The following is an excerpt from p. 127-131 of Chapter 3, “Everywhere, All the Time: DMT and Drugism” from my book, Drugism (2022):
[Note: this excerpt picks up where “What is DMT?” left off.]
Before we discuss the modern culture around DMT, it is necessary to discuss the history of its use throughout the world, particularly in the western hemisphere, and especially among indigenous communities. The rich tradition of DMT use is a gift from them—or, arguably, not a gift but rather something taken by force. Unfortunately, we will see that both the history and present status of DMT are heavily bound up in colonial practices and capitalist values.
In order to understand this, we must first consider the incredibly vast number of societies that have used DMT-containing plants, throughout the world and long before the birth of modern, industrial, nation-based society. At times, the use of DMT-containing plants has taken forms that can be clearly defined as drug use, for example the insufflation of yopo, the drinking of the yagé brew, etc. However, at other times, the use of DMT-containing plants has taken forms not immediately recognizable as drug use, but which may still involve the psychoactive effects of DMT.
For example, the Kalahari Juǀ’hoan of southern Africa use Acacia root in prayer, a practice that has likely existed for countless generations. In times of difficulty, the Juǀ’hoan practice a spiritual ritual which revolves around a type of vision known as kabi. The purpose of the kabi is to commune with God, which is done by “climbing ropes” toward God. The ropes are also described as “power lines” which carry “spiritual electricity” between Earth and higher realms. During the ritual, if one encounters difficulty “climbing the rope” to God, they chew on Acacia root for help. The Acacia allows one to “receive clear direction” from God, in order to keep climbing.1 Clearly, there is an affiliation between Acacia and notions of God for the Kalahari Juǀ’hoan.*
Moving beyond Africa, we find that Acacia has also been used in spiritual rituals in India. As explained by Scott Cunningham, who was an expert in the ritual uses of plants, Acacia wood “is used as fuel in sacred fires in India, and is also used in building temples.”2 It is quite possible that the burning of Acacia releases some DMT, even if only trace amounts. While the burning of Acacia in fires may not explicitly resemble drug use, it is conceivable that the psychoactive properties of DMT, released into the air via smoke, may have played a role in the production of spiritual experience. The fact that Acacia is also used to build temples suggests that it is associated with religious practice. And India is not the only place where Acacia has been used to construct places of worship.
In the Torah and the Bible, Acacia plays an important function. In the story of Moses, Acacia wood takes on a special, spiritual significance. It is mentioned by name as a gift acceptable for offering to God, in Exodus 25:5. When Moses takes instruction from God, he is told to build both an ark (a wooden chest to protect the Torah) and a tabernacle (or mishkan in Hebrew, a structure to protect the sanctuary space used for prayer and offerings) specifically from Acacia wood.3
Rabbinical commentary on the Torah explains that “one purpose of the tabernacle was to combat the idea that God had forsaken the earth, choosing to reside exclusively in heaven, remote from humanity.”4 Luckily for us, rabbinical commentators also address the question of why Acacia was to be used for this purpose. As they explain, Acacia is not native to the region of Sinai where Moses received this instruction. However, they recount a legend that Jacob, coming from Egypt, planted Acacia trees throughout the wilderness, “foreseeing that one day his grandchildren [Moses, et al] would need them.”5
That Acacia is said to have been planted deliberately by Jacob, and that it was used in the construction of the ark and tabernacle, which, as explained above, indicate God’s presence on Earth, together suggest that Jacob, Moses, et al may have been aware, in a way, of the potency of Acacias, whether or not they understood the chemistry of DMT per se.
Thus, in Africa, India, and the ancient Middle East, we see a history of use of DMT-containing Acacias for religious purposes. Other ancient societies which developed in the western hemisphere were also aware of the qualities of DMT-containing plants, perhaps even more so than the sages of the Kalahari, India or Sinai. For them, however, it was not Acacias which provided DMT but Mimosas, Psychotrias, Virolas, and Anadenantheras.
There is evidence which suggests that DMT-containing snuffs were used in the ancient city Caral-Supe of what is now northern Peru, five thousand years ago or more.6 Anadenanthera species containing DMT have also been used by various communities in northwest Argentina for more than four thousand years. The Tiwanaku, a pre-Incan society, likely used DMT-containing Anadenanthera species roughly three thousand years ago.7 The plants have been known variously as yopo, ucuba, epená, cohoba, and many other names, depending on the species, region, and community in question.
The Arawak-speaking Taino people from what is now known as Haiti used cohoba seeds from the Anadenanthera peregrina species which contain DMT and its close relative bufotenin for hundreds if not thousands of years.8 Tragically, genocide and illness, both consequences of colonization, decimated the Taino population, along with their traditions. The first European to record the use of cohoba was Ramon Pane, who accompanied Columbus on his voyage to Haiti in 1496.9 Today, the practice is rare, if it still exists at all.
Cohoba, yopo, etc., are traditionally either insufflated (snorted) or smoked. However, DMT-containing plants are also often combined with MAOI-containing plants and consumed orally. These mixtures are known as ayahuasca, yagé, natema, and many other names, and have also been consumed in the western hemisphere for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Ayahuasca and the culture(s) around it are complex and vast, and ultimately warrant their own discussion. That said, any conversation on DMT is incomplete without consideration of the fact that we likely would not even know about the compound were it not for these indigenous communities’ use of it, in forms like ayahuasca, yagé, etc. To whatever extent modern drug users enjoy DMT, we literally owe it to those that came before us.
That said, numerous issues have developed around the use of ayahuasca, particularly in the last twenty to thirty years. Romanticization of native customs has birthed new patterns in drug tourism, particularly in the western hemisphere, where many traditional drugs and their use originate, like ayahuasca. The phenomenon continues the centuries-long process of colonization that the entire hemisphere, indeed the world, has been subject to.
Many drug tourists see no issue in consuming massive amounts of fossil fuel to travel to remote regions, unasked for, and expect access to ancient drugs in exchange for money. It may sound silly, but the mission is very seriously undertaken by hundreds if not thousands (millions?) annually. Ayahuasca-centric drug tourism is not new, however; it is decades old and traces back to historical figures like William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and others, as we will discuss below.
Before we can understand what drew figures like Burroughs and Ginsberg to seek ayahuasca (or, as they knew it, yagé), we must first examine how modern society (or more accurately industrial, capitalist, nation-based society) reencountered DMT-containing plants. As noted above, Ramon Pane observed the use of DMT-containing cohoba in Haiti in 1496. Later, the use of yopo was observed among natives of the Orinoco River, which borders Columbia and Venezuela, by Alexander von Humboldt (the namesake of California’s Humboldt County) in 1801.10 And fifty years after that, in 1851, yopo was again noted among the Guahibo people of the Orinoco region by Richard Spruce, an English explorer and botanist.11 Samples of yopo were collected by both von Humboldt and Spruce, and sent to Germany and England, respectively, for preservation and study.12
Ramon Pane (who accompanied Columbus), von Humboldt, and Spruce represent the beginning of a long legacy of Euro-American entanglement around DMT-containing plants. The inherently colonialist nature of their activities must be reckoned with for DMT enthusiasts who align themselves with anti-colonialist politics. The modern history of DMT is part and parcel of the history of colonization. This is fact, whether or not one acknowledges it.
It is therefore within the study of colonization that much of the study of DMT and similar drugs can be properly contextualized. Such drugs have been branded as “magic,” “spiritual,” “enlightening,” etc., but they could equally well be described as “stolen,” “extracted,” and “commodified.” Exactly which aspects we dwell on is largely a function of culture, not pharmacology. As we will see, DMT is completely surrounded by drugism, and has been for years.
The next stage in our DMT journey moves from the jungles of Brazil and Peru to the laboratories of Europe and the US. It is there that DMT took the form by which we know it today: a crystalline drug in its salt form, to be injected or smoked.