Each year, millions of children worldwide anxiously await the arrival of a certain jolly fat man in red and white, who will bring them toys and goodies to be stuffed into stockings and piled under Christmas trees. It's easy to see how most people would not associate benevolent Mr. Claus with such deviant practices as taking hallucinogenic drugs and drinking urine. But indeed, Santa does has a history your children need not know about!
The Fly Agaric mushroom, or Amanita muscaria, is a common mushroom found in the coniferous forests of Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Siberia and Scandinavia. It starts off as a small button resembling many other mushrooms, but it eventually matures into a rather beautiful fungus with a large, globular red cap flecked with white scales.
A poisonous mushroom related to the lethal Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) and Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa), Fly Agaric is known for causing hallucinations and psychedelic sensations in those who ingest it. The mushroom contains alkeloids called muscimol and ibotenic acid, which are responsible for its psychoactive effects. Some species contain the similar alkeloids psilocybin and psilocin, found in common "magic" mushrooms.
In Lapland and Siberia, the reindeer who live there are quite fond of this mushroom and will go to great lengths to find it. Shepherds and farmers of the region would feed the mushroom to their reindeer to keep the herd intact, or to lure back those that became lost. The mushroom's potent effect on humans was discovered by accident thousands of years ago, when shepherds became intoxicated after consuming the meat of reindeer who ingested the fungus.
Soon after, the shepherds also discovered that drinking the urine of reindeer who ate the mushrooms not only caused hallucinations, but it went a long way too. Since the mushroom's psychedelic ingredients are not metabolized by the body and remain psychoactively potent even after being ingested and excreted, the urine could be consumed and re-consumed up to six times before losing its effectiveness. The shepherds seemed to prefer taking their "shrooms this way, as passing then through the reindeer first seemed to deliver the drug in a more refined form, making its effects similar to LSD.
The shepherds and farmers, when faced with harsher times, figured out that they could also get high from drinking their own urine after they had ingested the mushroom. They would carry flasks of it for themselves and also for the reindeer, who quickly took a liking to it and would eargerly seek it out. It"s not hard to see how the legend of the flying reindeer originated with the Sami people of Lapland!
If one was too poor to afford reindeer, it was common practice to drink the urine of the stoned upper classes. This is likely the origin of the concept of "trickle-down economics", and it is believed to be the origin of the phrase "getting pissed", which pre-dates inebriation by alcohol by several thousands of years.
The first travellers to Siberia observed that the many tribes there used Fly Agaric for ritualistic and entertainment purposes, and even today it is used by the village shamans of Siberia and Lapland. It was used in Northen Europe for recreation and spiritual purposes long before vodka was imported from the East. In 1976, the American mycologist Jonathan Ott suggested that the use of Fly Agaric in the Midwinter festivals of deepest Siberia may have inspired some of the modern feautures of Santa today.
The traditional Siberian dwelling, called a yurt, was made from birch and reindeer hide. It had a smoke-hole in the top with a birch pole to support it. During the Midwinter festivals, the village shaman would enter the yurt through the smoke-hole, carrying a bag filled with dried mushrooms or flagons of urine, either from reindeer or the shaman himself. Or he would have fresh mushrooms, which he would hang in stockings over the fireplace to be dried. Sometimes the mushrooms would be strung together and hung over the fire, a practice echoed in the tradition of stringing popcorn to decorate the Christmas tree. After performing the festival ceremonies, which typically involved everyone present getting sufficiently stoned on the mushrooms, the shaman would climb back up the birch pole and exit through the "chimney". The people thought that the shaman and his reindeer could fly.
The practice of leaving gifts under the tree may stem from the fact that the Fly Agaric, the most sacred Amanita, grows under evergreen trees. The shamans would pick them and hang them from the tree to dry. Placing gifts under the Christmas tree (which is traditionally an evergreen tree) mimics nature and is symbolic of the "treasures" created by God.
Our modern Santa bears little resemblance to the original St. Nicholas. In fact, he is a much more accurate representation of the Siberian shaman, who often donned red and white robes in tribute to the sacred mushroom. A side effect of eating Amanita mushrooms is flushed skin and a ruddy glow (Santa's rosy cheeks and nose), and it is reported that those under the influence of Fly Agaric tend to laugh and bellow a euphoric, "Ho ho ho!".
Today, Christmas cards with pictures of Amanita mushrooms remain common in Central Europe, and the Fly Agaric mushroom is still the emblem of the region's chimneysweeps.
So this Christmas Eve, after sending your children off to bed with visions of sugar-plums in their heads, don't forget to leave the cookies and milk out for Santa. He's bound to have the munchies!
