Gordon Wasson’s WOMAN OF THE NORTHWEST WIND Lawrence Millman

Ojibwe (more properly, Anishinaabe) Panadja Mittigok, chicken of the extraction, Ms. Peschel changed her woods, is cooked lightly (!) and served name to Keewaydinoquay, which means with meat or leftover gravy; Mishimig “Woman of the Northwest Wind,” Binakwan (Daedalea quercina) “has a following a purported vision quest. shape naturally convenient for currying Henceforth I will refer to her as Kee, the coats of horses;” small puffballs, which is easier on the tongue than “luscious little morsels,” are put into Keewaydinoquay. It’s also the name by stews, “like dumplings;” smoke from which she was known among her own Fomes fomentarius or Piptoporus acolytes. betulinus puts a hive of bees to sleep; n 1957, Wall Street banker Gordon The details of Kee’s life are vague Marasmius scorodonius, “the little Wasson wrote a feature article before she met Wasson. She was garlic mushroom,” flavors “winter for Life magazine about eating probably born in 1919 in northern menus;” Ustilago maydis, corn smut, Ipsilocybin-containing mushrooms in Michigan. She was a healer and is a secret medicine that facilitates Mexico, thus inaugurating a global herbalist, and maybe—according to childbirth; and so on. interest in magic mushrooms, so-called. Wasson—a shaman. For several years, At the end of the book, a glossary A few years later, Wasson wrote a book she had been carrying on a lively lists several dozen words and phrases entitled SOMA in which he argued that correspondence with the banker- either relating to fungi or to the Ojibwe the holy substance in the Sanskrit classic ethnomycologist, whom she called use of fungi. Example: Waw-but-to is Rig Veda was Amanita muscaria. In the Waussung-naabe, “Shining-From-Afar- “pine wood shining with the mycelium 1970s, he co-authored a book suggesting Man” (McKenna et al, 1990). At last, of fungi.” Another example: Wajash- that the Oracle at Delphi was high on in 1976, the Shining-From-Afar-Man Kwewabo is “A mushroom drink made ergot when she made her predictions. visited her on Garden Island in Lake from mushrooms growing from a A less likely magic mushroom Michigan, where she had been living a tree or the decayed part of a tree” aficionado would be hard to imagine. hermitlike existence. The next year he (Keewaydinoquay, 1978). Wasson was a Vice-President of J.P. visited her again. This time she gave Before you revel in the mycological Morgan & Co. for twenty years, an arch- him several dried Amanita muscaria to acumen of Native Americans, consider conservative in politics, and a millionaire eat because, Wasson wrote obliquely, Field Museum botanist Huron Smith’s many times over. You can imagine “I was seeking guidance on a family Ethnobotany of the Ojibwe (Smith, 1932). him interested in expensive truffles or matter” (according to a letter in the Tina In this comprehensive tome, Smith omelets filled with porcini, but not, and Gordon Wasson Ethnomycological states: “The Ojibwe evidently have had definitely not, psychotropic substances. Collection, Harvard University). disastrous experiences with mushrooms Wasson didn’t like to use the word Probably due to his wealth, Wasson and do not use them as food.” He psychotropic. Eventually, he decided that had a certain amount of clout at Harvard mentions a single “ethno” use of a the appropriate word was entheogen, University, and in 1978 he helped Kee fungus—to stop nosebleed, the Ojibwe which means “god generated within” in get a book entitled Puhpowee for the stuffed pieces of Oskwe’tuk (Calvatia Greek (McKenna et al, 1990). Because People published under the auspices craniformis) up their noses. Likewise, of his devotion to entheogens and also of Harvard’s Botanical Museum in a 1919 article in Mycologia, J.H. Faull because he was known to have rather (Keewaydinoquay, 1978). Puhpowee, remarks on the fact that the vocabulary loose purse strings, he attracted acolytes according to Kee, means “to swell up of the Ojibwe has virtually no names for not only among ordinary folks in search in stature suddenly and silently from species of fungi (Faull, 1919). of a high, but also among such scholars an unseen source of power.” Through Ojibwe sources such as the celebrated as Richard Evans Schultes, Gaston traditional stories and Kee’s own artist Norval Morisseau indicate that Guzmán, and Roger Heim. experience, the book describes the mushrooms shouldn’t be eaten in this Enter a woman from northern Ojibwe culinary and nonculinary use of life, but might perhaps be a decent food Michigan named Margaret Peschel. Of mushrooms. For example: in the afterlife (from a note referring 26 FUNGI Volume 8:4 Winter 2015 to Morriseau in the Tina and Gordon song as cited by Kee: can take on a remarkable variety of Wasson Archive, 1978). And some “I have a cure to alleviate your ills, guises. Whatever the nature of Kee’s years ago, near Lake Nippissing in To take away all your unhappiness. relationship with Wasson—and I would Ontario, I asked an Ojibwe elder what he If only you will come to my penis argue in favor of an inextricable mix thought of mushrooms. “All of them are And take the quickening waters of romance, careerism, and Wasson’s poisonous,” he told me. I also asked him flowing from it bank account—a goodly part of their what the Ojibwe word for mushroom You, too, can be forever happy.” correspondence at Harvard can’t be was. He looked thoughtful for a viewed until the year 2025. The reason moment, then said: “Mushroom.” Kee’s writings suggest that red-capped for such secrecy is anybody’s guess— But might Kee have been the last of A. muscaria —A. muscaria var. muscaria erotic declarations? Kee’s desire to the Ojibwe to possess any mycological — virtually blanket Ojibwe country, but promote herself? Wasson’s not always lore? She did possess mycological lore, the opposite is true: they hardly occur judicious nature? but she seems to have obtained it from there at all. In western or southeastern Kee offered Wasson Ojibwe fungal written sources rather than, as she North America, yes; but not in northern lore in fits and starts, also in unfinished suggests, her own people. After all, she Michigan. It would appear that Kee drafts. Andy Letcher says that she knew was an educated woman, and shortly had read ethnographic studies like Wasson had mixed feelings about her, so after she met the Shining-From-Afar- Waldemar Bogaras’ The Chukchi of “she drew out the process of providing Man, she began pursuing a doctorate Northeastern Asia and borrowed him with anecdotes and stories … in in ethnobotany at the University of information from those studies without the hope that her affections might Michigan. At one of the university’s bothering to consult any distribution eventually be reciprocated” (Letcher, libraries, she could have easily read that maps (or their equivalent) that might 2007). To which I might add: the more Daedalea quercina is commonly used to display the locations of several varieties material you give to a well-situated curry horses and Fomes fomentarius to of A. muscaria. person like Wasson, the higher your pacify bees. You might wonder where she star will rise in the ethnographic and/or Let’s now consider Amanita obtained the dried specimens she gave entheogenic firmament … and if you give muscaria. Kee wrote a book on this to Wasson. Probable answer: either that material to him slowly, the Shining- iconic species entitled Muskwedo, but from one of the doubtless many dealers From-Afar-Man might think you have a only one copy was ever printed, and in psychotropic substances who would bottomless trough of it. that copy currently resides in Harvard’s have hung out on the Ann Arbor campus These days Native Americans are Wasson Archives and is unavailable for in the 1970s or maybe from a West Coast often placed on pedestals because scrutiny, possibly because its accuracy acquaintance via the U.S. Postal Service. they’re considered highly spiritual is suspect. But these same archives have She would not have collected those individuals with vast amounts of wisdom various drafts for Muskwedo, along with specimens on Garden Island, however. to impart. Kee knew exactly how to get Wasson’s scribbled notes on those drafts, Since Wasson found the use of A. herself installed on this sort of pedestal. and a researcher can study this material muscaria in virtually every nook and Her installers called her “Grandmother” to his or her heart’s content. cranny in the historical woodwork, (anon., pers. com.), a tribute to her According to Kee, muskwedo means Kee would have been only too glad to putative wisdom, and when she died “Mighty Red Topped Mushroom Living inform him that the Ojibwe used the on Garden Island on July 21, 1999, they with a Tree.” In 1978, she claimed to mushroom, too. For what better way honored her with a ceremony. I suspect have eaten this mighty mushroom for to gain the attention of the Shining- that very few of those who attended that shamanic purposes for the past fifty From-Afar-Man than to seize upon ceremony were Ojibwe. years, which, if true, means that she the supreme object of his interest and References Cited would have begun eating it at age nine. inform him that your own people also In cultures where A. muscaria has any believe in the potency of that mushroom, Faull, J.H. 1919. Pineapple fungus or degree of ritual significance, it’s usually indeed drink the urine of its partakers? enfant de pin or wabadou. Mycologia only male elders who eat the mushroom, In fact, Wasson got Kee a gig at a 1978 11(5): 267-272 . so the idea of a nine-year old girl eating conference on psychoactive drugs in San Keewaydinoqay. 1978. Puhpowee for the it is somewhat surprising… Francisco, where she told a rapt audience People. Botanical Museum of Harvard Other names for A. muscaria in Kee’s that the sacred quality of A. muscaria University. Cambridge, MA. drafts include Osh-timisk (“Red Head is passed on through urine, a drink of Letcher, A. 2007. Shroom: A Cultural or Red Top”), Kagigedebwein (“Eternal choice among her own people. History of the Magic Mushroom. Truth Giver”), Kaia Kamisiwin (“Short In Shroom, Andy Letcher writes Harper Collins: New York, NY. Cut to Eternity”), and Mitumanishnau- that Kee and Wasson “appear to have McKenna, T., J. Halifax, P.T. Furst, A. omadens (“Poor Indian’s Little Bottle”). been lovers” (Letcher, 2007), but Hofmann, R.E. Shultes, et al. 1990. The One draft includes a song surprisingly anthropologist Reid Kaplan thinks Sacred Mushroom Seeker: Tributes to similar to songs that the Siberian Wasson’s age and health (several strokes) R. Gordon Wasson., T.J. Riedlinger, Ed., Chukchi sing (or used to sing) about would have made him an unlikely lover Park Street Press: Rochester, Vermont. the delights of drinking the urine (www.singingto-theplants.com/2008/02/ Smith, H. 1932. Ethnobotany of the of a person who’s eaten wapaq (A. hallucinogen-in-north-america/). Ojibwe Indians. Milwaukee, Wis., muscaria). Here are a few lines from the Such opinions notwithstanding, love Published by the Order of Trustees. FUNGI Volume 8:4 Winter 2015 27