Comments on: Hallucinogens in North America

By: Lois Beardslee

Lois Beardslee — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 03:13:56 +0000

Dear Mr. Beyer,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments questioning Peschel’s legitimacy as a source for Chippewa (Ojibwe) cultural knowledge and her integration into local Native culture. Indeed, she avoided local Indian people as much as we avoided her. Her daughter still lives in the region, and denies any Native identification. Anishinaabe cultural insiders question even Peschel’s apparently-manufactured linguistic terms. Her greatest claim to fame in her adopted homeland, northwest Lower Michigan’s Leelanau County, is that she allegedly led to the inadvertent poisoning death (by ingestion of wild mushrooms) of one of her enthusiastic young non-Native followers while on a field trip to Lake Michigan’s Beaver Island. The island was formerly the home of several aboriginal families who were forced onto the mainland to make way for a burgeoning population of affluent non-Native “cottagers.” Peschel and her non-Native followers continue to promote cute stereotypes about the region’s indigenous population; this in turn has contributed to rampant cultural appropriation, morbid racism, and an off-reservation unemployment rate among Native Americans in excess of 99%. Peschel’s othercultural impersonation and teachings contribute to the ongoing dimunization of Native people and substitute fiction for fact. There is no place for this in science, in credible literature, or in functional cultural intercourse.

By: Steve Beyer

Steve Beyer — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:07:31 +0000

Apparently you knew Keewaydinoquay only after her relationship with Wasson was over. If, as you say, she did not then concentrate on the mushroom, I see nothing inconsistent with my account — that her claims of Anishinaabeg shamanic mushroom use were accommodations to Wasson’s obsession. There is no doubt that she was a fascinating woman and dedicated herbalist, and I am delighted to learn that she found happiness later in her life. But that does nothing to alleviate my skepticism about the use of Amanita muscaria by Anishinaabeg shamans.

By: john Lorenzen

john Lorenzen — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:22:56 +0000

Mr. Beyer,
Your article of my spiritual teacher is fraught with fiction. Kee was not ’solitary and unhappy’ as you say–she was surrounded by many family members an hundreds of students–she delighted in sharing her herbal knowledge with her students. You didn’t even know her. I did for many years. It is true that Kee knew about this mushroom and wrote about it. I never knew her when she did all you said she supposedly did–she did not concentrate on that plant in all the years I knew her. That is pure supposition/invention on your part. Please do not type false things of honored elders. Its just not a good thing.

J.Lorenzen

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:27:00 +0000

As far as I know the modernised Bwiti cult which is often syncretised with christianity in Gabon, is a more recent adoption of Iboga for religious ritual/healing by the full sized african people of the locality.
The original usage of the entheogen in that region was exclusively by the pygmy tribes who still live their traditional hunter gatherer existence in the equatorial rain forests of Gabon & Cameroon. They follow the traditional animistic Bwiti religion.

The plant is worshipped as “the source of spiritual knowledge and as a tool for accessing the wisdom of the ancestors”. They have their shamans that use the plant for healing, sorcery and communicating with the dead, but also make general use of it for initiations ceremonies.

There is limited information about their way of life available on the net, but I first learned of them via an fascinating BBC program called ‘Tribe’, a documentary that follows Bruce Parry as he undegoes a traditional bwiti initiation with iboga in a Babonga pygmy village.

Check out the bbc site :-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/tribe/tribes/babongo/

By: Steve Beyer

Steve Beyer — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:13:00 +0000

As far as I know — and I would be grateful for any reference that proves me wrong — iboga use is limited to a specific group — the Bwiti religion in Gabon. More important, the question is not whether people use entheogens all over the world. There is no doubt that they do, for all kinds of reasons — personal exploration, recreational inebriation, initiatory ordeals. The question I am asking is whether these plants and fungi are used for *shamanizing*, and I still have not seen evidence that persuades me to abandon the idea that *shamanic* use of psychoactive plants and fungi are uniquely part of a culture area radiating out from the Upper Amazon. Here is an example: ayahuasca is used in several new religious movements in Brazil, but in none of them would I consider its use to be shamanic. Believe me, my mind is not closed; that’s why I put my thoughts out there on this blog. Please, if you have any references that show iboga used for shamanizing — the way, say, ayahuasca is used in Western Amazonia — let me know.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:40:00 +0000

How can you claim the geographic limitation of entheogen use to South/central America when there has been continous use of iboga in western africa by pygmy tribes since neolithic times?

By: Chuntaro's Corner

Chuntaro's Corner — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:47:00 +0000

Once again, syncretism and availability of ceremonies is good. However people forget how and where the first nations ceremonies came to be. The Anashinabe have the Mide lodge and the little boy water drum, cedar and rattle. And their medicine society is called the Midewiwin
There are people in the plains and northern tribes that have pseudo Yuwipi ceremonies and bring specific plants to ceremony that the spirits come to see. When they show up the person running the ceremony makes the audience believe they are there for him, when in reality they have come to see the plant. Pretty clever! It also shows some degree of understanding of ceremonial use of certain plants and calling songs.

The further north one ventures, the less use of many other “mystical” plants that one sees. Ceremonies involve (to the sadness of those looking for the pink neon buffalo) water, tobacco, corn, squash, sage, maple syrup and a few unlucky salmons. However in urban populations is not uncommon to find chapters of the Native American church. This is happening a lot in places like Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico and Brasil as well. It is common to have traditional elders recognize that there’s god medicine in the NAC and the Yage drinking, but to also remind people that their own ways are there for them as well.