Jochen Gartz - Magic Mushrooms Around the ... - preterhuman.net

CHAPTER 7.6
INTOXICATIONS AND THE OLDEST KNOWN
MUSHROOM CULT IN AFRICA
So far, the mycoflora of the African
continent has been studied only peripherally and
remains largely unknown. During the late 1980s,
Italian mycologist G. Samorini and Terence
McKenna, working independently, found evidence
for the oldest known mushroom cult in Africa.
Their discoveries were not just sensational, but
most surprising as well. On the other hand, it
really shouldn't come as a surprise that the oldest
traces of human contact with mushrooms were
found on the very continent known as the cradle of
humanity.
10,000 Years Old
From 9,000 to 7,000 years ago, the area of
the Sahara - between Tassili (Southern Algeria),
Acacus (Libya) and Ennedi (Chad) - was
populated by human beings who created
magnificent rock drawings, a pictorial legacy that
preserved for posterity impressive images of
everyday life. These pictures tell about a time
when the Sahara was still a blooming garden, a
time when no one even suspected that processes of
erosion and desolation, starting about 3,500 B.C.,
would turn the area into a desert quite hostile to
human life.
The rock drawings date from as far back
as 10,000 B.C. up to the present. Among the
drawings from the Stone Age (7,000-5,000 B.C.),
there are those described as typical of the so-called
"round head phase". They include pictures of
pasture animals as well as evergreen and
deciduous trees. On top of a Sahara plateau, at an
altitude of 6,500 ft., there exist pictures of
mythical beings with anthropomorphic and
zoomorphic attributes which are reminiscent of
early Mexican images: many scenes depict tiny
horned dancers alongside mushrooms. Deities with
masks and horns are seen holding mushrooms in
their hands; sometimes the mushrooms are shown
attached directly to body parts. In addition, those
Stone Age artists created
images of anthropomorphic beings with
mushroom-like heads. There are many other
indications pointing toward the existence of a
comprehensive mushroom cult.
Among the most striking renditions at
Tin-Tazarift, Tassili District (Algeria) is a picture
of masked anthropomorphic beings engaged in
ecstatic dancing. (See Figure 5, p. 8). This figure,
"Anthropomorphic Beings Engaged in Mushroom
Dance", includes several dashed lines, which are
most interesting, because they connect the
mushroom with the center of the head. At the
same time, these lines represent a flow of energy,
maybe even the mushrooms' influence on the
human soul. This picture is clearly indicative of
psychotropic mushroom use. It seems quite
remarkable that, as early as 9,000 - 7,000 years
ago, the head was apparently considered to be the
seat of consciousness. By contrast, four or five
millennia later, during the European era of
classical antiquity, the brain's role was merely
thought to be similar to that of a kind of cooler.
Other rock drawings also depict mushrooms as
being mythologically linked with fish.
These images, then, furnish powerful
evidence for the usage of psychoactive
mushrooms within a mystical-religious framework.
The rock drawings consistently show two
kinds of mushroom shapes: one of them resembles
Psilocybe semilanceata, in that the caps are drawn
with an acute umbo on top, while the other shape
represents larger mushrooms with a habitus much
like that of the Amanita or Stropharia species.
Despite their age, the rock drawings'
colors have retained brilliant hues. Pictures of
mushrooms were drawn in white as well as several
shades of ochre. Also, a few mushrooms were
drawn in blue colors. While this is the exception, it
may well be a representation of the so-called
bluing phenomenon.
In Nature, these colors are associated
with the bluing Psilocybe and Panaeolus species.
These mushrooms could have grown on several