Waraï-také ou le champignon hilarant, conte du Moyen Âge

Japan's "Laughing Mushrooms"

JAMES H. SANFORD ^{1   [1972 ECONOMIC BOTANY 26; 174-181]}

Introduction: A Medieval Japanese Tale

     I was first drawn to the following tale in the hope that it might serve as a source of information about the popular attitudes toward Buddhism in Medieval Japan. While it did not offer much help so far as Buddhism goes, it did lead me into a rather long investigation that focused not on Comparative Religion but rather on Mycology.

    Long long ago, some woodcutters from Kyoto went into the Kitayama mountains and lost their way. Not knowing which way to go, four or five of them were lamenting their condition when they heard the voices of a group of people coming from the depths of the mountains. The woodcutters were wondering suspiciously what sort of people it might be when four or five Buddhist nuns came out dancing and singing. See­ing them, the woodcutters became fearful, thinking things like, "Dancing and singing nuns are certainly not human beings but must be goblins or demons." When the nuns saw the men they started straight toward them, the woodcutters became even more frightened and wondered : "How is it that nuns come thus out of the very depths of the mountains dancing and singing?"

The nuns then said, "Our appearance dancing and singing has no doubt frightened you. But we are simply nuns who live nearby. We came to pick flowers as offerings to Buddha, but after we had all entered the hills together we lost our way and couldn't remember how to get out. Then we came upon some mushrooms, and although we wondered whether we might not be poisoned if we ate them, we were hungry and decided it was better to pick them than to starve to death. But after we had picked and roasted them we found they were quite delicious, and thinking, "Aren't these fine!" we ate them. But then as we finished the mushrooms we found we couldn't keep from dancing. Even as we were thinking, "How strange!" strangely enough we. . ." The woodcut­ters were no end surprised at this unusual story.

Now the woodcutters were very hungry so they thought, "Better than dying let's ask for some too." And they ate some of the numerous mushrooms that the nuns had picked, whereupon they also were com­pelled to dance. In that condition the nuns and the woodcutters laughed and danced round and round together. After a while the intoxication seemed to wear off and somehow they all found their separate ways home. After this the mushrooms came to be called maitake, dancing mush­rooms {mai, "dance"; take, "mushroom).

When we think about it this is a striking story. For even though we still have this kind of mushroom, people who eat them do not dance. Thus this exceedingly strange story has been handed down.²

The foregoing account is from the 11th-Century Japanese folktale collec­tion, the Konjaku monogatari ("Tales of Long Ago"). Many of the stories col­lected in the Konjaku were, as its title implies, relatively ancient stories that had come into Japan from India or China. However, some of the stories gathered together in the "Japanese Tales" section of the work represent re­tellings of actual events and thus might be as well called "folk history" as "folk tale." Certain literary considerations would tend to place this story in that category. In the first place, there is the unfinished and really rather pointless nature of the whole account. If it were a true folk tale that had been handed down orally from generation to genera­tion, one would expect a tighter, more cohesive plot to have developed through time. Indeed, the story says so little, in and of itself, that it is hard to imag­ine that, if it had not been fossilized by the written word, it would have been passed on very long at all in such an unembroidered form.

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¹ Department of Religion, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

² Konjaku Monogatarishū (今昔物語集), vol. 5, pp. 96-97.

Konjaku Monogatarishū

Konjaku Monogatarishū , also known as the Konjaku Monogatari, is a Japanese collection of over one thousand tales written during the late Heian period (794-1185). The entire collection was originally contained in 31 volumes, of which 28 remain today. The volumes cover various tales from India, China and Japan.

http://wikipedia.org

Submitted for publication April 7,1971.

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 Le champignon qui fait rire
conte japonais médiéval

Ce conte avait d’abord retenu mon attention comme source éventuelle d'informations sur les attitudes populaires envers le bouddhisme dans le Japon médiéval. Alors qu'il s’est avéré peu utile pour ce qui touche au bouddhisme, il m'a conduit à une enquête assez longue qui porte plus sur la mycologie que sur la religion comparée!

         Au temps jadis..., des bûcherons de Kyôto qui s’étaient rendus dans les montagnes de Kitayama perdirent leur chemin. Errant dans la forêt, quatre ou cinq d'entre eux se lamentaient sur leur sort lorsqu'ils entendirent les voix animées d’un groupe de personnes venant des profondeurs des montagnes. Ils se demandaient avec méfiance quel genre de créatures ce pouvait être lorsque quatre ou cinq nonnes bouddhistes sortirent du bois en dansant et en chantant. Les bûcherons furent frappés de frayeur, car ils pensaient avec raison : " Des nonnes qui dansent et chantent en pleine forêt ne sont certainement pas des êtres humains mais plutôt des gobelins ou des démons ! " Dès que les nonnes aperçurent les hommes, elles allèrent directement vers eux, ce qui effraya encore plus les bûcherons qui leur demandèrent : "Comment se fait-il que des religieuses surgissent ainsi des profondeurs des montagnes en dansant et en chantant?"

Les nonnes leur répondirent: " Nous comprenons que notre présence ici et comportement vous ait troublés. Nous sommes tout simplement des nonnes qui vivons retirées à proximité. Nous sommes venus cueillir des fleurs en offrandes à Bouddha, mais après être toutes entrées dans le sous-bois, nous avons perdu notre chemin, sans parvenir à retrouver la sortie. Travaillées par la faim, nous sommes tombées sur des champignons venant en quantité et, au risque d’être empoisonnées, avons décidé qu'il valait mieux les manger plutôt que de mourir de faim. Après les avoir cuits, nous les avons trouvés tout à fait délicieux et, ravies de l’aubaine, nous les avons mangés. Mais alors que nous terminions le repas, nous avons constaté que nous ne pouvions pas nous empêcher de danser. On avait beau trouver cela étrange, c’était plus fort que nous. Les bûcherons n'étaient pas au bout de leurs surprises en entendant cette histoire extraordinaire, car bientôt, ce fut leur tour d'être tenaillés par la faim, et ils arrivèrent aux mêmes conclusions : Plutôt que de mourir le ventre vide, ils préférèrent courir le risque. Ils mangèrent donc le reste des champignons que les religieuses avaient cueillis en grande quantité, ce après quoi ils furent également pris du besoin impérieux de danser. Dans cet état d’ébriété, les religieuses et les bûcherons commencèrent à rire et danser en rond, tous ensemble [connotation sexuelle?] ! Au bout d’un certain temps, l'ivresse finit par se dissiper et, d'une manière ou d'une autre, chacun retrouva son chemin vers la raison sinon vers la maison.  C'est à la suite de cet incident que ces champignons furent appelés maïtaké, champignons qui font danser (maï, "dance"; také, "champignon).

C'est, quand on y pense, une histoire fort singulière, car enfin, s’il est fort probable que ces espèces de champignons existent toujours, les gens qui les mangent ne dansent pas. Voilà donc une histoire extrêmement étrange qui nous a été transmise. ²

Konjaku monogatari shū

Le Konjaku monogatari shū est un recueil japonais de textes de setsuwa (anecdotes) écrit en une forme de langue sino-japonaise de la période Heian appelée wakan konkōbun . On attribue traditionnellement le recueil à Minamoto no Takakuni dit le " Grand conseiller d'Uji " , bien que son implication totale soit contestée.

http://wikipedia.org

SANFORD: JAPAN'S LAUGHING MUSHROOMS                     175

Further there is the author/editor's very real perplexity about the "dancing mushrooms," which no longer live up to their name. If this were a standard just-so tale intended to give a folk etymology for the term "dancing mushroom," the action would probably be set in the mythical Age of Gods and there would be no expectation that the mushrooms would act in the same fashion today. Our author, how­ever, seems to take the business of the mushrooms quite seriously and to be honestly puzzled by it. Assuming then, that the incident of the nuns and the woodcutters might be more or less his­torical, even we moderns or at least the amateur mycologists among us — are left to wonder just what were these so-called "dancing mushrooms," mai­take, that once caused people to dance with hilarity but at a later date had no such effect at all. One likely place to start such an investigation is to track down the modern usage of the term, if any.

Possible Identification of maitake  as Panaeolus papilionaceus

A glance at the Japanese dictionaries showed that part of the problem was the old bugaboo of irregular usage of common names for plants and animals. The multi-volume encyclopedic diction­ary, Daijiten, identified maitake as the edible mushroom Polyporus frondosus but added that the maitake mentioned in the Konjaku story was actually warai­take, the "laughing mushroom" (warai, "laughter" ; také, "mushroom") .³ Wa­raitake itself was identified as Panaeo­lus papilionaceus, of which it was said, "People who eat this mushroom get drunk. They may become extremely ex­cited and dance and sing or see various hallucinations. Alternate names are odoritake ["jumping mushroom"] and maitake." ' (Odoritake was not given a separate heading in the Daijiten.)

For further information, I turned to a more specialized source, Makino Tomi­taro's Shin Nihon shokubutsu zukan (New Illustrated Compendium of Japa­nese plants), where maitake was identi­fied as Grif ola frondosus (Polyporus frondosus) and was said to be called the laughing mushroom because of its flared shape reminiscent of a dancer's skirts. Makino also mentioned the Kon­jaku tale and noted that the "maitake" mentioned there was not the same mush­room but "probably the laughing mush­room, waraitake." ⁵ But no separate discussion of waraitake was offered.

At this point, the confusion over the toxicity or nontoxicity ⁶ of "maitake" began to make some sense. Probably the author/editor of the Konjaku tale knew as maitake, the dancing mushroom Polyporus frondosus or some similar

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³ Shimonaka Yasaburo, Daijiten, vol. 26, p. 149.

⁴ Ibid., vol. 23, p. 374.

⁵ Makino Tomitaro, Shin Nihon skokubutsu zukan, p. 963.

⁶ An early reader of this article expressed considerable dissatisfaction at my use of the term "toxicity" in reference to effects that were as mild or milder than those of alcohol and suggested that, "The same term should not be used for the toxic properties of an hallucino­gen as for the toxin of the deadly aminitas. It leads to confusion of thought." While I find this criticism quite valid in its way, there seems to me to be no present solution to the problem. Alternative terms such as "hallucinogenic" and "psychedelic" are not rigorously descriptive either. How many hallucinogenics actually produce something like hallucinations as their chief manifestation, for instance? Is the eu­phoric state induced by ingestion of marijuana to be classed with the much more complex mental phenomena associated with mescalin? Clearly we need a number of new and quite specific terms to designate these various non-normal states, but such an agreed-upon vocabu­lary has not yet developed. Lacking such a technical vocabulary, I have chosen neutrality as the best second-best procedure. Thus, the reader should keep in mind that my use of "toxic" and "toxicity" in this article is a very broad one and includes in principle at least, both very mild and very severe psycho-physio­logical manifestations.

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176                                                                     ECONOMIC BOTANY

mushroom which derived its popular name from its flared shape, while the maitake mentioned in the body of the story represented the toxic Panaeolus papilionaceus, which because of the tendency to make people who ate it dance or jump or laugh compulsively, was likewise called maitake. It was also now clear that the most common name of the mushroom mentioned in the story was not maitake, "dancing" mushroom, but waraitake, "laughing" mushroom, and any attempt at an identification would have to be made on the basis of the usage of the second term.

Further examination of the Japanese sources soon made it clear that warai­take intoxication was not a phenome­non limited to Japan's ancient past. Kawamura Seiichi in his Genshoku Ni­hon kinrui zukan (Icones of Japanese Fungi) quoted the following verbatim report from a newspaper article in the Hokkoku Shimbun (The Northcountry News).

In Ishikawa prefecture, Hagui country, Hinogawa village, Oginotani, one Tsuta (age 40), wife of Oda Yasutara, and her elder brother were gathering plants on May 11, 1917, at about 2 p.m. in a place known locally as Inoya Mulberry field. As they were poking in the dirt on the Ogino­shima property of the Ichihoku Sanno Com­pany they found a lot of grey mushrooms that looked like "chestnut mushrooms" growing at the base of a chestnut tree. Mrs. Oda wanted to keep them since they seemed a lucky find but her brother warned her of the dangers of eating mushrooms whose identity was not wholly clear and she finally decided she would throw them out when she got home. However a neighbor, Mrs. Taniguchi Ritaro (age 35) , saw them and said that she had picked some very similar mushrooms at the same spot in March and asked to have a portion now. Mrs. Oda, not wanting to be responsible for a poisoning, refused, but finally gave in under further pressure.

About eight o'clock that evening, Mr. Taniguchi (age 31), Mrs. Taniguchi and Mrs. Taniguchi's brother, Buntsuke (age 41) , treated themselves to two bowls of mushroom soup while the elder Mrs. Tani­ guchi (age 71) ate one bowl with only two or three mushrooms in it. They had hardly eaten when first Mrs. Taniguchi and then Mr. Taniguchi began to feel odd. Mr. Taniguchi then went next door to ask someone to fetch a doctor. When he got back home he found his wife dancing around stark naked, playing an imaginary shamisen, and laughing raucously. Even as he stood there amazed at all the uproar he found that he too was falling into the same crazed state. The older brother also eventually began to dance crazily. The in­toxication of Taniguchi's mother was weaker, however, and though she became muddled she never lost complete control of her senses. She did, however, keep repeat­ing the same words over and over and went to every house in the neighborhood apologizing throughout the night for "pre­paring such a poor meal" and thanking everyone "for putting up with it."⁷

In this case we have not only a fairly detailed description of waraitake in­toxication but also a positive identifica­tion, for Dr. Kawamura was able to obtain samples of the mushrooms in­volved and solidly identify them as none other than Panaeolus papilionaceus.

Pholiota spectabilis Enters the Picture

It would seem that the "dancing mushrooms" of the Konjaku tale might very well be Panaeolus papilionaceus. However, Kawamura Seiichi's research opened still another possibility. For he noted of waraitake that, "The country people seem to distinguish two species, one waraitake growing on horse­manured ground and the other an orange colored fungus called o-warai­take ['big laughing mushroom'] which grows on decaying stumps and logs." Though common usage might not be wholly consistent, Kawamura indicates that these names seemed generally to refer to P. papilionaceus in the case of waraitake (Panaeolus papilionaceus and several other related Panaeolus species are lumped together in Japanese as uma­gusotake,

⁷ Kawamura Seiichi, Genshoku Nihon kinrui zukan, p. 566.

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SANFORD: JAPAN'S LAUGHING MUSHROOMS                              177

 "horse-manure mushrooms") and to Pholiota spectabilis in the case of Ô-waraitake. Kawamura also noted that while we cannot guess which of these two the maitake of the Konjaku tale might be, it is probable that they were one or the other.⁸

Japanese reports of Pholiota specta­bilis as a toxic species have caused some puzzlement to Roger Heim, who in his Les Champignons Toxiques et Hallucin­ogenes wonders that among the reported toxic species in Japan is ". . . Pholiota spectabilis, observation curieuse puisqu­'elle s'applique a une espece propre en meme temps a l'Europe ou elle se montre parfaitmente innofensive or, it est certain que la forms japonaise —appelée 6-waraitake — ressemble en tous points a la Pholiota europeene." " Nonetheless, Kawamura's book relates several cases of Pholiota poisoning, and Imazeki and Hongo in Genshoku Nihon Kinrui zukan (Colored Illustrations of Fungi of Japan) also cite Pholiota spec­tabilis as intoxicating (though under the name Gymnopilus spectabilis) and say, "The toxic characteristics of this mushroom are not fatal but it produces an abnormal stimulation of the nervous system. The victim of the poison be­comes excited and is said to dance and sing and laugh as though crazy." ¹⁰

   Kawamura supports his claim with several cases in which he was able to verify that the mushrooms responsible for producing "waraitake intoxications" were in fact Pholiota spectabilis. Of one of these cases he gives the following detailed report :

On July 7, 1922, in Rosen village of Nitta country in Gumma prefecture one Ouchi Gensaburo (age 20) found a clump of mushrooms growing on a stump. He picked them and ate them that evening, after which he became intoxicated and broke out in laughter. His hands and feet moved continuously as though he were dancing and he walked in zigzags like someone who had drunk too much sake. The same sort of drunkenness had oc­curred the previous year but at that time it was much lighter and no attention had been paid to it. This time, however, after he had eaten mushrooms from the same stump, this normally reticent youth sud­denly began to chatter in broken sentences and to dance about. When the poisoning became very evident he went to one Dr. Aragi for help. The patient quickly re­covered and was completely normal by the next day. Samples of the mushroom were sent to Dr. Kawamura and proved to be specimens of Pholiota spectabilis." ¹²

   Kawamura reports other similar cases involving Pholiota spectabilis, in­cluding one in 1930 when he again re­ceived identifiable specimens. In several of these cases the mushrooms had been cooked in soup, which treatment ap­parently eliminated their bitter taste though not their toxic potency." This might go some way toward explaining why the mushrooms are known as toxic in Japan but not in Europe. For, usu­ally, raw Pholiota spectabilis is quite unpleasant to the taste, and it would probably be hard for most people, in­tentionally or not, to choke down enough to produce any effect. This supposition is to some extent supported by a recent case in Massachusetts. A few summers ago, some local mushroom fans gathered a number of specimens of Pholiota spectabilis and, though they should have known better, ate them in a sauce over steak. A short time later, they suffered fits of giggling and hilarity that seemed funny until the realization that they were suffering from some kind of mush­room poisoning, the final determination of which they could not predict, hit them and the hilarity gave way to two or three hours of severe anxiety.

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⁸ Ibid., pp. 548-551.

⁹ Roger Heim, Les Champignons Toxiques et Hallucinogènes, p. 41.

¹⁰ Imazeki and Hongo, Genshoku Nihon kinrui zukan, pp. 73-74.

¹¹ Kawamura, op. cit., p. 549.

¹² Ibid., pp. 549-551.

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After the fact, when they were asked how they had managed to eat anything so bitter, their explanation was that the steaks were prime meat and very thick and they just could not see wasting them. In this case, too, cooking may have rendered the mushrooms somewhat more palatable with minimal loss in toxicity. Another possibility might be that we have two or more subspecies of Pholiota spectabilis which vary in taste and toxic potency, or perhaps different growing conditions may have some ef­fect. Such suppositions would help ex­plain Heim's distrust of the Japanese reports. In any case, it is clear that in both Japan and the United States some Pholiota spectabilis have produced obvi­ous psychophysiological symptoms.

Conclusions Regarding the Konjaku Tale

There are two likely conclusions to be drawn from this little study.

1. The maitake story in the Konjaku monogatari is probably a relatively straight re-telling of a case of mush­room intoxication, dating from about 1000 A.D.
2. The mushrooms involved were probably either Panaeolus papiliona­ceus or Pholiota spectabilis.¹³

¹³ Imazeki and Hongo, op. cit., pp. 59-60, add one more possibility to our list of psycho­active mushrooms in Japan. They identify waraitake as Panaeolus papilionaceus (p. 56) and ii-waraitake as Gymnopilus spectabilis (i.e., Pholiota spectabilis) (pp. 73-74). How­ever, they also mention still another mushroom Psilocybe renenata (Stropharia venenata or Stropharia caerulescens) which "if eaten by mistake produces unusual symptoms of toxicity that manifest themselves as a condition of frenzy and an unusual nervous excitement like that brought on by waraitake" (p. 60) . This mushroom has the common names of warai­takemodoki ("false-waraitake") or shibire­take ("numbing mushroom"). Unfortunately, I am unable to find any other evidence about the toxicity of this species.

APPENDICES

I. Other Chinese and Japanese Mentions of "Laughing Mushrooms"

    Research on the Konjaku tale led me to several other literary or semi-literary notations of "laughing" or "dancing" mushrooms. The Chinese work of the Sung period, the Pi-shu lu-hua ("Rec­ords of Summering Out of the Heat") by the compilor Yeh Meng-te (1077-­1148) tells the following tale.

The valleys of Wen-tai about Mount Ssu-ming ¹⁴ produce many mushrooms. However they are not all alike and some of those that are eaten prove to be poisonous. It is said that there was a Buddhist priest who taught [that when people ate such mushrooms if they would] dig up some dirt and mix it with cold water until it became muddy and then, after waiting a bit, drink the mixture, they would be re­stored to perfect health. I have seen this recipe myself. In the pharmacopeia of the hermit T'ao ¹⁵ it is noted that this is called an "earth infusion" and that it will cure the effects of the maple-tree mush­roorn,¹⁶ which when eaten causes one to taugh uncontrollably and which is there­fore known as the laughing fung^-us.¹⁷

¹⁴ Possibly wen-tai (warm terraces) is not a place name and the passage should read, "In the warm spots of the valleys about Mount Ssu-ming. . . ." In any case, Ssu-ming Shan itself is a famous mountain in the southwestern part of the Chekiang province of China that has close connections with the T'ien T'ai sect of Buddhism. Daijiten, vol. 13. p. 267.

¹⁵ The Hermit T'ao is T'ao Hung-ching (A.D. 451-536), who spent a good part of his life seeking the Taoist medicine of immortality. Cloistered in his mountain retreat far from the distractions of mundane matters he pro­duced the famous Chinese pharmacopoeia, the Ming yi pieh lu. Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary, pp. 718-719.

¹⁶ I have no specific identification to offer for the "maple-tree" mushroom. Probably it is a general term.

¹⁷ Yeh Meng-te. Pi-shu lu-hua. pp. 722-723. Here as in the other Chinese sources the char­acter chiin was used for "mushroom" rather than jung, the Chinese equivalent of the Japanese word take.

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SANFORD: JAPAN'S LAUGHING MUSHROOMS                      179

The "Laughing fungus" also receives a mention, though a very brief one, in the Wu tsa tsu (Five-fold Miscellany) of 1619, which, after listing a number of mushrooms, notes : "There is also the 'laughing fungus' ; those who eat it laugh uncontrollably." ¹⁸

Perhaps the most intrinsically inter­esting literary mention of these mush­rooms that I ran across was in the Uki­yoburo (The Worldly Bathhouse) , a Japanese comic novel of the Tokugawa era (pub. 1809-1813) In this story, the "hero" Kechi (Skinflint) uses some mai­take as the base for a special soup which he gives to a fellow called Nigakura, be­cause Nigakur6 "is quite a poisonous character" who never talks or laughs. Nigakuro eats the soup as a side dish to some rice wine and finally comes to the local public bathhouse where Kechi and some cohorts await him. At first he is his usual stolid self, but soon his hands begin to dance by themselves, then even his feet. "Even though I don't want to dance, weirdly enough . . . oh, oh, oh . . .," he complains. At this point, a low-class entertainer a sort of one-man band who imitates various instru­ments with his mouth comes in and begins to call out drum rhythms. By the end of the scene, the usually satur­nine Nigakuro has turned from a dour clod into a one-man "crazy show" (Kyo­gen) .¹⁹

The Ukiyoburo incident (here given only in bare outline) is very interest­ingly told, but it is almost certainly a derivative of the Konjaku tale. The sentence quoted above "even though I don't want to dance, weirdly enough . . . oh, oh, oh . . .," looks very much like a lift from the Konjaku's "Even as we were thinking 'How strange I' strangely enough we. . . ." Also, when Kechi first gets the maitake, he men­tions that there are tales of such mush­rooms in "the Ujishui and other ancient books." The Ujishui monogatari is a folk collection closely related to the Kon­jaku and often confused with it. Even the use of maitake "dancing mushroom" rather than the more common term waraitake "laughing mushroom" is a bit suspicious. Thus, in spite of its in­terest, the Ukiyoburo version is prob­ably purely literary and can add nothing factual to our knowledge of the "laugh­ing" and "dancing" mushrooms.

II. Some addenda on Panaeolus papilionaceus

While the toxicity of Pholiota specta­bilis has been doubted by some, the toxic qualities of Panaeolus papiliona­ceus and its close relatives have been recognized in many parts of the world. In at least one case they seem to have been used ritually, for in a recent article Robert Graves recalls, "A few years ago, having learned that certain Portu­guese witches were using another variety of mushroom for magical en­chantments, I arranged to have an ex­ample sent to the great mycologist, my friend Dr. Roger Heim, director of the Musee de L'Homme at Paris. It proved, so far as I recall, to have been Panaeolus papilionaceus." ²⁰

Panaeolus intoxication is not un­known in the United States either. A rather well known mycologist in the Boston area has seen Panaeolus papi­lionaceus deliberately gathered in both Maine and Louisiana. Interestingly enough, in the case of New England, it was thrifty farmers taking advantage of an opportunity to get "drunk for nothing," while in Louisiana the gather­ers were rather more modern sophisti­cates looking for a psychedelic thrill. Indeed, the best (though not too-readily available) description of Panaeolus in­toxication that I found is based on a case that occurred in Maine as early as 1914. It is herewith appended almost in toto as it was recorded by A. E. Ver­rill of Yale University, in the "Discus­sion and Correspondence" section of the journal Science.

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¹⁸ Hsieh Chao-shua. Wu tsa tsu, vol. 2, p. 91.

¹⁹ Ukiyoburo. pp. 305-306.

²⁰ Robert Graves. "The Divine Rite of Mush­rooms," p. 110.

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Mr. W., whose narrative is here given, is a middle-aged, vigorous man, strictly temperate in his habits. He is a good botanist, and has made a special study of fungi. The account of his experience was dictated to me by him about a week after the event, while fresh is his memory... .

Narrative of Mr. W.

On July 10, 1914, I gathered a good mess of the mushrooms (Panaeolus papiliona­ceus) and had them cooked for dinner. There may have been about a pound of them as gathered, but when fried in butter they made no great quantity, owing to their softness and delicate structure.

They were all eaten by Mrs. Y. and my­self. Peculiar symptoms were perceived in a very short time. Noticed first that I could not collect my thoughts easily, when addressed, nor answer readily. Could not will to arise promptly. Walked a short distance; the time was short, but seemed long drawn out; could walk straight but seemed drowsy; had no disagreeable stomach sensations, effects seemed entirely mental; remember little about the walk. Mrs. Y. was in about the same condition, according to Mr. Y. My mind very soon appeared to clear up somewhat and things began to seem funny and rather like in­toxication. Walked with Mr. Y. A little later objects took on peculiar bright colors. A field of redtop grass seemed to lie in horizontal stripes of bright red and green, and a peculiar green haze spread itself over all the landscape. At this time Mrs. Y. saw nearly everything green but the sky was blue; her white handkerchief ap­peared green to her; and the tips of her fingers seemed to be like the heads of snakes.

Next, say about half an hour after eat­ing, both of us had an irresistible impulse to run and jump, which we did freely. I did not stagger, but all my motions seemed to be mechanical or automatic, and my muscles did not properly nor fully obey my will. Soon both of us became very hilar­ious, with an irresistible impulse to laugh and joke immoderately, and almost hyster­ically at times. The laughing could be controlled only with great difficulty; at the same time we were indulging extrava­gantly in joking and what seemed to us funny or witty remarks. Mr. Y., who was with us, said that some of the jokes were successful; others not so, but I can not remember what they were about.

Mr. Y. says that at this time the pupils of our eyes were very much dilated, and that Mrs. Y. at times rolled up her eyes and had some facial contortions, and slight frothing of saliva at the mouth. Later we returned to the house, about one quarter of a mile. At this time I had no distinct comprehension of time; a very short time seemed long drawn out, and a longer time seemed very short; the same as to dis­tances walked; though not so when esti­mated by the eye. The hilarious condition continued, but no visual illusions occurred at this time.

After entering the house, I noticed that the irregular figures on the wall-paper seemed to have creepy and crawling mo­tions, contracting and expanding continu­ally, though not changing their forms; finally they began to project from the wall and grew out toward me from it with un­canny motions.

About this time I noticed a bouquet of large red roses, all of one kind, on the table and another on the secretary; then at once the room seemed to become filled with roses of various red colors and of all sizes, in great bunches, wreaths and chains, and with regular banks of them, all around me, but mixed with some green foliage, as in the real bouquets. This beautiful illusion lasted only a short time. About this time I had a decided rush of blood to my head, with marked congestion, which caused me to lie down. I then had a very disagreeable illusion. Innumerable human faces, of all sorts and sizes, but all hideous, seemed to fill the room and to extend off in multitudes to interminable distances, while many were close to me on all sides. They were all grimacing rapidly and horribly and under­going contortions, all the time growing more and more hideous. Some were upside down.

The faces appeared in all sorts of bright and even intense colors so intense that I could only liken them to flames of fire, in red, purple, green and yellow colors, like fireworks.

At this time I began to become alarmed and sent for the doctor, but he did noth­ing, for the effects were wearing off when he came. Real objects at this time ap­peared in their true forms, but if colored they assumed far more intense or vivid colors than natural; dull red becoming

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SANFORD: JAPAN'S LAUGHING MUSHROOMS                                 181

brilliant red, etc. A little later, when standing up, I had the unpleasant sensa­tion of having my body elongate upward to the ceiling, which receded. I grew far up, like Jack's bean-stalk, but retained my natural thickness. Collapsed suddenly to my natural height.

At this time I noticed the parlor organ and tried to play on it, to see the effect, but could not concentrate my mind nor manage my fingers. About this time my mind became confused and my remem­brance of what happened next is dim and chaotic. Probably there was a partial and brief loss of consciousness. Lay down to wait for the doctor. Looking at my hands, they seemed to become small, emaciated, shrunken and bony, like those of a mummy. Mrs. Y. says that at this time her hands seemed to grow unnaturally large.

When I attempted to scratch a spot on my neck, it felt like scratching a rough cloth meal-bag full of meal, and it seemed as large as a barrel, and the scratching seemed quite impersonal. Later I imag­ined I was able, by a sort of clairvoyance, to tell the thoughts of those around me. Soon after this our conditions rapidly as­sumed the very hilarious phase, similar to that of the early stages with much involuntary laughing and joking. This condition gradually diminished after three o'clock, until our mental conditions became perfectly normal, at about six o'clock P.M. The entire experience lasted about six hours. No ill effects followed. There was no headache, nor any disturbance of the digestion.²¹

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²¹ A. E. Verrill. In Science, vol. 40, no. 1029, pp. 408-410. It has been pointed out to me that Verrill's identification may not be one hundred percent trustworthy since it is hard to distinguish Panaeolus papilionaceus from other species of the genus and since a careless investigator might even confuse some species of Psilocybe with Panaeolus. And I must-admit that the symptoms described by Verrill do seem to exceed those reported by the Japanese sources. But this might reflect either more complete reporting or larger "dosage." Also, the uncontrollable urge to run and jump and to talk disjointedly mentioned by Verrill seems in close consonance with the Japanese descrip­tions. At any rate, barring specific reasons to disbelieve Verrill's report, I tend to accept the identification.

Literature Cited

Giles, Herbert A. 1962. A Chinese Biographical Dictionary. 2 vols. Literature House, Taipei.

Graves, Robert. The divine rite of mushrooms. Atlantic Monthly 225 (2). : 109-114.

Heim, Roger. 1963. Les Champignons Toxiques et Hallucinogenes. Editions N. Boubee, Paris.

Hsieh Chao-shua. 1935. Wu tsa tsu, 2 vols. vol. 13 of Kuo-hsileh then-pen wen-k'u. Chung­ying shu-tien, Shanghai.

Imazeki Rokuya and Hongo Tsugo. 1964. Genshoku Nihon kinrui zukan (supplied title: Colored illustrations of Fungi of Japan). Hoikusha, Osaka.

Kawamura Seiichi. 1954-1955. Genshoku Nihon kinrui zukan (supplied title: Icones of Japanese Fungi). 8 vols. Kazama shobo, Tokyo.

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Makino Tomitaro. 1968. Shin Nihon shoku­butsu zukan (Sup: New Illustrated Flora of Japan). Hokuryukan, Tokyo.

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Shimonaka Yasaburo. 1953-1954. Daijiten, 26 vols. Heibonsha, Tokyo.

Verrill, Addison E. 1914. A recent case of mushroom intoxication. Science, 40 (1029) : 408-410.

Yeh Meng-te. 1939. Pi-shu lu-hua, 2 vols. vol. 2786 of Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng ch'u-pien. Shang-wu, Yin-shu-kuan, Chang-sha.