Alter ego representations in San Agustin monolithic sculptures: possible plant hallucinogenic influences.

The article examines evidence that the San Agustin culture, which lived in Colombia's Magdalena River area from the third century BCE to the sixteenth century CE, used plant hallucinogens such as Brugmansia, Brunfelsia chiricaspi, Desfontainia R., Anadenanthera peregrina, Banisteriopsis species, Psychotria viridis, and Virola theidora. Using a cross-cultural survey of plant hallucinogens, the author analyzes themes in the culture's monolithic sculptures, focusing on man-animal transformations and shamanic motifs linked to hallucinogenic plant use.

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Abstract

This article examines the evidence for plant hallucinogenic use (possibly Brugmansia, Brunfelsia chiricaspi, Desfontainia R., Anadenanthera peregrina, Banisteriopsis sps, Psychotropia viridis and Virola theidora) by the San Agustin culture, an extinct peoples who resided in the Magdelena River area of Colombia from the third century B.C. until the sixteenth century A.D. Based on thematic materials gathered from a cross-cultural survey of plant hallucinogens, the author examines themes in the monolithic sculptures of this culture in light of man-animal transformations and shamanic themes linked to plant hallucinogenic ingestion.