traditional use of hallucinogenic plants in Africa

Summary

For decades, scholars believed the Old World had far fewer psychoactive plants in traditional use than the New World, attributing this to cultural differences. However, recent research in Africa reveals a wealth of traditional uses of hallucinogenic plants that had been overlooked due to a lack of ethnobotanical investigation. These plants are primarily employed in possession states, serving adorcist or exorcist functions, and often for healing. Examples include the Bori cult of the Hausa in Niger, female initiation rites of the Tsonga in Mozambique, the Fang cult of Byeri, iboga cults in western equatorial Africa, divinatory practices like the misoko of the Mitsogho in Gabon and sangoma in South Africa, and as a truth serum in judicial investigations such as the leba shay of Abyssinia.

Study at a glance

Abstract

For over five decades, there has been a significant quantitative discrepancy between the traditional knowledge of psychoactive plants of Old World and New World. While some 20th century scholars believed that it was motivated by cultural differences between the populations of the two regions of the globe, this consideration failed to take into account that the acquisition of awareness of the cultural role of psychoactive plants in the traditional cultures had as its preferential, if not unique, research environment in the New World. This geographical discrepancy was due to a lack of research and ethnobotanical knowledge relating to the Old World. This is confirmed by what has been highlighted by research developed in recent decades in Africa, where a conspicuous set of traditional uses of psychoactive plants is being recorded. In the present study, the data are limited to the African hallucinogenic plants. These plants are mainly used in states of possession, with both adorcist and exorcist functions, and frequently for therapeutic purposes. Examples include the Bori cult of the Hausa of Niger and in the female initiation rites of the Tsonga of Mozambique. These plants are used also in religious cults to contact supernatural entities such as the spirits of ancestors or divine beings as seen in the Fang cult of Byeri; in the iboga cults of Western equatorial Africa; in divinatory practices, with the main purpose of identifying the person responsible for witchcraft as seen in the misoko practices of the Mitsogho of Gabon and those of the sangoma (medicine-men) of South Africa; and as as a “truth serum” in the context of tribal or institutional judicial investigations as seen in the case of the leba shay of Abyssinia.