the Fruit of the Tree. Yahweh deliberately very middle temptation by placing in tront ot them, in the

arresting interest

Eve into

of the Garden, the Tree with

its

Fruit.

But Yahweh was not

satisfied;

that theirs will be the he takes special pains to explain to his creatures wishes, they eat ot it. The gift of knowledge if, against his express

penalty for eating cation)

(and for thereby

or edu-

the beings he had created, with

He knew

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;surely deathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

commanding wisdom

There could be no doubt about the issue. Yahweh must have been secretly proud of his children tor having and the courage to choose the path of high tragedy for themselves their questing intelligence.

their seed, rather than serve out their lifetimes as docile dunces. This

prompt remission of the death penalty. ... It is clear that among community leaders the hallucinogens were already arousing passionate feelings: when the story was composed the auis

evidenced by

his

thentic fly-agaric (or an alternative hallucinogen) present, for the fable lence. that

general use.

docs

must have been

possess the sharp edge, the viru-

would not

surrogates and placebos were already

The presence of the serpent

throughout Eurasia the serpent

happy

come

into

necessity, for

intimately associated with the fungal

nomenclature of the mushroom world, or with particular species of

mushrooms, though

nature

happens they have nothing

with each other. Only in regions where snakes are unimportant, as the British

made fects

Isles, is

the serpent replaced by the toad.

heir to the curse visited

and

infests the toadstool.

on the serpent, and

The

The toad

do in

then

turn the toad

in-

snake, the toad, and the toadstool

are alike chthonic spirits. If

in a

these perceptions are right, then the mycologists

right also,

transcendental sense of which neither they nor the artist had an

inkling,

when

they saw a serpent offering a

Fresco of Plaincourault.

was

were

still

And Ponce de Leon

mushroom

Eve

in the

early in the i6th century

seeking in Florida the pool of living water that he might have 221

EPILOGUE discovered in the Siberian taiga, the pool where Gilgamesh finally

Herb of Immortality thousands of years earlier, only to lose it again to the Serpent who was more subtle than any beast of the field, the very same Serpent who engaged Eve in pleasfound

his

ant conversation, whose habitation Siberian birch.

222

in the roots of the

towering

acknowledgements

everyone

dependence on others

in diflerent fields

has been complete. In

who knows me

with specialized

knowledge

will realize,

Donihave enlisted the cooperation of Dr. Wendy Protessor Daniel H. H. Ingalls of I have consulted and O’Flaherty, ger Renou of the Sorbonne, Harvard University, the late Professor Louis of the College dc France. For my Dumezil Georges Professor and under obligations to Protessor Bart van first steps in this field 1 am of California. In matters Nooten, now on the faculty of the University friend and revered mentor of general Indo-European linguistics my Sanskrit

and

\'edic

Georg Morgenstierne of Oslo, who has guided my Dardic languages, footsteps in the Indo-Iranian field, the Kafir and Seas. Mrs. and the older tongues of Scandinavia and the Northern has been Professor

Anne Lysebraate. mycologist ot Oslo, has volunteered to help me in pointing up the possible references to mushrooms in the early

Inger

literatures of Iceland

and Scandinavia.

my Chinese inquiries am indebted of New York, to Chou C’hi-k’uen ^ For

Hong Kong

University, better

Chou,

as Steve

now

known

Wango Weng

formerly of the faculty of

to his English-speaking friends

of Leeds University, to Professor

formerly of Nanking University,

now

living in

Kao Yao-lin

Hong Kong,

and particularly to Kristofer M. Schipper, eleve de I’Ecolc Framjaise d’Extreme Orient, who on the occasions of my repeated visits was living in Tainan.

Taiwan. Mr.

characters that appear in

matters

Weng

has written

of the Chinese

all

book. For guidance in Japanese fungal

have had the valuable assistance of Professor Yoshio Koba-

Ueno Museum, and of Rokuya Imazeki, co-author with Tsuguo Hongo of the standard manual in two volumes on Japanese mushrooms, an excellent field guide that the English-speaking world

yaski of

has yet to equal.

problems pertinent

me days of his to my theme in

the Uralic (especially the Ob-Ugrian) languages; and

Tamas Radvanyi

Dr. Janos Gulya of Budapest has generously given

time reviewing with

me many

223

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS who

has served us as a gifted and gracious interpreter. The Publishing Office of the Magj-ar Academy of Sciences has kindly consented to let me re-publish in English extracts from their Glanalso,

bensweh umi Folklore der

Sibirischen Volker, edited

originally published in 1963.

of the help given

me in

by V. Dioszegi and

wish also to record here

former years by the

formerly of the Ethnographical

Museum

late Dr.

my appreciation Sandor Gonyey,

of Budapest, and by Dr.

Gabriel Bohus, of the Botanical Department of the

Museum of Natural

History, also of Budapest. Professor Robert Austerlitz

managed

to find

time from the crushing pressure of administrative and teaching duties

Columbia University

guide

steps in matters of Siberian

linguistics.

In the area of library research for efficient

and

intelligent service

thank Marcelle Lecomte Drakert of New' York. Miss Mary Mahoney and Mrs. Evelyn Waters of Ridgefield, Connecticut, have laboured long and hard

The Human

in the

preparation of the manuscript for the printer.

Relations Files of

New

Haven. Conn., were helpful

canvassing sources about the remote peoples of Asia, especially

of Siberia. zinski;

grateful to

was he who put

them

for introducing

on the

trail

Chinese Manichxans, and he has shown

mushroom

to the Bollingen

pointment

St.

to Philip Lo-

Augustine and the in

ap-

continuing interest

inquiries.

For a financial grant that aided

beholden

as an

travels in the Far East

Foundation of

New

York; and for

Honorary Curator of Botany,

Public

Museum

and

The

Botanical

Museum

its

to the

Milwaukee

Director, Dr. Stephan F. de Borheg)â&#x20AC;&#x2122;i.

of Harvard University has graciously ap-

me to its faculty as Research Fellow', and the New York Botanidignities cal Garden has made me Honorary Research Associate. These have served to open doors for me in the Far East where had been pointed

unknown. two

has also been a privilege to enjoy the

institutions

and

have had access

at all

facilities

of these

times to the guidance and

director of the counsel of Professor Paul C. Mangelsdorf, until lately Economic Museum, and of Dr. Richard Evans Schultes, its Curator of

Museum. Botany and now' also the Executive Director of the 224

ACKNOWLEDGHMBNTS ahvavs a pleasure lor

It is

to express

eontinuing gratitude to

lnstitut. tor his help in lurthenng dc Menibre Heim. Roger Professor Crvptostaff at the Laboratoire de excellent his and He mv inquiries. always National d'Histoire Naturelle. seem l

Museum

gamie. of the delighted to

that they accord

ieim has show n a particular interest ilyresearches into the strange problem of the

the beginning Professor

From in

my questions, little and big, and the reception me on my frequent visits to Paris moves me deeply.

work on

every aspect of

agaric:

he has initiated

his

own programme

of experimental studies,

the Reviie de Mycoh^te. which are being reported from time to time in he and have traveled together to In pursuit of our mutual interests 1

world. the farthest reaches of the inhabited

Among frain

from

cannot

re-

Giovanni Mardersteig of \'erona. Eminent

ty-

whom am

those to

citing Dr.

pographer. scholar, and in

the printing of

artist,

beholden

tor collaboration

he has not only shown endless patience

manuscripts: on numerous occasions out

store of his learning he has contributed to his

family by their kindnesses

events in

life.

What

our

Heim and

had hoped that

in 1966,

whom more

make my

a pleasure

in the cultural history of like Professor

it is.

race, to

ol the

argument, and he and

memorable when probing the unknow n visits to

\'erona

be brought into touch with

men

Dr. Mardersteig.

this treatise

on the Herb of Longevity would appear

on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Roman Jakobson, to 1968 it is by two years that much I have dedicated it. But in

appropriate.

May

the Tree ot Knowledge, possessed as

private line to the Herb, continue for blessings

many

it is

of a

years to bestow abundant

a favoured son

Danburv. Connecticut June 1968

225

Gordon

W.^sson

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THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

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PRELIMINARY NOTE

who have described Siberia. In Section A we

E have assembled here the writings of those the practice of eating the fly-agaric in

a tew include c.\plorers. travelers, and anthropologists, as well as native folk tales and a Vogul hymn gathered and translated by the

- mostly Finnish

wc have grouped together and Hungarian - who give us evidence of

word pattern

that presents us with a fascinating aspect

anthropologists and linguists. In Section B linguists

a rtv-agaric

of social historv.

Of the many

writers about the peculiar

habits of the Siberian tribesmen at

second or third hand,

to include in c/ieii

our Section

Genussniitfel set a

who

have

pas.sed

on the information

we have chosen three for particular reasons C. One is Carl Hartwich. whose Die uiensc/iliof pharmacology:

landmark

in the history

Another

Professor Mircca Eliadc,

was published

in 1911.

wide renown

as a student ot the history of religions

practices

mushroomic

throughout the world. The third

who

and

enjoys

religious

paper by two Soviet

scientists.

Undoubtedly there are primary sources that have eluded haps important ones.

writings about Siberia

some could

easily

us. per-

have searched diligently, but the sea of

so vast, the sources so widely scattered, that

have escaped our

net.

have arranged the selections roughly in their chronological

order.

231

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and

A. Explorers, Travelers,

.-lnt/iropologiiti'

[I]

uivzienki moskiewskicgo, nihist Captivity. Towns and hcttlcincnts) micjsc. (A Diary of Muscovite the Rev. A. Maryanski. by Edited articles. of collection A In W'.irt.i. t'lc passage relating Poznan, Poland. Published in 1874. PP-

Adam. Dyarusz

Kamii-nski Dluz>k. i

mushrooms

[This

the

report that

c.irlicst

in 1658.

Irtysh region in

we have lound

of fly-agaric eating

among

the journal of a Polish prisoner of ot the describing the habits ol the Ob-Ugrian Ostyak

the tribesmen of Siberia.

war made

p. 3^^--

Western

It is

an entry

Siberia, tributary to the River

Ob. - row]

sow nor plow; they live only on fish and fowl of which thete swans, geese, ducks such as we don t have. is a great wealth there, namely footwear Irom the These very Ostyaki go about in fish skins and they have islands. same and parkas from geese and swans. They dwell in camps on Thev smoke various fish for the winter and tear oil the fat from the lish

Xhey

neither

into a birchbark vessel, to

two

vessels full:

and they drink

our great astonishment. And they

have

shirts

from

nettles.

They

make

nets

warm by

from

nettles

the quart,

and some

cat certain fungi in the shape ol fly-agarics,

and thus they get drunk worse than on vodka, and for them that

the very

best banquet.

[2]

Oglodlin. N. 'The Shirimi.

October

First

Japanese in Russia in 1701-1705.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Russkimi

1891, pp. 19-24.

[This article in the Russian review contains as Section beiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;,

the

first

Japanese to arrive in Russia.

vessel after leaving

thrown

off course

Yedo (Tokyo)

refuge in the estuary of a small river. text Kuril Islanders,

his

of the i8th century was

finally sighted

The

the story of Den-

He came from Osaka; and

in the last years

by storms. The crew

natives,

Kamchatka and took

who

are called in the

took three of the Japanese prisoners, of whont two later

The Russian explorer Atlasov. passing that way, heard tell of the prisoner, and the latter was led to him. After further vicissitudes Atlasov took him to Moscow where he was presented to Peter the died,

Denbei being

left.

233

EXHIBITS Great,

w ho insisted

that he learn Russian and that he teach his

Japanese - to a few Russians.

He gave an

language of Kamchatka,

his

account

is filled

us.

in the Russian transcription; his

His testimony

make

with discrepancies attribu-

the

almost, but not quite, worthless.

for the sake of completeness

himself understood

name of this Japanese Japanese name is unknown to

table to errors in communication. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Denbeiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

merchant

language -

account of what had happened to

him. Though he learned some Russian and could in the

own

and because

have included

establishes the earliest date

on record when the Russian Imperial Court was apprised of the

Siberian

among

practice of eating the fly-agaric. In telling of his misfortunes

the

inhabitants of Kamchatka, he had this to say, according to the Russian

- RGw]

text.

They

[the natives of

Kamchatka] place

top with twigs and grass, and into

wooden

also

mixing

with

it,

when

the

their fish in pits, covering fish

turn

all

them on

mouldy, they put them

troughs, add water, and heat this concoction with hot stones,

some fly-agarics. They drink this brew, and treat their guests and get drunk on it. However he [Denbei] and his companions in

could not drink this concoction but ate roots and

fish

which were not yet

too mouldy.

Johann von. An Historico-Geographical DescripBut more tion of the North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia; London. particularly of Russia. Siberia, and Great Tartary; etc. in Second printing. 1738- Originally published in Stockholm

Strahlenberg,

Filip

1736.

the English edition. 1730. Translated also into French, p. 397 of

[Von Strahlenberg was

beria as a prisoner of war.

Swedish Colonel

He was

who

chiefly in

passed twelve years in

Si-

Tobolsk where he assemble

the peoples of Siberia. He is about information valuable accurate and much the extreme northeast of in tribe Koryak of the practices describing the Siberia.

- rgw]

Mush-

a Kmd of The Russians svho trade with them [Koryak], carry thither they exchange or which Muchumor, Tongue, rooms, called, in the Russian are nch among who Those Furs; other and Sable, Hermin, Squirils, Fox,

for the Winter. When Mushrooms, these of lay up large Provisions Mushrooms and these of some upon make f Feaft, they pour Water poorer intoxicates them. The which Liquor, the boil them. They then drink

Zw.

234

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

Mushroonts, post themselves, these of Store in a lav to afford Sort who cannot Opportun.ty of the Rich, and watch the Huts the round Occasions, these on of the Guests con.ing

down

make Water; And then hold

ooden

drink off greedily, as having still some they which Bowl they also get Drunk In it. and by this Way in Mushroom the Virtue of of Fish, and digging Holes Quantity large catch a they Summer Spring and hll them with line with the Bark of Birch, they in the Ground, which they as they think the Fish is and cover the Holes over with Earth. As soon it and boil it it. pour Water upon it. rotten and lender, they take out some of their Beer) and feed upon it. as with red-hot Pebbles (as the Finnlandians do Mess stinks so abominably, that the the greatest Delicacy in the World. This are with them, and who are none of the most squeamish, to receive the Urine,

Russians

who

deal

Liquor they likewise drink so imwith it. moderately, that they will be quite intoxicated, or drunk themselves not able to endure

it.

[

this

Krasheninnikov, Stepan. Opisaniye Zyomli Kanichatki. (Description of Kamchatka Land) St. Petersburg. 1755. [Translations into English, French, and tury.

German appeared

in the i8th cen-

We have had made a fresh translation from the Russian, finding that

the

The edition that we used was edited under the auspices of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, with notes, and published in Moscow and Leningrad in 1949. - rgw] i8th century translations corrupted the

meaning and shortened the

text.

Chapter 14

CONCERNING THE FEASTS AND GAMES OF Kamchatka

They

hold

feasts

whenever the people of an

entertain their neighbors, especially successful

ostrog [stockade] wish to

whenever there

trapping venture, and these are spent, for

overeating, dancing,

and

singing.

wedding or some the most part, in

such occasions the guests are treated

by their hosts to large goblets of opanga so generously that they have to vomit more than once.

Sometimes

for their

known mushroom fly-agaric] It

is first

that

enjoyment they

also use the mtifc/iomer, the well-

ordinarily use for poisoning

soaked in must of

flies. [Miife/iCHior

kiprei [EpilobiiiHi migusti/oliiim],

235

which

EXHIBITS they drink, or else the dried

which method

The

by which one can recognize

sign

influence of the Hiuk/iomor

follow after an hour or hallucinations, as

are rolled and swallowed whole,

very popular.

and usual

first

mushrooms

man under

the

the shaking of the extremities, which will

which the persons thus intoxicated have

less, after

in a fever; they are subject to various visions, terrifying

or felicitous, depending on differences in temperament; owing to which some jump, some dance, others cry and suffer great terrors, while some

might deem as the sea.

small crack to be as wide as a door, and a tub of water as deep

But

this applies

who

only to those

overindulge, while those

who

use a small quantity experience a feeling of extraordinary lightness, joy. courage, and a sense of energetic well-being, such as the Turks are said to experience

when

they have partaken of opium.

worth noting

It is

ously affirm that

that

all

those

them, not

harmful to them

many

have eaten the

iHtife/iomor

commands them. But

secretly

that, if there

them would remain

were no one

will

but then

among them,

could be, too, that

make no

mention, since

sacks

who have

eaten the above

does not

come

to excess.

mushroom,

However, I

like to talk

to such extremes

become accustomed

either because they have

mor, or because they do not use

their

to look out for

have not witnessed any personally and the Kamchadals do not this;

all

Concerning excesses of the

alive.

Kamchadals, which happen among them, about

unanim-

their extravagant actions at the time are carried out

on orders of the mnHwiHor, which actions are so

who

to the

JHwfcluJ-

in respect to the Cos-

shall report

some wild behav-

some of which I personally have witnessed, and some of which I heard from the perpetrators of those actions, o from other trustworthy persons. ior,

orderly of Lieutenant-Colonel Merlin

who was

with the investigation

Kamchatka was commanded by the mukhomor to strangle himself under fact, a delusion that this would cause other people to admire him. This, in might have come to pass, had not his friend restrained him. in

Another of the fying fiery

chasm

the orders of the confess

whom was

all

local residents [Cossacks]

a vision of Hell

and a

terri-

which reason, following he was forced to get down on his knees and

into which he iiiufc/icâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;mer,

had

was

to be cast; for

remember committing. His friends, of common room where the intoxicated man

the sins that he could

there w'ere

many

in the

confessing, heard this with great

amusement, while he seemed

to believe

m was confessing his sins in the privacy of the sacrament deUberate ridicule, since, Because of this he was made the butt of much have best remained among other things, he related some things which should God

that he

unknown

to others.

236

alone.

THE FLY-AGARIC

A ties

IN SIBERIA

in moderate quantithev say. used to eat the iiniF/ietner thus was ab e to cover and journey, long a on go to had whenever he having indulged to the without any fatigue; but. ultimately, ccrt.iin soldier,

great distances

own testicles and died. point of delirium, he crushed his who was in son of a Cossack from Bolsheretsk, The

interpreter,

had been made drunk on

iiiiiir/ioinor

my employ

without his knowledge,

on the iniiF/ioinors orders, from and attempted to cut his own abdomen for his hand was restrained which he was barely saved in the last minute, in the

very

act.

Kor>aks also eat jimFhoinor while planning to among the settled Koryaks the iiiiiFliemor is kill somebody. Incidentally, intoxicated are nor allowed to held in such high esteem that those who are others with a dish for this urinate on the ground but are furnished by like those who have purpose, which urine they drink and also do wild things Kamchadals, as it the mushroom; for they get the miiF/ioHior from

Kamchadals and

settled

eaten

does not grow a

moderate

are usually

in their

use.

mushrooms, or less, constitute high degree of intoxication up to ten mushrooms country. Four

own

but for a

consumed.

of the female sex neither indulge in eating to excess nor partake amusements consist of miiFlioinor consumption, owing to which all their

Members in

and singing

talking, dancing,

[In the

above account Krasheninnikov

tells

of four Europeans

who

ate

mushroom. Three were certainly exhibitionists, such as make a show of themselves in the West with alcohol. The third, who is said to have died, was reported as hearsay. Krasheninnikov was a careful author, and he conthe

cedes that such extravagant behaviour

may

not occur

among

the natives.

adds that the Kamchadal and the settled Koryak eat the fly-agaric 'while planning to kill somebodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. He gives no examples and as no subsequent

own colleague Steller. repeats the statement, much less documents it, we may disbelieve this. Krasheninnikov wrote early and is of historical importance but we possess later informants immeasurably better

writer, not even his

equipped to to

Odman

raging

tell

us about the tribesmen. This single sentence, familiar

[vide infra, [43I]

responsible for the belief that berserk-

nowhere makes mention of behaviour suggestive of berserk-raging. - rgw]

came out

wild ferocious

may be

of Siberia. But Krasheninnikov

was published by the Soviet edited by Lev Semenovich Berg. In this edition Berg

[In 1949 a definitive edition of Krasheninnikov

Academy of Sciences,

237

EXHIBITS shows himself aware of the cultural significance of the fungi in the Kamchadal society in a note, p. 236, on a passage in Krasheninnikov where the latter speaks of the Kamchadal as ‘omnivorous creatures, for they pass by neither nor ninfe/iomor. though the former has no taste and does not satisfy hunger, and the latter follows: -

obviously harmful’. Berg's footnote on

this

passage

RGw]

The Kamchadal

will pass

by neither

according to the Dictionary of Dal',

z^iagra

another

tree fungus, Polyporace®. Referred to here

nor mukhomor. Zhagra,

name

for punk, touchwood,

the white agaric (family Poly-

poraccx), which grows on trees.

sp.

formerly used

Certain

as tinder:

The body of the fungus Pomes some of them have medicinal application.

was

genus Polyporus are edible. Concerning the use of the variety

species of the

of fungi Polyporus that grows on birch trees (der weisse B<Jnm-SclnvflHi»H in

German) for alimentary purposes, Steller has this to report (p. 92): the Kamchadal knock them off birches with sticks, break them up with axes, and eat them frozen. S. Yu. Lipshitz and Yu. A. Liverovskiy (1937. p. 197) report that ashes of the fungus Polyporus (Polyporus sp.) are used in snuff.

Concerning the use which the Kamchadal make of the 'birch

as a pain killer.

Kamchatka

rea,

Kamchatka

Krasheninnikov reports on see: A.

aud Hydttea,

p. 443.

tinder’

Concerning fungi Polyporus

Bondartsev: Fungi of the Family Polyporacea, Telepho-

Collected in

Kamchatka by V.

P. Savic/t.

(From the Expedition Part 2, Moscow, I 9 i 4

Kamchatka of F. P. Ryabushinskiy. Botanical Series, pp. 525-534.) The most wide-spread fungus in Kamchatka to

Fomes iguiarius

white birch, alder, and aspen. Fomes fomentarius of this (L.) is found on both varieties of birch. There are many other species genus and also other genera. Of the genus Polyporus in Kamchatka, Polyporus poplar. sulfureus (Bull.) is found on the larch and P. varius Fries on the (L.).

harmful to rock

birch,

on the use of the miife/iouior (fly-agaric) as S. Berg, an intoxicant by Kamchadal, Kor)'ak, and Yukagir. See also L. Steller also reports (pp. 92-93)

Discovery of Kamchatka

[Zhagra in Russian

Third Edition, 1946* PP- 163-164. the former being derived from a rub'. Both mean primarily Fames

synonym of trut,

root 'to burn’ and the latter from ‘to

fomentarius, the shelf fungus that grows on

linked with the birch because the birch belt of Eurasia.

tinder in the

many

is its

trees but that

commonest

pnmanly

host in the forest

used as the primary species of fungus have been ‘punk' Fomes fomentarius of fire, but for 'touchsvood' or

Many

making

quan Star Carr in Yor s ire At beginning. the from has enjoyed primacy dating from site of a settlement the in found were fomentarius Fomes ties of 238

1 .

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

some still attached to b.rch logs. 0 000 to 10.000 years ago, hearthstones. (Vide J. G. D. Clark the to adjacent was touchwood flint The Cambridge University Press. I 9 S 4 E.tcav.iliotis ut Star Carr.

others:

.ind

pp.

7 -i

also E.

Carr, Scamer.’ in

Star 'Report on the Fungus-Brackets from Corner: H. J. at Star Carr, the ‘Preliminary Report on the Excavations

T(ie Preliistonc Society, xvi. 1950. pp. 123 4 -) Yorkshire’. Scarborough. Seamer. by land, and the site was The British Isles were still attached to the Continent hunters, not long after Mesolithic, apparently a temporary camp of

early

same as had been previously described Denmark, where also Foinfs/ciiieiitariHS was at Maglemose (the 'Great Bog’), Fabritius Buchwald and Sigurd found adjacent to the hearth stones. (\'ide N. the

last ice age.

Hansen:

The

culture was the

Tondersvamp fra Postglacialtidcn L^iidersogelse, iv Rxkke, Bd. 2, Nr. 11, 1934 -)

‘Om Fund

Dtiiiiiiarks geelegiske

Danmark’,

frozen is [The fungus that the Kamchadal knock off birches and then eat rather spongy certainly difVerent, probably Polyporiis Fetulhiiis, a soft, white, which is sometimes or rubbery growth on the birch, without much taste, - rgw] eaten raw or cooked by mycophiles in Europe and the United States.

[5]

Georg Wilhelm. Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka, dcssen Einwohnern. deren Sitten, Nahmen, Lcbensarc und verschiedenen Gewohnheiten. (Description of Kamchatka, its Inhabitants, their Customs, Names, Way of Life, and Different Habits) Leipzig.

Steller.

1774- pp- 92 93

[Steller, a

member

of the Krasheninnikov expedition, stayed on and later

published a valuable account of his

Among

the

mushrooms

Kamchatka. - rgw]

the poisonous fly-agaric (in Russian

Italmen [Kamchadal] gliugakop) this habit

life

Jiiuc/iaiiieor,

highly valued. In the Russian settlements

has been lost for a long time. However, around the Tigil and

towards the Koty’ak border

it is

very’

much

alive.

The

fly-agarics arc dried,

then eaten in large pieces w'ithout chewing them, washing cold water. After about half an

them down with

hour the person becomes completely

cated and experiences extraordinary visions.

intoxi-

The Koryak and Yukagir are they to get it that they buy it

mushroom. So eager are from the Russians wherever and whenever possible. Those who cannot afford the fairly high price drink the urine of those who have eaten it, whereupon they become as intoxicated, if not more so. The urine seems to be more even fonder of

this

239

EXHIBITS powerful than the mushroom, and the in

fifth

1739.

man. Despite the fact

some people have

that

its effect

may

through the fourth or

last

have personally made these observations

contradicted

experiences.

have therefore

taken great pain to establish the truthfulness of what has been recorded here. Reports from persons whose authority cannot be attacked have confirmed

findings.

Thus

man from

named Kutukov,

the lower gentry

having to

guard the reindeer herd, has noticed that these animals have frequently eaten that mushroom, which they like very much. Whereupon they have behaved

drunken animals, and then have fallen into Koryak encounter an intoxicated reindeer, they like

room kill

has lost

its

strength and

the animal while

who

has tasted

it is

drunk or asleep and

[

as if

When

deep slumber.

kill

the

the mush-

tie his legs until

Then they

effect.

becomes intoxicated

the reindeer.

they

eat of its flesh, then everybody

he had eaten the actual

fly-agaric.

Georgi, Johann Gottlieb. Russia: or, A Compleat Historical Account of all the Nations which Compose that Empire. London. 1780. First

German

published in

Their drink

in St. Petersburg, 1776-1780. pp. 189-190.

[of the Ostyak]

water, broth, and fish-soups, a great deal

of milk, and brandy whenever they arc rich enough to buy any. The

Ostyaks are very fond of getting drunk; and,

means of procuring strong liquors for by smoking a great quantity of strong

they have but seldom the

that purpose, they get intoxicated

tobacco, and

by chewing

a kind of

Numbers of the Siberians have a mushroom called the fly mushroom way of intoxicating themselves by the use of mushrooms, especially the Ostyaks who dwell about Narym. To that end they either eat one of these mushrooms quite fresh, or perhaps drink the decoction of three of them. The

effect

shews

slow degrees

itself

arises to

immediately by

sallies

of wit and humour, which by

begin such an extravagant height of gaiety, that they

sonnets, about, and vociferate: they compose amorous peculiar quality heroic verses, and hunting songs. This drunkenness has the strong; but no sooner is it over than they

to sing, dance,

jump

of making them

uncommonly

remember nothing enjoyment they

fall

sixteen hours of thi^ that has passed. After twelve or very low-spirite asleep, and, on waking, find themselves

from the extraordinary tension of the nerves: however, they head-ache after liquors;

nor

this

method of

the use of

intoxication than

feel

much

produced by spirituous

consequences. followed by any dangerous

240

less

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

Frojn

chapter

tlie

*>»i

li«e

‘T/je

V'ol.

2 . p. 394-

skin-sacks hands or any part of their person. Their to abominably, and communicate a horrid taste that hold the milk stink summer season they drink so much koumiss, and smoke

Thcv never wash

their

their contents. In the

drunk. When they intend to frequently arc that they constantly, so tobacco endeavour to procure the Russian get fuddled in a decent manner, they they supply this want but. as they are but seldom able to obtain it. brandy:

bv mushrooms of an inebriating quality,

as the Ostyaks,

and several other

people of Siberia do.

only passage in the Siberian texts that attributes whose language belongs to the the eating of the fly-agaric to the Yakut, had taken to the habit Altaic family. Perhaps fringe settlements of Yakut neighbors, e.g., the Yukagir, who apparently in the i8th century [So far as

from

their

were

still

Lamut

know,

this is the

eating the iinitlionwr. (Sten

addiction to the fly-agaric

testimony.)

in Georgi’s case

falls

may

statement [27I about the into the same category of isolated simply be mistaken. His book with

Bergman

wealth of detail about the peoples of Siberia holds the reader’s attention reader but it is exasperating in that it is inadequately documented: the

its

usually docs not

know what

took from others, nor able.

not

know whether

what he

the others were nor whether they were

would be most - rgw]

diaries of his travels in Siberia

The

we do

who

the author observed personally and

they survive.

reli-

interesting, but

[7]

Barthclemy. Baron de. Journal historique du Paris. 1790. Translated into German voyage de M. de Lesseps. and English. The English edition appeared in 1790 in two volumes in London, entitled ‘Travels in Kamchatka, during the Years 1787

Lesseps, Jean Baptiste

1788’.

and

The following

from the English

edition, Vol. 2, pp. 90-91

104-5.

[How supercilious and superficial are this

French aristocrat’s remarks about

the fly-agaric, which he seems not to have recognized as a in his

own

country. -

rgw] 241

mushroom common

EXHIBITS Their

passion for strong liquors, increased by the dearness of brandy, and the difficulty of procuring it on account of their extreme distance, hJs led them to invent a drink, equally potent, which they extract from a red

mushroom, known in Russia as a strong poison by the name of moukhamorr.' They put it in a vessel with certain fruits, and it has scarcely time

to clarify

\\hen their friends are invited to partake of the guests, and there

a contest of

who

it.

best able to disburden the master

of the house of his nectar. The entertainment days,

till

being

tipsy,

the beverage

noble emulation inflames

lasts for one,

exhausted. Frequently, that they

they eat the raw

mushroom

at the

same time.

two. or three

may It is

not

fail

astonishing

more examples of the fatal effects of this intemperance. however some amateurs made seriously ill. and recovered with

that there are not I

have seen

but e.xperience does not correct them, and upon the first occasion that offers, they return to their brutish practice. It is not from absolute difficulty;

sensuality,

it is

not from the pleasure of drinking a liquor, that by

creates an irresistible craving for

more; they seek merely

its

flavour

in these orgies a

state of oblivion, of stupefaction, of total brutishness, a cessation of existence, if I

may

so call

it,

which constitutes

their only enjoyment,

and supreme

felicity.

...

the eve of their magic ceremonies, they pretend indeed to

the day, but they

make up

for this abstinence at night

motikamcrr, the intoxicating poison

drink to

satiety.

them the

a profusion of the

have described, which they eat and

This preparatory intoxication they consider as a duty.

probable that they

an elevation of

fast all

feel its effects the

It is

next day, and that they derive from

spirits that contributes to

derange their minds, and give

necessary strength to go through their extravagant transports.

[

Sarychev, Gavriil Andreevich. Achtjahrige Reise im Nordostteil Si(An biriens das Eismeer und den Ostlichen Ozean {i785â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;i793)Eight-Year Voyage in Northeastern Siberia, on the Arctic Ocean the and the Northeast Pacific) Leipzig. I 905 'i 5 Translated from -

Russian original published in 1802 in [There

Petersburg, pp. 274-5.

direct reference to the fly-agaric, but

print published in 1954 1. Ic is

St.

on pp-

274-5 of the re-

of two reindeer find a curious report of the death

used in the Russian houses co destroy

insects.

242

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

of death is attributed to an excessive intake Their country. Chukchi in the urine in question was impregnated the though as sounds It human urine. metabolite of the fly-agaric. - rgw]

with the

In the

last

reindeer and take the few days the Chukchi have had two dead

much human urine to drink. They order to make them strong and improve give them some from time to time in

cause to be that they had given

their staying-power.

The

who have

on the reindeer

effect

as intoxicat-

fallen victim to the drinking habit.

The

just as

And when some

given the longed-for fluid. start quarreling, tearing it.

same

drunk and have just as great a thirst. At night they being and keep running around the tents in the expectation of

become

are noisy

with

too

fluid has the

ing drink has on people

reindeer

them

spilled

out into the snow, they

away from each other the clumps of snow moistened his urine in a sealskin container

Every Chukchi saves

which

espe-

purpose and from which he gives his reindeer to drink. Whenever he wants to round up his animals, he only has to set this container !â&#x20AC;&#x2122;, come on the ground and slowly call out 'Girach, Girach and they promptly

cially

made

for the

running toward him from

afar.

[

Kopec, Joseph. Dziennik

(Diary of a Journey Along the

Whole

Wroclaw. 1837. An amplified text was published in Berlin, in 1863. from which this translation from Polish, done by Prof. Wiktor Weintraub, was made. pp. 198-202. Length of Asia.

in Polish)

[Joseph Kopec, a Brigadier in the Polish army.w'as a ing to Professor

Wiktor Weintraub of Harvard

unbalanced and prone to exaggeration but faith

can be relied upon.

year

fever.

He was

1797 or perhaps 1796.

arrives with his

snow-drifts

not a

Kopec

and enters the yurt,

top of the roof from which the

University',

in spite of his

Accord-

he was mentally

weaknesses

his

good

and he ate the mushrooms. The Kamchatka. He is ill and running a

liar

companions

man of letters.

at a native

settlement covered with

customary, through the opening

smoke of the

fire

emerges.

at the

then describes

what happens. - rgw]

Hardly

few moments had passed when

about a great change in stinking,

weak

mixed with the that

sick

body. The

sudden change of air

brought

of this closed yurta, always

lamp oil. made me death would strike. Thus abandoning

acrid scent of whale-fat used as

thought the hour of my

air

243

EXHIBITS the

fire

from

and

this

tea

man.

called for

a bit

evangelist in the hope of getting

educated, as

understood, than other people

the art of healing. After having learned about

comes

a little later,

first to

drink

he approaches the

tea.

While

the middle of the tent a large

Feeling a bit revived.

‘Before

You have

ask what

complying with

list,

curiosity,

two years

mishap, the evangelist

and ordering

doing

this,

me to sit

up he

tells

the Kamchadals bring from

of ermine hides and deer skins.

meaning of this. To which the evangesays to me:

the

give you the medicine,

fire,

number

some help

must

tell

you something important.

Lower Kamchatka but you have known nothing of the treasures of this land. Here,’ opening some birch bark in which a few mushrooms were wrapped, ‘are mushrooms that are, I can say, mirreulous. They grow only on a single high mountain close to the volcano and lived for

they are the most precious creations of nature.’

‘Take into account, local

people

even give

all

Sir,’

the evangelist goes on, 'that the hides brought by

receive as gifts in exchange for these their possessions,

them and if only I sought These mushrooms have a special and

had

take advantage of the situation.

many

mushrooms. They would

to as

Not only do they help the man who uses them but he sees his own future as well. Since you are weak you should eat one mushroom. It will give you the sleep you are lacking.’ Hearing so many strange things about the merits of that mushroom, though supernatural

quality.

was

doubt for

wish to recover

a long

time whether

health and above

should

all

make

to sleep

use of

overcame

it.

However, the

my fears,

and so

once stretched out, for a deep sleep overtook me. Dreams came one after the other. I found myself as though magnetized* ate half

by the most

medicine and

attractive gardens

where only pleasure and

beaut)'

seemed

Flowers of different colours and shapes and odours appeared before my going to and fro eyes: a group of most beautiful women dressed in white As if seemed to be occupied with the hospitality of this earthly paradise. and flow ers. with my coming, they offered me diff^erent fruits, berries, rule.

pleased

This delight lasted during

than

usual

rest.

my whole sleep, which was a couple of hours longer

dream, After having awakened from such a sweet had

dis-

distressed that discovered that this delight was an illusion. I was impressions made pleasant appeared, as if it had been true happiness. These it

the day. Having received end of the until remained that few hours for me the mushroom and even having such bewitching support from the miraculous long time. I started to have I had not had for a such as sleep fortified by been .

When

caught the Kopec wroic. 'm.gnemn,' had recendy explains his usage of the word. - row.

Europe:

this

244

intellectuals attention of sdenthts and

THE ELV-AGARIC

confidence in

its

IN SIBERIA

supernatur.il qualities (as iiiv evanj'elist

had taught

and with the approach of night I asked mv physician for a second helping. He was pleased with my courage and at once bearing the offering of his friendly benevolence, he gave me a similar whole mushroom. Having eaten do),

stronger dose,

this

new

visions carried

fell

soundly asleep

few minutes. For several hours

in a

to another world,

and

seemed

ordered to return to earth so that a priest could take impression, although in sleep, was so strong that evangelist.

was precisely

once took

with a joy that he did not hide from me. fell

asleep

anew and

did not

that

was

confession. This

awoke and asked

wake up

About an hour

what

for

had

confession

after the confession

twenty-four hours.

for

make me

besides there are other reasons that

and heard

his stole

almost impossible, to describe the visions

noticed in these visions and

the hour of tnidnight and the priest, e\ er eager

to render spiritual services, at

It is

dilTicult,

such a long sleep; and

reluctant to do so.

passed through are things that

What

felt

had seen or e.vperienced some time before, and also things that would never iimigine even in my thoughts. I can only mention that from the period when I

was

first

aware of the notions of life,

fifth

and with

si.vth

whom

year, 1

all

that

had seen

objects and people that

had some

relations, all

knew

became present

pictures followed each other

they are dreams. across

and

which

my sight. will not

should add only that as

some blunders of my

matters,

evangelist

and

as time

me from went on.

one word the picture Concerning the future, different

occupy if

games, occupations, actions,

one following the other, day after day. year after year, of my whole past

in front

a special

magnetism

inspired by

warned him

place here since I

came

to impro\ e in those

noticed that he took these warnings almost as the voice of

Revelation.

not for

to argue

about the usefulness and the influence on human health of this miraculous mushroom. But I can state that its medical usefulness, had it been known among more educated people.s. should have earned It is

a place

human

among so many known remedies of nature

in the

matter of fighting

Can anyone deny that in spite of our vast knowledge (relative to our forces) of natural phenomena, there still exist almost countless phenomena about which we can only guess? Can one put a limit to nature maladies.

at a

point that delimits the possibilities of inquiries and discoveries of human research? Innumerable effects of recently discovered magnetic forces, effects

that cannot

be detected by physical means nor pinpointed with any degree of preasion to some specification on the human body, seem to reconcile in some measure the controversy concerning this mushroom. It is then possible t

at in

the sleep brought by the influence of this

245

mushroom,

man

able to

EXHIBITS some of his real past and if not the future at least his present resomeone can prove that both the effect and the influence of the

see at least lations. If

mushroom

are non-existent and erroneous, then

of the miraculous

mushroom

shall stop

being defender

of Kamchatka.

Whatever may be the nature and qualities of the above-mentioned mushroom. I must confess that the taking of it had a powerful effect on my mind, as well as a strong impression [on

certain degree,

This credulity

grew disquieted to a became finally gloomy.

senses], so that

from which passing into anxiety I having even the power of faith was based

conviction of the evangelist that

truthful visions

were

first

on the

warning of

a true

heaven, and, secondly, on a conviction coming from within me.

all

when

later

perceived, being awake, the confirmation of what the dreams had predicted.

This led

have confidence

in the dependability of

the future. However, as time passed, during

slacken and to

when

its

influence on

my mind

ray dreams about

travels, this faith started to

ended, a peace of soul returned

together with better health.

[

10 ]

L.^ngsdorf, Georg Heinrich von. Einige Bemerkungen, die Eigen-

Fliegenschwammes betreffend. (Some Remarks Concerning the Properties of the Kamchadal Flyschaften

des Kamtschadalischen

Agaric) Wetterauischen Gesellschaft

No. mitted by the author Annalen, Vol. Sciences in

Xhe

plant

mankind,

die

gesammte Naturkunde.

1809. pp- 249-256.

Frankfurt

French to the Russian Imperial Academy of

supplies

of immeasurable influence and

most of our

clothing, food, drink,

medical science of primitive peoples consists entirely the

more or

fact that

less efficacious plants,

even a

Paper sub-

Petersburg.

St,

kingdom

since

fiir

number

many uneducated To demonstrate

and

in their

shelter.

The

knowledge of

and everj-day experience confirms the

of plants native to our

own

regions are

nations almost

more thoroughly than they

this assertion.

should like to say at

for

usefulness

known

are to us.

this point

something

as extremely of the fly-agaric, which we regard of northeastern Asia as an inhabitants various used by which is but poisonous and the like are used kava. opium, arrack, brandy, intoxicant just as wine, opportunity in Kamchatka I had the stay my During nations. other by and toeffects of this mushroom, the on information to gather detailed

about the nature and

effects

246

dav

THE FLY-AGARIC

you the most important points

shall try to tell

Ordinarily

IN SIBERIA

would be necessary

first

make

as briefly as possible.

a closer

examination of the

possible, and thereby show whether, nature of the mushroom, in so far as those areas differ from our own. to what extent, the mushrooms found in

and

However,

since time

too short at this

moment.

detailed description of the ordinary fly-agaric

shall

not give any

myself to

shall confine

and

dried specimens which 1 pointing out that, at least on the basis of four from Kamchatka and of a drawing made there by Privy

brought with

does appear that some difference exists between Kamchadal mushrooms and those of our own country: the Kamchadal mushroom has a cap with a navel-like protuberance in the middle, its stalk

Councillor Tilesius.

seems

grow

thicker towards the base, and, in particular, the lamellae

may

be yellowish rather than white. However, since this cannot be stated with any certainty until the living mushroom has again been observed in Kamchatka,

shall

regard

time being

for the

as a special variety:

mHSCurirt var. CaHitsc/irtticu.

Isolated fly-agarics

and on dry

plains.

grow

They

alntost

are found

everywhere

years they are seen in great

Kamchatka,

most abundantly

peninsula, especially around Vishna

some

in birch forests

in the central part of the

Kamchatka and Milkova Derevna.

numbers, but

in others they are

extremely

scarce.

The Kamchadals gather them

usually during the hottest

months of July

and August: they maintain that those that dry by themselves

on the

under fresh

stalk,

in the earth,

and that are somewhat furry and velvety to the touch on the

side of the cap

and strung up

have a far stronger narcotic

effect

than those picked

to dry in the air.

The size is variable, with diameters ranging from i-i [3 to 5-6 inches. The smaller mushrooms, which are bright red and covered with many white warty protuberances, are said to be far stronger in narcotic power than the larger ones, which are pale red and have few white spots. Since the establishment of closer contacts with the Russians, the

have taken particularly to drinking vodka and have fly-agarics to their

left

the consumption of

wandering neighbors, the Koryaks, for

the fly-agarics and trade

them very

Kamchadals

whom

they gather

profitably for reindeer.

The usual way to consume fly-agarics is to dry them and then to swallow them at one gulp, rolled up into a ball, without chewing them; chewing flyagarics

considered harmful, since

it is

said to cause digestive disturbances.

Sometimes these mushrooms are cooked fresh and eaten 247

soups or

EXHIBITS more like the usual when the mushrooms

sauces, since they then taste a

weaker

effect, so that

edible

are prepared in this way, a

amount can be eaten without harmful

larger

soaked in berr>-

fly-agarics are

juice,

which one

mushrooms and have

results.

may

Occasionally, too.

thereafter drink at his

pleasure as a genuine intoxicating wine. Juice squeezed from bilberries cutiuni idigiuosum)

said to

heightens the intoxicating

be most suitable for

one

effect, so that

may

this

(Vflc-

purpose because

expect to achieve a

potent result with a smaller quantity.

The bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

predisposition or susceptibility to the intoxicating effect of

fly-agarics apparently

sometimes be

not the same at

ver\â&#x20AC;&#x2122; strongly affected

remain completely unaffected however, one large

narily,

all

times, since the

a single

mushroom and at other times

after eating twelve to

fly-agaric or

same person may

nventy of them. Ordi-

two small ones are enough

make

an enjoyable day.

The

narcotic effect

also said to be heightened

by the drinking of large

quantities of cold water afterwards.

The

narcotic effect begins to manifest itself about a half hour after eating,

in a pulling

and jerking of the muscles or

sometimes these

effects

this time,

jump (although

tendon

appear only after an hour or two);

followed by a sense of things

During

a so-called

people

swimming before

who

this

gradually

the eyes, dizziness, and sleep.

have eaten a large quantity of mushrooms

often suffer an attack of vomiting.

The roUed-up mushrooms

swallowed whole are then vomited out

in a swollen, large,

previously

and gelatinous

form, but even though not a single mushroom remains in the stomach, the drunkenness and stupor nevertheless continue, and all the symptoms of fly-agaric eating are, in fact, intensified. Many other persons never vomit,

even after eating copiously of the mushrooms.

The nature of the

ecstasy or drunkenness caused by the fly-agaric resembles vodka to the extent that it renders unconscious the

the effects of wine and

persons intoxicated with

and arouses

them

feelings that are most-

of gloomy. The face becomes red, bloated, and full things involblood, and the intoxicated person begins to do and say many ly joyful, less often

untarily.

In the milder stages, as

ish

have

rooms

tendon

jerks,

but

in the

stages there are jerky

pantomime movements with

muscles

said, there are

movements of the limbs, and then the making the most out an persons often appear to be dancing and

more advanced intoxicated

their hands. Similarly, the hea

if a person has eaten are also in a constantly convulsive state;

convulsions. to excess, he goes into genuine

According to their

own

statement, persons

248

who

nec

mushj

, are slightly intoxicated ,

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

skillful in their feet and arc then exceedingly on light extraordinarily fed bodilv niovenicnt and physical exercise.

eflort ol in this state the slightest and stimulated, highly are nerves The over if one wishes to step Consequently, effects. powerful yery will produces jumps as though the obstacles were a small stick or a straw, he steps and in man is ordinarily talkative, his speech nerves are now

tree trunks.

out secrets, tully conscious ol constant activity, and he involuntarily blurts but unable to hold his nerves in check. In his actions and aware of his secret sings tond of dancing dances and a music-loser without any intention incessantly. Others run or walk quite involuntarily, all. of moving, to places where they do not wish to go at the nerves The muscles are controlled by an uncoordinated activity of will-power themselves, uninfluenced by and unconnected with the higher this

condition a

man who

has occasionally happened that persons in this stage streams, of intoxication found themselves driven irresistibly into ditches, but ponds, and the like, seeing the impending danger before their eyes

of the brain, and thus

unable to avoid certain death except by the assistance of friends who rushed these to their aid. In this intense and stimulated state of the nervous system, persons exert muscular efforts of which they at

would be completely incapable

other times; for example, they have carried heavy burdens with the greatest

of ease, and eye-witnesses have confirmed to state of fly-agaric ecstasy carried a

the fact that a person in a

120-pound sack of flour a distance of

although at any other time he would scarcely have been able to

10 miles, lift

such a load easily.

But the strangest and most remarkable feature of the fly-agaric is its effect on the urine. The Koryaks have known since time immemorial that the urine of a person

who

has

consumed

and intoxicating power than the

fly-agarics has a stronger narcotic

fly-agaric itself

and that

for a long

time after consumption. For example, a

drunk on

fly-agarics today

this a

moderate intoxication

cup of

his

own

drunkards

become

urine, he will

were

be moderately

may have completely slept off and be completely sober; but if he now drinks

who have consumed

their urine as if

man may

and by tomorrow

from the mushrooms the dav before. that

this eflect persists

far

It is

this

not

intoxicated than he

uncommon, therefore, mushroom will preserve

at all

poisonous

a precious liqueur

and

was

drink

will

as the occasion

offers.

The

intoxicating effect

have eaten the

Among

on the urine

fly-agaric itself

man

found not only

but also in e\evy person

the Koryaks, therefore,

wait for a

it is

intoxicated with

quite

common

mushrooms 249

and,

in the

who

drinks the urine.

for a sober

when

persons

man

lie

the latter urinates.

EXHIBITS to catch the urine secretly in a container

and

way

in this

to obtain a stimulat-

ing drink even though he has no mushrooms.

Because of

this peculiar effect, the Kor>'aks

have the advantage of being able to prolong their ecstasy for several days with a small number of flyagarics. Suppose, for e.vample, that two mushrooms were needed on the

day for an ordinary intoxication; then the urine alone is enough to maintain the intoxication on the following day. On the third dav the urine still has narcotic properties, and therefore one drinks some of this and at the same time swallows some fly-agaric, even if only half a mushroom; this first

enables

him not only

to maintain his intoxication but also to tap off a strong

liquor on the fourth day. easily

By continuing

method it is possible, a week or longer with

this

be seen, to maintain the intoxication for

can

five

six fly-agarics.

Equally remarkable and strange

the extremely subtle and elusive

narcotic substance contained in the fly-agarics, which retains

permanently and can be transmitted

effectiveness

to other persons: the effect of the urine

from the eating of one and the same mushroom can be transmitted

to a second

person, the urine of this second person affects a third, and similarly, unchang-

ed by the organs of

this

animal secretion, the

effect

appears in a fourth and

a fifth person.

For

fly-agaric

region

another remarkable obser\'ation concerning the nature of the

still 1

indebted to

[p. 240] states

Steller,

who.

the following: Tt was related to

lower gentry named Kutukov, that reindeer often eat this

who

mushroom, among

if they

were drunk and then

fall

and the mushroom has

reindeer; for ever)'one

who

lost its

fall

into a

find a wild reindeer, therefore, they tie effects

reliable people,

its

flesh

would go

the

its

others (for they have a great

down and

deep

sleep.

feet until

thrash about for a

When the Koryaks

has slept off the

potenq', and only then do they

they killed such an animal while

ate

man from

has charge of the Cassa reindeer herd -

appetite for mushrooms), after which they

while as

the Russian and the Kor)'ak nation - indeed, by a

among both

Kamchatka

in his description of the

kill

was sleeping or still

into a similar frenzy, as

he had

the

raving,

actuall)

eaten the fly-agaric himself.'

harmful or great efforts to find out something about the any satisfactory possibly deadly effects of the fly-agaric, I could not obtain

Although

made

information on the subject.

vodka and maintain Kor>â&#x20AC;&#x2122;aks greatly prefer fly-agarics to the Russians' headaches or other ill that after eating fly-agarics a man never suffers from

The

effects. It is

true that in

could extremely rare cases (of which no one

250

recall

any

THE FLY-AGARIC

specific cx.imple) persons

IN SIBERIA

who consumed an exiraordmanly

large quanc.t)

and speechin convulsions, senseless died have said to are of the moderate conit is not reported that However, days. eight or less. after six

mushrooms

sumption ever produced any harmful

alter-efiects. .

immoderate consumption of fly-agarics should If, contrary to expectations, stomach or some other disturbnevertheless be followed bv pressure on the two

ance,

be an

to three spoonfuls of

infallible

remedy

that can relieve

There are some people

amum

ulighiosi.m] juice in

have a stomach-ache,

remedy: however. fly-.igaric is

blubber, butter, or

fat,

fly-agarics

a glass of bilberry [Vac-

have been soaked whenever they

who

or other ailment and

was not able

are reputed to

eftects.

ill

Kamchatka who drink

which

colic,

any

oil

to ascertain

regard

as a universal

whether the consumption of

decrease followed by constipation or diarrhoea or by an increase or

in the urine.

any satisfactory answer when I asked whether - every one was probably the taste or smell of the urine had been changed ashamed to admit that he had drunk his own urine or somebody elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Nevertheless, it strikes me as not improbable that fly-agarics, like turpentine, 1

was

also unable to obtain

asparagus, and other things, impart a special, possibly quite pleasant, smell

by analogy, it would be worth investigating whether other narcotic substances, such as opium, DigiMlis purpurea, cantharides. etc. and

taste to the urine;

also retain their properties in the urine.

The nature of the

fly-agaric, therefore, offers the scientist, physician,

naturalist a great deal of food for thought

our

Âťi<iteria

and

medicu tnight perhaps

be enriched with one of the most efficacious remedies, and judicious physicians might find in the fly-agaric the most potent remedy to apply to the

body

in cases

of paralysis and other diseases of the extremities.

[II]

Erman. Adolph. Reise um die Erde durch Nord-Asien und die beiden Oceane in denjahren 1828. 1829 und 1830 ausgeftihrt. (A Journey around the World through Northern Asia and both Oceans in 1828, 1829 and 1830) Berlin. 1833-48. p. 223.

[The author speaks of the peoples. - RGw]

fly-agaric

among

the

companions had eagerly been gathering

Esenb.; in Russian, mukbomor,

i.e.,

fly

251

pest)

Kamchadal and Koryak

fly-agaric (AiminiM muscaria

both in the woods through

EXHIBITS which we had ridden

morning and now

in the

at the foot of the

Northern Baidar mountains. Because of its brilliant red color they caught sight of e\erv one of them from afar and this always caused a sudden halt in our caravan which at first surprised me. They now confirmed what had already

been told

and

said that

who

about the intoxicating properties of this mushroom was not eaten in Sedanka but only gathered for the Koryaks,

in Tigilsk it

\\intertime often paid a reindeer for a single dried piece. Mitfc/iomar! they said, was much rarer in northern Kamchatka and the Koryaks had only learned about its properties because the meat of reindeer which had eaten it in

had an

was

effect that

as intoxicating as the

experience that had caused them to use

why

advantage and here was

had managed

come by

intoxicant that was

still

mushroom

itself. It

was

most sparingly and with maximum

they even collected the urine of persons

a iHufe/iower.

this

and mixed

with their drink

who as

time a plant eaten by

all

very effective.

p. 259.

the

same day

Kamchadals, learning

in the

tasted for the

days that followed to appreciate

to other fine qualities - for the ease with its

unusual lightness, and with which

preparation.

first

which

in addition

could be carried because of it

required no

made from

the stalks of

could be used since

referring to a felt-like substance

the so-called kiprei (Epilobiiim anguslifolium). Several of the stalks are laid on

top of one another and squeezed and beaten in layers two to three inches

ide so that the sweet sap inside penetrates the green bast

woody strips

pieces of

cortex: thereafter this turns into firm dark-green pleasant-smelling

made up

tioned.

and the

into lengths of four to six feet

and the width already men-

These are eaten raw but always smeared with butter or

and, with this addition,

too

now found them

seal fat.

palatable, easily digestible

and nourishing.

The example of

the Russians [from the southern

tip

of Kamchatka] had

caused the Yelovka natives to try an agricultural experiment during

this

same year, for they had planted some potatoes on a plot between their houses. The plants seemed, however, in a very sad state, owing no doubt to incorrect and on part of the plot they had already been replaced by much more carefully tended mushrooms. These belonged to Toyon s wife, who when had picked them in the woods in the Spring and transplanted them cultivation,

they were tiny, and

now

size of their scarlet caps

presage a powerful

she pointed out to

and

effect.

their

many white

with special pride the big

spots,

which are considered

enthusiasm She spoke with the most unrestrained

252

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

eyes noticed she had a glassy look in her came from excessive indulgence doubt no which cheeks, copper-red and in many other mushroom-eaters although I did not see the same symptoms of her love for this intoxicant, and

met

later.

one of those open places in the woods we gathered pp. 304-306. Thereafter in companions who. twenty mushrooms, to the immense joy of the older of my again praised its powers and its as an enthusiastic devotee of this intoxicant, of atVirmed. from his own experience, the most varied effects

He mushroom on herbivorous

benefits.

animals: wild reindeer that have eaten some with ropes and are often .found so stupcKed that they can be tied

this

them taken away

meat then

alive: their

intoxicates everyone

who

eats

it.

but only

soon after being caught and from this it appears that would the communicability of the narcotic substance lasts about as long as it if

the reindeer

killed

;

have affected the animals'

own nerves. He also said

mushroom intoxi-

that this

from alcoholic drunkenness, since the former put the Kamchatka natives into a peaceful and gentle (skromno) mood, and they had seen how differently the Russians were affected by spirits.' There is no doubt, however, about a ‘marvellous increase in physical

cation had a quite different effect

strength,’

which the

man

front Yelovka praised as

still

another effect of

mushroom intoxication. ‘In harvesting hay,' he said, ‘1 can do the work of three men from morning to nightfall without any trouble, if I have eaten a mushroom.' Of the various ways of using iniifc/iemer he said that the best was the simplest way.

down with

water.

vt^..

drying

it.

swallowing

raw',

and washing

the other hand, the Russians of Klynchevsk,

who

ac-

cording to him pick whole packhorse loads of this valuable plant, prepare an extract by decocting taste

in water,

and try to take aw'ay

by mixing the extract with various berry

its

extremely disgusting

juices.

p. 312. Sept. 5.

Although

all

w’e could boast of were a

unusual adventures, our old hunter nevertheless

felt

few exertions, but no

himself entitled to be

rewarded with the pleasures of intoxication. Immediately

after

our arrival he

As to chc cITccts of muirlKJfnor on the Russians who always ate too many of them (up to ten mushrooms, whereas 1 never saw a Kamchadal use more than two). Krashcninnikov tells of some cases in which the most intense excitement ended in the fury of the intoxicated man directed against himself. According to him, a young Cossack from Bolsheretsk, after eating many mushrooms, was restrained with difficulty from putting a knife into his abdomen, while another actually killed himself by scif-castration. {^Vidc [4] -RCw] I.

...

253

EXHIBITS exchanged some of the mushrooms we had gathered for dry ones, of which he at once swallowed three small pieces (one and one-half mushrooms) and washed them down with water. When it is fresh, the mukhomor is so sticky and of such loose consistency that it is hard to swallow without chewing.

This,

that

however, makes the unpleasant

of the mukhomor so disgusting considered impossible to cope with any real quantity of them in

it is

taste

this condition.

The strong

will that

here displayed in order to obtain pleasant excitation

even more striking when one obser\-es that this sets in only long after the narcotic is used and certainly not without troublesome transition. Thus, a is

good hour

he had eaten the mushrooms they had shown no effect on his mood, and he told me then that he would have to lie down quietly and sleep till the next morning in order to see the most pleasant things, some of

them

after

dreams

w'hile asleep

and others

[

after

waking next

day.

12 ]

Maydell, Baron Gerhard von. Reisen und Forschungen im Jakutskischen Gebiet Oscsibiriens in den Jahren 1861-1871. (Journeys and Investigations in the Jakutskaia Oblast' of Eastern Siberia in 18611871) Published as Vol. 1-2 in Series iv of Beitriige zur Kenntniss

des Russischen Reiches

und der angrenzenden Lander

Petersburg. 1893. Vol.

pp. 298-300.

At the Paren' is

some

also obtained

very highly prized

among

smoked

hung up

to be

well.

said to occur only

It is

until

dried fly-agaric {Amanita muscaria), which

the Kor)â&#x20AC;&#x2122;aks for

eaten in the fresh state, in which it is

it is

its

intoxicating effect.

It is

not

believed to be poisonous, but always

shriveled and quite dry so that

among

Asiens, St.

birch trees and hence

will

keep

confined to a few

heard Penzhinskoye and Markovo mentioned in dried particular. When a Koryak consumes the fly-agaric, he chews the mushroom and then drinks it down with water. After a while he becomes localities,

among

w'hich

greatly stimulated, converses with people

not there at

all,

tells

them with much

whom

he sees although they are

satisfaction

about

his great wealth,

and he will can also be asked questions by the people present, reference to the sometimes answer them quite sensibly but always with seem real to him. things which he imagines and which, in his intoxication,

and

so on.

During the intoxication he

w'ithout staggering, but the

to quite capable of walking from place

mushroom seems 254

produce a peculiar

effect

!N SIBERIA

THE FLY-ACARIC

on a greatly enlarged everything see him makes which on his opiic nerves the people to induce sueh among is a common joke it reason this For scale. such as a then to place some sitiall obstacle, and walk to man intoxicated an eye. aiw little stick with a probing the examine will stop, He wav. stick in his bound. Another cfliect of the ntushroom hnallv jump over it with a mighty and then contract to a that the pupils become much enlarged said to be

repeated several tintes. When the very small size: this process is said to be discomfort at all but only drunken man has sobered up. he feels no bodily harsh reality: in repl) to his beautiful visions have given way to regrets that

company, that he was the questions he will sav that he has been in pleasant seems owner of Hne herds.'and the like. However, the effect of the mushroom to differ

from that of opium: the

visions arc not of an erotic nature: instead

only a teeling ot great comfort, together with outuse of ward signs of happiness, satisfaction, and well-being. Thus far the has not been found to produce any harmful results, such as the

mushroom produces

the fly-agaric

impaired health or reduced mental powers;

this

probably due to the

fact

Koryaks are seldom able to indulge their passion for in the mushroom, since it is found only in a few places, and even there only that, in general, the

small quantities.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

The Chukchis-at unacquainted with

when

least

this intoxicant:

the people of the

would sometimes

those

have encountered - were completely

however,

town happened

was

said in

Markovo

that

be unable to get brandy, they

resort to eating fly-agarics.

was loM of only one faial case ihai resulted from eating fly-agaric but it was explained as having been due to the fact that the man in question -a Russian - had taken fresh instead of dried mushrooms in rather large quantities. The mushroom has a surprising effect on urine: i.e., it seems as if the intoxicating cfTect of the 1

narcotic contained in the as

soon

as a

Koryak

mushroom

feels that his state

passes principally into the urine.

of intoxication

he has no more mushrooms, and the elTect urine has no effect a second time. at a

in a

was

It is

a well-knotvn fact that

beginning to ebb, he drinks

his

own

urine

restored. This cannot be repeated, however, for the

told about a

man who. while

riding with a Kor)â&#x20AC;&#x2122;ak. stopped

He was thoroughly intoxicated and therefore happy mood. The Koryak who had been riding naturally asked him for a piece of mush-

yurt near which a man. another Kory ak, was sitting.

very

room. which the latter deeply regretted he could not give because he had none left. However, he went and urinated, and then gave the product to his guest, who drank it all and now became intoxicated also. After a

little

while the host became sober while the guest's intoxication continued,

and when the former complained about not being able to return to his pleasant gave hint some of his urine, which however no longer had any efl'ect.

255

state, the

guest

now

EXHIBITS

[U] Ditt.mar. Carl von. (Karl

Kamtschatka

den Jahren 1851-1855. (Journey and Sojourn

von Ditmar) Reisen und Aufenthalt

Kamchatka in 1851-1855) Published as V^ol. 8 in Series 3 of Beitrage 2ur Kennmiss des Russischen Reiches und der angrenzenden Lander Asiens. Finally.

St.

Petersburg. 1900. Part n. Section

should mention one other plant of

birch forests which plays a role in the the fly-agaric.

musairid,

These mushrooms are

nior.

life

which the with

fiery red

this region of

pp. 98-100.

meadows and

of the peoples living here. This

local inhabitants often call nmfe/io-

many

large white spots; they are

not rare and can be recognized from far away in the rich green of somewhat

shady and

damp

The Kamchadals themselves have little use for the mushrooms, but they like to gather them in order to sell them in a dried state Korvaks and Chukchis. who buy them eagerly. .Although

to the

room

places.

least to

a great favourite in the North,

be a great

effect of the

rarity:

mnWiefnor

and they are very fond of

them

made

small bo.v

chopped-up dried

appears not to occur there at

however, the

known

it.

into.vicating

Both Kort’aks and Chukchis «ti»m in

they

fly-agaric, so that

which they

may

mush-

all.

or at

and nerve-stimulating

and wide among the Northern

far

this

peoples,

like to carry

cart)’

with

small bits of

have their favorite intoxicant

always ready to hand. .Another such box contains tobacco, which they enjoy in three different

ways - smoking

other hand, the

The mushroom

among

it,

and taking

only chewed, and the juice

it is

as snuff.

the

then swallowed.

also very frequently enjoyed at other times

anyone who has become addicted it,

it.

plavs an important role at ever)' celebration, especially

the shamans, but

along without

chewing

to this pleasure

and can no longer get

or just as the alcoholic cannot get along without his alcohol

the opium-addict without his opium. .Anyone

pleasure soon becomes a slave to

and

who

indulges freely in this

willing to give anything to enjoy

the intoxication again. Miffc/iemor-eaters describe the narcosis as

most

beautiful

and splendid. The pass

most wonderful images, such as they never see in their lives otherwise, intense enjo)menr before their eyes and lull them into a state of the most

Among way,

the

numerous persons

cannot

remember

whom

a single

one

myself have seen intoxicated

who was

raving or wild.

in this

Outu ard y

say, comforting For almost might -I calming thoroughly effect was always mumbling quietly to t em the most part the people sit smiling and friendly,

256

and

selves

all

their

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

movements

and cautious. Walking seems to be have a are quite capable ot it. They

are slow

uncomfortable to them, although they in their eyes, as glassy, almost imbecilic look

they scarcely noticed their are somewhat distorted. People gensurroundings, and their facial features mushroom poison becomes more intense erally claim that the elTect of the through another organism. it has already passed when beautiful more and

man

Thus an intoxicated

will often

be followed by someone else

who wants

supposed to possess this effect to a particularly that have accidentally eaten ol the high degree. Similarly, the meat of reindeer form. possess the into.xicating effect in a very pleasant

to collect his urine,

mushroom

which

said to

since all the early The use of the imiWiomer seems to be a very old practice, the same and similar stories. authors, such as Pallas and Kmsheninnikov. tell

[Ten years

1890.

earlier, in

von Dittmar had published

his Histarisc/ier

tr.wels in Benc/U, ‘Historical Report’, .iccording to the diary of his

through the same publishing channels, 590 there arc Siberia. ...

two

entries pertinent to

in St. Petersburg.

Kamchatka, pp. 5^4 innl

our inquiry into the fly-agaric in

rgw]

learned that shamans are very eager to take in a certain quantity of

order toget themselves into a stupor resembling complete insanity. The Koryak were complaining about the fact that this drug was not available at the lime and that, as a rule, it was difficult to obtain in Taigonos. .-iHKiniM HiHScanu in

The mushroom does not grow on the peninsula and has to be brought from Kamchatka, where there is much of it and it is very effective. From Kamchatka this precious merchandise has to make its way all around the Penzhinsk Gulf, from peddler it

and

to peddler,

since

everybody

wild about

not

it.

much

gets here. ...

approached her

drum-beating widow

who hopes

her dead husband by shaman’s exercises - Translator], that she

was drunk with

matter of fact,

among

it is

fly-agaric, a fact that

quite

common

to resuscitate

immediately noticed

was corroborated by the others.

among the Koryak, and especially round boxes made of birch bark

here

the Chukchi, to produce small,

containing small dried pieces of fly-agaric. People sniffing tobacco take out their little boxes, so these people take out theirs containing the

mushroom.

They chew the pieces, keeping them in their mouths for a long time without swallowing. They assert that this practice puts them into a state of bliss during which they see the most beautiful visions. They sit peacefully, without ranting and raving, their eyes wide open and staring, as if they no longer belonged to this world .

257

EXHIBITS

[M] Kennan, George. Tent Life in Siberia and Adventures among the Koraks and ocher Tribes in Kamtschatka and Northern Asia. New \ork and London. 1871, pp. 202-204. The journey was made in 1865-1870.

[To one versed ago of

in the literature this

among

his e.xperience

wrong-headed.

the Koryak sounds disturbingly superficial and

Why was he astonished

when every prepared

account by an American a century

by the

practice of eating the fly-agaric,

known

traveler in the region had

of it for generations?

Why

does he think that the ‘natives’ speak Russian? ‘Muk-a-moor’, as he writes the word, is Russian, not Kor)’ak. Note his prudish reticence about the urine-drinking. -

row]

...We... were

surprised, as

we came out

into the

open

air,

to see three or

four Koraks shouting and reeling about in an advanced stage of intoxication celebrating,

ding]

knew

suppose, the happy event which had just transpired. [A wed-

Kamtchatka, nor, so

and

was

was not a drop of

that there

far as

alcoholic liquor in

knew, anything from which

all

Northern

could be made,

me how they had succeeded in becoming so suddenly,

a myster)’ to

thoroughly, hopelessly, undeniably drunk. Even Ross Browne’s beloved

Washoe, with

its

‘howling wilderness’ saloons, could not have turned out

more creditable specimens of intoxicated humanity than those before us. The exciting agent, whatever it might be. was certainly as quick in its operation,

and

known

as effective in

modern

its results, as

civilization.

any

‘tangle-foot’ or ‘bottled-lightning’

Upon inquiry we

learned to our astonishment

known as known to the

that they had been eating a species of the plant vulgarly

toadstool.

There

natives as

a peculiar fungus of this class in Siberia,

‘muk-a-moor’, and as as a stimulant

by nearly

possesses active intoxicating properties,

all

a violent narcotic poison:

the Siberian tribes.

but in small doses

Taken it

it is

used

in large quantities

produces

all

it is

the effects of

nervous habitual use. however, completely shatters the consequently been system, and its sale by Russian traders to the natives has trade is made a penal offence by Russian law. In spite of all prohibitions, the twenty dollars worth of furs bought still secretly carried on, and I have seen themselves, but it with a single fungus. The Koraks would gather it for not to be found on the requires the shelter of timber for its growth, and is are obliged for the most they that so wander; they which over barren steppes alcoholic liquor.

Its

258

part to

buy

it.

THE FLY-AGARIC

enormous

prices,

IN SIBERIA

from the Russian

traders.

may sound

but the invitation which a convivial Korak and have a drink but. Won t extends to his passing friend is not. 'Come in alluring proposal perhaps to a very Not a toadstool?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; take and in come you magical eftect upon a dissipated Korak. civilized toper, but one which has a equal to the demand. the supply of these toadstools is by no means strangely to

American

ears,

As to economize the Korak ingenuity has been greatly exercised in the endeavor Sometimes, in the precious stimulant, and make it go as far as possible. that a wholecourse of human events, it becomes imperatively necessary toadstool to do it band shall get drunk together, and they have only one band gets drunk collecwith. For a description of the manner in which this and individuallv upon one fungus, and keeps drunk for a week, the Letter 3 ^curious reader is referred to Goldsmith s Citizen of the U oWd, horrible practice is almost entirely It is but just to say. however, that this tively

confined to the settled Koraks of Penzhinsk Gulf - the lowest, most degraded portion of the whole tribe. It may prevail to a limited extent among the

wandering

natives, but

never heard of more than one such instance outside

of the Penzhinsk Gulf settlements.

[15]

Lansdell. Henry. Through Siberia. London. 1882. [Note the English authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unfamiliarity with the his prudery. - rgw]

Among room agaric.

\'ol.

common

the flora, however, of North-Eastern Siberia

parts of Russia

mushroom

it is

poisonous.

of this kind

fungus that the native

sells

who

scarlet, flecked

Among

pp. 644-5.

fly-agaric; also

a peculiar

spotted like a leopard, and surmounted with a small

which here has the top

11,

hood - the

fly-

with white points. In other

the Koriaks

it is

intoxicating,

for three or four reindeer. So powerful

eats

mush-

and is

the

remains drunk for several days, and by a

process too disgusting to be described, half-a-dozen individuals

may be

mushroom, each

in a less

successively intoxicated

by the

effects

of a single

degree than his predecessor.

259

EXHIBITS

Jadrintsev, Nikolai Mikhailovich. Sibirien: geographische, ethnographische und historische Studien. (Siberia: Geographical, Ethnographic, and Historical Studies) Jena. 1886. p. 337.

[The only reference that the author makes .

the following :-rgw]

Furthermore, the natives are passionately addicted

(i.e.,

to a decoction of Amanita muscaria),

to the fly-agaric

which replaces liquor and

also

sold to merchants.

[17]

Patkanov, Serafim Keropovich. Die Irtysch-Ostjaken und ihre Volkspoesie. (The Irtysh Ostyak and their Folk-Poetry) St. Petersburg. 1897. p. 121.

[The only reference

mushrooms

in a discussion

of shamanism. - rgw]

The shaman gods.

must get himself into an exalted state to be able to talk to the To achieve this he consumes several (cither seven or fourteen or

twenty-one)

fly-agarics,

which are capable of producing

hallucinations.

[18] EstestvenSljunin, Nikolai Vasil'evich. Okhotsko-Kamchatskii krai.

(The Okhotsko-Kamchatskii Kraj. An Natural History) St. Petersburg. 1900. In two volumes.

noistoricheskoe opisanie.

Essay in Vol.

The

pp. 654-655-

population dislikes

mushrooms and

therefore does not gather them.

used by the Koryaks the fly-agaric (Amanita muscaria). widely are so fond of this mushroom because it produces a peculiar inebriation. They of foxes (in local terms, hides money of sums considerable will pay that they people have set up a some weakness, this Exploiting and sables) to obtain it. Tykaniev. a Koryak of t e highly profitable commerce. Thus a certain mg t ese (a herd of rein eer) se fortune a made settlement, Olyutorskoye other in fly-agarics and trade the forbids law mushrooms. Although the

exception

260

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

almost intpossible to enforce

law under

poisonous herbs and plants,

it is

the local conditions of

and the distances involved. The orders

life

commander (including the fly-agaric on the human organism) district

The

effect of the fly-agaric

this

ol tlte

explanation of the noxious effect of the are completely ignored.

quite peculiar and reminds us of the scenes of

and hallucinations which we have frequently witnessed in Chinese opium dens. An excellent antidote is a glass of strong vodka or diluted alcohol. A quarter of an hour after swallowing the vodka, the Koryak who is totally oblivious of his environment under the effect of the mushroom, inebriation, delirium,

completely regains consciousness.

lantents the disappearance of his world

when inebriated he loses the concept of time and all objects appear to him greatly magnified (an effect similar to the one produced of dreams, because

by hashish), which

the source of

many

jokes.

The Koryaks maintain that fresh fly-agarics are higl^lv poisonous and hence do not eat them. They are first dried for a long time in the sun and over the fire in the tent. Only then is the mushroom consumed, together with fresh water to wash it down. The Koryaks claim that continuous consumption of the mushroom has no ill effect on the person's health. W'e have seen addicts, however, whose emaciated aspect, yellowish colour of the skin, and uncertain gait can

only be attributed to protracted consumption of the fungus.

inebriating

of short duration since the poison (an alkaloid)

efl'ect is

eliminated by the urine which, the

mushroom

drunk, produces an

efl'ect

Its

rapidly

similar to that of

itself.

Fatal cases are very infrequent

and are attributable to the intake of

fresh,

non-dried mushrooms.

[19]

Enderli,

'Zwei Jahre bei den Tschuktschen und Korjaken.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; (Two years among the Chukchi and Koryak) Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen. Gotha. 1903. pp. 183-184.

[This

Very

one of the most valuable accounts that

little

the Koiyak

alcohol

brought up to the North,

know how

berries. In addition,

make

have. -

at least

intoxicating drinks

rgw]

around Gizhiga, but

from various kind of

however, they have another substance with which they

can produce a narcotic intoxication,

vi^..

the fly-agaric. This

mushroom

seldom found in those areas. It is collected by the women in the autumn, dried, and eaten on ceremonial occasions in the winter. 261

EXHIBITS At the man’s order, the

woman dug

into an old leather sack, in which

all

were heaped one on top of another, and brought out a small package wrapped in dirty leather, from which she took a few old and dr)sorts of things

fly-agarics.

She then

sat

down next

two

to the

men and

began chewing the

mushrooms thoroughly. After chewing, she took the mushroom out of her mouth and rolled it between her hands to the shape of a little sausage. The reason for this is that the mushroom has a highly unpleasant and nauseating taste, so that even a

someone

man who

intends to eat

always gives

chew and then swallows the little sausage whole, like a pill. When the mushroom sausage was ready, one of the men immediately swallowed it greedily by shoving it deep into his throat with his indescribably else to

Kor)aks never wash

filthy fingers, for the

The

lowed the

their

all

their lives.

became evident by the time the men had swalfourth mushroom.’ Their eyes took on a wild look (not a glassy

effects

look, as

may

of the poison

be seen in drunken men), with a positively blinding gleam, and

hands began to tremble nervously. Their movements became awkward

and abrupt,

as if the intoxicated

men had

lost control of their limbs.

them were still fully conscious. After a few minutes a deep

Both of

lethargy overcame

them, and they began quietly singing monotonous improvised songs whose

‘My name is Kuvar, and I am drunk. I am merry, mushrooms,’ and so on. The song grew more and more

content was approximately I

always eat

will

and loud, sometimes interrupted by words shouted out

lively

speed

the animal-like wild look in the eyes

;

grew more

the limbs

intense,

grew

at lightning

stronger, the trembling of

and the upper body began

move more and

violently. This condition lasted about ten minutes. All at once the

men -first

the Reindeer-Koryak and a

little later

the other

man -were

of frenzy. They suddenly sprang raving from their seats and began loudly and wildly calling for drums. (Every family owns disk-shaped

seized with a

fit

drums of reindeer

hide,

which are used

The women the intoxicated men.

for religious purposes.)

immediately brought two drums and handed them to And now there began an indescribable dancing and

singing, a deafening

drumming and a wild running about in the yurt, during which the men threw Suddenly everything about recklessly, until they were completely exhausted. sleep, while they they collapsed like dead men and promptly fell into a deep slept, saliva

noticeably flowed from their mouths and their pulse rate became

slower. the drunken man has sleep that provides the greatest enjoyment; and are highly sensuous, beautiful fantastic dreams. These dreams

It is this

the most

the sleeping I,

man

sees

whatever he wants

to.

dose. Differenc values have also been mentioned for this

262

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

awakened at almost the same time. The After a half hour the two men and both men were in possession of their efiects of the poison had subsided however, the walk was uncertain and convulsive. Soon, but their

senses,

became apparent again; the drunken men were seized asleep again they awakenwith a new but weaker fit of frenzy. Then they fell which was again succeeded by ed for a short period to full consciousness, The attacks continued in this way a few more times, growing poison

eflects of the

another

fu.

alter a each time. They probably would have stopped entirely which few hours if these intoxicated men had not used another method less violent

intensity of the intoxication.

renewed the

appears that the poison of the fly-agaric

when

this,

man

drinks

it.

produces the same

e.xcreted in the urine,

effects as

the fly-agaric

and

itself.

prized by Since fly-agarics are relatively rare in those regions, they are highly their the Korvaks. and they therefore consider it too expensive to waste

effects are entirely similar to those

whose

urine,

now

noticed

that a

woman

brought the awakened

metal container, into which the everybody. The container

of the

man

voided

mushroom.

man

a small sheet-

his urine in the

presence of

used exclusively for this purpose, and Koryaks

when thev travel. The drunken man (or, more properly, the poisoned man) put the container down next to him; the urine was still warm and the steam was rising densely in the cold yurt when the

carrv

with them even

second mushroom-eater, near him, seized this the first

who was

just awakening,

saw the urine container

without a word, and drank a few large gulps. Soon after

man, the

actual â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;owner of the urine.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; followed the other

moments the urine they had drunk began to do its work, and the symptoms of the intoxication grew more violent, as they had before. Sleep alternated with attacks of frenzy and moments of complete calm. The intoxication was intensified each time by drinking urine. The frenzied dances and the drinking-bouts continued in this way all through example. After a few

the night, and

was almost evening of the next day before the Koryaks

recovered from their stupor. for a short time, to

when

The remaining

was carefully preserved be used again on the next occasion. Even while traveling,

the Koryak leaves his settlement in a half-drunken condition, he never

squanders

his urine;

carries xvith

This

him

he continues to

in the container

which he

the greatest enjoyment, the merriest entertainment, that the

likes alcoholic drinks better

collect

for the purpose.

Koryak knows, and he waits for to 95

urine

pure alcohol

[sic !].

impatiently

all

year long.

because of their milder form

It is

true that he

(this refers

only

which many people drink without any admixture

of water), for the effects of fly-agaric poisoning, in the

form of heart

palpita-

EXHIBITS tions

and nausea, often

one or two days, and immoderate consumption of the mushroom involves the danger of madness or death. Such cases, however, occur ver}’ rarely. last

But the natives believe that the reveal the future to the

room. the

man

recites

fly-agaric,

unlike alcohol, has the power to

man who consumes

over

see the future, the wish will

it; if,

before eating the mush-

certain definite formulas stating his wish to

come

true in his dream.

[20]

Vanderlip, Washington

B. In

Search of

a Siberian

Klondike.

New

York. 1903. pp. 214-215.

[The author places the following episode naw’, presumably Kaminov. - row]

in the

Koryak

A peculiar custom sometimes to be noted among these is

that of drinking a kind of liquor

The

effect

is,

some

made from

respects, similar to that

village of ‘Kami-

people [Koryaks]

a large species of

mushroom.

produced by hashish. At

the imbiber shakes as with the ague; and presently he begins to rave

first

as if in

Some jump and dance and sing, while others cry out in agony. A small hole looks to them like a bottomless pit, and a pool of water as broad as the sea. These effects are produced only when the beverage is used to e.vcess; a small quantity has much the same effect as a moderate amount delirium.

of liquor. Curiously enough, after recovering from one of these debauches,

they claim that

The use of it after he

the antics performed

in order to

four of the

were by command of the mushroom.

not unattended by danger, for unless a

likely to destroy himself.

full effect

all

man

The Koryaks sometimes

well looked

take this drug

work themselves to the point of murdering an enemy. Three or mushrooms is a moderate dose, but when one wants to get the

one takes ten or twelve.

[Vanderlip offered

his

book

authors to the public as an account of the

e-tpcricnces in Siberia, but the excerpt that

we have quoted ought by

rights

can be be relegated to the secondary sources, since the statements in it with only traced without exception to others, notably Krasheninnikov [4]. to

paragraph wording. Vanderlip could have compiled his - rgw’] the Reading Room of the New York Public Librar}^

minimal changes in

264

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

JocHtLSON, Waldeniar. (lokhcl son.

ladimir Ilich)

The Kor>ak.

Natural History. New \oik. vi. Part i. A publication of the Jesup North Pacihe Expedition. Vol. and 11. Material Culture Religion and Myth, New York, 1905582-584. Social Organization ol the Koryak, 1908. pp.

Memoir

Bogoraz and

[\ ladiinir

sian anthropologists. ral History,

Museum

of the American

the Imperial

with the jesup North

were two distinguisiK-d Rusthe invitation of the American Museum ol Natu\'ladiinir Jocht-lson

Academy of Science

designated

them

to collaborate

they to contribute the studies of

Pacific Expedition,

extreme tip of Siberia the tribes of the Maritime Provinces of Siberia and the opposite Alaska. Thev wrote more extensively about the ily-agaric practices

They of these tribes than anyone else has done, and with keener discernment. were in the field at the turn of the century. \\ e reprint in full what they had to say

about the fly-agaric habit and

bring to the readerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention a

of folk tales in which the tly-agaric figures.

number

phonetic transcription of native

have simplified their

names and words. - row]

Koryak are most passionate consumers of the poisonous crimson flyagaric, even more so than the related Kamchadal and Chukchee, probably

The

because the fungus as

common

most

their territory.

Some

travellers,

Krasheninnikov and Dittmar, were of the opinion that the fly-agaric was

bought by the Koryak from Kamchatka. Thus, Dittmar says that there is no fly-agaric on the Taigonos Peninsula.' and that it is brought there from

no fly-agaric, and

that they get

however, have convinced

Koryak

territory,

its

not only

fly-agaric

My own observations, abundant

saw

mouth, an extensive

in the valley of the

field

over the

all

but that the Kor)-ak supply the Chukchee with

middle of the month of August not far from

from the Kamchadal.

me that

Koryak have

asserts that in general the

Kamchatka: while Krasheninnikov*

it.

In the

Varkhalam

River,

dotted with the characteristic crim-

son caps of the fly-agaric, with their white spots. In the villages of the Mari-

time Kory ak, along the whole western coast of Penshina Bay, uals

who were engaged

Dittmar.

[Our

p, 654.

[Our

it.

One Koryak from

Sljunin.^

ref. [13] p.

1 Krasheninnikov. n, p. 150. 3. Stjunin.

mentioned by

p. 451.

knew

256 -rcw]

ref.

ref. (18] p.

[4I p.

237

260 - row)

-row]

Alutorsk,

individ-

who carried who dealt in

gathering and drying fly-agaric, and

on a very profitable trade fly-agaric, is

EXHIBITS The Koryak do not eat the fly-agaric fresh. The poison is then more effecti^e. and kills more speedily. The Kor)-ak say that three fresh fungi suffice to

kill a

after

person. Accordingly, fly-agaric

has been gathered.

woman

drugged by

in the villages

chew

into pieces,

dried in the sun or over the hearth

men

eaten by

only; at least,

never saw

The method of using it varies. As far as of Penshina Bay, the men, before eating it. first let it.'

and then swallow

it.

It is

chew

it,

could

the

see.

women

Bogoraz^ says that the Chukchee tear the fungus and then drink water. Sljunin describes in the same way* it.

the Koryak

method of using fly-agaric. In describing the use of fly-agaric by the Chukchee and Koryak. Dittmar* says that they chew it. and keep the quid in their mouths for a long time without swallowing it. Krasheninnikov* says that the Kamchadal roll the dried fungus up in the form of tube, and swallow

unchewed, or soak

in a decoction of willow-herb

and drink the

tincture.

Like certain other vegetable poisons,

opium and

hashish, the alkaloid

of fly-agaric produces intoxication, hallucinations, and delirium. Light forms of intoxication are accompanied by a certain degree of animation and some

spontaneity of movements.

Many

shamans, previous to their seances,

fly-agaric in order to get into ecstatic states.

who was

Once I asked

a Reindeer Koryak,

reputed to be an excellent singer, to sing into the phonograph.

Several times he attempted, but without success.

evidently grew timid

before the invisible recorder; but after eating two fungi, he began to sing

loud voice, gesticulating with his hands. the machine: and

when

the cjlinder

had

came

to support him. lest he

an end.

from the horn, where he remained bending over up

eat

had

to tear

in a

fall

him away

for a long time, keeping

his songs.

Under strong

intoxication,

the senses

become deranged; surrounding

objects appear either very large or very small, hallucinations set

neous movements, and commlsions. So far great animation alternate with intoxicated by fly-agaric

sits

moments

in,

sponta-

could observe, attacks of

of deep depression. The person

quietly rocking

from

side to side, even taking

part in the conversation with his family. Suddenly his eyes dilate, he begins he to gesticulate convulsively, converses with persons whom he imagines

and dances. Then an inten al of

sees, sings, 1.

Krasheninnikov

(p. 106) cites

p. i37: [ij] p. 2.

says that the

-RCw]

Bogoraz, The Chukchee, Vol. mi of

this scries, p.205.

[Our

[Our ref. [18] p. 261 -rcw] Dictmar, p. 506. [Our ref. [13] p- 256-RGtv*] Krasheninnikov, n, p. 147- [Our ref. [4I pp. 235-236 - rcw]

3. Sljunin, 4.

157

Ditimar Kamchadal women do not eat fly-agaric, but [Our ref. [a] Koryak woman (a shaman) who was intoxicated by it.

(n, p. 150)

the case of a

rest sets in again.

p. 655.

266

ref. [22] p.

273-RCtt]

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGAKIC

However, to keep up the sarv Finally a deep slumber

fungi arc necesintoxication, additional doses of

followed by headache, sensations the intoxication. It there is a further repeat to impulse â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;and an nausea. of beginning ot winter, when the supply the At eaten. are they fungi, of supply ot carousals. In Kucl there are two elders their begin men old large, is still unable in that village I was sometimes the Paren' clans, and during my sojourn for days at a time. They were either to hold conversation with either of them the after-effects. At the same intoxicated by the fungi or in a bad mood from settlements to purchase and season the Reindeer Koryak resort to the coast regard. To regale a guest with fly-agaric is a sign of special results,

which

cat fly-agaric.

serves as a splendid Dr.Sljunin says a small glass of brandy or diluted alcohol

antidote in cases of fly-agaric poisoning.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

stronger reason to think that the effect of fly-agaric would be urine. The were not its alkaloid quickly taken out of the organism with the with Koryak know this by experience, and the urine of persons intoxicated

There

fly-agaric

not wasted.

The drunkard

hallucinations, or he oflers

hitnself drinks

prolong

his

to others as a treat. According to the Koryak,

the urine of one intoxicated by fly-agaric has an intoxicating eflect like the fungus, though not to so great a degree. I remember how. in the village

of Paren'. a

company of

fly-agaric eaters

used a can in which California fruit

had been put up, as a beaker, into which the urine was passed, to be drunk afterwards. I was told of two old men who also drank their own urine when intoxicated by brandy,

From

and that the intoxication was thus kept up.

three to ten dried fungi can be eaten without deadly effect.

individuals are intoxicated after

consuming

Some

three. Cases of death rarely occur.

Koryak swallowed ten mushrooms without feeling their effect. When he swallowed one more, vomiting set in. and he died, fn the opinion of the Koryak, the spirits of the fly-agaric had choked was told of

a case in

which

him. They related that these in the

spirits

had come out with the matter vomited,

shape of worms, and that they vanished underground.

The Koryak were made acquainted with brandy by the Russians and by American whalers. Despite the prohibition issued by the Russian Government against the importation of brandy, it often finds its way in winter into the Koryak villages and camps, being taken there on trading-trips by Russian merchants. Whalers take it to the coast settlements in summer. Like all other primitive tribes, the Korj'ak are passionate consumers of brandy, and dealers often obtain an arctic or red fox in

brandy.

Sljunin,

To i.

p. 654.

exhange for one wineglassful of

question as to which they preferred, brandy or fly-agaric.

[Our

ref. [i&J p.

i6 \

-Rcw]

267

EXHIBITS many Koryak answered. ‘Fly-agaric.’ Intoxication from the latter is considered more

pleasurable, and the reaction

Like fly-agaric, brandy give

drunk

less painful,

chiefly

than that following brandy

by elderly men. Old people do not

to the

young, that they themselves may not be deprived of the sure: and ifyoung people or women happen to obtain brandy, they it

plea-

frequently

give

to the older

members of the

family.

Two herd-owners whom met I

on the Palpal were entirely unacquainted with this drink. Some Koryak in the coast villages have learned from the Russian Cossacks how to make brandy of blueberries. They subject the berries to fermentation, and by means of a pipe distil the liquid from one iron kettle into another, the latter serving as

a refrigerator.

odor that the

The result is a mere attempt

nauseated me. Krasheninnikov' says Kamchatka and. following their example, the Kamchadal.

that the Cossacks in distilled

brandy from ‘sweet

pp. 120-121.

Among

with particular power

may

suffice

Koryak regarding

to taste

grass’ {Heraclemn sphandHiwn).

fly-agaric (wa’paq, Agaricus niuscaniis).

made

endowed The method

of this poisonous fungus will be described

here to point out the mythologic concept of the

fly-agaric.

Once, so the Koryak

caught a w hale, and could not send lift

the objects believed by the Koryak to be

of gathering and the use later on.

rather strong liquor of such disgusting taste and

its

home

Big-Raven had

relate.

in the sea.

He was unable

the grass bag containing travelling-provisions for the whale. Big-Raven

applied to E.xistence to help him.

The

deity said to him, ‘Go to a level place

near the sea: there thou wilt find white

soft stalks

some of them, and they

arc the spirits wa’paq. Eat

with spotted

will

hats.

These

help thee.’ Big-Raven

went. Then the Supreme Being spat upon the earth, and out of his

saliva the

agaric appeared. Big-Raven found the fungus, ate of it, and began to feel gay.

The

started to dance.

Fly-Agaric said to him.

such a strong man, canst not ‘I

strong man.

shall

lift

go and

‘How

the bag?’ -'That lift

is it

that thou, being

right,’ said

the travelling-bag.’

Big-Raven.

went,

lifted the

and sent the whale home. Then the Agaric showed him how the whale was going out to sea, and how he would return to his comrades. Then Big-Raven said, ‘Let the Agaric remain on earth, and let my children see bag

at once,

what

will

show them.’

drugged with agaric fungi does what the spirits residing in them (wa’paq) tell him to do. Here I am. lying I here and feeling so sad,’ said old Euwinpet from Paren' to me; but. should There is an eat some agaric, I should get up and commence to talk and dance.

The

old I.

idea of the Koryak,

man

with white

Krasheninnikov,

ir,

is.

hair. If

that a person

he should eat some

p. 406.

268

agaric,

and

he were then

told by

"You

it,

li.ive

just

been born," the old

new-born baby. Or.

cry like a

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC if

man would

once begin to

man. "You uill arms, and body melt

the Agaric should say to a

melt away soon," then the tnan would see his legs, agaric? Now awav. and'he would say. "Oh why have I eaten of the

am gone

" I

"Go to The-One-on-High, " the man would go to hand, and The-One-on-High. The latter would put him on the palm ot his crack, and the entire world twist him like a thread, so that his bones would “Why have I would twirl around. “Oh, am dead!" that man would say. it again, because eaten the agaric?” But when he came to. he would eat sometimes it is pleasant and cheertul. Besides, the Agaric would tell every was sick, or ntan. even if he were not a shaman, what ailed him when he underground explain a dream to him. or show him the upper world or the Or, should the Agaric say.

world, or foretell what would happen to him."

When

p. 483. cial

the reindeer feed exclusively

longing for the urine of

human

lichens, they acquire a spe-

beings. This longing attracts

name

habitations. Fig. 9 represents a vessel (the

the reindeer’s night-chamber') carries

suspended from

desires to urinate, that

his belt,

made

camp from them. The

sight

from

a far-off

and of which, he makes use

may keep

w hich,

discerning the

standing up

signifies

herdsman whenever he

the urine as a

means of attraction in reindeer come running

pasture to taste of snow saturated with urine, a delicacy

reindeer have a keen sense of hearing and of smell, but their

rather poor.

afar,

Koryak

of seal-skin, which every

capturing refractor)' reindeer. Quite frequently the to

them

A man

stopping to urinate in the open attracts reindeer

follow ing the sense of smell, will

man, and paying no attention

the object of attention

from reindeer

him. The position of a tnan

when he becomes coming down on him from all sides

the open while urinating

run to the urine, hardly

rather critical

at full speed.

At the present time the use of sulphur or Swedish matches is quite widespread. Even when obtaining the sacred fire, some Koryak turn the drill p. 565.

for a short time as a formality only,

and the

fire is really

kindled with a match:

but they cannot always obtain matches, so that the most obtaining

seems

fire is

to have

the strike-a-light. Although not

Amur

and

flint

used, the strike-a-light

been known to the Koryak prior to their encounter with the

Russians, having

the

much

common means

tribes.

been introduced by the Tungus,

who had

received

Even now, merchants often import from Vladivostok

from steel

prepared from a fungus which grows on the stumps of birch-trees. [Femes /omeHturitis - rgw] The fungus is stripped of Chinese origin. Tinder

269

Fig. 9. Seal-skin vessel for

gathering urine impregnated with inebriating virtue

derived from fly-agaric, in use

The Koryak,

p. 483;

among

the Koryak. (After

Waldemar

Mem.. Amer. Museum of Natural

Jochelson,

History, 1908)

wood and when reviving the fire, they rake it up. put small chips of The on the glowing embers, and fan them until they burst into flame. in posses Maritime Koryak need fire-tools only on journeys. However, when ashes:

sion of matches, they are very fond of striking

them

to light their

lamps or

han burning on the hearth. On the other ancient is on hand, the the fire goes out entirely, and neither match nor tinder pipes,

even

when

the fire

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

the drill-bow moihod of obtaining fire by means of however, h.ippens very rarely.

resorted

This,

to.

attendwhere Jochclson was scaying, the ceremonies were being celebrated. - rgw] whale' white the of journey home ing the [In [he Korvak village

p. 74.

The old men

ate fly-agaric, and.

the intoxication had passed,

when

Men' (Wapa'qalaSiu) had taken them, and The women and the young people sang and beat the

they told whither the Fly-Agaric

what they had seen.

drum. arranging for the [There had been a pestilence and the community were placed on or near cremation of a child. All kinds of gifts were being sent to be the pyre,

some

who had

died in

p. 112.

dead child and others for the child to take to relatives the pestilence. - rgw]

for the

Two agaric

fungi were sent to one old

man who had

been very fond

of agaric intoxication. [In the following extract about the ‘water of fly-agaric in

human

urine. Should

we not

so widespread in Eurasian

agaric?

Here

p. 351.

find in

American

are reminded of the

from has imbibed the mushroom,

that

consider the possibility that this conception,

and American

what Jochelson

liquid, either derived directly

mushroom, or the urine of the reindeer

the

one of its manifestations, as a

life’

says: -

had

folklore,

origin in the

fly-

rgw]

some elements

tales

its

that occur in the

myths

of the Old World, but they are absent in the Koryak tales recorded here. For instance, 'the water of life,’ which a hero procures to restore dead bodies to life,

or to revive bones, figures frequently in Indian

myths on both

sides of

one of the favorite episodes of the myths of the Old World.' Another case in point is the cosmogonic talc about the raven, or some other bird or other animal which dives into the water to the Rocky Mountains, and

obtain

many

also

some mud, out of which parts of North America,

the earth

and

created. This tale

found as well

popular

among the Chukchee and

Yukagir.

1. It

seems that

in the

Koryak

talcs the

blood of the reindeer takes the place of ‘the water of

life'.

muse be noted here that in one Chukchee (ale we find 'bladder with living water* (Bogoraz: Chuk* chcc Materials, p. xxiv); and in one Yakut talc (Khudyakov. p. 117) 'three bottles with living water* arc mentioned. As to the Chukchee, Mr. Bogoraz considers the passage as borrowed from the It

Russian.

271

EXHIBITS [Speaking

among

ot the lack

of cleanliness

kettles in

which the food

the Korj ak. the author says: -

RGW]

The

p. 416.

which

cooked are

full

of reindeer and dog

from the clothes and fill the air of the Kon ak house. The Koryak kill lice, which are regarded by them as properly belonging to a healthy man. with their teeth. There is a prevailing belief among them, as hair,

among

well as die.

fall

They

man is deserted by lice he will soon

s which develop from the eggs deposited bv hair of the reindeer. No matter how putrid food mav

eat also the large lar\

the reindeer-flies in the

Koryak have no aversion

be, the

when

the Yukaghir, that

it.

and they

will

even drink the urine of

persons intoxicated with fly-agaric. pp. 417-8. People addicted to the use of fly-agaric can be detected by their

appearance. Even face

the transformation of animals and inanimate objects into

occurrence. 'At that time, himself.

gait.

In the beginning of things, at the mythological time of the Big Raven,

15.

they arc in a normal condition, a twitching of the

observ able, and they have a haggard look and an uneven

when

man

also possessed the

men was

power of transforming

By putting on the skin of an animal, or by taking on

form of an

object,

into ravens

he could assume

by putting on raven

its

a natural

the outward

form. Big Raven and Eme’mqut turned

coats. Kilu’, the niece of Big Raven, put

on a

Eme’mqut put a dog’s skin on his sister, Eme’mqut and his wives put on wide-brimmed

bear-skin and turned into a bear.

and she became

a dog.

spotted hats resembling the fly-agaric, and turned into those poisonous fungi.'

The

belief in the transformation of men into

an’s clothes,

and

vice versa,

The Y’ukaghir and

North

women after putting on a wom-

closely related to this

group of

ideas.

the Yukaghirized Tungus. Vol. ix of the Jesup

Pacific Expedition, p. 419*

as They [the Yukagir. - rgw] do not eat mushrooms regarding them to traditions, unclean food growing from dogs’ urine. However, according

they used to intoxicate themselves with the poisonous still

eaten by the Korjak and Chukchee.

can-pai,

Talc

i.e.,

tree girl.

272

fly-agaric,

The Yukaghir

call

which

mushrooms

BoGOKAZ,

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

Germanovich. (Bogoras, Waldeniar) The Chuk-

\ ladiniir

of the .American Museum ot Natural History. Jesup 1904-1909North Pacific H.xpedition. Parts i, 2, and 3. New York.

chee.

Memoir

pp. 205-207.

means of intoxication di.scovered by the the Koryak tribe, natives of northeastern .Xsia. Its use is more common in border. For the same reason as agaric does not grow outside of the forest Intoxicams. -

ly-agaric

the only

Anadyr, Big only the Southern Pacific C;hukchee - e.g.. those around the mushroom. River, and Opuka River - are supplied with the intoxicating

Thev do not compare with the Koryak, however,

The Russiani/ed

natives of the .Anadyr until recently shared in the

tion of this intoxicant, but

reason of this change

this

in their passion tor agaric.

they have almost wholly given up

now

its

that they consider the strong intoxication

stimulant as shameful for a Christian.

They

consumpuse.

The

produced

also realize that the

consumption of Hy-agaric involves sotne danger. W'ith a person unaccustomed to

its

use

among

The abstinence from agaric is also noticed northern Kamchadal, and to some degree among the Maritime

may even

the

cause death.

Koryak of northern Kamchatka, though ously in order to trade

of these people gather

all

assidu-

to their less civilized reindeer-breeding neighbors.

Fortunately for the tribes consuming the lly-agaric, tain places,

and the supply

grows only

The mushrooms

often limited.

in cer-

are usually

number being an average dose. Some of the natives of course require much more to produce any efiect. The intoxication may be followed by sickness, or the after-effect may be very slight. When eaten, the mushrooms are torn to small shreds, and these are

dried

up and strung together

chewed the

piece by piece,

woman chews

the

in threes, that

and swallowed with

mushroom, and

.Among the Koryak the ready quid to her husband

a little

offers

water.

to swallow.

means of agaric. The symptoms are analogous to those produced by opium or hashish. The intoxication comes on rather suddenly, in about a quarter of an hour after the consumption of the mushrooms. Usually the person remains awake: but the natives say that if a person falls asleep immediately after eating mushrooms, they will work more effectively, and in a short time he will awaken more thoroughly under their influence. The into.xication has three stages. I

witnessed a few times the progress of intoxication by

In the first the

person

feels pleasantly excited.

273

His agility increases, and he

EXHIBITS more physical Middle Anadyr told me displays

strength than normally. Reindeer-hunters of the that before starting in canoes in pursuit of animals,

they would chew agaric because that

made them more nimble on

native fellow-traveller of mine, after taking agaric,

would

the hunt.'

lay aside his

snow-shoes and walk through the deep snow hour after hour by the side of his dogs for the mere pleasure of exercise, and without any feeling of fatigue.

During

period the agaric-eater sings and dances.

this

into loud peals of laughter without any apparent reason.

frequently bursts

It is

a state altogether

of noisy joviality. His face acquires a darker hue and twitches nervously; eyes are now contracted, and again almost bursting from their sockets;

mouth puckers and

mingled. This

become

first traces

visible: indeed, all three stages are frequently inter-

noticeable especially

his

grins or spreads into a broad smile.

Flashes of the second stage often appear early, shortly after the

of intoxication

his

among elderly

inveterate agaric-eaters.

During the second stage the intoxicated person hears strange voices bidding him perform more or less incongruous actions he sees the spirits of fly-agaric ;

and

when

them.

talks to

talked to

recognizes surrounding objects, however, and

still

able to answer. All things appear to

him

increased in

For instance, when entering a room and stepping over the raise his feet exceedingly high.

he wants to grasp

The actual

with

all

saw’

his

him

so big that

with both hands.

mushrooms, and the 1

knife seems to

he will

of fly-agaric have an outward appearance similar to that of the

spirits

example,

The handle of a

door-sill,

size.

one

man

might over

agaric-eater feels impelled to imitate them. For

suddenly snatch a small narrow bag and

his head, trying to

pull

break through the bottom. He

was evidently imitating the mushroom bursting forth from the ground, Another walked around with his neck drawn in. and assured every one that he had no head.

w’ould bend his knees and

move

very quickly, swinging

who are supposed to have no necks or legs, but stout cylindrical bodies which move

his

arms

about

The

violently about. This

was

in imitation

of the

spirits

of fly-agaric,

swiftly. spirits

under of fly-agaric are fond of playing practical jokes on men They begin with asking for homage either for themselves or

their influence.

for surrounding objects. - the

some of

the river, the

the objects under a delusive aspect.

moon,

When

etc.

asked

Then they show

why

this strange

s answer that it portends danger to the man An inmxicate unless he makes obeisance in a particular way. To illustrate.

change has occurred, the life

hills,

man. while

talking to

dropping on

his knees,

spirits

aside, an reasonably enough, suddenly leaped

exclaimed.

he stood up, and. looking

do? Be greeted!’ Then )OU moon, asked, O Moon! why are

‘Hills,

at the full

274

how do you

waning

so fast?'

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

told ntc that the spirits answered.

moon your

wane, unless you show the

Even

so will your

life

bare buttocks. This he did, and then,

his foolish actions. suddenly recovering his senses, began to laugh at of his surroundings, but he In the third stage the man is unconscious still

and walking or tumbling about on the ground, sometimes raving,

active,

come

breaking whatever happens to

him through

agaric spirits take

into his hands.

various worlds and

During

this

period the

show him strange

sights

during and peoples. Then a heavy slumber ensues, lasting for several hours,

which

How

impossible, to rouse the sleeper.

persistent are the spirits’

man. who, when about to Although he retire, was ordered to lie down in the midst of his dog-team. was attacked by the dogs, we could not keep him away from them. He

commands

finally

shown by the following

instance of a

succeeded in staying with the dogs

all

night.

awakening, a general weakness and heavy headache ensue, accompanied by nausea, often violent vomiting. The drunken state can be renewed

by a single mushroom. In into.xication

this

inveterate agaric-eaters keep

effect as eating the

who

in their

their

has recently eaten fly-agaric produces the

mushroom. The

passion for intoxication

so strong that the people will often resort to this source available.

after day.

day

Drinking the urine of one

same

manner

Apparently without aversion they

ordinary tea-cups.

The

effect

will

said to

when

even pass

less

becomes

agaric

this liquor

not

around

than from the mush-

rooms themselves. I have already spoken about the amount of trade in strong liquors carried on in northeastern Siberia. The Chukchee, as well as all other inhabitants ot the country, are eager for a chance to drink spirits. In all my journeys through these countries

met people

who knew

only two places

nothing about

some Maritime Koryak in small villages on the northern border of the Kamchatka district. These people were far from the Kamchatka towns and from Gishiginsk trading-settlements. At the same time, they were so poor that nobody sought to bring liquors to them. The other case was that of the Kerek of the southern shore of Anadyr Bay. strong liquors. In one case they were

p. 282.

agaric are a 'separate tribe’ {yanfa-varat).

growing up they split

them

lift

in two.

stone and breaks

men

mushrooms They are very

Thus, for instance, the intoxicating

in strange

upon

their soft heads the

A mushroom into

of the species strong, and

heavy trunks of

fly-

when

trees,

and

of this species grows through the heart of a

minute fragments. Mushrooms appear to intoxicated

forms somew’hat related to their real shapes. One, for ex-

ample, will be a

man

with one hand and one foot; another will have a

275

EXHIBITS shapeless body. These arc not spirits, but the mushrooms themselves. number of them seen depends on the number of

The

mushrooms consumed. If a man has eaten one mushroom, he will see one mushroom-man; if he has eaten two or three, he will see a corresponding number of mushroom-men. They will grasp him under his arms, and lead him through the entire world, showing him some real things, and deluding him with many unreal apparitions. The paths they follow are very intricate. They delight in visiting the where the dead

places

drawn bv

These ideas are

illustrated in a sketch (Fig. lo)

Chukchee.

Drawing made bv

Fig. 10. (.After

live.

Waldemar

Chukchee of

Bogoraz. The Chukchee,

the wanderings of 'fly-agaric men'. p.

282:

Mem., Amer. Museum

Natural Historsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, Vol. vn. Part

pp. 322-323. bird.

Thunder

Others attribute

spread sealskin. Rain is

is it

She

produced by the passing of the thunderthe rattling noise made by girls playing on a

the urine of one of the

man who

heaven

girls. In

one

drags his one-sided

intoxicated with fly-agaric.

strikes the floor of

2).

said to be

described as a one-sided

foot.

The

tale the lightning

sister

along by her

noise caused by her back as

thunder, her urine

rain.

Obsidian

said to

or even be the stone of the thunder, which falls from the sky in round balls, the idea of stone in roughly chipped arrow-heads and lances. Perhaps borrowed arrow-heads falling from the sky, so common in the Old World, is

from the Tungus or from the Russianized natives. Intoxicating mushrooms form a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;separate tribe

(ya nfa-va

rat).

ha\e

when coming out of the already noted that they are very strong, and that, or shatter a rock mto head, their on tree-trunk a large can lift earth, they pieces.

They appear

to intoxicated

men 276

in strange shapes.

THE FLY-AGARIC

one sketch

IN SIBERIA

there are represented the tracks of a

(Fig. lo)

man who

around by mushrooms. He thinks that he is a reindeer, then he is ‘submerged,’ and after a while he comes out laboring under the same idea. The path of his tracks connects all men and all beasts seen during the trance. led

p. 414.

saw

fallen into a

utmost

shaman

woman who had the drum \\ith the

trying to recall to her senses a sick

heavy swoon. To do

force.

swallow

this

Then he pretended

he began to beat

to catch

something from the druttt and

hurriedly. Immediately afterward he appeared to spit

the hollow of his hand, and then in the quickest possible

out into

way pretended

palm over the head of the patient. .After that, he began to mumble and gibber over the crown of the patient’s head. In order to prevent the soul

empty

his

from

leaving, he breathed into the hollow of his hand,

palm

to the breast of the patient.

source of the suffering

motions w ith he

made

some

distance

from her head. Frotn time

time

grimaces, and pretended to be choking, evidently for the purpose

of showing that something bad had entered his mouth. At violently,

and then began again the whole

my own

From

his

At intervals he pretended to suck out the from the crown of her head. For this he made sucking

mouth

his

and then applied

observation

treatments of such

a kind.

This

know Is

last

he spat

process.

that a real insect

sometimes used

brought near to the breast or to the head

of the patient, and then vanishes, deftly abstracted by the shaman,

pretends that

[Bogoraz

who

has entered the body.

in the following passage gives a classic description

bone device used by the tribesmen of the north,

of the

w hale-

both Eurasia and .America,

The Chukchee call it wapaq. which is also their name for the fly-agaric, presumably because the wolf after swallowing the wapaq jumps wildly around and then quiets down, c.vhausted. Bogoraz assumes that the primary meaning of the name is fly-agaric but does not discuss this. In the for killing wolves.

absence of further information

was transferred

as a figure of

religious associations

seems possible that the natne of the device

speech to the mushroom. The

mushroom with

under tabu influence various names and wapaq would have been the current one in the time of Bogoraz. Here is how he describes the wapaq. - row] its

likely to attract to itself

p. 141. Till recent

times the well-known spit of whalebone,' identical with that of the American Eskimo, was used to catch wolves. It consisted of a I. Its

name

Chukchee

The Chukchee and they pick

the

wapak, which means literally •fly-agaric’ (an intoxicating mushroom). Koryak are ver>- fond of this mushroom; and when they find it in the woods, is

off just as eagerly as the

wolves snatch after the greased whalebone

277

spits.

The Chukchee

EXHIBITS slender rod of whalebone, with sharp-pointed ends, folded together several times, and bound with a thin thread of sinew well saturated with oil. After-

ward

was several times soaked in water and allowed to freeze. The whole object was then well covered with blubber, tallow, meat, or such like. it

These

folded spring-spits were often Joined in strings of five or six, and hung on a bush on the wolf's trail, but so high as to be out of reach of foxes; or they

were

laid in a

hole in the

ice

and water was poured over them,

so that

would

freeze to a transparent protecting cover strong enough to resist the attacks of smaller animals. The wolf would break through the ice and swallow all

the

spits,

which would unfold

in the stomach, and, breaking through

walls, cause the speedy death of the animal. it

was able

walk away

But with only one or two

its

spits

for a considerable distance, even so far that

would never be found by the hunter. [Bogoraz mentions in the foregoing footnote that mice store up the flyagaric in their winter holes. He has more to say about this on p. 198 - rgw] :

The

roots of Claytonia

dciitifolia

Willd, Hedisarum otscuruin, PolygtJHHm

Polygonum polymorphum, Pedicularis

pariim.

Oxytropis, various species of Ctirex.

They

chee.

herbs found

in the

use a digging-pick, which in

has an iron point tied to a

wooden

from the

means of magic. Moreover,

During the

a sharp-

handle. Nests of mice are also robbed. the roots

really relished.

handle with bone point or simply of

pointed piece of antler, while at present

all

They

often go digging roots.

former times consisted of

Potentilla fragiformis,

and several others, are used by the Chuk-

are the only vegetable food that

summer women

to take

sudetica,

the

It is

considered dangerous, however,

nests, because the

Chukchee

believe

owner might retaliate by that some of the roots and

storehouses of mice are poisonous, and are gathered by

the mice partly for the purpose of poisoning the robbers, partly as an to.xicant, like fly-agaric {Agaricus muscariKs).

[On I

p. 148

Bogoraz quotes

Chukchee

which

a riddle; -

am bleeding from my nose. Stop my nose bleeding

'Fly-agaric.'

used by man.

rgw] !

in-

have a headache.

What

explains this riddle with the following note:

is it?

Answer:

The

eating of

violent headache, the fly-agaric causes, after the intoxication has passed, a which may be assuaged by a new dose of the same drug. in some un nown in moreover, that mice, when gathering roots for the winter, bring stores also serve to protect t eir icating herbs which they use in their ceremonials. These herbs other animals, including intruders, because they arc said to act as poison on most

believe,

arc called

- and

by a name

similar

that swallowed

- clhi-wapak ( white agam ;. derived from that of the intoxicating mushroom. the animal account of its power of killing is given to the whalebone spit on

name it.

278

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

life of the reindeer [Bogoraz dcvotts considerable space to recording the hardships comes herdsmen and their tribulations. He says that one of their

mushroom

with the

unruly. Another

season in the

the insects,

skin of the animals

and another

the nostril infestation; -

.Another lays

fly.

two

fall,

species of

which

in the nostrils.

the herds

lay their eggs

Here

become

under the says about

what he

Rcw]

of smaller size and darker color (iTdemagena tarandi Slunin).

eggs in the reindeerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nostrils.

its

when presumably

The next

penetrate the cartilage.

The

year,

larvae

when

go up to the throat, and

the maggots are full-grown,

they cause a constant cough, which continues until the

last

one drops to the

ground. The Yukaghir and the Tungus. following the exantple of Yakut cattle-breeders, try to protect their reindeer

smudge

of smouldering dung, or of a

fire

from obno.xious

insects

by a

covered with green leaves. But

with the wild and large herds of the Chukchee such

fires are

and not without danger. Thus, some

Tungus herdsmen who

with

little

value,

Chukchee on the Alascya River tried to and finally burned the whole pasture, and injured

were tending the herd of surround

five years ago.

fires,

a rich

half of the animals.

Hcidnische Religion und spacerer Abcrglaube bei den Finnischen happen. (Heathen Religion and Late Superstitions of the

Itkonen, T.

Finnish Lapps)

Memoires de

Societe Finno-Ougrienne lx.xxvii.

Helsinki. 1946. p. 149.

[The author .

.\V hen

a well

known and

reliable Finnish scholar. -

speaking of sorcerers, reference must be

made

rgw]

to the

custom of

shamans of eating fly-agarics to get into an ecstatic stupor; the Ob-Ugrian sorcerers, for instance, consumed each time three or seven mushSiberian

rooms.

interesting to note that according to a tradition

reindeer Lapps of Inari.

Lapp

among

the

sorcerers used to eat fly-agarics with seven dots.

279

EXHIBITS

[24]

Lehtisalo, T.

Entwurf einer Mythologie der Jurak-Samojeden. (Outline of Yurak Samoycd Mytholog}') Memoires de la Societe Finno-ougrienne. Vol.

The

liii.

Yurak magicians

forest

Helsinki. 1924.

knew

also

the custom of eating fly-agarics.

These were eaten when they were dry and

mushrooms were eating them.

can eat

too potent, and

Only someone who

with fortunate

it is

said that a

caplcss

female magician died from

familiar with the origin of the fly-agaric

results,*

grown: the small

fully

but

intoxication he does not see

if in his

mushroom spirits properly, they may kill him, or he may go astray in the dark. The number of mushrooms eaten is usually two and a half, i.e, only half of the last mushroom is eaten. The magician sees man-like creatures appearing before him, as in a dream; they number as many as the mushrooms he has eaten, and the half-mushroom is represented by the

They run away

a half-man.

quickly, along the path which the sun, after

has set in the evening, travels in order that

and the magician follows them. He

may

rise

again in the morning,

able to stay close on their heels only

because the half-spirit runs slowly and keeps looking back for

its

other

half. It

Along the way the e.g.,

spirits

of the fly-agaric

tell

with seven holes and cords. After the magician

him and he awakens. Now he

symbol of the

were waiting

him what he wants to know, When they come out into the

on the spot where God created the

ication leaves

as if it

dark there, and the magician cannot sec anything.

the possibilities for curing a sick person.

light again,

Pillar of the

crosses cut into each side at

fly-agarics, there

ties

sits

spirits,

down, takes

World, the four-sided its

the

upper end, and he

staff

a pole

the intox-

in his

hand the

with seven slanting

sings of

what he has seen

and heard.

[25]

Dunin-Gorkavich, a. A. Tobol'skij along the Tobol)

[The author

The shaman

St.

Sever. (The Northern Region

Petersburg. 1904- P- 95

discussing the Ob-Ugrians.

first

becomes drunk on

eats it.

some panga

-rgw]

{dried

mukhomor

After this he works his magic, that

peculiar cries and plays on the tambourine.

280

[fly-agaric])

and

to say, he utters

K AKJALAINEN.

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

(Religion of K. F. Die Religion dcr Jugr.i-Volkcr.

Ug nan

Folk) Helsinki. 1927. pp. 178-280.

wide-spread custom use of the fly-agaric, yavx^ as an intoxicant is a among the Ugrians and is most firmly established in the southern regions.

The

The custom was mentioned even

comment

al is

that

was

Berezov area, but with the additionthe Obdorsk area, on the other hand, it

in the

rare; in

unknown. The significance of the

by the

may

When

as a delicacy.

in a state ’

the

Man who Observes

this

his

magicians' for their

own

region.

The only

it is

also used for the

it is

along the Tremyugan,

some

places in the

Vogul

the upper part of the cap. stripped

may

be eaten raw, direct from the most cases -and along the Tremyugan almost exclusively - it it

it is

an ordinary stimulant along the

same purpose

edible part of the patJX

of the stalk and covering;

called,

intoxicant has been used

special purposes; they use

and even more along the Vasyugan;

and

not said to his shame; on the contrary,

power and wealth. This

supposed to indicate

Irtvsh.

the W'orld

of 'into.xication caused by the one-footed notched-edged

However,

sevenfold [uwx

confirmed to a certain extent

songs of the North \'oguls the spirits are described as

fact that in the

consuming

ytiiJX is also

forest, is

but

eaten after

has been dried in the sun or in an oven; winter supplies, of course, are

always dried. Even

when

eaten in the ordinary manner, various pre-

from the relatively high toxicity of the mushroom, but in later times they took on a religious character. If the magician eats of the mushroom, this always has <1 cuflic sigHi^crtHce. which is only natural, since by eating he creates helpers for cautionary rules must be followed: these rules arose

himself, or, as the people of Tsingala put

the eating.

Along the

it,

‘pavx enters into him’ through

Irtysh fly-agarics are usually eaten in the evening.

number of mushrooms

or bites eaten

The

three or seven, and according to Pat-

kanov. even fourteen, twenty-one, or more; these nuntbers should be taken

cum grano

satis,

since the effect of such a large

number of whole mushrooms

can seldom be tolerated even by a person accustomed to eating them.

Sometimes the mushrooms arc spread with butter or fat before eating, but usually they are eaten simply with bread, and water is drunk to make them easier to swallow.

room

derives

from the

Heaven, and the I.

According to the Vasyugan people, the power of the mushfact that

mushroom

was created from the

so potent that the Devil

Shamans. - ROW.

281

spittle

of the

God

was unconscious

for

EXHIBITS seven days and nights after eating

For

it.

this reason,

men

must not eat much of it. If anyone consumes too much of it. his teeth become clamped together, foam comes out of his mouth, his eyes bulge, and he can be saved only by the forcible administration of milk or salt, for 'pavx wants nothing to do with’ these substances. The most potent is the ‘king fly-agaric.' also

which

small in stature, with a high stalk and only one single white spot center of the cap; ordinaiy. smaller specimens grow in a circle is

all

in the

around

it.

These ideas of the \'asyugan people are legendaiy, but we see from their maintain a careful resene with regard to the pavx.

When

the \’asyugan magician eats the

second half of the

power

its full

and

resist.

mushroom and hides it, for then the pavx cannot use harm him. Eating the mushroom results in intoxication,

The

pavx

compulsion to sing which only

this includes a

from morning

effect lasts

Tremyugan magician

informant. The

leaves the

last

in the case of the

few can

mushroom, he always

sundown,’ according to one

pavx

eats

any time of the day and

does not hide the other half; instead, he cuts out a piece of the middle of each mushroom, ‘the crown of the pavx’s head,’ and throws it into the fire or onto a clean spot in the yard.

pavx ‘dancing’ before

fly-agarics sees the say,

they

move

The man who

in the direction

cated Ost)'ak repeats after

the magician

Drum,

intoxicated

from

eating

his eyes, invisible to others; that

of the sun and sing a song, which the intoxi-

them word

for

word, so that the pavx

‘singing-leaders’ for the prophesying magician. tell

what he wants

act as

At the same time the pavx

to know.’

and paux are the ‘great’ material means by which the Ugrian magician attempts to communicate with the spirits and obtain the zither,

many other means, both material and mysteries. One such means which is found

information he needs. There are also mental, used for uncovering every where and

certainly very ancient

natural forerunner of

artificially

based on dreams, and essentially

amounts

pp. 306-8.

this

what soothsaying with the

needed

tree bark

and

fills

soothsaying

aid of the

pavx

to.

the foregoing in certain respects. is

the dream-vision, possibly the

stimulated ecstasy; another

The ceremonies of the

where he

(so

was

Irtysh

When

Osyaks

t'?rUt)-xoi

said along the

are very different from

brought into the house

Demyanka), he takes resinous

hut the the hut with smoke, waving ever>^vhcre in the

them 5fl<ir own, the Swedish officer in t7i4 (?) reports. We to the ground quite uncon^ous, (tobacco); they smoked it and inhaled the smoke and thereupon fell tormented them/ However, to judge y as if they were dead; afienvards they said that Shaitan had Ost)akSamo)cds [ — Sc up description most probably refers to the I.

Concerning a stimulant of

his

the

name

used foriobacco.

this

282

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

direction homea sacrifice to Sapka. At his as up hung been has which cloth bath is heated for him. Alter the the evening in the and brewed is made beer fly-agaric caps on an empty stomach seven or three eats magician bath the either fresh or. in most he has fasted all day long - swallowing them the sun or sometimes in an oven, and cases, after they have been dried in he springs up and begins then he lies down. When he has slept for a while, for

whole body trembling with excitement. As through his emishe shouts, he reports what the spirit has revealed to him what is to be sacrificed, saries,' which spirit should be oflered a sacrifice, to shout

and walk to and

fro, his

has spoiled the luck of the hunt, how the luck can be regained, and so on. After the ‘emissaries' have told everything, they depart and the

which

man

from which he does not awaken until morning. In the morning the appropriate spirit is entertained with homemade beer, porridge, and bread at the rear window, i.e.. in the icon corner, magician sinks into

and

deep

sleep,

given the promise that the desired sacrifice will be

made

soon as the

animal designated has been procured.

The procedure is essentially the same in Tsingala: i'.>rfay-X‘yut cats three dried p.iyx " ith bread, half a mushroom at a time, and then goes to sleep; after he awakens, he shouts out what has been revealed to him. Before this proceeding, 'three seven kopeks'* (= three copper two-kopek pieces) are placed on the table,

'in

the magician begins to

the

way of the p.iyx.'

tell his

story,

-is

^ sacrifice for Sanko.

both he and the

money

are

and while

smoked with

pik/iM [spruce bark). This questioning does not take place until evening,

when

night

falling.

In the

same

village Schultz personally witnessed a

The magician was an old woman who, before beginning her magic, placed candles in front of the icons and a loaf of bread on the table: she made seven indentations in the loaf, naming Astanai questioning of the following nature:

and other Ostvak epic folk heroes. or priest in the village

smoked

present, using spruce bark

old

the old

man who

woman,

smoke. The old

agarics, a bite at a time, taking a

served as the sacrificer

the bread, and

woman

all

those

ate three dried fly-

swallow of water after each

bite.

After three

or four minutes she began to hiccup; the hiccuping was following by shouting,

and

this in

turn by a kind of singing. This went on for about half an hour.

The hiccuping and singing gradually died away, and the whole proceeding ended when the old woman drank water and bowed before the icons. The others followed her example. The subject of the old woman’s song was not she herself but ‘the spirit of the fly-agaric.’ - In the Zavodniya yurt there 1.

'Little $piriis'

appear in person, while 'great

nothing more specihe 2. ‘drei

spirits'

known. sieben Kopeken.' - new. is

283

only send their messengers, about

whom

EXHIBITS today

exist

and then

women who

tell

undertake such investigations; thev too eat vavx their revelations in song after a short sleep, during which thev

Sank?.

visit

The procedure tollowed hy

PP-

quite simple, simpler than

the \'as\â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ugan flv-agaric soothsayer

for example, in

Irn sh region. Such a

^^he

man was

asked to give information about the mental disrurbance suffered by a woman. Towards evening, he ate two and a half pavx ^nd slept for a little while: alter awakening, he sat down in the comer of his birch-bark yurt and began to sing, keeping his eyes closed and shaking his bodv to and Iro.

The

intoxication did not

seem

to be ver\' strong, since after

he stopped

was able to speak clearly with the speaators and take snuff into nose. He continued singing in this way until morning, narrating the events

singing, he his

of his journey, telling districts

how

far the

and different countries,

pavx bad brought him. through manv how it had led him into a church, and so on. -

In spite of all his effons. however, this time he did not reach the goal of

where the intomiation was available. The reason for this unfonunate conclusion was that ill-behaved people had shown the hidden half-pjpx to me. and this had angered those yavx that had his

journey,

ri^..

the place

been eaten. .As

may

can be seen from the foregoing, the manipulations of the Vgrian shamans

be quite different in the various regions, and special features

and ideas are lound particularly that

mav

hiithing in

fJie

hat/i-nvtn,

t/'ie

Sapb. although the

directly for information at is

Ostvaks

also

this to

some

The came

all.

something that

know

t/ie dej.vsifii'n

Im sh

region are

sucrifici gifts, stncte-curing.

latter, e.g.. in Tsingala.

and

llie

not asked

entire questioning of the pa^x- for ex-

into use in later times: the X'oguls and

extent from the Surguts,

extent along the Trem}-ugan. and

customs

Ostyak regions. Customs

doubtless be regarded as late additions from the

e?itcTrjining

ample.

in the southern

has

has spread to some

become predominant among

the

Invsh Osn aks. It is

not impossible that this custom

and the

earlier intoxication

this

a coalescence of the dream-rision

su^ested by the faa

pdvx the magidan alwavs sleeps not for evoking and intensifving the the

tor a while: to effects

of the

dream-visions in order to give information and presentation of the magidanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assistants that has the \'as\'ugan. a representation which

that after

mind,

fly-agaric,

consuming

this

needed

but for evoking

make prophedes. The become

late in its present

re-

established along

form, was also apt

s method, contribute to influence the prevailing ideas concerning the magidan features, e\en though a a new nuance to them, and give rise to additional

2S4

great deal that

IN SIBKKIA

TUB iLY-ACAKIC may

native

essentially

be Iniind

the ceremonies, as a

comparison with North Ostyak customs shows. but was mtt A method tliat was already used by magicians in early times which is still practiced today in their only method was magic in l/ie dark,

many

regions, both

among the \

among the Ostyaks. am

oguls‘ and

inclined

in the evening, custom of c]uestioning the magician w hen night is coming on. is also a remnant ot this. In such cases, the lor which Noviiskij and .Miiller cite is often tied up with ropes, a custom asyugan. e.xamples from the West and which is still prevalent along the \

to believe that the Tsingala

Baren iind Noinadeii. (\olcanoes, Bears,

Bi;Rt;.MAN, Sten. Wilkaiic.

and Nomads) Stuttgart,

luio. pp. 150-160.

the da\ after the celebratittn a Koryak visited the

Lamut camp,

no other purpose than to sit and chat for a while. When the loud barking of the dogs announced his arrisal. we went out of the vurt to welcome him. It was a Korvak named .Akei, who owned a large herd of reindeer and a yurt in the vicinity, lie was

came with

his

dog and apparently

h.id

small and sinew

his face

was leather-colored, and

unlike those of an .American Indian.

He walked Privatel after

have vou any

nuivements w ere slow and aw kw ard.

llv-agarics for

exchanging greetings. Privatel

were not

to the yurt with a gently rolling gait.

Korvaks and took

lis

his features

Lamms

me?’ was the the

form of address used bv the

everyone and means simplv

when these men travel llv-agarics with them the Koryaks and :

‘friend.’

to the

for a trader, for

usually carry

thing he asked

first

apparently

mountains, they

Lamut.s* are passionately

fond of using these as an intoxicant.

Munkc^csi mentions ihai in the case orsacrilkes the magic

the spirits* food *5 to re ho use or at

some other

usually practiced ai night in a dark vnri, the

magic

place that

uhere the

lire

praciiccvl vluring the

sacres) to a spirit,

on the open

Jav

in front

while in other cases

tireplacc

it is

e\tingui>hed while

going on.

Bergman alone among oiir sources iiKludes the Lamut among those who use the Lamut arc closely related linguistically and culturally to the Tungus. - row. 2.

285

Hy-agaric.

The

EXHIBITS

[28]

Don.ner. Kai.

Ethnological Notes about the Yenisei-Ostyak Turukhansk Region) [Yenisei-Ostyak = Ket] Memoires d'c la i.

Finno-ougrienne. Vol. lxvi. Helsinki. 1933. pp.

Havgo

(in

the

Societe

81-2.

mushroom, the flybane [= fly-agaric], eaten by the shamans. Seven such mushrooms are eaten, whereupon human beings become â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;madâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. a

Those who are not. or are not going

mushrooms. The shamans, J

much

shamans

die

from

eating these

specially those of the

were known

into.xication before starting the

to be,

for

Ostyak-Samoyed (= Selkup) consuming flybanes as a means of

shamanizing. At present (1912-1914)

it is

not

practised.

[In the preceding c.xtract, note the telltale

marks of a folk belief: those who arc shamans or who are going to be shamans cat the mushrooms with impunity, but others die from them. Conner mentions the same belief as being present in the Selkup culture, a Samoyed group that are neighbors to the Ket. W'e quote the passage in the third of our c.xtracts from Conner; vide infra.

upper

seems to have lingered on among the Samoyed and Ket of

Yenisei. -

the

rcw]

Samojeden in Sibirien. (Among the Samoyed in Siberia) Stuttgart. (Our copy is dated 1926. First published in Swedish Bci den

in 1918). p.

The

warm

10.

performance always takes place

failing,

start,

and may

the it

shaman

last

all

night long.

calls his assistants,

at the fire in

in the evening,

order to stretch the skin as light

as possible.

often cats several fly-agarics in order to go into a trance

ence that

when

contain a very strong poison, and

it is

highly intoxicating.

darkness

When the performance is about to who bring out the drum and slowly

Ket the shaman makes no preparations of any kind, but

mushrooms

when

The

they have no alcohol.

286

Along the

other places he

easily.

These

can say from personal experi-

natives often use

to get

drunk on

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

trom La \ ie en Sihcric; Ics Temps andens. Translated Gallimard. Nouveilc Revue the Finnish by Leon Froman. Paris,

3. L.i

Siberie:

Fran^aise. 194b. p- 2 15 .

Even one who

otherwise would find

would not enter

the world of spirits

easy to enter into rapport with

into ecstasy in a state ot trance indis-

purpose without having acquired the habit. Nor must it be tly-agarics. or preferably dried so easy to absorb a sufficient dose of fresh stupor. Among specimens, to enter into the necessary state of drunkenness or pensable for

this

Samoyed-Osiyak of the Yenisei [Selkup], the mushrooms should number who eats from two to seven, but one savs that he who is not a shaman and them falls sick and dies, which is probably true for the poison of the mushthe

rooms to

it.

violent

and one could not absorb

The absorption of

fly-agarics

have been especially current Nevertheless there are

- as of

among

a strong dose without being used

all

the Santoyed ol the region of

many shamans who

leel that

inebriating substances or other similar products to

them

permitting

with

all

they have no need ot

provoke

change of state

where they will meet condition and life of mankind.

to pass into the other world,

the spirits that influence the

must Narym.

direct stupefying agents -

later

[^ 9 ]

Koryak and Kamchadal Tales, taken down by Waldemar Jochclson in the original

[Among

languages.

tales in the

Kamchadal language. Professor Dean

hand and has published them

Mouton

number Worth took them were

Jochelsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mss. found after his death there

The Hague.

language with

in a beautiful edition in 1961.

Professor

Worth

has edited

them

literal interlinear translation in English,

of in

produced by

in the

Kamchadal

followed by a smooth

down many Koryak tales. His mss. in the survive, but he turned many of them into English

translation. Jochelson also took

original language

do not

and published them of these

tales,

in his

four of them

work on

The fly-agaric figures in eight the Kamchadal language and four

the Koryak.

among those in

from the Koryak, and with the permission of Mouton reproduce them here.

translated into English &[ Co. w'e

The only alteration that we have made

in the te.vt

cation of the spelling of native words, or in

native

name where

it is

irrelevant to the

287

of these tales

a simplifi-

some cases the suppression of the theme of our book. - rgw]

EXHIBITS

KAMCHADAL TALES A

C2ELKUTQ AND THE AMANITA GIRLS

There

li\ed Czelkutq.

for her.

He brought in

to live.

They amused themselves

Czelkutq

set oflf

He wooed Kutq s daughter Sinanewt and worked much wood. Czelkutq married Sinanewt. They began

Sinanewt gave birth; a son was bom. into the woods, where he met the beautiful Amanita girls.

Czelkutq stayed with the

husband and waited

girls

well.

and forgot

Sinanewt thought of her

his wife.

for

him. She thought; 'Where

lived

an old aunt of hers, Kutq’s

he, long ago he was

kiUed!’

With them there

sister,

who

said: ‘Well,

Sinanewt, stop waiting for your husband long ago he stayed with the Amanita; send your son to his father.’ ;

The little boy set off to my mother is Sinanewt, Czelkutq heard

his

burning brands, and

his father.

He began to sing: 'My father is Czelkutq,

father has forgotten us.’

son singing and said to the tell

him

that

girls:

no father

‘Go and burn him with

to him.’

The girls took the burning brands and burned the boy all over, his little

hands

he went

to his

‘He

said: “I

all

over.

‘It is

bum

father again, his

my hands all over; or they will bum me

it is

grandmother sent him

and back

say?’

set off to his father

of us will leave together.

You

will

all

and began to remain

will

with hot firebrands.’

of us will leave, you will

stay in the forest here with the Amanita; afterwards

boy

hot and hurts me.

to his father again, saying: ‘Go

once more, sing again, say "Father, tomorrow

little

cried,

am no father to you;” he ordered the Amanita girls to burn me

The next day

The

me!’ he

mother. She asked: ‘Well, what did your father

with hot brands; he burned not go to

hot! Mother, they

they burned

you

will surely starve

sing: ‘Father,

tomorrow

in the forest with the

all

Amanita;

afterwards you will surely starve.’

and Czelkutq, hearing his son singing, became angry and said: Go, girls, tell him beat him thoroughly with a leather strap and burn him with fire; to stop

coming

here.’

beat him Thus the girls took firebrands and a leather strap and began to and started back and burn him; thus they drove him away. The boy cried, arrived, but his grandmother to his mother. He was burned all over when he 'Well, Sinanewt. let blew at him and made him well. The old woman said:

us get ready to go,

shall

go into the woods. 288

;

Thcv began to get ready; they leaving nothing.

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

They

tied

all

started into the woods.

the animals and took

When they arrived,

top. and poured water out a high mountain, climbed up to the mountain, making a sheet of icc.

them

alb

they picked

over the

all

did not kill any animals at all; Czelkutc] began to go into the woods. He could gotten lost. He and the girls began to starve. What .ill the traces had they eat?

Then Czelkutq remembered

came to his house, but did not find ‘Where did all my people get lost?

his

his 1

wife and son and went home.

wife and son.

He began

starving. Sinanewt,

weep:

hungry.

Where did you and our son go away?’ Ho followed his wife by their traces, and reached that high mountain. How to get up? The ice is very slippery.’ From below he called up: 'Sinanewt,

pull

up!’

down

Sinanewt threw

a leather cord

and called out:

W^cll,

Czelkutq, catch

the cord!’

He caught the cord. She began to pull him up to the top of the mountain, but when he was ready to step onto the top. she cut the cord with a knife. Czelkutq flew downwards, he

starving!’

don’t you live with the

Amanita?

out; ‘Sinanewt. pull

‘Why

he died, he revived, and again he called

fell,

Amanita?

up.

Why do you come

being paid back:

it’s

to us?

you yourself

down

don’t you live with the

You tortured your

who began

‘Sinanewt, stop being angry, pull

She threw

Why

up.

that sort of

and

son.

now you

arc

life.'

!’

hungr)'

the cord again, saying; 'Well, catch.

shall pull

you up

now.’

Czelkutq caught the cord and she pulled him up. top, she again cut the cord there, ‘If

he came to pull

’No,

you up,

ate,

down

with a knife he flew down, he ;

again,

will

fell,

he died, he lay

living like that afterwards?’

shall stop living like that.’

the cord, he was pulled up, dried out, and

he became satiated. Again they began to

themselves.

he got near the

and cried out: ‘Sinanewt, stop being angry!’

you go on

won’t. Sinanewt.

She threw he

life

When

The Amanita dried up and

became happy

live as before,

atnusing

died.

EMEMQUT AND

Kutq

lived with his wife Miti.

also an old

HIS WIFE

They had

YELTALNEN

a girl-child, Y’eltalnen. There was

woman, Kutq's mother, who lived with them. Many suitors came. 289

EXHIBITS woman ate them aU up. letting nobody pass bv. The old woman cannibal. Ememqut heard of the ver>- pretty girl Yeltalnen. He

but the old

was

made

ready to go there, and caught a wild reindeer. When he went, he took the reindeer with him. When he came near, he drove the reindeer on ahead of him. The old woman ate up the reindeer, but Ememqut passed by without her noticing him. He came to Kutq and asked: ‘Kutq. where is vour girl?’

Kutq

said: ‘\\'e

have no

girl.’

\eltalnen was in another house. certainly

wanted

thought

this over,

She

was

him

let

really

began

to live with Kutq.

to get to Yeltalnen. but she did not accept him.

Ememqut

turned himself into an old woman, and made a violent came to Yeltalnen again and began to plead. ‘Let me in.

snowstorm. He Yeltalnen,

Ememqut

suffering

in.

from the

Yeltalnen did not recognize

woman and said:

an old

cold.’

Ememqut, but thought he ‘Old woman, sit down there by the door.’

Ememqut lulled Yeltalnen to sleep. She fell fast asleep and felt nothing. Ememqut did what was needed and then left. Thus Yeltalnen became pregnant. Yeltalnen realized she was pregnant and

came

and

what are

said: ‘Well. Yeltalnen,

made baby clothes. Miti vou doing? What are you

thinking about?’ Yeltalnen answered: 'Yes, Mother,

nobody. I only

let a little

Miti said: ‘That

old

pregnant.

certainly slept with

woman in here once during a violent snowstorm.’

must have been Ememqut.’

Yeltalnen gave birth to a very' prett}' child. She said to her mother and father:

‘VS'ell, tell

suitor that Yeltalnen says, “All right,

Kutq and Miti answered: ‘Many Ememqut

Ememqut married start

her.

He began

you

accept.’”

wish.’

Ememqut said: ‘\\’ell, let us Ememqut went out into the yard and

to live well.

home.’ They began to get readv.

whistled; three pair of reindeer arrived, and they started home. Yeltalnen’s friends told her: ‘You are

happy now, but

later

your snot

will

dangle on your

whip.’

They came home. Many ravens had ment.

Ememqut

fixed

up the

house.

soiled

Ememqut’s house with

He began

to arrange a feast and invited

eveiybody. The cossacks came. Cickimdcan came, acting

Amanita.

your

as if

said: ‘Yeltalnen, urinate into a scoop of horn,

urine, since

excre-

and

he had eaten I

shall

drink

used to sleep under the same covers.

Yeltalnen said: ‘Cickimdcan, you are lying.'

Ememqut became angry with his wife and abandoned the feast; all down all guests went back home without having feasted. Ememqut lay

the the

s up altogether; he was angry' because of Cickimdcan Yeltalnen remarks. He stopped looking at his wife and was angry all the time.

time, he stopped getting

290

THE FLY-AGARIC are angry with

'Emcmqut. you

said:

all

IN SIBERIA the time;

shall

home

father.’

Emcmqut

said: 'Well,

go ahead.’

whistled, and two Yeltalnen began to cry and went out into the yard. She house and said: Well, pair of reindeer arrived. She went back into the

good-by. Emeniqut.

Ememqut

tried to

grab

his

wife by the

skirt,

but he couldn

hold her.

and disappeared. She began to were really snot was dangling on her whip. She said: ‘My girl-triends off with the reindeer

Then Yeltalnen drove weep; a

going.’

telling the truth.’

live in the

She came to her father and mother, and began again to

other

house. It it is

grew warm.

In the yard the sun

warm

yard;

in the

shall carr)-

’Ememqut. Ememqut didn’t want to

was warm. Sinanewt

you out

there.’

said:

go out, but Sinanewt carried him out anyway, together with his bedding. Ememqut’s whole side had been fouled by lying down. He began to sit there in

the yard, and said: ‘Sinanewt. get

whether any got

arrows.

shall

count them and see

lost.’

Sinanewt brought him the arrows and

Ememqut began

to count

them.

was dangling on the arrows; he could not untie it. so he cut it knife and threw it behind him. Then somebody began to cry behind

piece of grass off

with

him. saying:

’I

take pity on you,

Ememqut; you have

cut

loose with a

knife.’

Ememqut looked back and saw a little old spider-woman. The spiderwoman got up and went around Ememqut three times. Then he improved and got well. He remembered his wife, and started off to see her. He arrived there, but was not let in. He began to live there. He worked for Kutq three years, but his wife was not given back to him. Ememqut dug a passage under the earth to his wife.

with

his wife.

He went through

the passage secretly and slept there

Three years went by. and Ememqut’s wife

w’as given

him. They started home. They came home, and began to

Again he arranged a

feast,

and invited

all

the people.

live

Many

back to

well again.

guests came.

The bad man Cickimcican came again. Ememqut grabbed him and threw him somewhere far away. He began to feed the guests. When they stopped eating, they began to wrestle.

Nobody could compete with Ememqut; they

all fell.

They stopped WTestling and began to toss each other on a skin. Again nobody could compete with Ememqut; they all fell down. They stopped playing this game. They all began to urinate. Ememqut urinated very far; nobody could compete with him, and he beat them all. Ememqut began to live and to rejoice.

291

EXHIBITS c

KUTQ, MITI, AND THE LITTLE LOUSE

Kutq lived w ith his wife Miti, Their children were Ememqut and Sinanewt. Ememqut used to go hunting in the woods. He started out to spend the autumn

woods. At home, Kutq used to carry in wood. and once he said: ‘Miti, you give birth to a small louse.’ in the

He grew

tired,

‘Eh, stop talking nonsense, Kutq!’

Kutq went and saw that

to get

wood, and Miti gave birth to

w'as very bright, like the sun.

swaddled the louse and hid

a small louse. She looked

Then Miti began

Kutq came home and

it.

to sneeze. She

said: ‘Ah,

tired;

take the load of wood, Miti.’ Miti said: ‘Put

‘Yes,

you gave

‘It is

very ugly.’

‘Well, Miti,

birth; well,

‘Hide the child, Miti,

Then

Kutq:

shall

already gave birth to a louse.’

have a look at the

child.'

shall see.'

unwrapped the

Miti

yourself,

louse.

it is

Kutq looked, and

fell

his back.

said:

too bright.'

Miti hid the louse. Kutq said:

shall

‘I

make

another dwelling for the

The

louse began to live there

louse.’

‘Well,

make

Kutq began

it.’

work and made

the dwelling.

secretly.

Ememqut came home. Nobody

told

him

anything, and he did not

about the louse. Miti used to bring food to the louse.

where

his

mother went with the

food.

Once Ememqut

Ememqut

know

watched

ate and then

went

the piled-up logs. Miti took food to the louse and opened the door of the dwelling. A light shone out then Miti covered up dwelling. the entrance and went back into her house. Ememqut found the

out to the yard and hid

among

;

opened the door, and saw fell

down and

died.

who shone

his sister,

Kutq and Miti

said:

Miti got up early and looked for

like the sun.

Then Ememqut

‘Where did Ememqut go

off to?

Ememqut. She found him, but he had

they grieved for already died. Miti began to wxep, and Kutq also wept; Ememqut. Kutq said: ‘Miti, let us go and look for pleasure. house and covered They got ready to go. Ememqut was carried into the wood. They set out. Outside they blocked up the whole door with over.

When

began to weep. They met they looked back at the house, they again

the people called Raven’s Berries,

with them. Kutq did not want to do

who this.

292

invited

them

They went

to stay there to live

on. and

met

the storks.

whoolso asked them want

THE FLY-AGARIC to live there with

IN SIBERIA

them. Kutq

said:

'The heart does not

to live here.’

and met the Amanita. well met. Kutq There they found pleasure. They stayed there: they were However, when they to live there with his family. They were rejoicing. Thev went farther on, crossed mountain

ridges,

began

remembered Ememqut. then they wept. The sun and the moon said: Where did Ememqut get lost? He is not to be seen. Maybe he has died somewhere.'

The sun said: 'Moon, let us go look for Ememqut.’ The moon said: 'Well, let us go.’ Thev began to get ready, and set out. They went around the whole universe, but Ememqut was nowhere to be found. The sun said: 'Well then, let us go to Kutq’s house.’

They

set off to

Kutq’s house, but

when

they got there they found the house

down the wood and went into the house. They saw that Ememqut was dead. The sun said: 'Moon, let us revive Ememqut. You go around him beating the drum.’ The moon said: ‘I am not strong: I appear, wax. and wane, without warmblocked up with wood. They threw

all

ing anybody,’

and added: ‘You

warm

everyone better,

sun.’

The sun said: 'You try first.’ Then the moon began to go around Ememqut, beating his drum and kicking him, but he could not revive him. Again he went around him. beating the

drum and

kicking him, but again he did not revive him.

third lime he

drum and kicking him. but Ememqut only moved his little finger. The moon became tired. Then the sun began to go around Ememqut beating the drum and kicking him; Ememqut opened his eyes. The sun went around a second time, beating the drum and kicking him; Ememqut sat up. The sun went around a third lime beating the drum and kicking Ememqut; Ememqut then got up and said: 'Yes. have been went around him beating the

asleep for a long time.’

The sun and the moon

said: ‘If

hadn’t

come you would have

slept

forever.’

The three of them began

make

summer-hut. They made

on three

down: migratory geese, swans, cuckoos, and grebes, all came and sat down to sing songs. The only animals they did not seat were the bears. They set out to Kutq; they sat down to amuse themselves. The bears stretched up against the house: they too wanted to sit down. The cuckoo began to laugh at the bears. The sun said: ‘Cuckoo, stop laughing, or we will throw you out.’ Wherever they passed by the people heard them and came out to see. Old portable posts. All kinds of animals

came and

293

sat

EXHIBITS men and women were

carried out in their bedding: for the

first

time they

heard of such pleasure. They came to Kutq. Kutq and Miti saw that everyone was having a good time, and began to weep, saying: ‘If only Ememqut were alive he too would be sitting here enjoying himself!’

Kutq wept again; they all began to climb down from the summer-hut. There they saw Ememqut. Kutq and Miti began to be very happy. Then

the

sun married the louse and the

moon

married Sinanewt.

Ememqut

married

the Amanita. All the people began to rejoice and started back to Kutq’s house. They all became Amanita. They all began to live there and to rejoice.

D THE CODFISH, THE Codfish too,

AND THE AMANITA

R.\MS,

lived with her son IlaqamtaLxan.

and gathered

berries.

The rams courted

wish to marry. Codfish slept

all

the

girls,

but the

said:

‘Ow,

His mother said:

it’s

‘Come

Codfish

fell

asleep.

woke up and saw

the

The

codfish

ear.’

shall see what’s the matter.’

She looked, but nothing was burning. ‘You are

Again the codfish

not

When it rained the Amanita set wet. When they came back they

hot, there’s a fire in

here:

there

girls did

into the codfish’s ear and built a fire to dry themselves.

woke up and

girls lived

the time.

out to gather berries. They got soaking

went

The Amanita

The

girls

she

went out and ran

saying: ‘So.

girls,

lying,’

said.

farther away.

was you who

built a fire

ear.’

we were only drying ourselves out.’ Codfish said: ‘Come here and eat.’ The girls said: ‘We don’t want to eat.’ The girls went home. Again the rams came, and then 'Well,

them. They invited the codfish to the wedding.

came and

satiated

;

then

went home and

fell

up every thing and beThe rams began to live well

asleep.

the girls married

ate

to rejoice.

KORYAK TALES A

LITTLE-BIRD-MAN AND RAVEN-MAN to serve once to Little-Bird-Man, Let us go to Creators started off to go to daughters.' Little-Bird-Man consented, and they

Raven-Man for his

said

294

‘What have you come

Creator.

for?’

here,’ they answered.' ‘Well, serve.’

Bird-Man serve let

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

he askeJ them. We have come to serve he said. Then he said to Miti. ‘Let Little-

our house, and Raven-Man

at sister

- No. replied Miti.

Raven-Man and,

serve here, and Little-Bird-Man there.’

Raven-Man

Little-Bird-Man began to serve.

violent

snowstorm broke

which

out.

who always

’Look here, you.

several days. Finally Creator said to the suitors.

lasted

for the keep outside, stop the storm.’ Raven-Man said. ’Help me get ready went outside, journey.’ They cooked all sorts of food for him. He took his bag, When he had stole into the dogkennel. and ate all his travelling-provisions.

have been unable to stop

hnished eating, he returned to the house, and said,

’1

the snowstorm.’ Creator said to Little-Bird-Man,

‘Now

and

try to put a stop to the storm.

journey

The wonten

Little-Bird-Man replied.

too.’

’1

shall

it is

your turn to go

cook supplies for your

don’t need anything.

go just

will

They asked him. What did you come am serving at Creator’s for his niece, and he has sent me for?’ l-le answered. to stop the snowstorm.’ Then his older sister knocked him over the head as

am.’

flew

away

to his sisters.

and stunned him. Little-Bird-Man broke

Man came shovels, all

out from within. His

sisters

in two.

and the

brought him a kettle of lard and some

and went with him to the land of the sunrise. There they covered up

the openings with snow, caulked the cracks with

blowing.

cleared up. Little-Bird-Man

went home with

had gathered, and became intoxicated.

which

his sisters

and noticed that

his entire

snow, and shouted to

his

and

some

come

stopped caught

fly-.igaric

arrived at Crea-

house was covered with snow.

his bride, 'Kilu'.

his sisters,

ate

reindeer, and drove to Creator’s.

off the

fat,

way he

some tor’s,

real Little-Bird-

out! untie

shovelled

fur cap.’

The people came out of the house to meet him. and saw that it had cleared up. Soon after that, Raven-Man and Little-Bird-Man married, and on that occasion ate some fly-agaric. Raven-Man said. ‘Give me more. I am strong. can eat more.’ He ate much agaric, became intoxicated, and fell down on the ground. At the same time, Creator said, ‘Let us leave our underground house, and move away from here. The reindeer have eaten all the moss 1

around

here.’

They

called

Raven-Man. but were unable

head against a stone, and

split,

so that his brain

in that condition,

saying to a post in the house.

and

you answer in her

calls his wife,

When Raven-Man came ‘Here

place.’

fell

struck his

out. Creator left

‘When he

recovers his senses,

Thereupon Creator wandered

cried. ‘Yine'a-ne'ut!’

him

The

off.

Post replied,

become intoxicated with fly-agaric’’ - 'Yes, with flyreplied. Then he noticed his brain, and asked, ‘Have you made

am.’ -‘Have

agaric,’ the Post

to.

wake him. They

pudding for me?’ -‘Yes,

have,’ the Post replied again.

295

Raven-Man took

EXHIBITS Then he came to his senses. He felt of his head, and discovered that his skull was split, and that there was no brain in it. ‘Whither shall I fly now?’ he thought. He flew up to a mound and sat down. ‘My sister Mound,’ he said, ‘I have come to you. Give me something to eat.’ She replied, and ate

his br^in

it.

have nothing. All the birds sit here upon me, and they have eaten all the berries.' ‘You are always stingy !’ said Raven-Man. ‘I will fly to a place from which the snow has thawed off.’ He arrived at another place, and said, ‘I

‘Sister,

give

me some berries

give

- ‘I have nothing,’ that place replied.'Every bird sits here, and they have eaten everything.’ - ‘You, too, are stingy,’ said Raven-Man. ‘I will go to the beach.’ He flew down there, and said, ‘Sister, to eat.’

something to

eat.’

-‘Eat

much

you

please,’ said the Beach.

‘1

have plent}' of seaweed.’

And Raven-Man remained on

the seashore. That’s

all.

Told by Kuca'nin, a Reindeer Kor)ak woman, in camp on Chaibuga River, April. 1901.

EMEMQUT AND SUN-MAN’S DAUGHTER It

was

time

at the

near him.

when Creator

One evening

his

son

lived.

There was no

Ememqut was

village

returning home.

and no camp It

dark. Suddenly he noticed sparks coming out of a marmot’s hole. the hole, and

her home.

saw Marmot-Woman

was getting

He went into

He married her. and took went hunting, met Sphagnum-

sitting there.

the following day he again

Woman,

took her for his wife, and also conducted her home. Emcmqut’s cousin Ilia' envied his success in having found pretty wives

him in order to take away his wives. have found Ilia' said to his sister Kilu', ‘Go and call Ememqut. Tell him that I and a tall larch-tree with gum. Let him go with me to take out the gum; for himself,

and conceived a plan to

while there,

will

throw the

tree

kill

upon him and

kill

him. She went and

Ememqut, and he and Ilia' started off to the woods. They began to and out the gum. Suddenly Ilia' threw the tree down upon Ememqut

called

pick

killed

him.

‘Now Marmot-Woman He came running home, and is mine, and Sphagnum-Woman is also mine.’ Ememqut’s wives, your future said to KiIu', 'Go into Creator’s house and tell Ilia'

ran home, singing and repeating to himself,

sisters-in-law, to

Kilu'

came

come

to me.’

into Creator's

underground house, and saw Ememqut 296

lying

THE FLV-AGARiC

his wives,

bed with

her brother, and Well.' said

‘now

the ne.xi day

all

Hmenuiut

said.

Ilia',

and

Ilia'

will kill

IN SIBERIA

them chewing larch-gum. She returned is

lying with his wives.

home alive, and

him

another way.’

Ememqut

sent his sister to

had

that he

him

tell

He shall go with me to kill the bear.’ Kilu' came, and went to the delivered the message to Ememqut. Ememqut jumped out, woods with Ilia'. As soon as they reached the den. the bear found

a bear’s den. Ilia'

Ememqut, and

rushed upon Ilia'

mine,

added.

tore

him

home again, singing and and Sphagnum-Woman is also ran

‘Go and

said to his sister.

house, and saw

call

Ememqut

your

into small pieces.

’Now Marmot-Woman is He came running home, and

repeating.

mine.’

She went into Creator’s

sisters-in-law.’

and

sitting at the hearth,

his

meat. Kilu' came home, and said to her brother. ’Why, home, and his wives are cooking bear-meat.’

W ell,’

said

now

Ilia',

put an end to him.’

will

wives cooking bear-

Ememqut

He dug

alive at

a hole in his

underground house, and made an opening which led to the lower world, and put a reindeer-skin on top of the hole. Go and call Ememqut to play

am Thus said Ilia' to his sister. Ememqut replied. coming.’ When Kilu' was gone. Ememqut said to his wives. ‘He is likely to kill me this time, for he has made a hole for me which leads to the lower world. shall go now. If do not come back for a long time, go out and look

cards with me.’

lance which

standing there.

will

Ememqut went

living.

away.

When

a skin spread for you:

‘There

on the

skin,

Soon

should be shedding tears, then

Then tie some whalebone around your wound him when he lies down to sleep with you.’

no longer among the which

If it

his

fell

down

he entered

sit

down on

llla'’s it.’

ant

bodies,

house, Kilu' said to him,

As soon

Emetnqut

stcppecl

into the lower world.

wives went our. and, seeing that tears were running from his

lance, they said,

‘Our husband

dead now.’ Then they

tied

some whale-

bone around their bodies. After a while. Kilu' came and said to them. ‘Come. Ilia' is

calling you.’

will lie

down

They went.

Ilia'

to sleep.’ Kilu'

said to his sister,

made

the bed, and

‘Make Ilia'

bed

down with and wounded

lay

Ememqut’s wives. They tried to lie close to Ilia', and pricked him all over. After a while, when they went outside, both stepped tally upon the skin, and fell down into the lower world. Having

fallen into the

open country.

He walked

lower world. about, and

ground house. This was the

Ememqut

came upon

for us:

found himself

acciden-

in a vast

empty underabode of Sun-Man’s daughter. Her name was a dilapidated

Mould-Woman. Sun-Man covered her with a coating of mould, and let her down into the lower world, that the people on earth might not be tempted 297

EXHIBITS by her dazzling beauty. Ememqut stopped near the house, and began

to cry.

Suddenly he heard a nice-looking

that

was

all

live together.

down

settled

Mould-Woman s voice behind him, saying, ‘You are such young man, why do you cry?’ Ememqut answered, ‘I thought alone here.

will take

Now,

you

for

since

have seen you,

my wife.’ Ememqut

feel better.

Let us

married her, and they

to live together.

When Ememqut’s themselves

in a vast

replied, ‘So

wives

fell

down

into the lower world, they also found

open country. They wandered about, and soon fell in with Mould-Woman. They said to her, ‘We are Ememqut’s wives.’ She

You

I.’

-‘Well, then don’t

your husband that we are here.

tell

when he finds out that we are here, he will desert you and come to look for us.’ Mould-Woman returned home. After she had met the two women, she used to go out to visit them; and Ememqut noticed her frequent absence. He asked her, ‘Is there some one near our house?’ are bad-looking: and

'No, there

no one

there,’ she replied.

Once when she went

‘My husband

as she went. all

out.

the reindeer!’ and

a valiant

followed her stealthily. She sang

man: he

Ememqut walked

kills all

the whales; he

had suddenly turned into

why do you

Then she

a reindeer-hair.

laugh?* She

went on

behind her. She looked back again, but

kills

behind her, and laughed. She heard

turned around, but there was no one to be seen, for

his laughter,

‘Buttocks,

Ememqut

singing.

Ememqut

said to her buttocks,

Ememqut

Ememqut had

again laughed

turned into a

little

bush.

Thus she reached the place where Ememqui’s former wives were. Ememqut suddenly jumped out in front of her. She was .so much frightened that she

Then the coating that covered her cracked, broke in two, handsome and brilliant daughter of Sun-Man appeared from it.

down

fell

and the

real

dead.

Ememqut took all Once Ememqut

his three

are getting ready to

wander

wives and settled down.

said to his wives, 'The Fly-Agaric-Men (Wapa'qala'^nu)

off from here into our country: let us

move with

made themselves pretty round and white spots on them, in order to make

them.’ His wives prepared for the journey, and hats with broad brims

and red

Fly-Agaric themselves look like agaric fungi. Then they started, and the underground people led them out into their country, not far from Creators

house.

went to gather agaric fungi. Suddenly Ememqut and Kilu home. wives jumped out from among the fungi. Then they took Ilia Ememqut Ememqut put them upon the Apa'pel.' on which they stuck fast. Ilia

and

Kilu'

U the Apa'pel (from A'pa. 'grandfaiher' or 'father'(Kamcnskoye])

hills.

298

name

his

given to sacred rocks or

THE FLY-AGARiC

said to his wives. 'Boil

some meat

IN SIBERIA and scald

in the large kettle,

Ilia

and Kilu

over their heads the contents with the hot soup, in the morning pour out ashes from the hearth also of the chamber-vessels. Put hot stone-pine-wood

on their heads.’

Ememqut’s aunt Hanna said let them ofl.’ Ememqut let to him. ‘You have punished them enough; now them off, and they lived in peace again. Ememqut took his wife to Sun-Man’s house, then he came back with They did

had been

as they

told. Finally

Sun-Man’s son. who married Yine'a-ne'ut. Thus they

lived.

That

s all.

Told by Kucanin, a Reindeer Kor)ak woman, in camp on Chaibuga River. April. 1901.

tMEl.MQUT .AND WHITE- WH.ALE-WOM.AN

was

her

time when Big-Raven

at the

name was

small spider was his

and

sister,

Ami'llu. Pievu'ein wished to marry her. At that time Big-

Raven became verv ‘you are

lived.

ill.

his bed. ’Pievu'ein,’

and was unable to leave

brother-in-law-to-be.

Do something

for

me. go

said,

search of

drum, found the illness, and said to Big-Raven, ’Take your team to-morrow and go to the seashore.’ In the morning Big-Raven started with his team of dogs. After a while he was able to sit erect upon the sledge; then he tried to stand up; and soon he was able to run along, and direct his dogs. At the mouth of the river he saw a water-hole, and in that hole he found a White-Whale woman. Miti bv name, whom he took for his illness.’

Pievu'ein beat his

home. In due time she gave birth to Ememqut, who soon grew to be a man, and also took a White-Whale woman for his wife. Then Ememqut went for a walk, and found there Withered-Grass-Woman whom he also took for his wife. After that he brought home Fire-Woman, wife.

carried her

and then Kincesa'ti-na'wut. These four women lived together without quarrelling, until qut found Daw'n-Woman. She began to quarrel with

White-Whale

woman said, T am

his first wife.

go away.’ Big-Raven’s people

sat

her leaving the house. At

Big-Raven’s

last

all

finally

EmemThe

the others.

the oldest

woman.

will

for several nights watching, to prevent lids

dropped, and he

said.

’I

want

to sleep.’

Then by a

she ran away. She reached a lake, and there her heart was swallowed

seal.

She transformed herself into a man. and married a

299

woman

EXHIBITS the Fly-Agaric people.

Emcmqut went

in search of her.

While on

his

way

he found a brook from which he wanted to take a drink of water. He smelled smoke coming up from beneath. He looked down, and saw a house on the bottom. His aunt Ami'ilu, and her servant Kihi'Hu. were sitting side by side in the house. While he was drinking from the brook, his tears fell into the water, and dropped right through into his aunt’s house, moistening the

people below.

Oh! they

said,

drinking. ‘Oh

I’

raining.’

they said, 'there is

and come down.’ He closed

They looked upward, and saw the man a guest.’ Then Kihi'llu said, ‘Shut your eyes, and immediately found

his eyes,

a ladder

w hich he could descend. Give him food, said Ami'IIu. The servant picked up a tiny minnow from the floor, in the comer, all split and dried. She brought nut of the stone pine and a minnow’s bladder not larger than a finger-nail. Out of the latter she poured some oil into the nutshell, and put also the shell of a

before

Ememqut

thought, 'This

with the dried

fish.

‘Shut your eyes, and

fall

to.’

not enough for a meal;’ but he obeyed, and with the

first

movement dipped his hand into the fish-oil, arm and all, up to the elbow. He opened his eyes, and a big dried king-salmon lay before him, by the side of the oil-bowl. He ate of the fish, seasoning it with oil. Then his aunt said Thy

wife

on the

turned into a

He went

man

and her heart has been swallowed by a seal. She has and wants to marry a woman of the Fly-Agaric people.’

lake,

to the lake

and

killed the seal.

Then he took out

and entered the house of the Fly-Agaric people.

He put

house.

the heart on the table, and hid himself

who had assumed she

came

on the

woman

in the

lived in the

house. His wife,

the form of a man, lived in that house; and in a short time

from the woods, and

said.

‘1

hungry.’ - 'There

woman. ‘Have it for your meal.’ She remembered her husband. He came out

table.’ said the old

and immediately she place.

old

his wife’s heart,

They went home, and

lived there. That’s

a seal’s heart

ate the heart,

of his hiding-

all.

in the village of Palla'n.

Told

RAVEN AND WOLF

Raven

said to his

a salveline.

w ife, ‘I want

refused to take

it,

coasting. Give

and

said. ‘It

a sled

too soft;

She gave him

will

break into

Then she gave him a seal. He rejected it also, saying, ‘It is too round: On this he coasted it will roll away.’ Then she gave him an old dog-skin. - ‘How down hill. A Wolf passed by, and said, ‘Let me. too. coast down hill.’ pieces.’

300

Gin you? You have no sled: you will are long: fell

will

brace

them

and

into the water,

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGAIUC

fall

against the stones.’

cried.

’Help

Oh, no!

legs

coasted

down

the

hill,

will give

you

into the water. -

Wolf

out of this!

herd of

herd do not want it - Help me out. and will give you a sister, do not want it!’ -‘Help me out. and will give you my of mice! him out. one with resplendent (jnetal) ear-rings!’ Then Raven helped water-bugs

!’

the

coun-

Wolf said. ‘Fare thee well am an inlander. will go inland, far into the — T belong to the coast. will stay here, close to (j-y Where are you going?’ himself into a reindeerthe seashore.’ Wolf went his way. Raven transformed Then Raven revived carcass, and lay down across Wolf’s path. Wolf ate of it. within his belly, and cried. ‘Qu Wolf started to run. Raven tore out his heart, and dashed it against the ground. Wolf died. Raven dragged the body to his have killed a wolf! Dance before the carcass!’ house, and s.iid to Miti. Miti began to dance, and to sing, ’Ha'ke. ha'ke. ka ha'ke! Huk, huk! My !

!’

husband

killed

one with a long

Raven dropped on the

trail a

lowed them, and were

killed.

room

tail!’

Wolfs brothers followed

couple of whalebone mushrooms.* They swalRaven’s people dragged

of Raven’s daughters. Yin'ia-ne'whui and

that these

were the

name was Long-Distance-between-Ears interval

followed Raven’s

trail.

them

Cann

bridegrooms. The oldest of

girls’

the trail; but

into the sleeping-

a'y-na'wut, pretending

Wolfs

brothers,

whose

(literally ‘large-(between-the]-ears-

Again Raven dropped

couple of whalebone

mushrooms. Wolf, however, did not swallow them, but took them to Raven’s house. ‘What are these?’ he asked Raven. ’These are my children’s - ‘No, toys.’ - ‘.And where are my brothers? Their trail seems to lead here.’ they did not

Wolf

come

here.’

Wolf and

his hosts

went to

wakened

stole into the girls’ sleeping-room,

sleep. In the night-time his

dead brothers, and

they led the girls away.

Next morning

Ememqut

said.

‘Now

will

least

steal the

Wolves’

He asked The-Master-on-High to let down for him the ancestral old woman. Then he killed the old woman, skinned her, put on the skin, and sat down on the snow, weeping, and his teeth chattering with the cold. The Wolf people passed by. ‘What are you weeping for?’ -’My children lost me in the snow-storm, and now I am freezing to death.’ They took her along and put her into the sleeping-room of Wolf’s sister. ‘Ho! make her warm!’ But sister.’

in the

morning the

girl

was with

child. That’s

all.

Told

well-known concrivancc» made of a slender

and (hen covered with hard, frozen (allow.

spii

When

in the viU-ige of

Opu'ka.

of whalebone bent around, lied with sinew,

swallowed by a wolf, the tallow melts, ihc sinew string gets loosened, and the sharp ends of the spit break through the walls of the stomach.

301

EXHIBITS

[ 30 ]

OGUL Hymns and Heroic Songs. Antal Reguly and Bernat Munkacsi \^ogul Nepkoltesi GyQjtemeny. (An Anthology of Vogul Folklore) \^oI. I. Regek es Enekek a Vilag Teremteserdl. (Sagas and Songs about the Creation of the World) Published in fascicles from 1892 to 1902. Vol.

Istenek H6si Enekei. Regei es Idezo Igei. (Heroic Songs. Sagas, and Invocative Spells of Gods) 1892. Budapest. ir.

[There survives

a substantial corpus of texts in

Vogul and Ostyak taken down by Antal Reguly and Bernat Munkacsi from native singers. Reguly, a man of remarkable character, was working among the Vogul in 1843-1846, and he died prematurely in that decade without having published the Vogul texts that he had recorded. In 1888-1889 Munkacsi, with Reguly’s notes,

Vogul country and, seeking out the same singers or their successors, had them repeat the same songs. With the lapse of time there were naturally variations. In the two volumes before us Munkacsi published visited the

Reguly’s texts, his

also

own

and translations of

texts,

brought out volumes of textual

his

exegesis.

own

texts into Magj'ar.

Hungarian scholars merit

our gratitude for having preserved these texts for posterity and annotated them, publishing a large part of them. [In these native texts there

genpil^lietier, 'fly-agaric-songs’,

fly-agaric.

a category that scholars call in

German

Flie-

songs composed under the influence of the

have unfortunately not had an opportunity to explore these

songs, which

lie

hidden behind

linguistic barriers for the English-speaking

world. Apart from their general interest for the world of scholarship, they

may

well contain important treasures for the ethno-mycologist; and

thesis of this

West gain

book turns out

to be right,

will

become imperative

access to this store-house of fly-agaric

Siberian peoples

who knew

the fly-agaric, the cult

recent centuries was the strongest:

vocabulary, their songs.

The

poems. After

among

pervaded their

the

that the

of the

all,

the Vogul in

religious

life,

sanctions for the abuse of the fly-agaric

the people in thrall into this century: anyone not

still

shaman who

their

held

ate the

fly-agaric did so at peril of death.

the spent three days in Budapest with Dr. Jdnos Gulya, of outstanding Linguistic Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the [In

Vogul

May

1967

scholar.

English,

With the help of Tamas Radvanyi.

university instructor in

the three concentrated our attention on passages from one of

302

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

in his paper on mushroom ineHeroic Songs that Munkacsi had discussed interest for the light it sheds on briation. {Vide [32]) This song is of particular

man under

the question of the bellicosity of the

Our

fly-agaric inebriation.

sun-dried fly-agarics. News comes Hero, the Two-Belted One. has eaten three north is invading the country and that the Mocking-bird Army from the against the invaders. But he our Hero is desperately needed to lead the fight and sends the messengers to his younger brothers. is in a fly-agaric stupor Later they return and implore This he does: he exists in

two

same. Here

Song (Vol.

come and fight. and left. The Song

throw otitis stupor and

forth and slays the

sallies

recensions, Rcguly’s

enemy

right

and Munkacsi's: the meaning of both

pp. 113.

15. 117)

‘Js

we worked

out in Budapest. -

rgw]

The men keep going on. Whether for a long time or a short time, they keep going on. To their fortress Jakh-tumen they returned, they got home. Their mother, a woman of the Kami [river], sets up a kettle [for brewing beer) so big that it could not be used up by the whole town. For three nights and three days people keep drinking. The ecstasy of the ecstatic would not come to the eldest man, the inebriation of the inebriated one would not come. The Sovereign of the Lake to his daughter, to his wife, goes home, comes up to

them,

says,

'The inebriation of the inebriated

woman, go

out. fetch

perhaps

your

perhaps in your

folly folly

man

has not

come

;

listen,

three sun-dried fly-agarics!’ She answers,

you wish to drink the blood of your paternal line, you wish to drink the blood of your maternal line!’

'Why have you vexed me. the Two-Belted One. so long as was calm? Do ask you whether wish to drink the blood of my paternal line?

says,

do not ask you,

Woman,

nosv fetch

three sun-dried fly-agarics!’

She throws them before him. He. putting them into bear-teeth,

chews them, and the ecstasy of the

The big larch-wood door

drunkenness of the drunken

his

ecstatic

mouth with

the ten

man comes upon

him.

kicked open. ‘Oh, Uncle, don't carouse with the

man From !

northern regions the mocking-bird

army with the red rump has flown here and they have all occupied your seven silver-headed posts that you yourself set up in the age of your increasing manhood [childhood]*. T have not strength enough, because of my inebriation [heat] of the inebriated [heated] man. Carry the news to the two younger sons of

father!'.

The

the

the English translation in prose of Munkacsi’s recension of the

is I.

him

big larch door

again opened, ‘Oh, Uncle, don't carouse with the

drunkenness of the drunken man! From northern regions the mocking-bird

303

EXHIBITS army with

red

rump

has flown here and they have

your seven silver-headed posts! ‘The

[The Hero then goes will

forth

man

all

occupied, surrounded,

says, 'Bring nie

my armour

and wreaks havoc on the enemy.

have noticed that the Hero has asked for

The reader

his three sun-dried fly-agarics.

When he is urged to leave off his ‘carousing with the drunkeness of the drunken man’,

in the

from pa :yx.

original the three operative

‘fly-agaric’.

of the fly-agaric

day word

Vogul

when

me that

Dr. Gulya informs

words are

and

its

source

them

their every-

not present in their minds,

can become ‘bemushroomed’ on alcohol. - rgw]

304

derivatives

the Vogul no longer think

they use these words: the root gives

for inebriation

all

One

The Linguistic Aspect

Preliminary Note In

this section

ating passages

we do

not translate our authors.

where they quote

paraphrase them, elimin-

their predecessors, simplifying

ot the original radicallv) their phonetic representation

(sometimes

words, and standard-

have reduced the number of dialectal ditlerhave included e\ ery philoloences or eliminated them. So far as we know, we themselves in has dealt with the poi; cluster. Linguists who interest ising their various systems.

gist

\shu

the

problems that the cluster

The

special characters that

pronounced

wish to consult the original sources.

use arc:

vowel

like the

pronounced

‘shwa'.

raises will

like the

but

vowel

an open

a nasal:

thus

the Greek chi

American English, rather than the French is pronounced as the c/i in Loch Lomond,

as in Spanish;

cf. ity

glottal stop: as the

as in

One

= ‘finger’. /.

in ‘canyon’.

word

in quantity

vowel long

tant,

write ‘sioer’ for ‘singer’ but ’finger'

‘bottle’

the sound of the vowel in

dark’

pronounced by

—

Scots,

I’ot'i.

‘let’.

indicated

by the colon that follows

it.

of our linguistic contributors, Artturi Kannisto, contributes impor-

even sensational, ethno-mycological data. His information

and he dug out the

fact that the N’oguls of the

dependable,

Sosva and the upper Lozva

mushrooms other than the fly-agaric for shamanistic ends. In the valley of the Pelvmka it is not clear whether the se.vual distinction betsvecn male and female corresponds to different species of mushrooms or to some use

conventional distinction in the specimens of A. his

information

day only

in the first

in 1958.

Even now

decade of this century, though

may

learn the precise species that the day.

It is

to be

hoped

Independently of Kannisto.

Vogu! shamans were

on Siberian

were dated Januar)'

cultures, that

It is

used

light of

utilizing in Kannisto’s

go unexplored.

effects.

mushroom

species other

His personal communica-

and July 19, 1966. occasionally be found as

28, 1963,

In these pages ‘the Chukotka’ will

geographical term.

saw the

have received confirmation from Ivan A.

than the fly-agaric are used for their psychic tions to

not be too late for Russian mycologists to

that they will not let these clues

Lopatin, the authority

Kannisto gathered

innscrtritJ.

in the Soviet

Union to embrace

a convenient

all

lands of the

Chukchi, Koryak, Kamchadal, and Yukagir, in the Far Northeast of Siberia.

305

EXHIBITS

[31]

Handbook of American Indian Languages. Washington, Government Printing Office. 1922.

Boas, Franz.

Boas arrives

stem pov

Part

meaning ‘mushroom' in the Chukchi, Koryak, and Kamchadal languages. There is a duplication of the syllable in those languages, povpop and povpo, etc., and this is discussed on p. 688, where however the meaning of the word receives a specific sense: the p. 693

at the

Boas gathered his data

fly-agaric.

turn of the century.

at the

[n] Munkacsi, Bernat.

'Pilz'

und

‘Rausch’. (‘Mushroom’ and ‘Intoxica-

tion’) Kcleti szemle. (Oriental

Review) Vol.

viii.

Budapest. 1907.

pp. 343-344[This paper by Munkacsi was the cluster of

tence in

words

that

some of the

print in

of a

first

number

Altaic languages.

italic.

that discuss the pavx

call

attention to a sen-

This sentence seems to give justification

for the Scandinavian belief that the fly-agaric can incite furious behaviour

berserk-raging - in the eater, and as

Song

issuing

from the very

we were dealing with a traditional Heroic

entrails of the

Vogul

questionable observations of foreign travelers, facts.

This led

translation

Budapest

from Vogul

give in [30I.

culture, rather than with the it

was

in the spring of 1967,

vital to

where

determine the

worked out

into English with the help of Dr. Janos Gulya, which

As the reader

will perceive, the sense of the

poem

utterly

from Munkacsi’s one-sentence synopsis of it in a stupor from three time sun-dried agarics, our Hero is unable to respond to the call to arms. But different

passes and the urgency grows, and

when

the messengers press their appeal

arms. The distinguished Magyar wrote out scholar had certainly never heard of the debate in Scandinavia and to be unknown to his summary without regard to it: even today it seems to

throw

off his stupor

finally calls for his

Altaic specialists in Hungary.

The poem

and Munkacsi’s, but the sense of both In Vogul

the fly-agaric (Amanita muscaria)

pa:vx, and in the Middle Lozva identical with the

West

exists in

identical.

two recensions, Regul) - rgw]

dialect called in the northwest

dialect pa;t;k. This

North Ostyak povx. 'mushroom, 306

word

probably

fly-agaric, the Irtysh

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

Ostyak pavgih ‘fly-agaric the Yugan Ostyak pcvgo. panga. mushMordvinian pavga, fniygo. ‘mushroom’; the Chcremis means intoxication drunkenIn North \’ogul the word pavx also the pa-.vx^ P^VX- ‘fly-agaric’;

room’.

drunken man’. In the Lozva p<i:yxf'. p.i.yx^M./i, whence pa.ijxay drunk, intoxicated (jolpii;yxl«^^* and in the Pelymka pa.-yk’li mean ’he is drunken man'). gotten drunk' p.i;yxii»i X.’if'.L Lozva, paryk^/em^-^ir. ’a ness':

he has

;

The connection between these ed by the

the \'oguls and Ostyaks in earlier times the role as brandy plays today. As Patkano\ reports

played the same

fly.agaric

pronounced words can be explain-

among

that

fact

similarly

('A type of Ostyak Epic Hero.’ pp.

singer of heroic songs or a

Irtysh

shaman would,

Ostyaks

121).

it is

said that

order to bring himself to a

M- or even 21 fly-agarics, which had been butter or dried for this purpose and either soaked in water or spread with narcotic, a person becomes fat before consumption. Alter consuming this

state of exaltation,

consume

all almost crazy, undergoes severe hallucinations, and sings in a loud voice the night long until, completely e.xhausted. he finally falls helpless on

ground and

Thus

narcotic. (niir

lies

unconscious for a long time. Gods also find pleasure a

hvmn

in this

addressed to the ‘Man-Who-Observes-the-W’orld’

susHe-x«»t) contains the following lines:

While you,

in the

comer of your seven-sided holy house

that

came from

vour father MiHii-TareHi [Upper Heavens), your seven partitioned golden house, on your seven golden-footed tables, on your seven goldcn-lidded chests,

run about

running about

(akw la^vlep

here.

in ecstasy

lar'sin

which

little ear,

in ecstasy

This thought

sa-.t

painx se:owen xajtncn

as big as a lake, as big as the eyes,

which

Gyujtemeny.

reflect

may your

demandingfood

in the ecstasy

naind,

sacrifice, like

water of the Lake, direct

bear, that

are told of the

when

intoxication

holy

Ob. nevertheless hearken

the Ob. sparkle in this direction

hymn

to the

same

deity as follows:

of your intoxication caused by seven

demanding blood

sacrifice,

may your mind,

the swelling water of the Ob, like the swelling

itself here. (JhiJ.. 11:362)

In the song about the creation of the heavens

may your

with spotted heads (kumlin pupkep sa :t paiox kus'man. seroxwen

Xajtne xalt),

Reguly,

xalt).

11:314)

expressed in another

While you run about fly-agarics

caused by seven one-footed notch-edged fly-agarics

xu:rpa

May your golden

(\'ogul Nepkbltesi

caused by seven one-footed glasses, as you are

Kami woman’s oldest

after a three-dav beer feast »

he had been longing

for, he

307

and the earth, recorded by son,

who

later

turned into a

achieved the he had not vet *

asked his wife

bring btm

t/irce Jly-

EXHIBITS rtgiina t/wt had beat dried in the sun (/prtel tD:sem

consumed

after he

these, he

great croivti of people. In the

name paijx

(Ibid., 1:114)

of this narcotic

we recognize the Old Persian word ba7jlta-,

to Bartholomae (Altiranisches Worterbuch. 925), of a plant (and its juice) which was also used for

Name producing abortions; 2. Name the following:

parox). and that

Jlew into such a rage that he mercilessly slaughtered a

whose meaning, according is

xu:rem

‘i.

of a narcotic

made from

that plant

and

also a

designation of the state of narcosis produced thereby.’ Other instances of this

word

from hemp

seeds’:

(hangi. ‘senseless’);

(Horn,

meaning 'hemp;

are: Sanskrit: Witingn-, fc/wnga-,

Modern

modern

a narcotic prepared

Persian: bang, ‘henbane’ [Hyoscyamus niger]

Armenian: bang, ‘hyoscyamus’; Afghan:

bang, ‘hemp’

Persian Etymolog)’. 53; Uhlenbeck. Etymological Dictionary

of the Old Indian language, 194). According to Wilhelm Geiger (East Iranian

Culture in Ancient Times,

p. 152).

hemp

used

notorius hashish, the use of which deranges the frightful manner’.

Ostyak

potjx.

From

‘mushroom,

and the Chcremis

poijgo,

all

Just as this

may

we conclude well as

fly-agaric’, as

in the

‘the

most

Vogul word payx. the Mordvinian word pavga, that the

to their original

‘intoxicating’, ‘narcotic’,

among

making

human organism

‘mushroom’, according

have properly the meaning of this culture product

this

in Persia for

the Finnish peoples

etymon,

and that the knowledge

comes from the Aryans,

be assumed to be true with regard to ‘beer’ (Vogul, Zyrian,

Ostyak

Hungarian

Votyak

sur.

fiiira, ‘a

spirituous drink, chiefly brandy’ or ‘beer’.)

Vogul

sor,

ser, sdr,

Sanskrit surd, Avestan

[33]

Kannisto, Artturi. E. A. Virtanen and Matti Liimola, editors. MaArtturi terialien zur Mythologie der Wogulen gesammelc von by Kannisto.’ (Materials on the Mytholog)"^ of the Vogul Gathered Artturi Kannisto)

Memoires de

la Societe

Finno-ougrienne. Vol.

113.

pp. 419-420. or used to In order to become intoxicated, the Vogul shaman employs

employ, above

all

things, the fly-agaric (paiijx.

etc.);

after having

when

this state eaten them, he becomes intoxicated. He must be in the area around t e begins to exercise his functions [as shaman]. From out of a single foot, six river Sosva we have the report that fly-agarics grow are yellowish brown. or seven of them together; when they are dry. they

j.paivx

p^tpk arc the same term in two dialects.

308

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

Around the Upper Lozva, the term pa.yx

refers to a small

mushroom

(not

of a tree stump the beautiful many-colored fly-agaric) that grows at the base shamans and the like in clusters, as if out from a single root; the collected dry and eat them. In the area around the Lower Konda the pa:)jx ‘^re after St. Peter’s Day and dried in the hut. The shaman Me<iir-x<ir or l.’(tilay-X<«r eats seven of them when he begins his seance. Before they are eaten they are

soaked in water;

there

butter on hand, they are eaten with butter;

otherwise without. Once the fly-agaric has begun to

The

says: pti.yxy^

fly-agaric has

come

afl'ect

the shaman, one

into him’. .After the

shaman

has eaten the fly-agaric he walks around the room, sings, and continues the seance.

Around

the river Pelymka, the fly-agaric

fly-agaric that causes loss of sense'.

called saiftodl pa.yx.

There are male and female

(respectively Ln»i-pa;yi;and He.--pa.yk): the

fly-agarics

former are eaten by male shamans

bv female shamans. One must eat either three or seven of them. Nowadays fly-agarics are no longer used around the Pelymka. When the shaman ‘makes the room dark’ and eats fly-agaric before his seance, he and the

latter

‘sacrificial clothes’ (Upper Lozva). must don wtj.rim p. z8b. Around the area of the Lower Konda he [A:<h7 ay the shaman'] says

which

sacrifice

to be

made

after

he has eaten

fly-agaric,

and he sleeps

after

having eaten them. pp. 429-430.

Around

the area of the

are married, unmarried, or

Lower Konda

there are

who have been married

male and female shamans. The

tJilay

shamans who

the past, as well as

(shaman) also performs the following;

he eats seven fly-agarics on the preceding evening, walks about the room, leaves the lies

room

number of times,

down, and remains

knows and

looks at the sky, yells something, enters,

in that position until

morning. Then he

tells

what he

gives advice.

[28a]

Donner, Kai. ‘Ethnological Notes about the Yenisey-Ostyak (in the Turukhansk Region)’ Memoires de la Societe Finno-ougrienne lxvi. Helsinki. 1933, pp. 81-82.

Donner here says that Iwygo means 'fly-agaric' in the dialect of Ket spoken in the Turukhansk region. We have already given the quotation under [28].

309

EXHIBITS

[24a]

Lehtisalo, T.

Juhlakirja Yrjo

spaivaksi. (Publication in

Memoires de

la Societe

Wichmannin kuusikymmenvuoti-

honor of Yrjo Wichmann's 60th

birthday)

Finno-ougrienne. Vol. Lvin. Helsinki.

1928,

p. 122.

this

page there

tongue, one of the

a note on a

Samoyed

word reported by Castren

languages, called in the Soviet Union today

the language of the Nganasan people. That

sees parallels

with

this

in the Tavgi

word

word is: fat>kd^am,

‘to

be drunk*.

in various Finno-Ugrian languages;

Mordvinian:

paogo. ‘mushroom. lichen’

Cheremis:

pooga. ‘mushroom’

Vogui:

P 30 X* pioka,

Ostyak;

pa^OX- pa:nk, paox^^ni. puoklem. depending on the dialect; the

From

merely

‘fly-agaric’

the wide dissemination of this

toxication

The

meaning

‘fly-agaric’

from eating the

similarity of this

word

fly-agaric goes

word

accidental. Munkacsi’s

the author concludes that

back probably to pre-Uralic

in-

times.

may

to the Latin fungiis, Greek

assumption that the Finno-ugrians borrowed

word from Indo-Iranian is not likely, the author holds, giving as the example in Sanskrit bhahga-s, ‘hemp and the narcotic substance made from it'. the

‘Sampa, sammas*.

from the

Virittaja. Helsinki. 1929. pp. 130-132. Translated

Finnish.

Our language has many words in the Kalevala.

They may

all

phonetically reminiscent of the term sampo belong to the same word family. Of these only

one has been compared with an equivalent languages, vi^., the word sammakko, sammakka

in the

(‘frog*, ‘toad’)

distant related

[and other

re-

words - row], which has been linked to Lapp cuobo, gen. cubbu, frog ff.)In this ‘toad’. (Vide E. N. Setala, ‘Zur Etymologic von Sampo, fufu, pp. 146 wor paper I will present a form from Samoyed that corresponds to another be kept distinct in this Finnish family. Since the word I am writing about must word families ol phonetically from sammakko, etc., we must reckon with two lated

the type sampa.

Samoyed. Let us look at the following Samoyedic forms. Yurak 310

sfl.mpiiM to

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

accompaniment of forms] meaning to smg an

deceased to the hereafter to the carry the ghost-soul of the

[and other dialectal an the shaman’s drum’, he who sings incantation to the accompaniment of shaman etc. the shaman’s drum incantation to the accompaniment of reminded of the Ostyak immediately are we side, Finno-Ugric the On after having eaten word (Konda dialect) pavxt^m. 'to sing and shamanize word is of course related to Ostyak fly-agaric; to cure with incantations*. This the shaman-5 drum'.

word

Dol. 58. p- 122-) Bearing this in mind, the meaning ’fungus’ or mushroom that might be

phonetically linked with the

Samoyed words mentioned above. Thus we

payx.

‘fly-agaric’. (Vide

nc-tt step

to look for a

NSFOu

the Finnish words

come upon

»i<i(i»Siimpii,

and puunstimpu, a \\ hite and willows’, in which we

pulTball

pinhead-sized efllorescence on birches, alders,

propose that the element Siimpa originally meant ‘fungus or

The Samoyed words go back distinguishes

mushroom

to the initial palatalized sibilant *s-,

them, on the evidence of Lapp, from the word

S(imHirtH.M.

which

goes back to V-. Closely related to the the disease

meaning

names smnpu,

‘fungus’,

saiiunus. sfluiprttir,

‘mushroom’,

‘efflorescence’, arc

‘childhood disease affecting the

mucus membrane of the mouth; swollen glands in the jaw’ (Mikkeli area); ‘glands in the Jaw’ (Hame. Savo); ‘a disease of horses’ (Viitasaari). From this we proceed further to the word s<imw<isvcsi, ‘water from a certain spring used to cure 5<JHiHWs’ (Saaksmaki); ‘water from a hole in a rock used to wash out the mouth of a child suffering from Siimiims’ (Luopioinen). According to Gottlund, the word sflHiin<islii/ide is used to designate medicinal springs where a specified amount is paid when water is taken from them. It might be mentioned also in passing that it would be tempting to link tatti, ‘fungus’, ‘mushroom’, with the following Samoyed word: Yurak Samoyed [The author supplies various words from Samoyed dialects meaning ‘shaman’. But he concludes that this is rendered somewhat uncertain as tatti might be related to a different Yurak Samoyed word, though in turn there are counter-arguments that the author gives. - rgw] We may furthermore bear in mind that I have linked the Tavgi Samoyed fanhd’am, ‘to be inebriated’, with the words in the Finno-Ugric family of languages meaning ‘mushroom’ and ‘fly-agaric’; cf., e.g., Mordvin paygo. ‘mushroom’. Ostyak pa.-yx. ‘fly-agaric’ (vide NSFOu Lviii, p. 122). [The writer now quotes Donner and others whom we have translated. - rgw] We may regard it as certain that in the dim antiquity of the Proto-Uralic period the Finnic shaman ate intoxicating fly-agaric during his sorcery sessions. We now .

understand fly-agaric

how

was that

and was beating

later,

his

when

the

shaman had stopped

drum, he relapsed 311

eating the

in the course of his sorcery

EXHIBITS session into a state resembling

ground

madness and

unconscious to the

finally fell

(‘falling into a trance').

UoTiLA, T. E. ‘Etymologioita.’ (‘Etymologies’)

Virittaja. Helsinki. 1930,

pp. 176-7.

Some

Asian and notably Finno-Ugric peoples use the fly-agaric for ine-

briating purposes.

Here are the members of

Mordvinian (Moksa) (Erza)

this

word

-panga. ‘mushroom’

-paogo, ‘mushroom, lichen’

Cheremis

-poogo, paoga, ‘fungus’

Ostyak (North)

-poDX- ‘mushroom, fly-agaric’

(Irtysh)

family:

•paox. ‘fly-agaric’

-paox. -paok,

Other Dialects

shamanize

•panx^am

'to

-puoklam

having eaten the

after

singing

while

fly-agaric; to cure

shamanizing’

Vogul (North)

-panx- pioka, ‘fly-agaric’

Tavgi

-fanka’am, ‘to be drunk’

Selkup

-pooer, ‘drum’ -pangar,

These words belong it

‘a

special

Selkup musical instrument

to the Uralic family *pSiifc8 (the

‘8’

back vowel). To

belong the following Zyrian forms: (Sysola dialect)

bitter taste

^Lg2a)

After giving

-pagalny, ‘to lose one’s consciousness oneself -pagavny, 'to poison oneself, to kill penetrating in beer’, ‘sour, sharp,

some more

they «fle« the derivatives, the author says that root p n eaten it. From the Uralic

on those who have itter, rom fly-agaric; and pagyr, the meaning Uotila derives the *pag form ‘the power to inebriate pagal, and fly-agaric’, of having the taste effect of the fly-agaric

312

FLV-AGARIC IN SIRHRIA

L THE-

(The Chukchi) Published as Part 4 Sibirischen Spracinvissenschalt, by in BLMtrage /ur Kaukasischen und Deutsche Morgenlaiidische Gcsellschalt. Leipzig. 1941-

liounx Karl

D,is rsLlmktachische.

Rouda on p. 35 under entry 20 discusses Cluikchi inushroom. By comparing it with Koryak /'oy/’i'n. /'Ciiipey, meaning ‘without mushrooms’, he arrives at the t.hukchi mushroom, and root pci). He ctnuparcs these words with In

tliis

philological study

'imishroom'

ChtTcniis:

iMorJx

iiii.in:

ONtvak:

’Ily-agaric’

/'eyx^.

\‘i)gul:

In a

footnote he calls attention to the use

shamans so

that,

with gods and

the fly-agaric by the Ob-L’grian

tif

having been etttranced by

its

poison, they

may commtinicate

spirits.

Wolfgang. Geschichlc des Finnisch-ugrischen Vokalisimis. (History of Finno-Ugriati Vowel Structure) Stockholm. 1044. p. 37

Sti inuz.

The in

author includes

Mordvinian

in his

piivgo.' In

list

of words the \'ogul paijk. Ily-agaric, which

the Ostyak of Surgut he supposes that there has

been an alternation of the vowel from forms: pjyW/em;

/Miyjc/.yti;

Changing vowel

pa^yr comes frotu

pyi)kla.

Only

Cheremis; poyga.

*<i

'*n

dialect.

unclear whether Zyrian

piig*il-,

this source.

i.Thc Mordvinian and Chcrcmisi word means ‘mushroom*.

313

leading to these three

one

*}'in \’ogul. It

*i.

with p.’;yJl:-

EXHIBITS

[

3 -]

Hajdu, P.Von derKlassifikation der samojedischen Schamanen. (On the classification of Samoyed Shamans) Glaubenswelc und Folklore der

and Folklore of the Siberian Peoples) Edited byV.Dioszegi. Akademiai Kiado, Budapest. 1963. pp. 161-190.

sibirischen \olker. (Religion

p. 170. T.

word

Lehtisalo

sa;»ipa;

may

of the opinion that the family of the Nenets (Samoyed)

be related to the Finnish word sampa. fungus, sea-foam.'

This Finnish word occurs in the names of diseases,

sammas, sav\paat, a disease of the mucous

as.

for example, sampa,

membrane of the mouth in children

swelling of the submaxillar)' glands; a disease of horses.

compounds such

The word

also

found

room

the size of a pinhead on birches, willows, and alders. According to

Lehtisalo. the

performed

meaning

in the state

confirmation of

‘to

maansampa, puffball; puunsampa, white mush-

work magic’

originally referred to

that

singing after consuming fly-agarics, to heal by magic

work magic while

panx, fly-agaric)

phonetic grounds. Lehtisalo distinguishes the Finnish srfMipfl-Nenets

from the Finnish sampo and explanation, but there are In the

first

place, this

was

of ecstasy brought on by fly-agarics. For a semantic

he dtes the Khanti verb

this,

magic

its

many

derivatives. This

sti.mpti;

certainly an imaginative

reasons which compel us to disagree with

it.

comparison seems doubtful to us because the agreement

two most widely separated members of the Uralic language family. Another argument against it is that the meaning ‘mushroom’ has not been found in Samoyed and the meaning to work magic in the state of ecstasy brought on by fly-agaric is unknown in between the words

these languages.

to be the

found only

in the

suppose, of course, that the verb to work magic in derivative of a word meaning ‘mushroom however,

One could

was expressed by a Samoyed the form it

;

su.nipa;

without a

form corresponding

Because of these explanation for the

[The author then

many

suffix, in so far as

can consider

to the Finnish sampa.

problems.

have attempted to find a

different

Samoyed sampa:. refers the reader to an article that

he wrote, ‘Etimologiai

['Etymological Notes], in megjeg)'zesek’ (‘Enmologische Bemerkungen') Nyelvuidemtinyi Ko^lemenyek, Vol. lvi, pp, 53*56-]

I30*i3iLehtisalo. T. 'Sampa, sammas'. ViritUljS, Vol. xxxm. pp-

314

[Our

ref.

[wa] PP-

3 io- 3

ia-*cw]

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

[38]

Schamenen (On the 1. Balazs. Glaubenswelt und Folklore der Shamans) Hungarian the of Bestasv ’

'Cher die Bkstasc dcs ung.irischen

and Folklore ot the Siberian Peoples) Kiado, Budapest. 1063. Edited by V. Dioszegi. pp. 57 83 Akademiai

Sibirischen Vblker. (Religion

[Sections

and 1 (pp. 57 - 59 ) discuss the Hungarian word

rejt.

the

hide,

entrance, en-

rSjt. reiit. rit, riiif, Old Hungarian word variously spelled riit. rot. two words are related rapture.' and the problems whether these

and whether one or both period. - RGw]

may

meaning

be traced back to the shamanism of the Ugric

PP- 39-67. 3.

We may come

closer to a solution of

this

problem

methods bv which the shamans worked themselves into this process

shall

make

investigate the

a state of ecstasy

;

use of the latest linguistic, ethnographic, and

semantic archxological results, as well as a critical analysis of earlier data. The to this day. e.xplanation of the Hungarian verb rejf. 'ecstasize.' is based, chielly

on Hunfalvy’s arguments and on Munkacsi's commentaries on the

Russian academician P.

Pallas

description of his travels.

Concerning the ecstasy of the shamans

shamans

in general.

performances

among

Munkacsi writes: 'The

the northern

state of unconsciousness

shaman

the Mansi and the ‘northern

visible reality in the

magical

that he transports himself into a

resembling a trance,

i.e..

into a state ol ecstasy.

Even when he begins the magical performance, he is in a befogged condition owing to the fly-agaric or brandy he has previously taken. His drunkenness and his agitated nervous state are intensified by the loot-stamping, the loud, and the noise of clashing kettles and pots, of being in communication, or even in combat,

excited singing, the wild howling, as well as

with the

by the

spirit.’

illusion

Here we see that the shaman eats the poisonous

fly-agaric or

becomes drunk with brandy and in this way achieves a state of trance. In connection with the shamanism of the Ugric peoples, Karjalainen mentions

shamans of the Irtysh-Khanty often used the fly-agaric as a narcotic. Many travelers describe how the Siberian shamans cat fly-agarics and thus that the

fall

into a state of ecstasy.

A systematic compilation states that the fly-agaric

of such data has been

made by

(Awanini muscaria L. Pers.)

commonly used by shamans among

A. Ohlmarks.

the stupefacient

most

the Koryak. Kamchadal, Nentsy (Yur-

ak Samoyed), and Selkup (Ostyak Samoyed), and among the Khanty along 315

EXHIBITS the Yenisei and the Irtysh.

Ohlmarks devotes a separate chapter to alcohol, which is used as a stupefacient by the shamans of many Siberian tribes. He states that the shamans of the Irtysh-Khanty, the Tungus. the Lapps, the Buryats, and other peoples often drink alcoholic beverages until they lose consciousness. Nevertheless alcohol cannot compare with the fly-agaric as an effective narcotic.

The

designations for the fly-agaric

form

family of words in the Ob-Ugric languages and in a languages.

The corresponding derivations

a very widespread

number

of Finno-Ugric

are extraordinarily revealing from

semantic point of view because they indicate the method (quite likely a very old and very widespread method) by which the Finno-Ugrian shamans a

achieved a state of ecstasy.

Here

list

of the etymologically related words for the fly-agaric

in the

various Finno-Ugric languages:

Mansi: p<jyx. pivkih

‘fly-agaric’;

Northern

dialect: peijk, 'fly-agaric, agaricus ntuscarius'; Khanti

‘mushroom,

fly-agaric’; Irtysh dialect :p<i.yx.

Northern

‘fly-agaric’

:pyyk(puybm),

ptn;g<j,p(j:yx. ‘fly-agaric’; Irtysh dialect

Middle Lozva

dialect: pa.-yx;

;

dialect: povx>

Yugan

dialect:

'the fly-agaric’; Lower-

Demyanka dialect: pntjx', Verkh, Kalymsk, Vartokovsk dialect: patjk; Tremyugan dialect: payfe; Nizyam-Berezovo dialect: popxi Kazum dialect: ponk, ‘fly-agaric’; piiyya,

Mordvinian: panga.

ptiijgo,

‘mushroom’; Cheremis:

priyga, povgo,

‘mushroom’.

The importance of shamans

the poisonous fly-agaric in the ecstasy of the Mansi

proved by the

fact that in the

Northern Mansi

dialect the

word

pn.VX means ‘drunkenness’.

by which the concepts of 'drunkenness, ecstasy’ arc e.xpressed in Mansi: p(t:tjxli, p(i:VX^ta:li; Lozva Pelym dialect: payWi, ‘he is drunk, intoxicated.’ Likewise, p<iyxle»t in the Northern Khanti

The following words are

dialect

and put^khm

the

means

Tremyugan

agaric. to sing

who

work magic while singing heal by enchantment’; in the Upper Demyanka

in the Irtysh dialect

after eating fly-agarics, to

dialect

derivatives

‘to

shout and

dialect pjtjhlta:y?

through the

mean

make

means

‘to

noise after eating fly-agarics 'to

become

effects of fly-agaric.’

The

transported into ecstasy by eating fly-agarics

intoxicated with

fly-

singing of the shaman is

expressed in Khanti fly

payfcafsdHY^, by the following words: Tremyugan dialect: payfe (J.tsx. fly-agarics Vasyugan agaric song, a song which the shaman sings after eating ,

sung after eating fly-agarics this word family: Uotila, the following also belong to

dialect: panbmtt^v, ‘song

According

to T. E.

Komi (Wichm.),

which

Sysola dialect: pagal-, to lose consciousness

(i.e..

through

consciousness, to be overdrinking alcohol): (Wied.): pagab (pagav-), to lose pagav-, to poison Zakhov]): [or: (Sachow deluded [or: to be

whelmed

(?)

{?)]:

316

THE FLY-AGAIUC

oneself, to kill oneself:

Udorka-Wishka

IN SIBERIA

di.ilect;

to be unste.tdy. to stagger.

primary noun root of these words is Sysola dialect. According to Uotila the above words denoting the lly-agaric. He *pag-. which we can relate to the

word must also have existed in Komi and cites yagyr, folUiwing Komi adjectives: (Wichm.) Lu/a dialect:

believes that this

the

sour, sharp

sour, sharp, penetrating;

(like the taste of beer): (Wied.):

evidence

(Wichm.):

penetrating (beer), yti^yui. sharp-tasting. Lotila assumes that these 'tly-agaric,’ by adding the sutlix -r adjectives are derised from the noun

and

that their original

meaning

tasting like lly-agaric.

believes that a

must have been attached to the lly-agaric in the Komi language also. Steinitz, on the other hand, doubts that the reference to have acc]uiied these Komi words is justified in this connection. They may semantic their me.iningof 'fallingintoecstasy. into a trance’ through the same

special significance

development

above-mentioned Mansi and Khanti verbs with similar

as the

meanings.

According to Lehtisalo the following words also belong to this category: to be drunk, and even Selkup (Castr.), Kamas, Nganasan (Castr.) Kheya, Kha. I’pper-Ob dialect yoixr. drum.

Samoved musical instrument, the Russian

Upper-Ket dialect

p.’y^.>r.

dialect p.nj^ar, a special

Narym. Lower \ asyugan. pv:tiS<J r, Khaya dialect paggar.

iloiiini;

Middle-Ket dialect

Tym

the same. Lehtisalo

compares the Nenets verb

s«i;>np»i:.

to sing the shade of a

dead

person dow n into the underworld to the accompaniment of the magic drum, tic.,

with the Finnish noun

mushroom

saiii/’U: imwMSiiHipii.

pull ball, puHiisuinpd. a whitish

the size of a pinhead, found on birches, alders, and willows.

noun meaning ‘mushroom’, then we have here a semantic relationship similar to that between the following nouns and verbs: Khanti paryx p<iyxl^»>. Nenets, Obdorsk dialect j<i;p^e;. to be drunk, Nenets (Reg.) javehs. fly-agaric, Lyamin dialect wi;ppi;, Nyalina

the root of this

dialect w^i.'ppi;. rro,

Samoved verb

Pur dialect

Bayikha dialect

wi.-pi;, fly-.agaric,

jeiii^edo,

Enets, Khantaika dialect jet*iV:-

to be drunk.

assumes that the Finnish shamans also used the a stupefying agent in earlier times and that people probably

this basis, Lehtisalo

fly-agaric as

‘became intoxicated by eating

fly-agarics as early as proto-Uralic times.’

above-mentioned Finno-Ugric words meaning

In every case the

intoxication, drunkenness’ are similarly traceable to a

fungus, ecstatic,

of this

and was used figuratively

fly-agaric’

or drunken state itself (as in Mansi),

same noun

into a trance.’

From

many

‘ecstasy,

noun which means

denote the intoxicated,

w hereas

the verbal derivatives

Finno-Ugric languages have the meaning ‘to

fall

the semantic viewpoint this requires no further cxpla-

317

EXHIBITS nation, since

come into a

it is

condition’

the

same word which

producing the condition. There

words and

their derivatives.

find not only

used to denote the substance

The verbs formed from

from

‘to

a causal relationship between such root-

provide somebody with something’ or

Thus we

mean

obvious that (he root-word of derivatives which

‘to

these nouns

mean

‘to

be provided with something.’

descriptions given by travelers but also from

definite linguistic facts (derivatives of Finno-Ugric

words which mean

‘fungus’

or ‘fly-agaric’) that the Finno-Ugrian shamans used the fly-agaric as a stupefying agent in ancient times. 4. It

might be asked, however, whether

all

ecstasy’ in the Finno-Ugric languages are derived

verbs meaning ‘to

from

fall

into

noun meaning ‘fun-

and whether these Finno-Ugric w’ords are not loan-w’ords. Munkacsi believes that these Finno-Ugric words are of Old Iranian origin. He bases his opinion on the fact that the semantic development of the Old

gus’ or ‘fly-agaric,’

word bat)ha is remarkably similar to that of the above-mentioned Mansi word for the fly-agaric. According to Bartholom® this Old Iranian word has several diflferent meanings: ‘i.Name of a plant (and its juice) was also used for producing abortions; 2. Name of a narcotic made Iranian

which

produced from that plant and also a designation of the state of narcosis word are: Old Indian thereby.’ Other references in connection with this from hemp seeds’: modern WiflHgfl-, bhangd-, ‘hemp; a narcotic prepared Persian

fcting,

‘Hyoscyamns hashish

‘senseless’);

‘henbane,’

niger';

Afghan bang, ‘hemp.’

Armenian loan-word

In Persia, according to

bflHg.

Geiger,

made from hemp.

Whether Munkacsi

right in

making

this correlation

a matter tor

development is con«med. experts in Iranian to decide. As far as the semantic originaUy meant ‘hemp which word a that imagine to difficult it is rather describe (he fly-agaric, since would be used by the Finno-Ugric peoples to tor in the slightest, except other each resemble not plants do these two of these words borrowing the considers (Lehtisalo their narcotic effect. unlikely.) Nevertheless,

have played, and perhaps

must be borne in mind that still

hemp

see

mig

of the shamans. play, a role in the ecstasy

shall return to this point later.

318

THE FLY-AGAIUC

[

iN SIBERIA

39 ]

gratnatyki porownawczej jczyk6w PnDKRSEN. Holger. ‘Przyczynki do comparative grammar ot Slavic slowianskich’. (Contributions to the Prace Komisyi Jt'zykowej Akadcmn Umielanguages) Matcrialy i

j^'tnosci \v

Krakowie. Vol.

No.

pp. 167-176.

Krakow.

1901.

an abstract prefollows an abstract of the original paper in Polish, by Roman Jakobson as a working paper.

There pared

g,iba is Old Bulgarian gjiba 'spongia', Polish g^ibka. The Old Bulgarian illness of the uterus, e.xusually compared with the Lithuanian gumbas. organic bod) or on a crescence on a tree', (Miezinis), an excrescence on an stone, colic,

gumpis,

cramps of the stomach (Kurschat), Latvian gumba

'colic'.

This etymolog)'

tumor

improbable.

n It

presents difficulties

when one compares

gumbas with the Serbian to the Lithuanian

goba: the Serbian short tailing

giiba, Slovenian

accent " corresponds to the Lithuanian

the accent of the Lithuanian

and the Slovenian

corresponds

Lorentz' law, surmising the change of

to the Slavic

erroneous.

To the Slavic g^ba there corresponds etymologically the Old High German swamb. Kluge compares swamb with the Greek somphos, ‘porous’, but it is not plausible.

Swamb

The Indo-European

could represent the Indo-European *sg"hombho-s.

g’'ho gave in

Latin formus. In Baltic cluster sg

and

Germanic wa,

as in the Gothic

Slavic languages the consonant

had to disappear; compare Old Bulgarian

gesyti with

gasiti

warms;

in the initial

and Lithuanian

Greek sbennymi. v

Also the *

German swamb

could be easily explained from the original

sg^'hombho- as well as from *sg'’h6mbho-. But

319

the Lithuanian

gumbas

EXHIBITS does belong here, one must accept *sg“hombho- as the original form and the

gumbas represents the reduction *sg''hrnbho-. The same reduction the German sumpf, but English swamp.

Lithuanian occurs in

Also *sgwombho- could be admitted as the original form. Then the Slavic during the Baltic-Slavic stage, or it represents g,jba either lost the semivowel

an Indo-European variant without w. VII

combine gsba: swamb with Greek sfongos. spring from the original Latin fungus. The Greek and Latin expressions Armenian sunk, sung, ‘sponge, forms beginning with *sph-. Here also belong Indo-European *sp and not pumice’, but Armenian s can represent only the *sphwongo-. From *sphwongo there it is possible to suppose In this case

*sph.

possible to

However

*sgwombho-: the alternation could arise *sgsvompho- and also not unusual after the nasal consonants.

320

C. Secofhitir)' Sources

[40]

Die menschlichen CcMiussmittel ihre Herkunlt. Bcstaiulteilc und Wirkung. \'erbreitung. Geschichtc. Anwciidiing. (Human Stimulants: Their Origin. Distribution, History. Use. Com-

Hartwich,

Carl.

ponents, and Effects) Leipzig. 1911- PP- 255-260.

[H.irtwich was a distinguished toxicologist

and pharmacologist

ot his day.

well and He had read widely, he was intelligent, and he expressed himself in Die mensc/ilic/icn Gemissmittel forcibly. What he WTOte about the fly-agaric reflected the best opinion of his

day and

pharmacology

exerted wide

on the fly-agaric in major features it was wrong or misleading. that As late as 1911 he gave expression to the ancient European superstition man’. On the the fly-agaric is dangerously toxic: ‘four mushrooms can kill a

influence: but

contrary,

it is

difficult to find case histories of

healthy adults

who have died He perpetuates

deadly amanitas! - both speaking Altaic the notion that the Tungus and Yakut tribesmen tongues -use the fly-agaric. He quotes 'a Zurich man’s letter dated 1799

from

it.

which

in striking contrast to the

reporting that the Russian troops occupying Zurich in that year had gathered fly-agarics

that

was

suppose

on the Zurichberg and eaten them, allowing

his reader to

for their intoxicating effect. In historic times

no Russian - whether

Great Russian or Little Russian or White Russian -has taken the fly-agaric for

its

inebriating effect. This statement will not be successfully gainsaid.

The Russians have produced numbers of excellent specialists in Slavic folklore and folk practices, and today when the Russian world stands revealed to us, thanks to numbers of persons in the West who have learned the language, it w ould be impossible for a pharmacologist of standing to say that the Russians eat the mni.’/ioiHor. as they call the fly-agaric, for the inebriation that follows.

True, there have been reports that

Cossacks stationed

from the

natives,

among

but

of fly-agaric eating.

it is

some of

the Russian

civil

servants and

the Palaeosiberian tribes have taken the habit

not in this sense that ignorant people lay the charge

West, where only yesterday there were elements

the educated classes that regarded the Russians as l7«termeH5c/i and not

worthy of study,

w'as

prepared to believe anything

that, according to

Western

was degrading about their neighbors in Eastern Europe. It is not that consuming the fly-agaric would have been disgraceful, any more than consuming alcohol or tobacco. But there were Westerners w'ho believed the prejudices,

321

EXHIBITS Russians ate the fly-agaric, as Hartwich seems to have done.

was not

so.

Diverse cultures should not be confused: each stands on its own bottom, and to associate the Slavic culture with that of the Koryak is like asking an

American

tourist

whether Iroquois

his native tongue.

[Hartwich of course gives some measure of credence to the

common in Scandinavia, that berserk-raging was produced by the fly-agaric. On the use of the fly-agaric in Siberia Hartwich quotes Enderli, who is excellent, and Kennan, who is childish. He ignores Strahlenberg. Maydell, Langsdorf, Georgi, Erman, and Dittmar, who wrote in German; Krasheninnikov who belief,

was translated into German; and Bogoraz and Jochelson, whose works had already been published in English in Leiden. Had he done his homework properly, he

him, such

folk.

would have found some answers

as a possible

also

explanation for the urine drinking of the reindeer

draws on Ernst von Bibra,

narkotisclien Genussmittel

though he was only should have read.

to the questions that baffled

a pioneer pharmacologist

uud der Mensch appeared

Nuremberg

secondary source relying on writers quotes Kennan to the

effect that the

the fly-agaric has harmful results, adding that

whose Die

whom

in 1855.

Hartwich

continued use of

Kennan no doubt was

right.

Kennan had been in the Kor)'ak countr)*, but the man on the spot can be a bad observer and Kennanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s text gives no ground for reliance on his word. The fly-agaric may be harmful if its use is continued, but it is the function of of science to reduce the area of guessing and not himself reach connot clusions that are only guesses. The excessive use of alcohol is harmful, but a

man

the continued moderate use.

May

not be true of the fly-agaric? -rgw]

this

one of the most remarkable stimulants. Except for one deliother\vjse unknown poisonous mushroom which was consumed as a

The

fly-agaric

cacyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

by the ancient Mexicans,

the only stimulant in the broad sub-

north. kingdom of cryptogamic plants, and no other stimulant ranges so far found in the Only some unusual forms of alcohol production from milk are is used, and region of Siberia bordering on the area where fly-agaric by any other stimulant the extraordinary method of its use it is unparalleled

on earth.

The tion

fly-agaric {Amanita muscaria L. Pers.)

grows

circumpolar in the northern hemisphere;

ern Asia, and North America, but

in forests

it is

and

its

distnbu-

found in Europe. Nort

also occurs in South Africa.*

of these mushrooms. Today we know that there are more than a dozen spcdcs Hartwich's use of the each of them names. I would take exception to ^ to dcscnbe the 'Delicacy- is hardly the word tobacco. and alcohol to apply it also ready to I.

- row. of the Indians toward their holy cucharist. a.

Englcr*Pranth PjlanzcnfamUien (Plant Families)

322

^75*

THE FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

red colour of its cap. with its sharply highly poisonous, and the splendid entices the inexperienced to eat it. A contrasting white warts, sometimes mushthis cause have been reported. Four traceable to deaths many great hand, appear to be immune to it. rooms can kill a man; sheep, on the other observed after such poisoning are nausea, vomiting, thirst, Ic is

The symptoms colic pains, mucous and bloody

stools, tlow

saliva,

and fainting

spells;

lethargy, dilation of the sometimes there are also intoxication-like states and temporary blindness, delirium, halpupils with disturbed vision and even

the skin). dilHculty in breathlucinations. raving, cyanosis (blue colouration of hours, consciousness, and cramps. Death has occurred after ten ing. loss of

or sometimes after eight. its

recover after

5 -i 4

hours.'

mushroom was

derives

used for killing

arsenic, particularly in earlier times, before fly-paper saturated with

quassia,

been

may

victim

the fact that an extract of this

name from

flies,

and the

insignificant.

became widely known.

Its

According to Kosteletzky.*

use in medicine has always

has been

recommended

for

- in Kosteletzky use against nervous attacks, swollen glands, ulcers, and

time -for use as a powder or tincture against consumption. At present it is used as a stimulant only in Siberia, and its range extensive.

very

begins with the Ostyaks. whose territory extends from the

From here

to the Yenisei.

continues uninterrupted to the easternmost part

Samoyeds and Tunguzes, then the Chukchis. the Koryaks, and the Kamchadals. The

of Asia. After the Ostyaks Yakuts, the Yukagirs, the

come

the

area of fly-agaric use probably does not extend far south of 6 oÂ° north latitude at

any point.

According to some reports, the use of the west

in earlier

mushroom extended

farther

days and was perhaps forced back by the spread of alcohol.

Zurich man's letter dated 1799,* the year in which a Russian

army under

Korsakoff was in Zurich, mentions with amazentent the fact that the Russians

gathered fly-agarics on the Zurichberg and ate them. These Russians, of course,

must have become acquainted with the mushrooms

in their

own

homeland. At Polotsk on the Dvina (presumably and four of them died within a short inhabitants eating the

in 1812)

time."*

mushrooms.

French soldiers ate

No doubt

thev had seen the local

Wâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;hile the Russians in these last

i.Lcwin, Uhrbtuh dcr Toxikolcgie (Textbook of Toxicology), second edition, 1897. 1.

Kosteletzky, Med, Pharm. Flora, Vol.

In recent years

fly-agaric can

country 4-

may

fly-agarics,

two

p. 410.

1831. p. 13.

we have made strenuous

efToris 10 locate this letter

but without success. The

be prepared properly for the table. Whether the Russians in some parts of that vast

have

known how, wc cannot

say.

- row.

Vadrot, 1814. After Orfila, Aflgemrme Toxifcolagie (General Toxicology), translated into

by Hermbsiadf.

1818, Vol. 4, p. 40.

323

German

EXHIBITS cases

were probably not Mongols,

that

go even

as in Siberia,

and according

further,

Germanic peoples used the

some,

but Slavs, there are conjectures it

may

be assumed that even

fly-agaric in earlier times. For

example,

sometimes reported' that the berserkers - those Germanic warriors who attacked the enemy in a wild frenzy, naked and without adequate defensive \\

eapons. and

who

some ways resembled Malays who run amuck -

worked themselves into such a stale of senseless fury by drinking fly-agaric mixed with an alcoholic drink. These are merely conjectures; nevertheless, the possibility must be considered that the use of fly-agaric was more widespread in earlier times than

The mushroom

today.

many

used in a good

certainly not true that effect are

it is

fermented into

ways

in Siberia,

it is

reputed to be

this

it is

a beverage; assertions to this

less effective

when

it is

eaten fresh in soups or sauces, but

used in

this

way than

in the dried state;

readily understandable in view of the high water content of the fresh

mushroom. seems

It is

be a

called fairly

by the names

and

HiÂťc/tnmor,

niiic/to-more.*

mushroom in the juice an extract made from the leaves

common custom

to eat the

berries of Vaccinium uUgiitosum L. or in

the narrow-leafed willow herb (EpiloMinn

L.).

suggested by the

of of

should point

out that these berries are believed by some to have an intoxicating is

but

obviously due to a confusion with the production of alcohol through

fermentation. According to von Bibra,

different

effect, as

German names RuHsc/ibcere and Truiifcelteere.) Even though

obthere are a few reports of cases in which an effect of this kind has been withserved, there are many others of cases in which the berries were eaten

out any such

effect.

Ascherson believes that the reports of intoxication are

L. (crowberto a confusion of the berries with those ofEmpetnnii nigrinn But the fact seems to be ries), which are also called Rtiiisc/ibeere in German. that in describing that these also can be eaten without ill effects. I remember and his companions ate his crossing of Greenland. F. Nansen writes that he Nonvegens amounts of this fruit. (See also Schubeler. Pjlanzenwelt

due

tremendous .) [Flora of Norway], pp. 276 and 324 mushroom in a The most common practice, however, is simply eating the component passes unchanged dried state. It has been observed that the active been utilized to obtain a long into the urine, and this remarkable fact has mushrooms. relatively small quantity of .

series of successive effects

[Hartwich then quotes

The most of the 1. e.g.,

with a

Enderli in

full; vide

our

striking thing in this detailed account

mushroom

evidently

text. (19I

that the acti\e

urine, so that the excreted unchanged in the

Land), 1891. p. 379- Lewin, in E. Krause, Tiii5t<)-LiH4 (Tuisko Russian lexicon? not Hartwich look up mnfchemi)r in a

Why

pnn p

did

324

l.c.

ROW.

THB FLY-AGARIC

for purposes of intoxication,

drunk

no doubt whatever and this has also been

of the mushroom. There

latter retains the elTectivencss

that the urine

IN SIBERIA is

reported by other observers. According to Kennan,' however,

and more primitive Koryaks who know

settled

that the efticacy five

people

roonis,

seems strange

custom. \'on Bibra reports

be intoxicated by the same quantity of mush-

may

and then

directly

Apart from the

only the

not lost even after repeated consumption, so that four or

in succession

first

this

it is

indirectly.

fact that this

custom

at first glance that the

idea of drinking urine.

strikes us as highly unappetizing,

have been noticed by accident when

upon the of the urine might

Koryaks could ever have

course, the intoxicating a

man

efl'ect

hit

intoxicated with fly-agaric mis-

takenly drank the urine which he had collected in a container in the close quarters of the yurt.

must

also be

remembered, however, that urine was

not always and everywhere regarded as something repugnant.

Chinese

is still

used as a medicine, both

of the residue left after evaporation.

but even

our

own

although the role

medicament.

Franckfort

am Mayn,

middle of the

last

in the

form

occasionally has a role in folk use.

that of a sympathetic agent rather than a recognized

Heylsdine Drecfe-.lpal/iete, ...

and

the

Not only among the Chinese, however,

part of the world,

example. Kristian Frantz Paulini,

(Vide, for

done by sorcery

in its original state

Among

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;On how almost

ever)'

kind of.

*Veii-\'erme/irfe

illness,

and harm

means of excrement and urine of this book was printed about the

successfully cured by 1734.

century.

A new edition I

also have before

new

edition of another

which turns out to be an extract of Paulini's book.) If we go back several centuries, we find that science regarded urine not as merely a substance excreted by the body but as something with a special mystery about it. It was ideas of this kind that led Brand in Hamburg in 1670 Drecfc-.fpot/ieFe,

to seek the

philosophers stone in urine and to discover that

contained

phosphorus. It is

also

noteworthy that the mushroom-eater discovers the future

intoxication is

he follows certain prescribed formulas. Thus

a religious factor involved. In this

in his

see that there

same connection, von Bibra reports that

the shamans, the Siberian sorcerer-priests, use the mushroom to transport themselves into a state of ecstasy.* (This is not explicitly stated on page 136 of von Bibra 's book, but it is unmistakably clear from the context.) His dcsGeorge Kennan Tmt Life in Siberia, Leipzig. Rcclamschc Dibliochek. I.

Stoll.

und Hypnotismru

Ps>chology]. second edition. 1904.

iZ7tl

this state to

p. ,56

of D. Haikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

German

translation. Zcitleben

Sibirim

dtr Wlk^rpsychohgic [Suggestion and Hypnotism in Folk discusses the Siberian shamans and their tricks in detail but in

he attributes

i noises, dance movements, loud and auto-suggestion developed by practice. 1

325

EXHIBITS cription of the

some ways from

eflfects differs in

Enderli’s: the

symptoms

des-

cribed by von Bibra are, in general, not so severe, and the people in his account act in a

lively

manner - those with musical

ruption, while others converse, laugh, and

They

lose their sense of space

tell

talent sing without inter-

their secrets to

and leap into the

all

the world.

air in order to get over a

straw or other small object. Frequently, however, muscular strength

remarkably increased: one

pound weight

results

have seen,

(p.

German

156 of the

practice has been prohibited

this

stimulants.

intoxicated with fly-agaric carried a 120-

translation) -

who

rightly, that continued use of the fly agaric has very

-the

also

for about 10 miles.

According to Kennan

doubt quite

man

prohibition has had as

by the Russians

little effect as

says,

harmful

in Siberia; as

the prohibition of other

mushroom may the mushroom does not them by Russian dealers,

indication of the Koryaks’ craving for the

be found in the high prices they pay for

it.

Since

grow on the Koryaks’ own steppes, it is brought to and Kennan reports that he saw furs worth 25 rubles

paid for a single mush-

room.

[41I

Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. Pantheon Books. York. 1958. A translation from: Le Yoga: Immortalite et

Eliade, Mircea.

New

Liberte. Paris. 1954. pp. 338-9 (French text: p. 335). [In the following excerpts italic certain

from

passages on which

this writer's

will

books

we have

printed in

comment. - Rcw]

drugs {hemp, mushIn ihe sphere of shamanism, strictly speaking, intoxication by the original practice. For, rooms, tobacco, etc.) seems not to have formed part of a decadence among the on the one hand, shamanic myths and folklore record obtain ecstasy in the fashion shamans of the present day. who have become unable to

that where other, it has been observed of the ‘great shamans of long ago’; on the is also overis simulated, there trance the and decomposition shamanism is in shamanism itself, however, of sphere In the drugs. and indulgence in intoxicants mtoxicanon for between l/i/s (probably recent) phenomenon of

we must the

distinguish

purpose of forcing

for the

trance,

and the

ritual

purpose of increasing 'inner heat

326

consumption of burning substanc

IN SIBERIA

THK FLY-AGARIC

Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Pantheon Books. New York. 1964. A translation from: Le ('hamanisme ct les Techniques archaiques de I’Extase. Paris. p.477.(lTciu-h

ic.vt:

p.415)

that the use of narcotics

or of llutt

95 >-

But closer study of the problem gives the impression

rather, indicative of the decadence of a technique of ecstasy

is,

extension to ‘lower’ peoples or social groups. In any case,

its

the use

a/' niiriviics

(tolniaa. cfc.)

i.<

/i.iiv

ohserveJ

shamanism of the

rWatiVWy recotf in the

far

Northeast. the intoxication sought

from

further confirmed bv the extremely wide dis.semination of the Iranian

term

pp. 400-1. (French text: 300-1).

hemp

through Central Asia. In a

come

has iimsciiniis

nils). p(inl:li

of L'grian languages the Iranian

preeminently shamanic

means

ptnigii.

pungo. and

for

mushroom

hemp.

.Agiiriciis

‘mushroom’ (.-fguriciis miiscti‘mushroom.’ In northern \’ogul,

ptiiiWi,

Cheremis ponge.

‘intoxication, drunkenness.’

ecstasy induced by intoxication

The hymns

by mushrooms.* These

religious value of intoxication for achieving ecstasy

other Iranian influences on Central

.Asia,

which we

Ugrians. the technique of shamanic intoxication

to the divinities refer to

facts

prove that the magico-

of Iranian origin. .Added to the shall return.

the high degree of religious prestige attained by Iran.

this

word

used as a means of intoxication before or during the seance) and

compare, for example, the X’ogul

Mordvinian also

number

to designate both the

(which

intoxication:'

The importance of

It is

I»iiiig/iii

possible that,

illustrates

among

the

of Iranian origin. Eiut what does

prove concerning the original shamanic experience? Narcotics are only a vulgar

substitute for ’pure’ trance. B’e /uive uircadv

liUil

occasion to note

SitcriJH peoples; the use of iutoxicatits {alcohol, tobacco, etc.)

points to a decadence

p. 123.

ways and

called

no longer capable of attaining

‘easy ways’ of realizing mystical ecstasy or

decisive experience.

(French text: 202-4) Intoxication by

mushrooms

the spirits, but in a passive and crude way. But. as tedim'qiie iippeurs to be late

and

also produces contact with

we have

derivath-e. Intoxication is a

alreaily said, this

pp. 220-1. (French text: 201-2)

Ostyak of the Irtysh

Bernhardt Munkicsi, this reference to the

Summoned

-rcw] performs . Pilz’

shamanic

mechanical and corrupt

method of reproducing ‘ecstasy being ’carried out of oneself’; it tries model that is earlier and that belongs to another plane of reference.

2. tbid., p.

add?) vulgarization of a mystical technique -in India, and indeed all through the East, we constantly find this

strange mixture of diflacult

some other

and

othenvise. Decadence or (must

modern

shaman

seveni/

a recent innovation

shamanic technique. Narcotic intoxication

to provide an iniiMtion of a state that the

ancient and

l/iis Jlict lUiioiig

to a house, the

to imitate a

shaman [among the

fumigations and dedicates a piece of cloth to

und

‘Rausch’.; KeUii szemle. Budapest, vm. ,907. pp. 343-144. kindness of Stig Wikander. [Vide Exhibit [31] - rcw)'

344.

327

owe

EXHIBITS Supreme Being.* After fasting all day. at nightfall he takes a bath, eats three or seven mushrooms, and goes to sleep. Some hours later he suddenly wakes and, trembling all over, communicates what the spirits, through their ‘mesSanke, the

ce!esti.il

have revealed to him: the

senger’,

who made

the hunt

fail,

which

spirit to

must be made,

sacrifice

man

the

and so on. The shaman then relapses into deep sleep and on

the following day the specified sacrifices are offered.*

mushrooms

Ecstasy through intoxication by

other parts of the world bacco,

and we

while,

we may

has

its

counterpart

known throughout

Siberia. In

induced by narcotics or

in ecstasy

return to the problem of the mystical powers of toxins.

shall

note anomalies in the

rite just described.

ed to the Supreme Being, but communication

with the

that sacrifices are offered; shamanic ecstasy proper

mushrooms -a method, by

to-

Mean-

piece of cloth

offer-

and

them

spirits

it is

obtained by intoxication with

the way, which allows shamanesses, too, to

fall

into

similar trances, with the difference that they address the celestial god Sanke directly.

These contradictions show that there

a certain hybridism in the ideology under-

lying these techniques of ecstasy. As Karjalainen already observed,^

shamanism appears

Today

be comparatively recent

Professor Eliade enjoys

to hold the

words of comment on

time

at least

treatment of

his

As we have seen on pp. 165

the use of inebriating at a

when

mushrooms

ff,

carries

weight

among

probably

a ‘recent

Siberian shamans, a few

this vital aspect of his subject

there

seems

valid linguistic evidence that

back to the Uralic period,

Samoyed languages had not yet tongue, more than 6000 years ago.

the Ob-Ugrian and the

Professor Eliade does not

us what he means by the term recent phehe would not carry shamanic inebriation back

tell

nomenon’, but presumably

than, say, five centuries.

his conclusions,

word

of religions, and since he

histor)'

in Siberia goes

evolved out of their mother Uralic

and

his

view that the use of divine inebriants

phenomenon' among shamans, or called for.

derivative.

renown and

certain circles interested in the origin

seems

and

type of Ugrian

tfiis

and there

The

linguistic evidence

seems

to contradict

no evidence supporting them.

s books have presented the quotations from Professor Eliade intent, to reveal a trait deliberate with first, one order, the last inverse their I.

of his thinking. I.

The

L^bid.,

original

ni,

306

meaning of iinke was Tuminous.

similar

custom

attested

Die Religion der shining, light’. (K.F. Karjalainen:

among

Sacrifices the Tsingala (Ostyak).

amanessM mushrooms and falls into a trance. S they visit S^ e methods: achieving ecstasy by mushroom intoxication, Supreme Being himself {tbid.. which they reveal what they have learned from the Sanke, the

shaman

eats three

Jochelson, The Koryak, n. 58I-5833.

ibid:

III,

315

ff-

[Vide Exhibit [16] -

row]

328

p. 3 7).

The

cxtr.ict that

THE FLY'ACARIC

we have quoted from

his

IN SIBERIA book on

^ oga gives

no source or

himself. He speaks ex cut/iedru. The authority for his statements, not even ‘shamanic myths and folklore reader is not told where one may consult the .

how 'myths and folklore’ would document a decadence in ‘great shamanism, nor do we know whom he quotes w hen he cites the We do not know w hy divine inebriation is a ‘(probashamans of long ago’ That there is decadence in shamanism among bly recent) phenomenon nor

clear

‘

minor

the

world

nationalities ol the

clear

and sell-explanatory,

as their

imelstrom of the modern world. It is also But tliis true that in their disarray these peoples have taken to hard liquor. proves nothing as to the antiquity of divine inebriation, and in particular feeble cultures founder in the

from the indigenous mushrooms of Siberia. 477 of Professor Eliade s book on shamanism he repeats the same

dis ine inebriation

thought: the use of narcotics (tobacco,

manism

of the far Northeast’.

probably does not

mean

etc.)

relatively recent in the sha-

*we have observed’ this, says •

volume there

says, in this

eastern shamanism. There

this fact

conclusion

no discussion of inebriation

discussion of

in far

Ob-Ugrian shatnanism,

North-

in the far

Siberia.

401 Professor Eliade says:

among

tobacco, etc.) '.

volume. He gives no page reference. But, contrary to what

earlier in the

West of

•

that he has observed this in the far Northeast.

probably means that he has discussed the tnatter and arrived at

bv which he

we have

‘We have

already had occasion to note

several Siberian peoples: the use of intoxicants (alcohol. a recent innovation’.

turn back, and on

223 he says,

already said this shamanic technique appears to be late and

by mushrooms. Again we look back and 220 we find the subject mentioned once more: ‘As Karjalainen already

derivative’, referring to intoxication

observed, this type of Ugrian

and ‘. .

shamanism appears

derivative’. In the satne

to be

comparatively recent

passage he includes this surprising phrase,

shall return to the mystical

powers of

toxins’!

And

so the reader has

found himself shunted back, and back, and back, and again back, only now to be shuttled forward. His statements that the shamanic use of mushrooms is a recent

him

innovation stand unsupported. His reference to Karjalainen gives no comfort, as the reader will see from [26] where we quote in full

the relesant passage. Karjalainen

technique.

discussing the fine points of

shamanic

seems that the Ostyak shamans of the Irtysh regions have

re-

cently influenced the other comunities in certain particulars. Karjalainen has nothing to say about the span of time during which the shamans

have used

the fly-agaric to achieve ecstasy.

329

EXHIBITS we have quoted from page 400 of his work on shamanism. Professor Eliade makes a number of flat assertions about the etymon of the word used among certain Finno-Ugric peoples, especially the ObUgrians, for ‘mushroom’ and ‘fly-agaric’. He says that this word is derived In the excerpt that

from

meaning ‘hemp’

hashish, marijuana) in Iranian.

as his authority for this derivation the

Munkacsi turns out

Hungarian

quotes

philologist Munkacsi, but

have been more cautious than Professor

kacsi said in 1907 that he sees in bdnglia

and in pango

cite

Eliade.

Mun-

only one of the

Finno-Ugric variants) the same word, and he advances the hypothesis that the Uralic peoples took their words for inebriation from the Aryans. (We

quote Munkacsi

Munkacsi leaves the question open when the borrowing took place and his wording even permits the reader to ask whether the borrowing may not have taken place before the Aryans in full in [32].)

emigrated to what has since been called Iran. Other philologists in the Finno-Ugric languages

specializing

have been inclined to disagree with Munkacsi,

but Professor Eliade does not quote them. {Vide Lehtisalo [24a] and Balazs [38].) Professor Eliade says,

'These facts prove that the magico-religious value

of intoxication for achieving ecstasy

facts,

he has asserted

as facts

of Iranian origin.’ But he has given us

what

his

own

philological speculation,

and from these speculative remarks he has gone on

draw

religious

conclusions that are non-sequiturs.

Apparently the Iranian sources offer no support to Professor

Eliade’s case.

His Shamanism appeared in French in 1951. In the same year the Oxford University Press brought out Professor Walter B. Henning’s Ratanbai Katrak Witch Doctor!

Lectures delivered in 1949 under the

title Zoroaster: Politician or

At the end of

eminent Iranian scholar found

his

second lecture

inebriating derivatives of

century is

this

hemp were unknown

at the earliest, that the Persian

a borrowing

homonym

from

bang, a

Hyoscyamus

word bang in

in Iran before the

the sense of ‘Indian

India, that in Iran this Indian

word used

most or

Persian bang in the sense of ‘hemp’ appears for the It

word

nth

hemp

collided with a

Avestan times for a number of

in Iran since

species (the English ‘henbane’),

writings of the 13th century.

that the

all

of which are

first

time

lethal.

medical

surprising that the English edition of

S/jamnnism appeared in 1964 without taking into account the discoveries

made

since the first edition.

Even without the evidence

that Professor

borrowing of the name for the Professor Eliade alleges,

its

Henning adduces, an Ob-Ugnan

from Iran in the recent past, as contrary unlikely. Are we to suppose,

fly-agaric

face

only late in the day the discovered tribesmen the probability, that to all that having is and fly-agaric, familiar the peculiar inebriating virtue of

330

THH FLY-AGARIC

IN SIBERIA

distant Iranian they crossed rivers and mountains to reach the the name of anothei plateau where it does not grow, and there borrowed slightest, and brought the plant that outwardly does not resemble it in the mushroom home, and that thereafter everyone called the spectacular

covered

name

by a new, foreign name?

may have Professor Hliade suggests that the Ob-Ugrian shamanic practices been borrowed from Iran along with the word. But the use of the mushroom is

certainly indigenous.

role lor inebriants in

shamanism, including

hallu-

mushrooms, has sprung up spontaneously in many unrelated of the New and the Old Worlds. There is every reason to think that the

cinogenic parts

inebriating

mushroom

in its religious role

millennia old, long ouidating

the emigration of the Aryans to the Iranian plateau. Professor Fdiadc then gives expression to his feelings about the shamanic use of inebriants; Narcotics are only a vulgar substitute for ‘pure’ trance.

had occasion to note

among

this fact

into.xicanis (alcohol, tobacco, etc.)

dence

imitatieii

shaman

a recent innovation

have already

several Siberian peoples; the use ot

shamanic technique. Narcotic intoxication of a state that the

and points

called

to a deca-

to provide

no longer capable of attaining otherwise.

His preference on moral grounds for other techniques to attain ecstasy has art'ected his critical faculty

question:

how

old

Professor Eliade

when he

discusses

what

purely an historical

ntushrooni inebriation?

lumps

inebriants together.

all

Here

his habitual

way

of referring to them, as quoted from his books; .

intoxication

by drugs (hemp, mushrooms, tobacco,

-(from Yoga:

ItnutorlalUy

ami

etc.)

FreeJotn)

... the use of narcotics (toKicco, etc.)

- (from 5 li<im<iiiis>n, .

p. 477)

the use of intoxicants (alcohol, tobacco,

-(from For the

S/iii»i<Jnisin, p.

modem

etc.)

4ot)

lumping together of diverse psychotropic the enormous differences among them, is crude. Let the

toxicologist this

drugs, obliterating

reader note the catch-all expression, ‘etc.’. Professor Eliade does not even take the first step, which is to distinguish between fermented drinks and distilled alcohol.

Apparently

the French

which

which also

alcool.

his translator ignores the difference

limited to the

between

and the English 'alcohol’, embraces fermented beverages such as beer and wine. The is

331

distillate,

EXHIBITS discovery of the distillation technique was a sensational development

the

never adequately documented and commented on. The technique of distilling potable alcohol seems to have been devised only once, by the school of Salerno, in about A. D. iioo.‘ (‘Alcohol* is an ^

Arabic word but

Arabic

existence for

some

tablishments,

in 1531. In

as A. D. 1530

the water of to

meant

‘mascara’.) After leading an obscure

centuries in alchemical laboratories and monastic esleapt into prominence and importance in the i6th century.

brandy

Schiibeler [42] says that

Norway

England

but by 1550 life.

(i.e.,

‘burnt wine’)

seems not

was cheap.

first

became known

have been widely known as late was everywhere called aqua vitae,

In Russia the sources say that the art of distilling penetrated

Moscow through merchants,

the Black Sea route, perhaps brought from Italy by

Sigismund von Herberstein on a diplomatic mission to Muscovy describing a banquet in the Kremlin* in Italian

in the early i6th century.

1526 says:

...

At length, the servers going out for food

which they always drink

at the

commencement

Yermak’s invasion of

Siberia in 1580

of that land, and

marked

first

brought

out

life

the beginning of the conquest

probable that hard liquor became known to the

of any people?

The outlying

in recent centuries sporadically

right in saying that

indigenous religious

Tobacco was cultures

life

use in

became

races of the

world

a role in the

may

have

tried

and spasmodically, but Professor Eliade

shamanism marks the dying phase

in the

of the Siberians.

still is)

and on other solemn elsew'hcre

its

a gift of the

was (and

viiae,

of dinner.

tribesmen through the Russians. Has hard liquor ever played religious

aqua

New World

to the Old. In the

a holy plant used in the religious

occasions.

a habit

Among

Europeans and

American Indian life

of the Indians

their descendants

and an addiction but played no

role in religion.

But after tobacco reached Siberia, probably also

in the latter part of the i6th

century or at the latest in the 17th century,

astonishing

that

connotation was

V'iWe R. J.

how

quickly the

shamanism, thus recapturing for it the religious religious has always had for the American Indians. This ways of comseized upon and quickly integrated into the

tribesmen adapted

meaning

it is

Forbes: Short History of

the

Art of

Distillation. Brill.

Leiden. 1948. pp.

31. 88-89.

appears, an in Bile. 1551. P- HA.ftqua v-twe In the Latin text. RerHiii AfoicovitiMnini CowpnfnMrii. ‘ ... Venice. 1550. foho 77 verso, the Italian translation. ConitnenMni della MorconVi was already in 1516 established as a 2.

vodka Apparently from Herberstcins words the pre-prandial vod.. an affec.ionate cusL. We do not know when it came to be called vodho. from we find vodka in Kamienski Id (The English and Russian words arc cognate.) Already •water’.

332

mis

niunitics th.ii

can Indians’ tobacco

were

when

in a si.ige

these

became adapted lightlv

draw

t)t

were

their cultural evolution similar to the

seen by Huropeans. Let

lirst

Amei

be noted that

Shamanism without the iniluence ol the Here lies a wholesome object lesson for those

to Siberian

cultures.

American Indian

who would

FLY-ACARIC IN SIBHRIA

TllK

inferences ol trans-Racific contacts merely on the

strength of parallel usages.

When he

Professor Bliade

lumps the

committing an anachronism,

to the forests of Siberia

and

fly-agaric with

hard

liejuor

forgets that the fly-agaric

l-le

and tobacco, is

indigenous

that, for the cater, the effects arc utterly different

He says that narcotics are only a vulgar substitute for pure trance.’ Would he have said this in 1951 about the Soma that inspired the hymns of the Rg\ eda? We know incomparably more about the world of psychotropic drugs than was known even as late as 1951, when Professor from hard

liquor.

’

‘

work on shamanism was

Hliade’s

by unbalanced or childish people that speak for their use. The West secrets.

judge

There

The abuses of these drugs arc reported in the press do not

published.

first

on the threshold of penetrating

an une.xplored world before

us,

their

and we should not pre-

it.

All over the world,

wherever anthropologists ha\e been making their

way, they have been finding the native peoples utilizing as shamanic inebriants natural plant products. W’ith astonishing resourcefulness untutored folk, or rather their herbalists, in ages past call

how

them, and

best to prepare

them

discovered these 'drugs’, as for medico-religious ends.

The

and the methods of treating them are often secrets of the be had for the asking. Sometimes the inquirer is initiated into

plants themselves

shaman, not to

the mystery, only to suspect that he has not been told the

full story. In this

book we present the testimony of many witnesses on the use of the fly-agaricin Siberian shamanism. But Kannisto [33] tells us e.xpressly that mushrooms in addition to

remarkable

same purpose in the Vogul area, a Chukotka by Ivan Lopatin. In the Vogul

the fly-agaric serve the

fact

confirmed for the

case the deficiency in in the searchers

our knowledge

attributable rather to the lack of zeal

than to concealment by the natives.

To this day no one in the Western world can tell us what those other mushrooms are. The inebriants used in food-gathering communities seem to be myriad, their use going back to pre-history. Each presents a problem to our biochemists and pharmacologists, whose abilities are taxed to isolate the active agents, to describe their molecular structure, to synthesize

them, and

to explore their

potentialities.

The thinking of the West

obsessed with alcohol as the sole inebriani: down-grade and ignore the natural intoxicants that primitive man discois

333

EXHIBITS vered long ago by himself: their possibilities. a late

The

comer on the

distillate

are loath,

we seem

of alcohol

-what

to be afraid, to discover

the French

call Tfllcool-is

stage of history, but in the perspective of the past of

homo sapiens even fermented drinks are relatively recent.

how the peoples of Siberia could have mastered

It is

hard

to see

the art of fermentation before

they acquired the technique of making pottery or wineskins. Even today

Kuma of New Guinea) white man brought them in.

the tropics there are primitive peoples (such as the

who It is

did not

know fermented

significant that the Uralic

drinks until the

word

for ‘inebriation’

taken from the

name

for the fly-agaric: in the sequence of history the food-gatherers

must have

discovered the natural inebriants long before they learned the

art, tricky

for those w'ho

performed

it first,

of fermentation.

and Sem, Y. A. ‘Ethno-pharmacological Investigation of some Drugs of Siberian and Far-Eastern Minor Nationalities.’ Paper submitted to the Symposium on the Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psycho-active Drugs held at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, on January 28-30, 1967.

Brekhman,

I.,

[This paper by two Soviet scientists based in Vladivostok the information that

contains and also because

it is, I

ance out of the U.S.S.R. on the use of the fly-agaric tribesmen.

The

attitude of the Soviet

Union toward

sion in the concluding paragraphs of the paper.

of interest for

think, the

among

first utter-

the Siberian

this practice finds expres-

will be observed that they

entirely on what do not write from personal experience: they rely almost superseded Krasheninnikov [4] wrote more than two centuries ago a source by many others today. - rgw]

Various narcotics and stimulants had been used

or as intoxicating liquors

Siberia and the Far East. of nationalities minor by the medicine popular in and its substitutes, Appertaining to them is the use of fly-agaric, tobacco,

alcoholic drinks, root of ginseng,

Fly-agaric {Amanita muscaria)

peoples of

young

had been used

Kamchatka and Chukotka

The use of fly-agaric on To it belong Evenki. Eveni. Udegay.

a vast scale

Manchu, Oroki; and of the Amur and Sakhalin.

antlers of the maral, etc. mostly by the palsoasiatic

Yukagir). (Itelmen, Koryak. Chukchi.

was unknown to

all

the Tungus worl

Solon Neguidaltsi, Nanai. Ujchi, Orochi of the peoples, the Nivkhi [Gilyak]

palteoasiatic

334

IN SIBERIA

THE FLY-AGARIC

had been used with aims of: difficulties. 3) instilling one’s nerve

Flv-agaric certain

.nnd wars,

and

one of the

first

in the

during a performance of

explorers of Kamchatka and

merry-making.

overcoming

time of inier-tribal clashes Stepan Krasheninnikov.

rituals. its

population, thus described the

good cheer use of fly-agaric by the Itelmen (Kamchadal) and Koryak; 'For herewith we they at times use fly-agaric, too, that is familiar among us; exterminate

At some other place he remarks that Kamchadal and

flies’.

sedentary Koryak eat fly-agaric

when

they design to

kill

some

one’.^

There were known two ways of the use of fly-agaric, in its natural state and in the way of infusion. Fly-agaric was picked in spring, in summer, not often in autumn. For the use of fly-agaric in its natural state the gathered fungi dry cool place and were slightly desiccated. 'As need be’, Krasheninnikov, ‘dry mushrooms when rolled are swallowed whole,

were kept wrote

the which

in a

way

were soaked drastic

in great usage’.

in water.

For making an infusion the caps of the fungi

.After 5-6

days the infusion could be used.^

was an infusion of fly-agaric

willow-weed wash. They prepared the

from willow-weed (Epilehiiim ungHStj/ohum L) having boiled it down to a sweet and thick wash. In days of old fly-agaric had been used in Siberia and latter

Kamchatka

for a

homebrew or added

intense excitement frequently ending in in

underproof vodka, which led

murder or

suicide

and now and again

death as a result of poisoning.'-*

twofold use of fly-agaric and

tionalities

its

infusion

was known

to the

minor

na-

of North-East of Asia - the so-called 'moderate' and ‘immoderate’.

The Itelmen [Kamchadal] themselves considered the use of the fungus up to four mushrooms at a time as moderate, which contributed to an increase of organism resistance to fatigue, took an application, wrote

S. P.

off weariness, acted tonically.

Krasheninnikov, ‘they

feel

After such

within themselves

extraordinary ease, mirth, valour and nerve’. After an

immoderate

from 5 to 10 fungi at a time, would come a effect which was accompanied by intoxication and

use.

second stage of fly-agaric

hallucinations. S. P. Krasheninnikov.*

who

observed

person the effect of

on Itelmen and Kamchadal. wrote: ‘The first and usual sign whereupon ye can apprize of a person being wrought up with the mushroom is a twitch of limbs which would come in an hour or less, thereafter the drunk fly-agaric

rave as in a fever; and they be:

from

this cause

great horror.

of a sea

ure

apparitions, ugly or cheery, as their

some go a-hopping and some

To some,

But

dream

slit

a-dancing,

all

temper

being in

taketh a view of a big door and a spoon of water

needs must be thought of those that use it beyond measThe use of more than 10 fungi at a time led to a fatal end. .

The second

this

stage of intoxication was, probably,

335

accompanied by

tem-

EXHIBITS porary partial paralysis and exuberant hallucinations, by involuntary actions. ‘All their actions are so harmful that of persons left heedless scarcely any would escape with life.’ During S. P. Krasheninnikov’s stay in Kamchatka the

Cossacks and Russian servants of government also acquired from the Itelmen the habit of fly-agaric use with the aim of intoxication. It served them as a

was known among the inhabitants of Kamvisions of infernal regions and fire-spitting abyss’,

substitute for alcohol. Its effect

chatka as extravagancies

and an inclination to confess one’s sins; attempts Everybody addicted to fly-agaric accounted for been

at suicide, etc.

had

his actions as if they

obedience to the order of Omnipotent Mushroom. In the opinion of

the Chukchi ‘inebriant

strong and

mushrooms

when growing

them into and crush them dissect

are a special tribe (anra-varat).

arc

they break through thick roots of trees and

halves with their sturdy heads. to bits.

They

Fly-agaric appears to

strange and man-like. Thus a certain

They shoot through stones drunken men in a shape

mushroom appeared

of a single-armed and single-legged man, and another was

in the like a

shape

stump.

mushrooms themselves. Their number seen by a man corresponds to the number of fungi eaten by a man. If a man ate one mushroom, he would see one man-mushroom; if he ate two or three, then he would see their respective number. The mushrooms take a man by the hand and lead him to the other world, they show him all that is there, make him do all kinds of unbelievable things. The ways of mushrooms are They

are not ghosts, they are

tortuous.

They

visit

the land

where the dead

live.’*

The effect of the fly-agaric continued until the products were evacuated from the system of a man. Even the urine of this man would have an inebriating S. P.

effect.

‘With sedentar)' Koryaks the fungus

Krasheninnikov, ‘that a drunken

floor,

man is not

but they put a vessel before him, and

in so

high esteem

wrote

allowed to pass water on the

his urine they drink

and run

mad

had eaten the mushroom’. By the customary law of the minor nationalities of Chukotka and Kamwomen was chatka the use of fly-agaric was permitted only to men. Its use by like those that

prohibited.

they after eating Interesting are observations of fly-agaric action on deer, sleep: the meat of fbngi and the following violent excitement fall into a deep

such deer, the Koiy'ak vouched, acted on a

man

inebriatingly.*

the Itelmen of Kamchatka, herb The secret of its pro

The northern group of nationalities. espedaUy

had had another stimulant - wine from sweet sedentary Kory as in and Cossacks Russian to them from duction passed Itelmens used the ‘sweet her the i6th and 17th centuries. For making wine making grass sugar and wine Heracleum duke Fisch. sem. Umhellifer<e). For .

336

THE FLY-AGARIC

were used young spring stems,

IN SIBERIA

women. To put on gloves. The

hich were usually gathered by

plant they avoid the influence of the poisonous juice of the bags and kept there until sugar stored bunches of stems were put in grass

was educed on the stems. Grass sugar was used

for

making various kinds of

Itelmcn dainties, beverage, etc. Sometimes the ‘sweet herb’ w as eaten, like betel, in

its

fresh natural state.

chewing was similar to that of alcoholic intoxication. The wine dough. ‘sweet herb’ was mostly used for making wine. First was made For this aim the ‘sweet herb’ was put in warm water and leavened with

The

eflect of its

honeysuckle or bog bilberry. The mixture prepared thus was kept in warmth, which contributed to fermentation. As soon as fermentation ceased the wine

dough was considered to be ready. Usually,

this

required about a day. For

making wine the ‘sweet herb' now in a large quantity was soaked in warnt water and leavened with dough, and in a day they began distillation. At first, as

S. P.

Krasheninnikov notes, comes wine of proof similar to that of vodka,

then comes

a softer

mordant even

iron.

The strength of vodka

wine.

Itelmens attest that

this

such that

it is

possible to

wine ‘presses on the heart very

much’ and ‘decreases sex appeaT. G. V. Steller, another explorer of Katnchatka, thus described the effect of ‘herbal wine’:

whosoever partaketh of it but

by queer phantasies

all

few goblets he

harassed

night and the next day he feels melancholy just as

he had committed some crime'.’ So the effect of the wine from the ‘sweet herb’

was similar

to that of fly-agaric in

some measure.

During a shamanic rite the Nanai, Udegay, Ulchi, and Orochi used to employ

some

plants that

made

a specific influence on the psychic state of a person,

which, probably, promoted to an arrival of mass hypnosis so needed during a rite.

Usually

was the leaves of Ledum, which passed under the

name

of'senkura’ with the Nanai, ‘sengkuro’ with the Ulchi, ‘sengkia’ with the

Udegay. ‘synkiu ’with the Orochi,

etc.

L and Ledum hypoleucum Kom. The

They used

employ Ledum

palustre

desiccated leaves stored beforehand

were put on the hearth or on a frying pan. A strong active smell in a small dwelling would stupefy those present at the rite. Probably, in some measure it

calmed the

sick as

w'as

employed

at ritual exercises over the sick.

Undoubtedly, the psychoactive drugs employed by the minor nationalities of Siberia and the Far East are not studied yet completely and require further investigations

The minor

by ethnographers and pharmacologists. nationalities of Siberia

and the Far East now do not use any

psychoactive drugs, which have been relinquished because of radical changes in

economy,

culture,

mode

of life, and ideolog}^ of the population of this part

of the Soviet Union. After the October Socialist Revolution and the establish-

337

EXHIBITS merit of the Soviet

Power

these not

numerous

nationalities have

embarked

new way

of historical development. Formerly backward nationalities of one of borderlands of Russia, with the help of the Russian people and Soviet a

Power, passing through intermediate socialist

stages, they

have soon reached the

phase of social development.

LITERATURE USED 1.

Balov,

Poisonous fungi. Medicine Gazette

2 . Bogoraz, V. G. lish.

The Chukchi. Part

Glavsevmorput Publishing

Krasheninnikov,

S. P.

40, 1428, 1912.

Religion. Authorized translation

from Eng-

Co., Leningrad, 1939.

Description of the land of Kamchatka, V0I.2. St Petersburg,

1775.

Edible and poisonous mushrooms. Medguiz Publishing Co.,

Orlov, N.

Tikho.mirov, V. A. Edible and poisonous mushrooms. Moscow, 1879.

338

1953.

THE FLY-AGARIC

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o one who

Europecan ignore the debate

discusses the fly-agaric in

that has been carried

Samuel

this issue. First

Schiibcler in 1886

for

almost two centuries

Odman

in 17S4

Scandinas

and then Fredrik Christian

thesis that those \ iking warriors

propounded the

as 'berserks’ ate the fly-agaric before

known

they ‘went berserk’:

was deliberately caused by the ingestion of our spotted amanita. Apparently the argument went to Odman and

short, that ‘berserk-raging’

Schiibelcr by default, because today in the

them

here present in

full

what they

said in presenting

number

of their followers,

iews. as well as the utterances of a

eminent professors 1

find their thesis incorporated

Scandinavian cncycloptcdias and the school history books. In

fairness to

their

all

them.

\\'ish

could agree with them.

add also a part of the account of a tragic episode that happened

Hungary Swedish

at the

end

of the

woman who was

second World War. in 1945, written by there at the time. There

in a

a curious

statement about a fungal decoction said to have been used bv the Russian troops that occupied briefly the

341

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43 ]

[

Odman. Samuel. ‘Forsok. at utur Naturcns Historia forklara de nordiska gamla Klimpars Berscrka-gang. (An attempt to Explain the Berserk-raging of Ancient Nordic Warriors through Natural HLstorv) Nya Handlingar. published by the Kungliga \'etenskaps

Akademien.

\'ol. 5.

Stockholm.

1784- pp- 240-247-

In the oldest chronicles of our country

want of

incidents which, for

not infrequently cotne across

knowledge of natural

history, arc cither ex-

plained quite erroneously or risk being relegated, through the injustice ot the

myths of the dark

scholar, to the

ages.

sure that

not mistaken

include in this category the accounts, preserved in the old Norse Sagas,

concerning the

Berserf’s

under the name of

of ancient times, and the celebrated frenzies which,

(Going Berserk), are described

Berserfca-gang

such

curious wise.

not for me, nor

It is

length.

this the place, to discuss these prodigies of

brief outline will suffice to pave the

way

History at

for the present enquire.

These warriors, according to the military thinking of their times necessary adjuncts for the aims of their warlords, but also often feared by the Prince in

whose

were employed, are depicted more

service they

human

beings.

As soon

as the Berserk-fury

to rage like ravening wolves, recoiling

wild beasts than

came over them, they were seen

from neither

fire

nor

iron,

braving the

direst perils, rushing at the

most redoubtable enemy, biting their own shields, etc., or, if no enemy were at hand, venting their fury on inanimate objects, uprooting trees, overturning rocks, and in their exalted state scarcely distinguishing friend from foe. King H.^lfd.-vn’s Berserks are portrayed in Hrolf’s Saga

the following interesting manner: ‘On these warriors’, the account reads, ‘there at times fell such a fur}- that they could not control in

themselves but slaughtered

and minded not what they ing; but

when

left

man and

did.

While

of this

sickness,

The

and

this fur>’ lasted

also given in

and

all

that stood in their

this fury lasted

way

they stopped at noth-

thent they were so powerless that they did not have half

of their normal strength, and were as

some

beast,

weak

they had just recovered from

about one day.’

Hervarar Saga,

at the battle that

illuminating

took place

example

Samsey.

shown towards these heroes was always mingled with a sort of secret hatred, even in heathen times, for which their arrogance no doubt gave good cause. With the peaceful principles that the first respect

Christian

preachers tried to all

the Barbarians of the north, the Berserks soon lost their prestige, as an alleged connection with the devil caused instil in

their skill

343

EXHIBITS and

be viewed with even greater horror. To be sure, fighting did not cease altogether, but the difference in attitude made it no longer their trade to

permissible to use such sinister aids for the purpose. So the science died out

with

its

sought other than ascribing spirits, so that

this

no further clue to the mystery was to the assistance and co-operation of unclean

practitioners; for a long time it

not only did Prof. Verelius

call it a diabolical art,'

but even

century two dissertations published at Uppsala propounded the same

no doubt exaggerated accounts of these which have been handed down to us, have been taken all too

theory,* probably because the fighters literally. I

am not of the opinion

effect of

some

that these transports should be viewed solely as the

motions can be induced by

temperament whereby such extraordinary mind in a state of violent ferment for, although

special quality of a

are not entirely without examples which could support such an

sumption, the persons

who

from such

suffer

afflictions,

are not able to maintain the defiant arrogance which

hated even in times of peace.

as-

between paroxysms,

made

the Berserks so

the other hand, since the Plant-kingdom

mind and inducing the most frenzied attacks of folly, I am inclined to believe that the Berserks knew of some such intoxicating substance which they used when occasion demanded affords several

means of creating such disorder

and which they kept

as a secret

in the

among themselves so

that their prestige with

the public would not be diminished on account of the simplicity of the means

employed. That Opium could produce exactly the same effects is a matter of common of the knowledge. What we are told on this subject about the inhabitants island of Celebes

matches

and

their

opium-induced frenzies when they go

to battle

Norse Berserks of old. Kempfer’S common practice in his day, in Java, and

in every detail the accounts of the

reports of the frenzies which were

that opium so strongly support the possibility Alpinus can very well could turn people into Berserks, that the testimony of could have taught our since as yet no voyage to the Levant

went by the name of Hamuk,^ be omitted.-* But ancestors this

means: since

as yet

no Allen or Dillenius had

pra^a. who. on page One by Mr. HAhtNELL in 1709. De Magia Hyperborecrum

Episc.

on page

Dedicawria

Hist,

42.

sugg«

Mr. probably brcughi on by the devil: the other by dealing Berserks o/the eharge 0/ have liked to oeqait the he regrets that

the devil, he dare not take

their defence in the

matt^.

Opii deglu.iunt bolum. quo 3. Am. E«or. F.sc, 3. p. 649. s. adco ut stricto pugione, mstar ign ratio, et infraaius redditur animus, inimicos tniddaiuri. excurrant, obvios quosvis, sive amicos. sivc 4.

discovere

de Med. Aeg. page ut.

344

exasperatur, turbatur

THE FLY-AGARIC

II.

SCANDINAVIA

still less reason prepare opium from ihe poppy-buds of Europe, and there is have been thought ot at that time in to conclude that such attempts could succeeded in the case of Lindestolpe. S\\ eden. although they subsequently

resin. one cannot reasonably trace Berserk frenzies to this intoxicating northern climes, the example' If .Urepu Bc’ll.i Demui u ere indigenous to our

given by .Mr. Gmelin the younger would throw considerable light on the question of Berserks. The same applies to several intoxicating substances

found .•\

in India.*

suitable preparation could also be

would be

sufficient to bring

hemp

whether the

vet certain

made from

this periodic

the

Hemp

which

leal,

bout of frenzy.’ But since

it is

not

of our climate corresponds to the southern

which gives the Persians, Indians and Egyptians their Bangve. whose intoxicating properties have alreadv been noted by G.ale.no, and of which the \arietv

Turks

use a mixture to strengthen their tobacco, according to Dr.

still

Ri ssel’s observations.* like the ancient Scythians who, according to Ti s,

w ere made giddy

stones,

and

North

used for

it is

the head from the

also certain that this East Indian plant

such an early period, there this

Of those

no likelihood

known

to have

some

the

could have been

and others

powerful

effect or

serks incapable ot

which either

a large dose

required to obtain such

etTect,

they bring on drowsiness and apathy.

sfraHiomuHi should also merit special consideration as to

judritiwii, LoIiuhi tre-

whose influence is more likely to have rendered the Bercommitting the excesses ascribed to them in as much as,

having a more soporific

unknown

in this connection,

intoxicating properties, although not in

JHif/enium

its

properties,

our Physicians, have been the subject of

new

Datum

which are

studies

by the

G.melin.*

Of all Swedish to

might be considered

degree to warrant attention, such as Cru»ibe

same Mr.

thrown on hot

was not known

that

sufficient

not

seeds,

purpose.

native plants of ours which

several are

smoke of its

Herodo-

plants,

be the one w hich

however. I consider the Fly-.'\garic. Agaricu.s

really solves the

mystery of the Berserks.

Jiiuscarius.

Its

use

widespread in Northern Asia that there are hardly any nomadic tribes there that do not use it in order to deprive themselves of their feelings and

senses

that they

may

enjoy the animal pleasure of escaping the salutary bonds of

Russian Journey. \

Diss. Linn. Inebriantia. S.

Alpin. ic. p. 121.

Tc. p. 645.

Nai. Hist, of Aleppo, page 83.

Gmelin J.f. Tom.

he used them

for.

ol. 3, p. 361. 15

Kemph. i.

p. 43.

grains in wine

A man who gathered

and repUed

that

one put them

made

a Persian soldier lighi-hcadcd.

the seeds of Datura at X oronezh in

345

beer to

make

was asked what

the intoxication greater.

EXHIBITS The Ostyaks. the Samoycd, the Yukagir and others use it daily, and the Clinfec/ii whose rigorous ic\- climate does not produce this mushroom, reason.

obtain

by bartering

their reindeer,

which are

their

most valuable

possession.

The dose of this poisonous substance is from i to 4 mushrooms, according to size. The Ostyaks can only tolerate one. or use a decoction of 3.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The Kamchadal drink

with a decoction of Epilohium.* Those

become meny,

first

so that they sing, shout,

etc.,

who

then

use this

mushroom

attacks the functions

of the brain and they have the sensation of becoming veiy big and strong: the frenzy increases and

movements. The

and

accompanied by unusual energ)- and convulsive

sober persons in their

do no violence

see that they

less.

Then

to themselves

company or others.

often have to watch them to

The raving

lasts 12

hours,

lassitude sets in, culminating in complete exhaustion

sleep. Steller^ reports the curious fact that the urine of persons

the influence of this

And

that the

mushroom

Tungus Shamans,

drum, are accustomed able to

fall

possesses the

same

under

intoxicating properties.

magic

in the ceremonial use of their so-called

to swallow a goodly draught of this urine so as to be

into the epilepsy or ecstatic trance proper to this

ceremony has

been attested by Mr. Georgi*. with several pertinent comments,

his

description of the peoples under the Russian Imperial Government. T.

pages 329. 336.

What seems fact that

Aesir,

its

use

the

from the part of Asia whence Odin, with

his

to point particularly to the Fly-Agaric in this case

a custom

made his celebrated migration to our North. For although

art subsequently devised a short cut to this ignominious abuse,

the less still

mushroom

the distiller

and the use of

accordingly ceased in the region of the Danube,

none the

which spread from that point with the northward-migrating Hordes, with used it. And that the histor)' of the Berserks in our North begins

the arrival of Odin, possible evidence

find not only accepted

by those who have produced

from the dark annals of antiquity, but

all

also consistent with

who with a dozen raving men could make himself among alien tribes. The honour other warriors uon

the designs of a warlord so feared

and secure

as a malefactor, by slaying a Berserk, whom they looked upon And as this mushroom, seems to prove that the custom was not a native one. the human body and makes emaciates prematurely substances, similar like s effect of inculcating Odin the had have may it clumsy, it insensitive and

for themselves

over

good time, through a voluntary death, might not be dimme that the honour of the proven hero

principle of going to Valhalla in

the precipice, so 1.

Vide Gcorgi [6] - RCW.

Vide Krasheninnikov {4] - Rcw. Vide Stellcr [5] - rcw.

346

THE FLY-AGARIC

II.

especially as scatecraft

demanded

SCANDINAVIA

that a Berserk, as the foremost miliiia-man.

should be regarded as invincible.

Odmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s account

[In

have printed

italic

the crucial sentence, the

source of much misunderstanding. (Morner (asl relies on

Here

it,

quoting it

in full.)

is:

The sober persons in their company [i.e., those who have taken the fly-agaric - rgw] often have to watch them to see that they do no injury to themselves or others. This statement

disclose a single case fly-agaric effect

unjustified.

where

careful reading of our

a Siberian tribesman

many

On the contrary, the

calm the subject, to put him into a benign mood. Nor

reason to believe that this

fails to

under the influence of the

threatened either himself or others with injury.

Exhibits

a question of dosage.

Members

there any

of the lower

orders of the Riissium community, discovering in the i8th century a surprising

new

jumping to the conclusion that it must be similar to vodka but even more extraordinary, threaten themselves with injury when inebriant and

under

its

influence (\'ide

(4], p.

236: [loj, p. 249), but the attentive reader will

note with a weary smile that, like the tiresome exhibitionists all

known,

friend at

hand

a suicide [4]

The one

to arrest his hand.

case in the Russian

community of

only hearsay, as Krasheninnikov takes pains to

nikov was dealing with. kill

have

every case the inebriated itian always takes care to have a

We may all suspect what that out to

whom we

someone but he

means

make

clear.

in the context of the people Krashenin-

says the natives take the fly-agaric before going

gives

no support

for his statement.

did not

know the native language and he relied largely on Russian informants. His own colleague Steller does not repeat this, and the many later observers who knew the country from long experience, some of them professional linguists speaking the local languages,

fail

to confirm

Krasheninnikov was an astute through a screen of questionable init.

observer trying to arrive at the facts formants. He should be admired as a worthy period piece, certainly not quoted as an authority on the fly-agaric in 1968. After all, we no longer con-

Benjamin Franklin or Lomonosov on physics, great and revered figures though they be. As for Odman, why should anyone cite him todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;]

sult

347

EXHIBITS

[44]

ScHUBELER, Frcdfik Christian. Viridarium Norvegicum

Norway.

1886. pp. 224-226.

[After identifying Amanita miiscaria by the various vernacular names current in the chief countries of western Europe, our author, the Norwegian botanist, continues: -

rgw]

In old Norwegian

historical writings there are

many

references to the fact

that in olden times there was a particular type of warrior i.e.,

men who at times were seized by

known as Berserkers,

a wild fury which temporarily doubled

and made them oblivious to bodily pain, but at the same time numbed all humanity and reason and made them resemble wild beasts. This rage, which was called Berserksgang, occurred not only in the heat of battle their strength

but also in the course of strenuous work, so that those

who were

possessed

accomplished things that otherwise would appear beyond human

strength.* This condition

have begun with trembling, chattering of

said to

the teeth and a sensation of cold, after which the face swelled up and changed

Along with this went a fierce passion, growing into a positive fury, during which they howled like wild beasts, bit the edges of their shields, and colour.

hewed down everything and

foe.

When

came

that

in their

the attack had passed

and lack of energy, which might

Even while I was

way without

was followed by an

last for a

a medical student,

special predilection for toxicology,

distinction of friend

and

intense apathy

day or more.*

later as a practising doctor,

had a

and particularly the poisons that come

from the vegetable world. I have a lively recollection that all that long time ago by comparing all the symptoms that appeared during the so-called Berserksgang, I came to the conclusion that this paroxysm could scarcely be anything else than a kind of intoxication, the symptoms of which closely resembled the

effects of

Amanita muscaria.

When

the descriptions by Krascheninnikov, Steller, and

one compares with

Erman

of the

this

symptom

other peoples seen in the state of intoxication reached by the Kamchadals and correspondence is of north-east Asia after partaking of fly amanita, then the appearance of fact. so unmistakable that my previous hypothesis has all the that Some time after I had reached this stage, I discovered by serendipity the Swedish Professor 1.

Eyrbyggja Saga

28.

Landnamabdk

Christiania. t85i-63- Part 2.

Samuel

Odman expressed the same opinion a hundred

in. 20. P.

Nonvegian People. A. Munch. The History of the

V0I.2, pp. lya-S-

R. Keyscr. Collected Works. Christiania, 1868, p. 355

348

Sâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;-

THH FLV-AGARIC

II.

SCANDINA\

evidence tor the rightness of ycjrs ago. though without offering any special the theory.'

The reports given by the above-mentioned Russian authors may be sumthe marised thus;* since the Kamchadals came into closer contact with amanita Russians they have begun to drink brandy, and to leave the use of fly nomadic neighbours the Koryaks,

to their fungi, to

for

whom

which can profitably be e.\changed for reindeer.

appear

one

who

has

drunk

liqueur

hour

later he begins to r.tge.

collect the

first

symptoms

lly

amanita and the

trembling

and according

then becomes either merry or morose. -

now

-The

made Irom

juice of fipi/oi'ium ungHSti/oIjiim are: a characteristic

half .m

they

to his

every limb:

temperament he

The drunkenness

has. in tact, a

drunken person, being more or less unconscious, almost invariably grows jolly and only rarely morose. The face becomes red and swollen, as it from e.xtravacertain resemblance to that caused

sated blood, and the things. -

foot

Those

who

bv wine or brandy,

drunken men now begin

to say

in that the

and do many involuntary

are only mildly afi'ected feel themselves very light of

and appear inclined to

kinds of bodily activity.

all

The

slightest irritation

has an unduly strong effect on nerves rendered abnormally sensitive. display a mu.scular strength

which

normal conditions would be impossible. person who ordinarily would have great

Eye-witnesses have reported that a difficulty in

even

lifting

such

a load,

has carried a sack of flour weighing 120

of 15 versts (10 miles). - ‘The Kamchadals also confirmed

pounds

a distance

what

had already been told

Some

in Tigilisk (Ust Tigi!)

about the intoxicating

property of fly amanita, and assured

me further that it is not eaten in Sedanka,

but only collected for the Koryaks,

who

winter will often give a reindeer

-‘The fly amanita (Muchamor) is very rare in the of Kamchatka, and the Koryaks first learned its properties from

for a single specimen.’^

northern part

the fact that the flesh of a reindeer that h.id eaten this fungus had Just as intoxicating an effect as the plant instinct gradually

taught

them

itself.

From

the experience thus gained,

to enjoy the delights of this precious

ware

the most economical way, by keeping the urine of a person intoxicated with fly

amanita and

later using

as a very effective intoxicant.’ - ‘As

an example

Kongl. Vecenskaps Acadcmincs nya Handlingar (Royal Scicmitic Academy's Recent Proceedings). Vol. 5. 1874. p. 240 0 1.

Emile Boudicr. Die Pil^e in ak^nemischer, chcmischcr wnd tv'arr lonelier Uinsicht. Uebertragen und mit Anmerkungen versehen von (The economic, chemical and toxicological aspects of fungi. Translated and annotated by) Dr. Th. Husemann. Berlin 1807. p. 118 ff, 3 George Kennan says that in spite of the fact that the Russian Government has forbidden the sale 2.

Cf.

of fly amanita to the Koryaks, this trade

still

specimen has been exchanged for furs to London, 1871. p. 139).

flourishes.

He has.

in fact,

himself witnessed that

value of 20 dollars. (George Kennan, Tent

349

a single

Life in SiKrn.i.

EXHIBITS of the striking increase in muscular power, a man related that when he had swallowed a portion of fly amanita in the morning he could work without difficulty during the hay-making season from morning to

and

night,

complish as

much

Our celebrated was nothing but but

insist that

and

specifically

would othenvise require three men.’

Munch is of the opinion that the Berserksgang

historian P. A.

‘a

ac-

periodically returning madness’.'

the berserksgang was induced by

by the

fly

cannot share his view,

some stimulant or

amanita. The probability that

other!

this is so is greatly

strengthened by the fact that the symptoms described above, both of Berserksgang in Norway and of the effects of fly amanita in Kamchatka, are

presented with an accuracy as congruent as if they were written by a keenwitted doctor familiar with all kinds of sickness. Moreover the most peculiar

symptoms

that accompanied Berserksgang

were always repeated

in the

same

form, and the whole thing ceased some time after the introduction of Christianity (about A. D. looo) had brought a purer ethical standard. It is true that Berserksgang

was regarded, both by those who

onlookers, at times at

least, as so

Thorstein Ingemundson

Thorer from

this

made

from

and by

great an infliction that even the Icelander

vow

to the

Gods

in order to free his brother

misfortune (Utimi).* This may, however, also be explained

by saying that Thorer in

his better

able condition, but that he found

those

suffered

who now drug

moments may have it

recognised his deplor-

just as difficult to break free

from

themselves with opium or hashish, or even those

who

have succumbed to an excessive consumption of spirits.

Here may be mentioned p. 3)

also

what

related (in the Droplaugar sona-saga

of the Icelander Thrj'mketil;* but according to what Professor Konrad

Maurer of Munich has

told

personally, this account

addition which an Icelander in the latter half of the

last

nothing but an

century

wove

into

the Saga.

beyond doubt, use was made of some stimulant or other, this cannot have been either beer, mead, wine or brandy, as the effect of all these is very different from what is described here. Moreover, brandy was not known in Nonvay before 1531, when it was

And

called

if,

as appears to

‘Aqua

to be established

And, of course, there can be no question of opium or country so long ago. A motive for the constant use of fly

vitae’.^

hashish in this 1.

A. Munch. The History of the Nonvfgidn People. Pan i, Vol. 1, p. 790. Norwe^an People. Vatnsdola Saga. Ch. 30. 37. - P. A. Munch, The History of the P.

Pan

pp. 790 -r. 3. R. Keyser. Collected Worfa. Christiania, 1868. p. 35^and History of the Norwegian People. 2. PP4. CoUectcd Examples for the Language c usquebaugh , i.e., water 0 English name 'whisky' is a corruption of the Celtic word Pav7.

Treatise

on Food and

Dietetics.

2nd Ed. London.

350

1875. P- 140)

Vol.

•

THH ILY-AGARIC

II.

SCAND NA\ 1

an intoxicant can also be found in the fact that same phantasms and visions as hashish or opium.' as

.ini-init.i

historical records

Although the old

do not say

so.

produces the

seems reasonable

question must suppose that the means that was used to induce the state in all. and could, in a have been kept a secret. The Berserkers were feared by sense, enforce

well

therefore in the nature of things

all

as a secret frotn it

they could to retain this extraordinary respect trom the people. So the knowledge of the stimulant was probably passed on

that they did

common

whatever they wished;

man

known

from parents

man.

F.ven in our

own

time, even in our

that there are certain ‘secret’ recipes that are

own

capital,

bequeathed

to children.

as a

enlightened part of the population naturally saw the Berserksgang supernatural phenomenon, to be ranked with enchantment and such-

wonders:

The

less

possessed by

believed that the Berserkers were

mav even have been

demons; but

this

cannot have been the case with well-informed

people. That even as early as the beginning of the

ith century

Berserksgang

which the sulTerers were themselves responsible is clearly indicated by the following: before Erik Jarl left Norway, he called together in 1015 the noblemen and the most powerful peasants to

was regarded

as a condition for

government of the kingdom. At this meeting single combat was abolished, and Berserkers and robbers were outlawed.* In Thorlak’s and Ketil’s Icelandic Church Law^ which was adopted in 1123 as

consult

them about

the laws and

the law of Iceland, there appears the following passage:

Berserk, he

to be punished with three years’

and the same applies to those but

will

men who

any matt goes

banishment (Fjdrbaugsgar),

are present

they do not bind him.

they bind hint no one shall be punished. Each repetition of the oft'ence

he be punished.’ Any

comment on

this

would appear

to be superfluous.

[ 45 ]

Morner, Carl Th. Nagra erlarcnhetsron oni de hogre svantparna: Kritisk otversikt. (Some observations on the higher fungi) Published in

Upsala Liikareforenings Forhandlingar, Vol. xxiv,

[On November

1-2.

Upsala. 1919.

Morner read a paper on the higher fungi before the Royal Scientific Society in Upsala. Morner was a well known professor of physiology and an excellent amateur mycologist. In the discussion i,

1918. Carl

Emile Boudier If., p. 114 (Husemann's annotation). i.Grenis Saga. Ch. 19. 1.

Grdgds, Finsen’s Edition. Ch.

pp. ii-iy

351

EXHIBITS that followed rhe reading of his paper Professor H.Hildcbrandsson, who held a chair in mcteorolog)-, told of an episode that had happened in 1814 when Sweden and Norway were engaged in a short war with each other. When

Morner published

book on mushrooms in 1919 he inserted a paragraph giving the substance of what Hildebrandsson had said. This is in the second ot the two paragraphs that we quote from Momer’s book:-RGw] Described

his

popular terms, a mild or medium-severe attack of poisoning resembles a state of alcoholic intoxication in a person who cannot hold in

his

The Kamchadales.

liquor.

[from the

and

quote

E. Fries,

‘make an

intoxicating drink

has been suggested that the fly-agaric was used in our country in olden times to bring on the so-called berserk furies’. This lastfly-agaric],

mentioned piece of information

obviously based on

Odman>s 'Attempt

to Explain the Berserk Frenzies of the

Natural History’

(1784),

an interesting

Old Norse Warriors on the Basis of work of which a brief outline may be

given at this point. After dismissing opium, belladonna, hemp and the like as out of the question for the North, particularly at that time. Odman expresses the following opinion: ‘Of

all

agaric, Agariciis mnsenrius, to

Swedish plants, however,

consider the Fly-

be the one which really solves the mystery of

the Berserks'. Explaining his reasons for classic description

this belief,

he gives the following

of the notorious amanita intoxication:

‘Its

use

so wide-

spread in Northern Asia that there are hardly any nomadic tribes there that

do not use

in order to deprive themselves of their feelings

and senses that

they may enjoy the animal pleasure of escaping the salutary bonds of reason.

The dose of this poisonous substance size.

shout,

Those who use

etc.,

then

this

from

mushroom

first

to 4

mushrooms, according

become merry,

. .

so that they sing,

attacks the functions of the brain and they have the

becoming very big and strong; the frenzy increases and is accompanied by unusual energy and convulsive movements. The sober persensation of

sons in their company often have themselves or others. sets in.

The raving

watch them

lasts 12 hours,

to see that they

more or

culminating in complete exhaustion and

According fly-agaric

to the observations of

was

also used at a

much

less.

do no violence

Then

lassitude

sleep’.

officer of the

Varmland regiment,

later date in order to induce a

good fighting

that some In the course of an advance during the 1814 war, he noticed This was of the men were seized with frenzy and foaming at the mouth. spirit.

traced, 1.

investigation, to the cause just mentioned.*

Other authors

also

mention the Koryaks. Ostiaks. Samoyedes. and Chukchi

purposes of intoxication.

as using

By-aganc for

u a lecture given t>y with connexion in Hiloebrandsson 2. This was reported by Professor H. author to the Royal Scicnuiic Society on i Nov. i9^S.

352

[It is

THE FLY-AGAKIC

SCAND NA\TA

unfortunate that Morner dkl not get from

of his account;

at the

would have been easy

lildebrandsson the source

time to do

this.

Recent

ef-

Institutet. bv Bo Holmstedt. Professor of Toxicology at the Karolinska can Stockholm, to find contirmation for the episode have been unavailing: he an extraordiscover no local tradition in \ armland relating to it. and he is forts

man. Hildebrandsson’s reputation as a meteorologist was high; his scholarship above reproach. But in this case he was not in his own Held and he was volunteering a remark in a discussion following a lecture. dinarily resourceful

Should not a careful person ask himself how much weight to give to such an utterance, even from a man of Hildebrandsson’s standing? - rgw]

[4b]

Nordhagun.

Rolf.

Flucsopp of Berserkergang. (Amanita and Berserk

FTciuies) Published in the II.

Norwegian newspaper

A/fenpesten. Jan.

1930-

Nordhagen held the chair

[Professor

botany

Oslo University. - rgw]

Schubeler’s

Gron has launched an attack on the late Professor theory that Amanita were the cause of berserk frenzies. Since my

own name

In an

Dr.

article.

also

mentioned

wrote for A-Mtigasinet, in which should

now

like to

Doctor Gron’s

be allowed to

article suffers

on account of a popular piece

took a sympathetic view of the theory.

in the article,

make

few remarks on the subject. For

from one grave defect -

several very important

elements are passed over in silence, although they are of crucial significance for It

anyone wishing to adopt a stand on the theory.

would never have occurred

theory h.td

not

come

to resurrect Professor Schiibeler’s

across a thoroughly

modern work on mushroom-

poisoning which strongly supports the theory.

thinking of the book by

the eminent Swedish scholar. Professor Carl T. Morner. entitled:

Higher Mushrooms’ (Uppsala.

1919). Since

Morner is

a physician

of physiological chemistrx'. considerable importance

‘On the

and professor

must be attached

to his

statements. In the chapter

on Amanita, Morner deals

first

with the two varieties which

can be considered relevant in this context, that Amrtnira pantherina. in 1784. that

entitled

is,

He quotes

at length the

is.

Amviita mtisaniti and

Swedish professor S. Odman. who

long before Schubeler’s time, published a famous dissertation

'Attempt to Explain the Berserk Frenzies of the Old Scandinavian

Warriors, on the Basis of Natural Histor)

353

’,

which he maintains that the

EXHIBITS berserks

know how

to use

Amanita

martial mood. In this connection

in order to

Momer

put themselves

in a suitably

produces some extraordinarily

interesting information In the first

which militates strongly in favour of the theory. place he mentions a detail which Professor H. Hildebrandsson

reported in 1918 after a lecture given by Morner at the Royal Scientific Society in Stockholm. During the advance of the Varmland regiment in 1814. a

Swedish

officer noticed that

the mouth. order

to be in

some of the men were

inveshgahoM revealed that these

soldiers

had eaten Amanita

proper fighting fettle!

This piece of information strikes

am surprised

and foaming

'raving’

as being

extremely important and

Gran does not say a single word about either Morner’s book or this particular episode. The soldiers of the Varmland regiment cannot possibly have hit on the notion of eating Amanita by themselves. There must undoubtedly be a popular tradition behind the whole story which may very well have survived from Viking times. In his important articles

that Dr.

on Norwegian folk medicine, Reichbom-Kjennerud has demonstrated

the antiquity of many of the household remedies which are sometimes applied

humans and animals even today

to both

Secondly,

Momer

our rural

areas.

reports a very important case of mushroom-poisoning

(no doubt from Amanita pantherina) which occurred at

German workman had consumed

Malmo

ground

fits

a plateful of poisonous fungi. After a bare

one and a half hours he became light-headed and had to be taken Violent

in 1908.

to hospital.

of mania soon ensued; the patient sang, shouted, laughed and

his teeth as

he jumped about on the bed and

hit

out with his arms.

he had to be transferred to the psychiatric department and, in the course of this, he put up a furious resistance, manhandling the attendants. The spectacle continued until 4 a. m., when he fell asleep, and

account of

the next

this

morning he was

Speaking of this

case,

‘perfectly

again.

fit’

Momer says

that

may

be described

as a

complete

berserk frenzy’. It

would take

far too long to discuss all the theories put

subject during the past

hundred

years.

cology (in his book he mentions no basically toxicological in content !),

that

modem

But

less

will

Momer is

forward on the

a specialist in toxi-

than 170 different works that are

not do to contend,

toxicological research knocks the

as Dr.

Gron does,

bottom out of the Odman-

Schubeler theory. I

also think that he passes rather lightly over

all

the accounts which exist

of the use by primitive Siberian peoples of Amanita

cannot escape the

an intoxicant.

descriptions of the course fact that the old explorers’

taken by the ‘intoxication’

tallies

symptoms. very closely with the berserk 354

THE fly-agaric;

II.

SCANDIN.WTA

beyond That the intoxication very often takes a far quieter form is established disproves the theory. Here as in the case ol all doubt. But this bv no means depends on the size of the dose, it may be noted that Amanita, that they like tobacco, are highly prized by Northern Siberian tribes, and therefore undoubtedly economize with the precious substance. My colleague Professor H. U. Sverdrup has told me a hair-raising tale about the exorbitant other poisons

price

demanded

Strait.

But that

for a single is

specimen of Amanita

another story, as Kipling

says.

in the region

of the Bering

Experience has obviously

taught these people to arrive at the most appropriate dose. Besides, in the

few generations Amanita has steadily been supplanted by hard liquor over Siberia, so conditions are now not nearly so favourable as they were

last all

of for the study 0

Amanita

intoxication.

Bergen, January 1930.

KuYLt-NSTitiRNA-ANDRASSY. Stella. Pusian Brimmer. Stockholm. 1948. pp. 92-93.

[The author

Swedish lady married to an Hungarian nobleman. Count

Imre .Andrassy. The book

autobiographical.

The

title

means,

Burning

The chapter from which we quote is entitled. Svarta massan Fehervarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, or The Black Mass in Fehervar. It tells of an experience that the author went through at the end of the second W'orld War. in 1945. when the Russian forces occupied the town of Fehervar momentarily. Her account follows: RGw] Plainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

All private cars are to be instantly present nounced one dav in November.

Apponyiter, the radio an-

Imre [her husband] came and collected me in our car and then we drove to the market place where the cars were to assemble. A doctor with dressings was placed in our car. The marching column was formed and the caravan,

numbering about 150 cars, snaked its way out of town. As usual, w e drove w ith secret orders. Only the chief of the column knew where we w'ere headed. We drove southwards. It had been said in the news

town ofFehersarhad been liberated from the Russians the same day. guessed that we were on our way there to bring help to the liberated

that the

people.

Our guesses came

true.

The goal was the old Hungarian coronation town, 355

EXHIBITS town famous for its cathedral in baroque style. We arrived the afternoon. The town was small where before the war there lived

beautiful country

there in

only 40.000 people. But the town had great strategic value. Through the auto route down to the Balkans and the main road to Vienna.

runs

Through

passed the big

from

The Germans had determined to hold it at any price, but one day when the Panzers became stuck in the bottomless clay the Russians had taken it by surprise. Now it had been recaptured by

a counterattack.

oil line

Lispe.

Hungarian

officer

front of the cathedral related to us

whom we met

how

this

market place had happened. at the

‘The Russians came stealthily in the November mist immediately before dawn. They came through the maize fields which rustled where the harvest

had not been brought

in because of lack of people.

over the Danube without being seen

thought

would be impossible

for

at the big

human

consisted of ‘convict battalions’, recruited

and loose people in the Red Army. In soaked with a curious beasts.

Some

started to bit like

mad with rabies and

[Under the tensions it

was not

that

beings to advance.

The spearhead

from among the worst

their nostrils they

them were captured by

us.

cried as

in passing

marshes near Baja, where one

had

poison that transforms

wear off, they shouted and

dogs

Fehervar,

mushroom

They succeeded

When

criminals

pieces of cotton

human beings

into

the effects of the poison

though obsessed. They raged and

thereafter fell to the ground in a deep sleep.’

must have

existed at that horrible

be expected that the

details

needed

moment

to satisfy scientists

would be forthcoming. Cotton wads soaked with ‘mushroom poison’ were in the Russian nostrils. How did they breathe? The inquirer naturally would like to know what kind of mushroom it was. There is no hint, in the Russian writings about war through the ages, of such a practice. The minor nationalities of Siberia, where the fly-agaric is used, certainly did in peace-time

make up the contingent of Russian troops, since they are far too few number and the Russian authorities frown on their consumption of the

not in

fly-agaric.

The

mushrooms

that reports concerning the Altaic peoples of Siberia indicate

(except for Fames fomentarius, used as tinder for making

play almost no role in their

lives.

- row]

356

fire)

CITATIONS 1-ROM THE RGVEDA

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CITATIONS FROM THE RGVEDA The following verses from the Rg\’eda are numbers are printed in italic, the text of the

Mtiiuiaia

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119'*

135’

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ftn.

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12^

III

43’ 45 48*

Mandala «

3’ i8’»

3t ftn.

70*

47 2%

71*

40. 41 ftn.;

Pi. V. fac. p.

Pi. VI, fac. p.

60. 109 fin.

71*

22.

22*

72 *. 4.

27*

72 *

27*

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72*

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72’

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46’

T4I ftn. 7 7 ftn. 2

Mandala V •

43 45’

70®

ftn. 5

22.44 141 ftn. 7

60, 109 ftn.

31 ftn.

61*

61'*

62*

ftn.

13 ftn. 29. 30.

;

Pl.xiii, fac. p. 58

136 ftn. 4 22

753.

76 * 76*

56 38. 52. 33

63’

38. 56

78*

63*

ftn.

141 ftn. 7

ftn.

5,4.7

64’

80*

85*

64*

38 26

80*

30 ftn.

81'

82*

41 ftn.

82*

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66*

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23'

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122 ftn.

15*

68*

7 2

17 ftn.

48^

•

141 ftn.

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Pi. VII, fac. p. a?'

46:

10*

in part.

69*

142 ftn. 3

10^

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whole or

68^'’

69'

ftn. 2

10*

•

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68'

38 '“

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43-44

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87'

187’

quoted

84“

101"

text.

141 ftn.

80"

137

verse

our

Mandala vm

139 ftn. b

43’

cited in

359

ftn.,

CITATION FROM THE RGVEDA 83*

87*

83*

89*

83'

91* 2*3

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41 ftn.

108'*

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30 ftn.

108"

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108'*

48.78

109*

48:

83'

85*

91'

85’®

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54 46

86*

95'

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97 97’

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86“

86*'

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Pi. XI, fac. p.

109®

23-45

109'*

28, 30 ftn.

30 ftn.

41.42;

109'®

30 ftn., ;8

in'

ftn., 41 ftn.

Pi. vra, fac. p. 50

97-3

% 51

37.41

» 7-«8

ftn.

127 ftn. 6

113

Mandala X

141 ftn. 7

9733

41 ftn.

9741

11“

141 ftn. 7

71*

117 ftn. 2

97 98’

85*

90'“

^ **

52.

86'*

99'

41 ftn.

97.5

86'*"

52. 59;

99’

31 ftn.

30 ftn.

136

129. 131

101'

30 ftn.

144

141 ftn. 7

107*

146*

117 ftn. 2

Pi. xn, fac. p. 58

86^-*

86“*

87'

30 ftn.

107'*

16,4;, 138

87*

107'*

30 ftn.

ftn.,

360

17 ftn. 2

141 ftn. 7

INDEX

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INDEX Numbers

heavy brackets

Adam

(journal): 116-120

and Eve. legend

of:

178-180.

mission: 115-117. lio

Afghan grape: Afghanistan:

vuie

Soma, theories

5i-53.

p.42 Agrawala, V. <ilnc/iiitnl.’a:

Amu

S.:

204: Pi. v. fac.

(Basque for 'toadstool’): 187

(0.\us): 114:

Map

154 fac. p.

273.

154

274.

275;

C. fac. p. 154

diidlkis:

Andrews. George: 146

E.: 117. 120

ftn.

.Anglo-Saxons: 173

Akademiai Kiado:

Anquetil-Duperron.

224. [38] 315

Albanians: 173 alcoholic beverage: vide Soma, theo-

about identity of

Apastamba: 100 d«|mivine: 17. 332

.Aristophanes: 102 ftn.

and pancakes: 86 Alparslan, Orhan: 49

dr/Miitini:

Altaic: 209. 21

arusii: 37

Alfred. King,

UHiddou (French for 'touchwood’): 170 fly-agaric) girls: 288

Aryan:

3. 4. 12. 13. 15.

49. 64. 68. 76.

107, ii5*iib. 120-122. 127. 129. 132.

ff.

136 ftn.

4. 137.

142 ftn.

165. 169.

172. 203. 209. 210, 218

10. 50.

61 ftn., 143, 146, 179. 199. 200. 201

Asafoctida: 116

ftn. T. 202. 251. 254. 257, 260, 305.

Asclepias

315. 322, 334. 348. 353

- muscaria van Camtschatica: 247 - pant/ieriim: 353-354

armui: 37. 96

217. 241. 356

Amanita arsarea: 194 - mMsciiriu (Fr. ex L.) Quel.:

H.: 102. 106

.A.

Arian: vide Aryan

331

Amanita (=

i"2

Uo.

123

fac. p.

Map

Ajanta: 90

17,

126 ttn. 3

102

.Amur River: Map A, Anadyr River: 159.

Darya River

Ahriman: 102 Aitchison.

103 ftn.

Itn.

dwiii: 44. 45. 47. 61. 63. 9b, 137

- pseudo-riiinnitniCHs; 200 39.

d[i[ipoo(a: 125. 130

(iinrtdvdfli:

- HiHScnrins: 268. 278, 345. 35i

flicool:

uiiirtu: 30. 33-34. t>3.

ItorteHSis:

ries

71 ftn.,

102 ftn.

tiiiioroto

141

3, 14.

Agan'ciis cdmprstris:

192

ag^oj|jio^. (iiiteiiiutii

about identity of

Agni;

viresti:

AiniiriiJLwu (.A»uir«i Siin/iii): 62.

Afghan Frontier Delimitation Com-

refer to the Hxhibiis.

Amanitas:

220-222 <id*Irii:

)

- pluilhuies: 192 - venni: 192

Aalto. Pentii: [40 .AC(iiie»i_v

[

sp.:

vide

about identity of Asvins: 61 atasd: 140

363

Soma, theories

INDEX Atharvans: 28 46 ftn.

At/!<jrv<ive<iti:

Atlasov:

Berg, Lev Semenovich: 237, 238 Bergaigne. Abel: 4 ftn.. 39, 58, 68, III, 218

132

233

[2]

Austerlitz, Robert: 224

Bergman, Sten:

Avesta:

Bernadakis: loi

12. 19-21. 32, 68. 95. 100-102.

106, 108, 116, 121-122, 127, 132, 137.

Bernadotte, J.-B.: 184

144

Bemeker, Erich: 168

Avesta. Horn

241, [27] 285

rtJSHci: 9-11, 32,

berserk-raging:

19-21, 100

I’dst:

vide

fly-agaric

and

berserk-raging

100, loi

Axis of the World: 214, 220 Ayurveda, -ic: 100, 107, 116.

Betula nana: 213, 256 118,

Bhagavad Gita:

102

bhang (bhatlgd, bhangd): vide Soma,

135

Aztecs:

theories about identity

of,

- Canna-

bis saliva

Bhdvaprakdsa: 100

Bahhru: 37 Bailey, H. W.: 21 Baker,

Bhawe,

G.: 117

52. 56. 59.

Balazs, J.; 166, 330:

Balfour. 4.

- and pai)x

clus-

Edward: 99

ftn. 4. 113 ftn.

Balov,

J.:

Map

fac. p.

154

fc/inti:

kavaka: 64, 65

bhurja: 218 b/iiistrNa:

338

Bibra, Ernst von: 322, 3i4-3i6

banha: 166

banyan tree

{Fica religiosa):

Big Indian: 173

bilberry (Vticcinium n/iginosMm): 154.

barley: 106, 110, 118, 130

248, 251. 314

Barnard, Mary: 211, 220

birch: 13, 23-24, 35. 4i. 218; exalted

Barnett, L. D.: 129

role

Bartholom<e: 21 Basella sp. vide :

Basham, A.

Soma, theories about

also

fly-agaric

Map

Bazante, Gabrielle: 201

fac. p.

ftn.

Boas, Franz: 165, 166, [31I 306

pov cluster, 306 Bodleian Library; 95 Boetticher, Paul Anton:

identity of

Beelzebub:

vide

Siberian tribesmen

and

Birdwood. George Christopher: 108 Bloomfield, Maurice: 125

Basques: 173, 198

Baykal, Lake:

among

birch

L.: 139

Bassia sp.: vide

of,

211-222;

Soma, theories about

identity of

154

195, 196

beer: vide Soma, theories about identity

12, 31, 46, 47,

Bhishagratna, K. L.: 125

h/iiimi

119

Balkhash, Lake:

6 ftn.

Bhrgu: 34

315-318

ter, [38]

S. S.:

*59.

266. 271 ftn-, 195, 208, 213 ftn. 2, 265, [223 273*279. 276

164, 207-208, 304

Benveniste, Emile: loi. 102 ftn. i Berezovo: 281; Map A, fac. pag. 154

vide Lagarde,

Paul Anton de Bogoraz, Vladimir: 45. *57.

of -fermented drink

‘bemushroomed’:

-and

fig-.

Bohus. Gabriel: 224 Boisacq, Emile: 168

364

322. 338

INDEX holeios: 71.

Burrow. Thomas:

ftn.

Bursoe: 77 *t8, 84

Bollingcn Foundation: 224

Bondartsev, A.

S.:

238

Borhcgyi. Stephan

F*.

de: 17s fm.

Ca:>alpinia sp.;

224

Bornniullcr.

J.:

122

Borv. Michelle: I79 Bosch, Hieronymus: 195; p.

Calonvction

Soma, theories

sp.; vale

ftn.

Soma, theories

viile

about identity of 4

Cambodia: 63

Bouda, Karl: 166: - and payx cluster,

33-34

cundii/.i:

31,1

CumiuFis

Boutenert'. Ekaterina Apollinarievna:

siitivu

C. indica):

vide

Soma, theories about identity of

202

Bowden, K.: 6i Brahmans: 4. 7.

'cap' of

ftn.

Bru/imrtJitis:

ft'.,

ni.

107.

Castren,

116. 123,

166.

- Ainireva Bril/unaMa: 97 ftn. 2 - Kausflairi Bniliufana: 97 ftn. 6 S’al<ipal/i(i Braliinaiiii:

24,

ft’.,

Matthias Alexander:

sp.

cepes: 72 ftn.

Ceropegia

sp.:

and Scm,

Y. A.: 151.

[42] 334-338

about identity of 4

c/t<iHipig»en

lie

c/tailra: 63,

Paris: 64

Museum: 95 Brunnhofer, Hermann:

182, 188

Chayannes, Ed.; 72. 73 Cheremis: 166, 167; Map A,

Brightman, Frank H.: 179

154;

British

Soma, theories

vit/e

Chaucer. GeolTrey:

Map

chimney-sweep and 125

fac.

B, fac. p. 154

fly-agaric:

204

fig-

Buchwald, N. Fabritius: 239 Buddayasas of Kabul: 65 ftn. Buddha, death of: 65

Chopra. 1. C.: 138 ftn. Chopra, R. N.: 138

buflfalo:

Chukchi.

Chou

Ch’i-k’uen: 223 10. 165.

bull: 36, 37, 41. 42

255

- sharpened shining horns of: 42 Bulliard, Jean Baptiste; 200. 202

336. 346:

Burnell,

theories

Branntwein: 16

fin.

Soma,

vide

about identity of

BrajiHlwein

I..

165,

310

Centella

120,

Brahmanaspati: 53 brandy: 138: vide also aijuavittr.vedil’a,

head’

Catskills: 173

- Taitlirfya Bra/iHiaiui: 96. 97 ftn. 9 - Taadya Bra/iHiaiui: 96, 97 fin. i

ftn., 21

Soma

Catalonia: 180

127, 128. 135 fin. 2

vide

Carroll. Lewis: 187

135. 138, 143

Brekhman,

mushroom:

Carey. William: 103

78. 99. 104.

8. 14.

112. 117. 127

209

about identity of Caland, \V.: 58, 124.

Calotropis sp.

Bohilingk, Otto: 107

Soma, theories

\'ii/e

about identity of

xxii fac.

196

Ds]

IT.,

166. 195. 197. 243,

265. 271. 273

Map

ft'..

fac. p.

305. 334.

154;

Map

194.

305.

C, fac. p. 154

Arthur Coke: no, 112, 123 Burnouf, Eugene: 36, 106, 108

Chukotka:

365

159.

333. 334. 339:

160.

Map

167.

C. fac. p. 154

INDEX Chunda: 65

Demyanka

cinnabar: 219 ftn. Clark, J. G. D.: 239

Denbei: 233-235

Clovis, vase of King: 86

DhanvantariyanighaittH: 99

Clusius, Carolus: 199, 201

dhingri: 64

Cocculus

Dhurtasvami's description of Soma:

vide

sp.:

Dennis. R.

Soma, theories

about identity of coconut palm: vide

about identity drink ries

Soma,

theo-

- fermented

of,

Diderot’s Encyclopedie: 181 Dioszegi. V.: 224

Dittmar. Carl von: ftn.

Compositae: vide Soma, theories about

Mushroom

Immortality:

identity of

9. 80.

Donner. Kai:

ftn. 3

Soma, theories about

vide

152, 158, [28] 286-287,

Drakert, Marcelle Lecomte: 224

drapsd 63

239

Coromandel coast: no Cosmic Tree: 215. 220

Drona, Mount:

crane, demoiselle: 91 fin.

Drury, Heber:

crapaudin:

Dumezil, Georges:

14 1

;

10,

35,

187,

194

vide

Soma, theories about

[25] 280

(intoxication): 137

dilrvd: 96. 97. 127

Duthie, John Firminger: 121

identity of

crowberries (Empefritm nigrum): 324

Cynanchium

49. 130. 223

Durga, goddess: 128

durmdda

sbom-luta

107, 109

Dunin-Gorkavich. A. A.:

136. 140.

vide also Soma-vadi, data, -lutd,

78-79, 85

Druids: 176

14. 47. 96. 97. 98.

Crinum sp.

153, 210. 220;

[28a] 309-310

identity of

creeper:

‘dog’s urine’: 64

Conklin, Harold C.: 213

(or Fungus)

vide also Ling CItih

conifer: 13, 23-24, 41

Corner, E.

156. 161. 213, [13]

256-258, 265, 266, 322

Divine

G.: 174 ftn. 2

Dickinson, Emily: 182

104

sp.

B, fac. p. 154

100. 107, 116

Cohen. Chapman: 127 Colebrooke. H. T.: 102, 103

Conyza

Map

River:

sp.: vide

Dymock.

Bombay:

Dr., of

119

Soma, theories Eckblad, F. E.: 200, 201 ftn. Efron. Daniel H. 201 ftn. i

about identity of

Danielou, Alain:

Eggeling, Julius: 24

141

Darmesteter, James:

19-21, 121, 122

date juice: vide Soma, theories about identity of, - fermented drink

Eliade, Mircea: 138. i39 ftn-

214

166,

- and shamanic

Eliot, Charles: 129

119.

Delphi: 49

ftn., 215. 231;

inebriation, [41] 326-334

ftn.

Deli Sosva River:

Soma, theories

about identity of

decarnated skeletons painted red:

Deccan:

120

Egyptian beer: 130 Eleusine coracana'. vide

Dasyus: 23

219

ftn. i,

Map

B, fac. p. 154

Elliot,

Walter: 107

Empetrum nigrum 366

vide crowberries

Endcrii.

154.

J.:

Ephedra

lly-agaric

161. [ly]

-and

324. 326

3«-

261-264.

iS 9

5 '.

NDHX

Soma, ihoorics

vjde

sp.;

341

254. [13I 256, [21] 269

Icipret

tiMgicilijo/iiciH: vitie

162.

i5t>.

152.

154.

[Ill

251-254.

- and cattle: 74-75 - and chimney-sweep: 204 fig. - and conifers: 13, 23-24. 41

is8.

322.

34« ejcrt:

13. 23-24, 35. 41. 74- 211,

212-222, [4] 238-239. [loj 247, [12]

Epic of Gilgamesh: 219. 220

i6i,

216

- and

firs;

- and

flies: 6i.

- and

Lamut:

Fiasit:

Ethiopia: 63

Conrad H.: 201

Eugster,

211 ftn.

Euphorbia

ftn.

198

vide

- and

Soma, theories

[4]

237-239

Soma, theories about

[4I 237. [5] 239-240.

identity of

filtrcs,

- and Yakut:

13: linguistic chart, fac. p. 10,

13.

165,

166

10-

102.

164

Firdousi: 77-78. 91

FliegenpH^: 10. 194

flf.,

Fliegensc/iwomm

ft"..

172

as sacred

fl"..

207

herb: 62 24.

52. [lo] 247,

- cannot be cultivated: 18 - dried before eating: 153-155,

[3]

234. [4] 236. [5] 239. [6] 240. [10] 247,

[n]

199. 200, 202;

[21]

253. [>2] 254. [13] 256. [18] 261, 266.

[24I

280,

302

[30] 303. [32] 307

194

- eaten by Cossacks:

flies

and madness: 195-198

flies,

eggs

- gathered

of, laid in

IT.

349

symbol of happy augury, 204 :

259. [19]

[II] 252. [15] 259. [43] 346. [44]

Leopold: 141

Fliegenpil^lieder

[Ml

[6] 241

- bought for reindeer:

chart, fac. p. 166

ol 249-250, 25

- as fire: 52-54 - as inebriant of northern Eurasia:

to.

207: lingustic chart, fac. p. 166 Finns: 165, 166. 21 1 fin. 2; linguistic

Fischer,

(40I 324. [43I .346, [44] 349

filtrcs

Finno-Ugrians:

253

263. [21] 267, 270 illus.. [22] 275.

Finno-Ugrian linguistic familv:

fir:

[

[12] 255 ftn.. (13I 257,

three: 31. 34. 51-58; vide also

Soma and

I6i-i62,

- and udder: 43. 45. 46, 214 - and urine: 25 ft.. 54-58, 158, 160-161,

Philippe de: 134, 135, 147

Ficd religiose:

75-76.

24.

- and 'single eye’: 46-47

orange: 10, 194

Ferula sp.: vide

216-222,

[5l 240. [loJ 250. [11] 252.

ftn.

fatjkd’tim: 165, 166. 207, 310

Felice,

ft'.

punk (touchwood):

- and reindeer;

Fa Chow: 65

285

[6] 241, [27]

- and Ob-Ugrians; 160

about identity of

fiiHSse

IT.

- and na\el; 48-51

202.

sp.;

176-

fl'-

- and birch:

Epiiedni viilgflris: 105 fig.

1S9,

157-158.

1-8. [4j 237. [32] 306, [40] 322. 324.

about identity of

Erman. Adolph:

berserk-raging:

reindeer nostrils:

279

[4]

281,

283,

236

foretells the future: [19] 264

247

367

[26]

in July

and August:

[lo]

INDEX fly-agaric (coHf.)

fly-agaric (cont.)

- induces feats of strength: 42. 159 [6] 240. [10] 249. [22]

I4] 236, [lo] 249. [12] 255. [18] 261.

273-274

[21] 266, [22] 274

- inebriation, absence of hangover

from: 155, [6] 240, [10] 250 - euphoria caused by: 155-156, 236. [6] 240, l9] 244-245.

[I I]

- personification

besmen: 267.

[4]

253,

of:

158-160,

[13]

256-257.

- shrinkage

in use of. in Siberia: ii,

juice, colour of: 37

- tabus on eating

- marketed in strings of three: 45,

mushroom

shamanic

[24] 280, [28]

- two forms - use of. by

use in Siberia: 305, [33] 308-309

- riddle:

286

of: 25

Fomes fonwitarius:

with Middle Amer-

hallucinogenic

mushrooms:

162-164, 174

- consequences of identification

of,

with Soma: 67-70

meaning

among Ob-

of,

made

Fomes igniarius: 238

Food of Life: 214, 220 fool-mushroom: 192-193 332

ftn.

sp.:

Soma, theories

vide

about identity of

from, by Russians:

Fries, E.:

- description of: 13. 35-36, 41 - dreams caused by: [9] 244-245,

J.; 17.

Frankfort-on-the-Main: 199 Fraxinus

160, [11] 253

169, 170, 217, 238,

239. 269. 356

Forbes. R.

Ugrians: [26] 281-285

- decoction

[4] 237. [3 1 ] 257,

of term: 190

255, [18] 261

cultic

cerning: [24] 280 ‘fly-agaric’, origin

ican

ff.

women

155-156, [6] 240. [10] 250-251, [12]

of,

152, 153, 160.

- varieties of: 35-36 - Yurak (Samoyed) mythology con-

[22] 278

- comparison

of;

[21] 266

fly-agaric, alleged toxicity of: 152-153,

of, as fly killer: 61, 198-

208-209, [42] 334

- not sole

compared with

for, as

273-274. [26] 282

[22] 273

274-275, 276,

[22]

202

[18I

261. [19] 262, [21] 266-267. [22]

271,

- reputation

[6] 240, [9] 244-246. [10] 248-250,

254-256,

268,

alcohol: 155, 156. 157, [10] 250, [n] 253. [21] 267-268

179,

210-211, [4] 236-237 [5I 239-240.

[12]

159-160. 163, [4] 236. [21]

- preference

75.

tri-

[24] 280. [29] 287-301

(13I 256. [22] 274

- syndrome

by Siberian

of,

352

Frisians: 173 [19]

Fukien province:

72. 73

262

- European folkloric and

background

of: 36, 172

linguistic

Ganges:

Soma, theories about identity of, - Cannabis sativa Ganoderma lucidum (leyss.) Karst.: 87

gatija:

ff-

- ‘knobs’ or ‘studs’ of: 59-60 - Koryak mythology concerning: [21]

life

illus.,

Garcia d’Orta: 137

history of: 40

- macropsia caused

vide

illus., 88,

268-270, 272

95. 127

by:

158,

162,

Garden of Eden:

368

ftn.

178-180. 220-222

INDliX

.\ico:

Geldncr. Karl 138. 144

Genus Betula, Distrihuiion A.

fac.

Map

IS4;

fac.

Map

fac.

240-241.

[o]

Ghose, T.

3 ii.

122

lig..

107. i2t>.

109.

110.

Kanichadal):

/uiri:

230

36-42: PI.

/i(irm*il:

(unibutas. Marija: 180. loo-iyi hgs.

Map C. 201 Map

Gi/higinj.k: 275:

fac. p. (.!.

134

fac. p.

II,

fac.

is4

Gonda.Jan:

Flaug. Martin:

identity of. -Ciinntd>is

141

(dinvev. Sandor: 224

frn. 4,

ftn.

/mioiiii:

122 ftn.

30. 5.

37.

i.39 ftn.

Flegnauer, R.: 141

Grimm

hemp:

Groot.

brothers: 109

354

M. de: 84 ftn. Gubernatis, Angelo de: 12.

i7ftn.

sp.:

vide

Soma, theories

(Romany language):

P.,

and

118

Soma, theories about sufivti 2.

166.

314

word:

330

211, 21s. 219,

177,

178,

353. 354

Hillebrandt. Alfred: 122, 144

Himalayas:

369

(Japanese): 49

Hildebrandsson, H.:

piitjX cluster: [37]

201. 225

Hertel. Joh.mnes: 135, 136 ftn. Herzfeld, Ernst: 137

184

hallucinogen’, origin of the 175 ftn. I

Herb (or Plant) of Life: 220 Hermitage Museum: 89 ftn.

/leso

Hajdu,

110.

220. 222

about identity of

Hadding the Dane:

30, 30 ftn.

Herb of Immortality:

Gulya, Janos: 192. 193. 223. 302-304. 306

g)psics

vide

ftn.

Henning. W. B.: 136 ftn. Henry, \ ictor: 58. 125

131

Gymncma

frn.

identity of. -C(niU(ihi.s

J. J.

108

Havell. K. B.: 127, 128. 129

62.

Heim, Roger:

177. 3S3.

129. 130, 131

102

Grieve. James: 159

Gron. Fredrik:

107.

.tufivii

HI. 110 Haughton, Graves Chamney: 103

187

Grassmann. Hermann:

Soma, theories about

Hauer, Jakob Wilhelm:

121.

132. 135-137. 139

Goethe, Wolfgang: U)s Goldsmith. Oli\er: 151, 2sy

109,

112,

109. 114

hashish: vide

Granet. Marcel; 80

102.

Hartwich. Carl: 12s. 126. 231 - and fly-agaric: [40J 321-320 Flarva. Uno: 215, 220

»i<niMri: so

Grahame. Kenneth:

101.

Hardv. Hdmund: 123

('tlv-agaric' in

Gi/higa Gulf;

19-21. 33. 9S. 100.

100.

104.

155,

13S frn, 3

82, 83 ftn.. 85. 90. 91

Hansen. Sigurd: 239

.Ut*

i8y

309

/luygo: 286,

p. IS4:

153.

129-

('narcotic').

(‘toad-mushroom’):

c/iiiu

Haoma:

Georgi, Johanit (iottlieb: 177

Map A.

IS4

113

Han Dvnastv:

Map

IS4:

hallucinogens:

li«j-»iti

IS4

322

130. 134. 140, 210. 221

B. fac. p. IS4;

(Jemis Pinus, l)i>tribution of: fac.

Map

of:

162-163.

14^’.

42. 7S,

32,

23.

1-4-175. 21

6. 12, I6. si, 63. 67,

I-.;

mushrooms of Me-

hallucinogenic

Garrett. John: loy

22. 23, 09, 218

352,

INDEX Hindu Kush:

22. 65. 69, 141.

218

Indraliasta: 126

Hino, Iwao: 87

Indrdsatia: 126

Hittites: 219

Indrasurd: 126

Hoffer,

Abram:

175 ftn.

indu: 63

Holberg, Ludvig: 196

Indus (River and Valley):

Holmberg, Uno: 214, 218 Holmsred, Bo; 178, 201 ftn. i, 353 Holy Agape; 220 Holy Water of the East: 30, 74

13. 15.

16. 32, 65. 68, 73-74, 95, 209:

Map A,

fac. p.

154

Daniel H. H.: 79, 223 insect as cause of illness: 277 Ingalls,

Ipomcea

horn: 102, 108

homa: 119.

sp.

vide

Soma, theories

about identity of

132, 137

Horn Yast: vide Avesta

Iran: 14. 19, 34. 71. 74

honey: vide Soma, theories about

Irtysh Ostyak: vide Ostyak, Irtysh

identity of

Irtysh River: 10,

Hongo, Tsuguo: 223 Hooker, Joseph Dalton:

p. 154:

109, 119

Map

Itallie, L.

Map

154:

van: 135

Itelmen: vide Kamchadal

hops, derivation of: 117, 118; also vide

Itkonen, T.

Soma, theories about identity of Houtum-Schindler, A.: 118, 120

Iwasa, Shigeyoshi: 74 ftn. 2

Hsu Fu:

83, 84, 85

Jacourt, Louis de: 181

Hubers,

E.: 133

Jadrintsev,

Human

Jakobson,

Academy

publishing office

of,

Sciences,

(Akademiai

273. 270

146, 147. i75. 176

123, 141: vide also

theories about identity

of,

Soma, honey

ftn.,

168, 183,

154,

I57.

Imazeki, Rokuya: 74

ftn. 2, 75. 87.

[21] 265-

287. 322, 328 ftn. 2 i

115 ftn.

Kamchadal;

10,

237, 238, 239. 243

155, 211. 223

Indian Office: 95 3,

ftn.

ff.,

I53. 236,

265, 273, 287

ff-,

ff-J M^p 305, 315. 334-337. 346. 349 A. fac. p. 154; Map C. fac. p. I54

Indian Institute (Oxford): 95 Indians, Mexican:

fig.,

i59.

Kalidasa: 79. 9i

Idea diffusion: 81

163

Indra: 3, 23, 26, 27, 28. 30. 33. 43. 44. entrails 56, 63; heart or belly or

Kamchadal tales: 160. 288-294 Kamchatka: 233 ff-, 238, 241, 243

55.

Jouveau-Dubreuil, G.: 132

Kabul:

of,

Roman: 40

Johnson, Donald: 175 ftn. Jones, William: 102. 125

Ssu Hui: 170

hydromel:

ftn.

161. 194. 208. 213 ftn. 2,

Huxley, Aldous:

279

Mickhailovich

Nikolai

jewel herb: 81 Jochelson, Vladimir:

Kiad6): 224

Hungarians:

167, [23]

225. 319

Karl: 140

Hungarian

I.:

260

118, 120, 122, 132

Relations Files: 224

Hummel,

fac.

B. fac. p. 154

Hopkins, E. W.: 127

hum, hu 7 na: 104,

273. 334-337. 349 p. 154

ff-

370

If-!

Map

ff--

fac.

INDEX Ad.ini KiUiiicnski Dluzvk. # [I] Z 33

lo.

$i.

Map

—

‘knots’ of

33 i ftn.

Kaminov:

kni'sk:

S9-6o;

Kan-ch uan palace: 83

Kobavashi, Yoshio: 74 Kollangod: 132

Kane. P

Kolyma

13^

Kannisto, Arttiiri: is4. -

and piwx

305. 333:

it>5.

xii.

Itn. 2.

223

fac.

p. 154:

C. fac. p. 154 J. P.:

143

Kopec. Joseph:

Kao Yao-ling: 223

25.

i55.

158. i59. [ol

243-240

Korvak;

Kapadia. B. H.: 140. 145 1

Map

River:

Kooger.

cluster. [33) 308-301)

Kan-o, Suigecsu; 90

Kapi.si:

fac.

Pi.

p. 58

p. IS4

tac.

Soma:

10.

195. 234.

15 ftn.

154,

237

*56.

155. .

247. 249

157. tv.,

160,

285

IT..

Kaps. Leo: 134

305. 3*5. 322, 325. 326. 3.34-337. 340:

Karjalainen, K. F.: 1S4. [2^] 281-285.

Map

315. 3i8-329

fac.

i“8,

Koryak

353

tales: 160, 268-269, 272, 294-

301

KiilvJvitJii) SViiiititsiitra:

k’on

»it>;

170

Krasheninnikov,

Kazytn River:

Map

Arthur

B. fac. p. 154

I3erriedale:

125.

126.

152.

153,

253

ftn..

257.

264.

265.

266,

268,

322. 334-338. 346 ftn. 2. 347. 348

Keats, John: 182

Kennan. George:

isi.

[14]

258-259.

322. 325. 320. 349 ftn. 3.

Kerman 10,

fac. p.

(Iran): tio,

n8. 129

Map

Keta Ehau: 171

Khyber

Pass: 141

154:

vide

153.

fcttiii

(grass): 96. 97. 127

Kuylenstierna-Andrassy. Stella: [47] 355-356

102.

241. 285

Langsdorf, G. H. von: 49 i

loi,

108, 109 ftn. 3. 114 ftn. 3, 125

Lamut:

349

S.: 201 ftn.

ftn. i. 153,

*55. 158-162, 211, 213, [to] 246-251,

158. 253

Soma:

Lagarde. Paul Anton de:

235. 252. 324. 335 Kiratas: 128

‘knobs’ of

141

kumiss: 114

kiprei {EpUobiiim angustifoliiim):

Nathan

121.

Kumarasambhava: 79

Ostyak, linguistic chart, fac. p. 166. Khory, Rustomjee Naserwanyil: 123 63

ftn. 3

Kuhn. Adalbert: kiiknr-»iut(t)J:

i’/tumfci:

btiiMpd; 63

154

Kew Herbarium: 117 Khanty: Map A. fac.

ftn.

33 Ksatriya: 64

152. 16I. 286. 309:

Klynchevsk:

Krause. H.: 324 Krishna. S.: 138 KV.oi<i:

Kerala: 66. 132

Kline.

Stepan:

157. 158. 159. *0*. *77. [4I 235-239.

131

Ket:

C. fac.

P- *54

Karolinska Institute:

Keith.

Map

p. 154;

322

59-60; Pi. xn. fac.

p. 58

hnigue d’oc; 180

Lansdell. Henry: [15] 259

371

INDEX Lao Tze: 49 Lapps: 173 Lapps, Inari: fac.

10.

167.

Map

279:

Maglcmose: 169, 170, 239 Magnus, Albertus: 199, 201, 203 Magnus. Olaus: 177 Mag)ar: r66, 167, 192, I93. 302

154

Lassen, Christian: 106, 107 ftn. Laufer, Berthold: 17

Lawrence. D.

Mahdbharata:

Mahoney, Mary: 224 Mainstay: vide Soma, mainstay

182

Lehtisalo, T.: 152. 154, 160. 166, [24] 280, 330; - and paijx cluster, [24a]

Majakovskij, Vladimir: 183 Majorca: 180

Leland, Charles G.: 118

Lesseps, Jean

de:

[7]

fac. p.

241-242

Ling Chih: 62, 80

ff.,

;

Pl. XX. fac.

ff.,

and

204, 210; Plates XIV

p. 82: PI. XVIII, fac. p. 91

& 90

Malabar

coast:

Mansi:

Map

fac.

p. 154;

Manu. Laws

xv, fac.

p.90: PI. XIX,

71, 72, 191,

marua: 127

Liverovskiy, Yu. A.: 238

Maruts:

Locquin, Monique: 201 Lopatin, Ivan A.: 209

ftn.

ftn., 305,

29, 30

mdlaiiga: 33

333

Maydell. Gerhard von:

Mazatec Indians of Mexico: 63 Mazdaism: 73 mead (hydromel): vide Soma, theories about identity of, - fermented

Lysebraate, Inger Anne: 223

Macdonald, Kenneth Somerled:

154. 156. i59.

161, 213, [12] 254-256, 322

B, fac. p. 154

James: 115

drink

iii

Medinikosa: 98

26, 125, 136 ftn. 4

[i€&u: 123

Machek, V.: 168 153,

saliva

‘Marxelous Herb’: vide Ling Chih

Lozinski, Philip: 224

macropsia:

- Cannabis

Markovo: 254-255

Lithuanians: 180, 189

Macdonell, A. A.:

158,

162,

236, 249,

255, 261, 266, 274

Megasthenes: loi

Menispermum ries

jndda (happiness): 63. i37. i44

about

sp.; vide

identity'

Soma, theo-

Madana: 97

metabolite, potable: 32

tnddhu: 16, 6r, 63, 123, 132

- psychotropic: 32 - vide fly-agaric, metabolite of

Maghada: 65

fac.

marijuana; vide Soma, theories about

Yu.: 238

Lyall, Charles

chart,

Mardersteig, Giovanni: 225

p.92

Map

linguistic

Map

of: 64. 102, 103

identity of,

Lozva: 305 ff.; Lu Yu: 72-73

fac. p. 154:

Maori: 171

fac.

201 S.

224

p. 166

Linnjeus, Carolus: 72, 184, 199, 200.

Lipshitz,

Manichseism:

Lewin, Louis: 131, 323 ftn. Lindner. Paul: 133, 134 figs.,

rndfesifea:

no, 132 Mangelsdorf, Paul C.: 224 Mani: 71-74, 220

154

Barthelemy

Baptiste

the sky

310-312. 314, 317*318

Lena River: Map A. Leon, Ponce de: 221

33. 91, 130

372

tiiillci:

ND X I-:

cluster,

fuitjx

97. I4<’

Mills. L. H.: 126. 127 fin.

315

Milwaukee Public Museum: 224

mushrooms.

mushroom

m. H9. 132

Mitra, Rajendra Lala: iw.

fin.

mvcorrhiza:

Nahua:

37, 97, 98.

112

Monier-Williams’ dictionary:

Hyquem

de: 182

theories

about

Map

Map A.

B, fac. p. is4

[4S] 3SI-353.

Motai. 74

Soma and

fac. p. 154;

Nayar.

morels: 64 Morgenstierne, Georg: 223 Morner. Carl Th.: 177,

Mr.

178.

C.: 138 fin.

347,

ivui

Mrs.

Mikivoshi:

iiiriiy:

‘nodules’ of

Noin

82 128. 129. 136

fr..

98.

ti6

Soma:

L'la: 89. 91

39-60 PI- xvi. fac. p. 88:

Nooten. Bart van: 223 Nordhagen. Rolf: 201. (46] 353-335

280, 321. 324. 349

loi

Novitskij. Gr.: 285

Muller, Friedrich

Max: 67

fin. 5, 100. 107,

ftn. 2.

120. 122. 132,

nyagrodha (FictJ rWigioSii): 97, 122 Nyberg. Henrik Samuel: 101 ftn.

285

136

Muller, Reinhold

Munch.

iViriifctti:

Pi. XVII. f.K. p.

HiicWiomur: 10, 156, 194. 235. 236. 238

251

iHtic/mmijr: vide mnH’/iomor

ft..

nh'ar.i:

Mukherjee. Braja Lai:

fac.

Nehring. A.: 132 New Zealand: 171

354

and

navel

Needham, Joseph:

ftn. 2

er/j: 65,

122

nausea: 31. 32. 55. 75 navel: 16, 29. 48-31. 214: vide also

166. 167;

P- 154

identity of

Mordvin:

216

Nambudri Brahmans; 132 Narym: 153. 240. 287; Map

94. 98.

122

Soma,

13, 23, 213.

jMiciIs.jWia

vulc

181. 184. 185

Ndhhi: 48 Nadkarni. K. M. and A. K.: 139

Mongolian language; 170 Monier-Williams, Monier:

Montaigne. Michel

180, 185, 208

mvcophobia;

170, 171, 189 fin. 2

moon:

stones in Kerala, Nepal:

mvcophilia:

108. 109. 125

Modi. Jivanji jamshedji: 74 Mold. Jules: 77 fm. iho-A'ii:

Old

milOraw: 32

.Miira: 44. 48. 58

102.

link

71. 215

loi.

Satanic

French: 189

Mitanni: 219

Mithraism:

310,

43-46

HiHril/iiin:

c/n/i:

306-308,

ft*.

Milton. John: 182

miraculous

[32]

P. A.:

G.: 138

350

Obdorsk:

WHHjfl, mtityara: 97,

Munkacsi.Bernat:

fac. p.

157. 166. 285 ftn.

I30] 302-304. 327 ftn.

330: - and

192 ftn.

281-285: M.\p B.

Ob (river and valley): fac. p. 154: Map B,

373

10.

i65:MapA.

fac. p.

154

INDEX Ob-Ugrians:

151,

207, 213 ftn.

chart

160.

166.

167, 193.

*paggala-: 169 ftn.

280, 281; linguistic

pagyr: 166

[66

fac. p.

Pahlavi: 20. 21

ochre: 219 ftn.

Pallas, P. S.: 257, 315

Odin: 346 Odman. Samuel:

palmyra palm: 176, 177. ^ 37 , 341.

ries

(43] 343-347. 35 i

drink

Odvssey: loi. 108. 109 ftn. i. 127 Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Flaherty, Wendy Doniger: 8.

pave (Maori): 171 pangit

12.

223

17. 33. 79. 92. 176,

Ogloblin, N.:

Soma, theoabout identity of, - fermented vide

169 ftn.

Panini:

17, 115 ftn.

Ohlmarks, A.: 315

Pan Ku: 85. 86. 88, 89 Pannonian plain: 167,

Ohrmazd:

Panofsky, Erwin: 179-180

102

Okhotsk, Sea

Map

233-234

[2]

Map

of:

fac. p.

fac. p. 154;

pavx- 164

154

169

ff..

ftn.,

193

189. 192. 207,

281-285. 304. 306-313

Oldenberg, Hermann:

- and inebriation:

123, 130, 132.

139

Papay.J.: 192

164,

207-208

ftn.

Olsen. Magnus: 177

parasol

oii^aXo?: 49

Paren': 254, 267:

Omphalia: 50

Parjanya: 4 ftn., 23, 39, 40 Parkinson, John: 193

6[iW(ii: lor, 102, 108,

opium:

109

129, 136 ftn. 4. 138, 139, 193

Orlov. N.

Osmond. Humphrey:

306

ff.,

Map

346;

- Irtysh:

219

175 ftn.

ftn.

154,

118, 119,

Patanjali: 139

Patil,

260.

233,

G. M.: 141

Patkanov, Serafim:

B. fac. p. 154

pdvamdna:

Map

fac. p. 154;

Map

fac. p.

38. 56. 63, 214, 220; Pi. in,

pdvani: 99 ftn.

B, fac. p. 154

[17] 260, 281. 307

Paulini, Kristian Frantz: 325

281-285.

327

- Samoyed:

no,

pdrusd: 59

189. 192, 240, 241. 302.

10.

ff..

C. fac. p. 154

122, 127, 129, 139

osadlii (herb): 62. 79, 98. 136.

306

Map

Parsis: 19, 32, 74, 102,

Orphic: 220

Ostyak:

parna: 96, 97

338

I.:

117

- Ugrian: 315

Pavgee, N. B.: 129

Otrebski. Jan: 168

Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University: 143

Ovsianiko-Kulikovskij, D. N.: 112-113

Oxus: 23;

Map

Paddy, wild:

Padma

Pedersen, Holger: 168, [39] 319*320

154

Peganum harmala: vide Soma, about identity of

Piiraiia: 78,

Pxderia

fac. p.

sp.:

Pelliot, P.: 72. 73

vide

about identity of

Soma,

theories

Pelymka: 305

ff.;

Penzhinsk Gulf: 266;

pagal-: 164. 166

pagav-: 164

theories

Map

B, fac. p. i54

254, 257, 259, 265,

fac. p.

154

Periploca aphylla: 105 fig.

374

INDEX Pcriploca

aN)Ut identity

•pHS.Jg:

Soma, theories

n./f

sp.:

Pushkino: 183

‘peso (proto-Japanese): 40

pii;f«nv4 (Maori): 171

Peterson. Roger Tory; 91 ho-

piniUM: 90, 97. 107. tit

Peter the Great: 233-^34

Qa/ilbash, N. A.:

117

p/iiilij:

140, 141

90. 97

Rabelais. Iranyois: 182. 197

Dur: 63

Delestrei

P/ie/lerii!(i

Radwinvi, Tamas; 223. 302-304

piKituni: 59

(millet): 127-128

Piddington. Henry: 104. !o6

Soma, mainstay

pillar of the sky: vii/e

rd^t'i-Seitui

World:

Pillar of the

215. iio, 280

Rahder, Johannes: 49

Rahurkar. V. G.:

13. 35.

Raja,

TTTjYavov:

Pit'iiroliis

sp. iiehroifensis:

r«is<J:

reit

Waclaw:

reindeer, driven

p^sat (Korean):

193

Renou. Louis:

mad

5, 6.

269

insects: 195

17. 29. 30. 36,

12,

Rheede, Henrik van: 137 ftn. 4 rhubarb: vide Sotna, theories about

identity of, -

162. 175

;

vide

Soma,

theories

Rice,

about identity of

fermented drink

Benjamin Lewis: 119

rohe d'appiirot-. 41

P»; 63

and F. W. Rolland. Eugene: 194, Rolfe, R. T.

170, 177, 212 ftn. 2. 216, 217.

238

179

198, 199

Romany

language, soma, sunter: 118 Roth. Rudolph von: 97. 107, ni, 112,

pwp. pupyri (Russian): 49 PiirdMds: 78, 9t Piirvfl

ibi, 243,

41. 67. 223

psilocybin: 75. sp.

136

157. too. 192 ftn.. [30]

and reindeer - and urine: 75-76,

(Cambodian): 49

punk:

Roman:

Soma, theories about ident- Gnnidhis sdtivd

Provence: 180

Psoralea

123

reindeer and fly-agarics: vide fly-agaric

Pressing Stones: 31

psaf

302-304. 306. 307

165-171

Potocki,

Reguly. Antal:

Polyperus hciuliitus: 239

ity of,

179. 2ot

tmis/invins: 72. 73. 74. 220

Regni. Delli

127

Marco; 2t6

pot; vide

142

Regnaud.

Plinv: 125

Polo.

137

Regel. Albert: 114, 140. 145 ftn.

i’/enrotiis ostrcdiHs:

Plutarch: loi ftn.

rdH-teni: 132

221

fac. p. 180.

C Kunham:

Ramsbottom, John:

Pi. xxi,

tin. 2

139. 140 ftn.

Kiijdiiig/idtihc 99.

108. 109. 114

Plaincourault fresco: 178-180:

Itn. 3; 124

bg-

179

pitii:

127

Rago/in, Zenaide A.; 123

of the skv

pine:

Mimdmsd

Sfura: 98

114-117. 119. 121. 144

Rotorua (New Zealand): 171 375

INDEX Roux,

J.-P.:

214

217

ftn..

Roxburgh. William: 97

286-287, 315. 317; ftn.

Sem,

103,

104. 120

54, 58

rtii'5y<i

(New

Setaria sp.:

Zealand): 171

Soma, theories about

Severnaya Dvina River:

137 ftn. 4 rubra (Kromb.) Bres.: 73

sp.: vide

t'ide

identity of

Rumph, George Everhard; Ruta

theories

about identity of

Ruatoria

154

& Sem

Brekhman

Y. A.: vide

serpent: 41. 179, 214. 221 Serratula sp. vide Soma,

Roy, Joges Candras: 136 Rtd: 48,

Map A. fac. p.

Map

p. 154:

Soma, theories about

Shahnameh:

identity of

Map

fac.

B, fac. p. 154

77-78

Shakespere, William: 182, 188

Rutaceae: 114

shamanism. Siberian:

Ryabushinskij.

238

F. P.:

10, 68, 153. 163,

174. 208, 213. 220. 326

Sharma,

fif.

P. V.: 139

Sabarasvami: 98

Shelley, Perq' Bysshe: 182

sacerdotalism: 68, 69 sacred fig (FictJ re/igiostj): 97

Shih-huang. Shih-huang-ti: 82-86, 91, 210

sahdsrapdjas: 109

Shirokogorov,

Sakikusa: 90

s/iem-luW: 106, 107: vide also

illus.

Salmony, Alfred: 8i Salvia sp.; vide Soma, theories about

ftn.

Soma-

creeper Sindh: 122

identity of

liras:

Sdma Veda: 106 Samoyed: 10, 154,

M.: 209

Slater, Gilbert: 130

Slavs: 173, 180

165, 166. 167, 207,

280, 286, 287. 310, 346; linguistic

1/esma/d: 116, 117

chart, fac. p. 166

Sljunin, Nikolai: 154, 156, 157, 159.

Sanchi stupa: 66

161, [18] 260-261, 265, 266, 267

S<ircesieÂťuH<i i)revis{igma:

Sarcostemma

sp.

105

Slovakia: 193

fig.

Soma, theories

\ide

about identity of

Smith, Vincent: 127

ftn.

Smythies, John: 175

ftn.

2 i

Sarychev, Gavriil Andreevich: [8]

161,

Societe Mycologique de France: 178-

179

242-243

Chinnaswami: 138 Saxo Grammaticus: 177. 184

Som:

Sayana: 96, 98 Schipper, Kristofer M.: 223

- and Agni: 39. 5i. 2^4 - and curds: 26-28

Schrader. Otto: 132, 136

- and

Sastri,

Schiibcler,

Fredrik

Christian:

108

Soma

filtres:

XII, fac.

177.

26, 31, 34.

5i'58: Pi-

p. 58

- and fly: 61 - and mystical contemplation:

324. 332, 341. [44] 348-351. 353

Schultes, Richard Evans: 224 Sebillot. Paul: 189 ftn.

8, 102, 104,

Sedanka: 252: Map C, fac. p. 154 Selkup Samoyed: 152, 166, 282 ftn..

- and navel:

16, 29, 48-51.

- and Romany:

376

118

214

68-70.

INDKX Soin.i (coMt.)

- and ‘single eye’: 4t'-47:

I’l-

x, fac.

si'irJ:

114.

15, 9s, 96, 98.

- and thunder: 4. 44 - and thunderstorm: - and ‘toadstool’: 203

1^3.

IT..

131.

102-104. 106-108,

beer:

- growing in mountains:

16,

22-24.

honey:

Pi.

XI.

fac.

47-48. 54. 58;

12.

16.

23,

132

47.

114.

i42-t43. 14^

140,

Soma and

wine:

12,

siini

108, 115. 117. 120. 137

- hops: to. 1 17-1 19. 122 - moon: 69-70, 99. 102.

- milk: 98-99;

130,

is-16, 23

wild grape wine:

cap): 4S-46 >6.

117-120,

date juice: 130

siini: viiie

- mainstay of sky:

>>7.

115.

coconut palm: 130

rhubarb:

1.34

mead: 15-16. 123. 141 palmyra palm: 130

point of V'edic religion:

head’

132.

is. I7. 109.

121. 129. I4<>

112,

138

119.

.Afghan grapes: 23.

39. 40, 54

123. i2s. >37. I40-14I

- focal

- fermented drink: alcoholic beverage:

no.

- and udder: 43. 44, 46. 214 - bought for a cow: 24 - -creeper (-vul/f. -lutd, -liiUi. s/iem14. 97.

16-17.

-distilled spirits:

134- 137. 138. 144

no.

62. 03

- deliberately unpalatable: 112

- and stalk: 44 - and sun (.Silrya): 37-39. - and

•

- theories about identity of

4«

Soma, (cent.) - synonyms tor:

Pi.

vn. fac. p. 48

106,

109.

122, 139

Soma, colour of: 13. 36-42 - definition of: 3 - Dhurtasvami’s description 107,

- T/icrnioKicfenum mehi/e: 133. 134 of: too.

iio,

- etymology of: 62 - fig. of: 124: PI. I. fac. p. 34 - legends about origin of: 4. 39, 141141

- priests urinating: 25 fT., 176 - reasons for abandonment of: 69

13,

ff.

- roots, leaves, blossoms, seed of:

18.

sp.: 103. 104, 107, 109-

112-115.

121.

123,

127,

129,

132

- Basella sp.: 121. 126 - Bassia sp.: 133. 134 - CiEsalpinia sp.: 143 - Calonyction sp.: 109 - Calotropis sp.: 104, 133 - Ciinnafiis saliva (= C. bhang, ganja, hashish,

indicn).

hemp, ma-

rijuana, pot: 12. 16. 114, 126, 128-

- substitutes

for:

12.

13.

112;

Brdhmanas. 95 ff.. iii. 122; - should be red. 97; should be small, leafless, fleshy, 14, 104 - sacred barley beer. 130

- Asclepias

mead (hydromel).

129. 132. 135-139. 141. 144. 145

- Centella sp. 142 - Ceropegia sp.: no - Cocculus sp.: 98. 142 :

- Composita;: 114-115 - Conyza sp.: 102

123

377

INDEX Soma, theories about identity of (conr.) -

Crinum sp.: - Cynanchium

139

122.

sp.:

103

105

131-133.

- Fra.xinus - Ipomcca

143

- Psoralea - Ruta

131.

138.

104.

ii7.

142-143.

Augustine: 71, 72.

St.

Francois de Sales: 71. 191

Steinitz,

Steller,

102.

W olfgang:

sp.:

14.

115-117.

23.

Georg Wilhelm:

Strahlenberg. Filip Johann von: 25, 151. 153. 161. 177. [3] 234-235. 322

ude fibres of Soma: 59-60

strainers:

sp.: 103

‘studs’

- Tinospora sp.: 103, 123 - Umbelliferae: 115

smilus: 72

sp.: 98,

Sudra: 31 Suigetsu Kan-6: 90

sukara-maddava. silkara-manso: 65

102. 104.

106.

143 :

25, 26, 54

97. 98.

103

flf.,

123, 125; vide also

somavalli (creeper):

ftn.,

IO6-IO8,

98,

Map

B, fac. p. 154

5Hr\’a: Pi. rv. fac. p. 40: vide

Soma and

sun

HO,

Soma-creeper 14,

Sung Dynast)" 72 siird: ude Soma and sura Surgut: 284:

102-104, 106, 121, 125

somdatd, somabitd, soma-bttd (creeper):

141

Sumerians: 207. 219 sun: \ide Soma and sun

sp.: 126

soma-rdj, somrdj, somardji, somardjin: 98,

Suleman Mountains:

Sullivan, Michael: 80 ftn., 89

121. 125

- two forms of

153. 161. 162,

Stoll. O.: 325 ftn. 2

119-123,

- Setaria sp.: 121. 131 - Tamarii sp.: 118 - Thespesia sp.: 143

sp.:

patjx

Stietencron, Heinrich von: 21. 69

103-

145; 105 fig.

- Vitis

and

Stevenson, John: 106

126. 131. 132. 133. 135. 138, 143-

- Vitex

166; -

346, 347. 348

106-112.

- Vemonia

191. 224

177. 237. 238. I5] 239-240, 250. 337.

sp.: 137

- Serratula

St.

cluster, [36] 313, 317

(mountain-rue):

- Sarcostemma 104.

Aurel: 132, 140 - and rhubarb: 16, 133

108, 125

- Salvia

G.: 142. 143 ftn.

Stein,

sp.: 143

sp.

Star Carr: 169. 170, 238

- P^ganum harmala: 114 - Periploca sp.: 14. 23.

fig.

182, 188

Ssu-ma Ch’ien: 82-85

- Menispermum sp.: 103 - P^deria sp.: 121. 139

145: 105

B, fac. p. 154

Edmund:

Srivastava.

sp.: 109

126.

Map

SrtiurusHtru: 97. 100

sp.: 133. 134

119-121.

ftn. 2

Spiegel. Friedrich: iio

114. 116

Gymnema

Sosva River:

140-143;

138.

sp.: 112. 114

Soma-

ioHo: 37

Spenser,

sp.

123; vide also

Soneda. Masami: 74

127. 128

fig.

- Euphorbia - Ferula sp.:

10.

som-vel: 139

sp.: 14, 23. 104. 118. 120-

126.

creeper

- E/eusifjefordfinui (millet):

-Ephedra

ftn. 5, 103,

125. Snsruta. Susruta Samliifd: 99, 100.

126 ftn.

99.

378

142

INDEX Sverdrup.

swallow-wort: 103

189

toad, sinister associations of, in Ger-

sveiiu/irfd: 9f>,

M^P Map

Svr Darya: 114: Ri\cr:

Map

various

European languages; 186 toad linked to Satan in Old Erench;

Svsola

with fungi

toad', linked

U.: 355

[1.

P-

manic and

*54

fl-.

203

p. i‘;4i

lac.

Celtic folklore; 187

*^3. 1^5-

to.Klstool: 35, 152, 173.

B, fac. p. 1=54

189. 202. 203. 221

Taiga:

Map

Taigonos: 257:

Map

fac.

Talicnioio, T.: 201 ftn.

Taniarix

202

s8: Pi. xin, lac.

touchwood:

169.

170,

171.

177. 217.

238, 239

about identity ol

T’ang Dynasty:

B. lac. p. 1S4

Tongue of the Way;

p. IS4

Soma, theories

sp.:

Map

Tobol' River:

B, fac. p. 1S4

Train. John P. C.

71. 81

176

;

Transpacific contacts, discussion of;

Tao: 49 Taoists: 72, 80, 153. iio

83,

162-163.

332-333

(Magyar for touchwood): 170 Tatra Mountains: 193 Tavda River; Map B. fac. p. is4

Tree of Life: 214, 21s. 218. 219. 220 Tree of the Knowledge of Good and

Tavgi: los.

Tremyugan: 281-28?

tii/'lo

i6<’.

Evil: 220

207. 310

Taylor. Jeremy: 71. 191

Map

Taz River:

Tric/ieleiHji

Tristram Shandy: 8

B. fac. p. 154

Tennyson, Alfred: 182

inifi: •

(god’s flesh): 3

ft’()-H(j»(iC(tll

Terfezia sp.

ftn.

Tsingala: 28[-285, 328 ftn. 2:

vide

iHoInle:

Soma.

theories about identity of vide

Soma, theories

W. T.: 117, 118. 120 thunder: vide Soma and thunder thunderstorm: vide Soma and thunThiselton-Dyer,

derstorm :

Map

C. fac. p.

fac. p.

Tung-fang Shuo: 84 Tungus: 269. 276. 279. Turner, R. L.; 169

194. 198

River:

154

321. 334

ftn.

Map

B, fac. p. 154

Tyler, Varro E.: 142

Tym

Tikhomirov. V. A.: 338

192

Turukhan

239. 252, 349

Map

tundra: Map. B.

about identity of

Tigil

fac. p.

tHe-meuclie: 10, 36 ftn.

sp.:

(rut: 170. 238

Theophrastes: 102

Thespesia

•

truftles: 72

'iVieriHohaclerjMiM

mongolicum: 170

River:

Map

B, fac. p. 154

tinder: 169-170, 171, 238

Tinospora

sp.;

vide

Soma, theories

about identity of toad, in Lithuanian culture: 189-190 ‘toad’, linked with fly-agaric in Chinese: 189

Udder: Ugrians:

vide fly-agaric to.

164.

i6s,

and udder 192. 281:

guistic chart fac. p. 166

Uhl, L. L.: 131

Uighur: 216

379

lin-

INDEX mil. HWii. iiiiiIiHr: 104,

Unibellifera?:

vitie

121

Vitis sp.

Soma,

theories

\’ladiyostok: 269. 334

161. 166:

- and pa^x

cluster, [34] 312. 316-317

IpnmWs:

Soma, theories about

identity of

about identity of Uotila, T. E.:

vide

yodka:

ii,

Vogul:

10. 154. 157. 164. 165, 178, 191.

95, 131 ftn. 4

332

ftn.

192. 193. 231. 281. 285, 305

Map A,

Upsala; 177. i99*ioo, 351 Uralic: 10. 161. 164. 165, 166, 169,207,

208 urine: 25-34. 52-yS. 73*76. 158. 160-

fac. p. 154:

\’ogul

Hymns:

Voigt.

162, 235. 237, 239-240, 243. 249-250.

Map B, fac. p. 154

302-304: 306-308

vide

Finns:

guistic chart, fac.

Volga River;

252. 255 ftn., 257. 259, 261. 263, 267.

Map

269. 275. 276

- and fly-agaric: vide fly-agaric and

vfstl;

333:

O.: 106

Finns:

\’olga

ff..

Map

also

lin-

p. 166

fac.

p. 154:

B. fac. p. 154

urine - and rain: 30, 276 - and reindeer: vide reindeer

Wapaq: and

Waser. Peter G.; 201 ftn. i, 202 W'asson. R. G., and .Aldous Huxley:

urine

- and Soma: 25 flf. -as medico-religious 30.

146. 147, 175*176

Wasson. R.

disinfectant:

‘urine of drunkenness’: 32

informants: 104

Wasson. Valentina Pavlovna:

128

172.

174. 202

Usbekistani: 114 Uftrtilfea:

G., his A. miiscaria theor)%

comment on: 143 - quoting Brahman

HStliid:

160, 268, 277-278

Wasson, V.

and R.

G.: 35. 4° fm.,

71 ftn., 146

Water

VrtcciHium idigiiiosum: vide bilberry \ aidika Satiisodhana

Mandala: 4

220, 271

Waters, Evelyn: 224

Viiiimni: 116, 117. i35 vdiiti:

Watson, J. Forbes: 108 Watt, George: 67, 104 ftn.

140

Washington

\’anderlip,

Varmland: Varuna:

B.: [20] 264

\'asyugan: 281-285:

Weintraub. Wiktor: 243

Map.

B, fac.

Weng, Wango: 223 West. Edward William:

154

Vayu: 26, Vernonia

vide

Widengren, Geo: 219 ftn. wild grape wine: vide Soma,

‘vesture-of-grand-occasion’: 41

Vinkenoog. Simon: 146 ftn. 2 vinidlt (‘plant’ = Soma): 63, 98 Vitex sp.: vide Soma, theories about

ftn. i,

107

Soma, theories

about identity of

identity of

112

Whitney, William Dwight: 46

27, 28. 30, 48, 55, 59 sp.

115*117.

119-121

177. 178. 353*354

15. 44. 48.

(or Milk) of Life: 214. 216.

theories

about identity of Wilkens: 114 Wilkins. Charles:

8, 102,

Willetts, William: 89 ftn.

380

104 i

ND X I

Hor.icc

ilson,

W'inJischniann,

ricJrich:

witchcraft. Hiiropean:

Worth. Dean

S.:

Yetts. Perceval: 89 ftn.. 90

l.ivman: o~, 103

io(>.

Yugan: .Map

i"(s

2-2.

2-9,

334 154; Map C.

fac. p.

^ajur

\'eda, black:

.Ui

Vanuina: 95 Yaska: 63, 98 Yiisno, vide Avesta

fl'.;

Map

Zimmer.

287: fac.

Map

fac.

valley): p. IS4:

to,

286-

Map

B. fac.

Map

IS 4

M-»p A.

34 ^’:

lac.

p. is 4

315:

Map

B. fac. p. 1=54

14^

32.

vide

Avesta

Zoroaster: 1

leinrich: 19,

33 71 .

ni .

73 - 74

loi.

i.R'.

3.10

Zoroastrianism: 71, 73

p. 1=54

- Ostyak:

yesc<i:

and

170. 212 fin. 2, 238

iac.

1^4

Yenisei (river

Zarathustra: 19

Zend Avesta: 252

158,

fac. p. IS4:

Zaehner. R. C.:

104. 120

Yelovka:

30s.

Yurak Samoyed:

100

Yakut: 241, 271 Im..

ve/i»ia:

B. lac. p.

^iikagir: 10. 100, 23S. 239. 241. 2~i,

iS-

Wvi-ti: 84-80. 88-01

Wu.

Yiian Dvnastv: 80. S". 92

.A.

fac.

p. 1^4:

Map

ZtoiderscliH'iiHUH: 170

Zvrian: t64-i6e>:

p. 154

Map

170

92871

Map

B, fac. p. iS 4

A, fac. p. 1^4: