426 47 From more than a century of anthropological
QQleQ
STUDIES, WE
KNOW THAT THE
PRIMARY SPIRITUAL PRACTICE EMPLOYED
BY PRIMITIVE HUNTER-GATHER SOCIETIES IS A VARIETY
OF FORMS OF SHAMANISM -
the practice of using
altered states of consciousness
to mediate with the
spirit world.
While our use
of the word comes from
the native Siberian {Evenki} word šaman,
meaning literally “ONE WHO KNOWS,”
the practice of shamanism
was widespread
throughout the 🌎 🌍 🌏 planet,
and especially in Africa, Asia
and the Americas.
The vast majority
of shamanic practices involved
the sacramental use of psychotropic plants.
(Other techniques, such as fasting, drumming, & chanting
are now 💭 thought to have developed in areas where such plants
were rare or unavailable.) In the Amazon basin, one of the few areas
where traditional hunter-gatherer societies still exist, these tribes continue
to utilize a staggering array of psychotropic plants & plant admixtures, including
potent DMT- & 5-MeO-DMT-containing snuffs {yákee, yopo, epéna, paricà} & the now-
legendary jungle brew known by its phonetic approximation,
ayahuasca.
A burial site in northern Chile
that dates back to the eighth century
included a bag with snuffing paraphernalia &
snuff remnants of the above, while snuff use in the Amazon Basin
is believed to be at least two thousand years old, and almost certainly predates
the invention of ayahuasca. According to ethnobotanist Jonathan Ott, experimenting
with the mixtures of the snuffs led to the discovery of the complex relationship between the MAO-inhibitors in the ayahuasca vine & the DMT- & 5-MeO-DMT-containing admixtures
that allowed for the later discovery of ayahuasca -
a highly plausible theory.)
Six thousand years
older than Stonehenge,
the uncovering of Göbekli Tepe (in 1996)
is considered one ☝🏽 of the most important discoveries
of modern archeology. The construction 🏗 of Göbekli Tepe predates metallurgy,
the wheel, or the invention of ✍🏽 writing, and is even older than the invention of agriculture
or 🦓 🦒 🦔 husbandry during the só-called Neolithic Revolution.
This makes it of particular interest
because it is believed
to have been built
by a hunter-gatherer society
that only occupied it sparingly.
Thus is was actually more of a temple
than a 🌃 city - upending the belief that the establishment
of sedentary farming communities was responsible for the first monumental edifices.
Its elaborate 🚧 & carvings - an incredible feat for nomadic peoples utilizing Stone Age technologies - indicates that hunter-gatherer societies had clearly developed
significant religious philosophies
& practices,
so much so that
the first Houses 🏡 🏠
that humanity 🤕 built were for
the gods! As excavator Klaus Schmidt observed,
“First came the Temple, then the 🌃 city!
“Zuerst kam der Tèmpel,
dann die
Stadt!”
Asih, man, 79 jaar
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