Ancient & Indigenous Roots

Long before the chemists: Amazonian ayahuasca, the peyote of the Rio Grande, the mushroom stones of Mesoamerica, the San Pedro of the Andes, and the Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece.

Part of Psychedelics

37 moments in this segment.

1. c. 900 BC - Chavín entheogen carvings (c. 900 BC). ), Stone carvings from the Andean Chavín culture depicting San Pedro and the transformation of its shamans.
2. c. 400 BC - Great Eleusinian relief: Demeter gives Triptolemos ears of wheat. The Great Eleusinian relief, carved in Pentelic marble and dedicated at the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis, depicts a scene from the mystery ritual. Demeter at left offers ears of wheat to Triptolemos, son of the Eleusinian king Keleos, for him to bestow on mankind. The work was famous in antiquity and was copied in Roman times.
3. c. 400 BC - Demeter and Persephone relief in the Salinas museum, Palermo. A photograph taken in the Museo archeologico regionale Antonio Salinas in Palermo, Sicily. The uploader's caption records only the location, but the file is catalogued under reliefs of Demeter and Persephone and under the Eleusinian Mysteries, alongside a quadriga. Photographed by Rino Porrovecchio in September 2017.
4. c. 400 BC - Persephone with torch blessing Triptolemos on the Eleusinian relief. A second view of the Great Eleusinian relief, framing the right-hand figure group in which Persephone, holding a torch, raises her right hand in blessing over Triptolemos. The Pentelic marble relief was a dedication at the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis and is dated to 440 to 430 BC. It is now catalogued in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens as NAMA 126.
5. c. 400 BC - Marble votive relief of Demeter with sceptre and Kore with torch. A fragment of a marble votive relief showing Demeter holding a sceptre beside her daughter Kore, who carries a torch. It was found at Rhamnous in Attica, probably at the Temple of Nemesis, and is dated to roughly 420 to 410 BC. The piece is held in Room 1 of the Glyptothek in Munich.
6. 1900-06-01 - Freshly planted San Pedro cactus cutting. A close view of a newly planted cutting of Echinopsis pachanoi, the propagation method by which the columnar cactus is most commonly grown. The species is filed on Commons under its accepted name Trichocereus macrogonus var. pachanoi.
7. 1900 - Peyote seedlings in close-up. A close-up of Lophophora williamsii at the seedling stage, catalogued on Commons under the species' seedlings category. Young plants of the species take several years to reach the button form seen in mature specimens. Photographed in February 2013 by the Flickr user Dornenwolf.
8. 1900 - Ayahuasca liana climbing near Iquitos. The ayahuasca creeper photographed at Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon in May 2015, showing the woody vine in its growing habit. The photographer, credited as Apollo, also produced the image of cut vine sections in this group.
9. 1900 - Cultivated peyote specimen in the Berggarten Hannover glasshouse. A cultivated Lophophora williamsii under glass at the Berggarten in Hannover, Germany, one of two views of the botanical garden's collection. Cultivated plants of this species are grown widely in European gardens, in contrast to the wild populations of the Chihuahuan Desert. Photographed in April 2018.
10. 1900 - Wild peyote growing in the Coahuila desert. A wild specimen of Lophophora williamsii photographed in its native habitat in the state of Coahuila, northern Mexico, on the road toward Estación Marte. The cactus sits low and spineless against the desert ground, its ribbed crown flush with the surrounding stones. Photographed in January 2011 by Amante Darmanin.
11. 1900 - Peyote in the Berggarten Hannover cactus collection. Another cultivated Lophophora williamsii from the Berggarten Hannover, photographed in June 2017, nearly a year before the companion view in this collection. The species is small, spineless and slow-growing, with a segmented button-like crown. Both photographs were taken by NasserHalaweh and self-published to Commons.
12. 1900 - Full growth habit of a columnar San Pedro cactus. A cropped view showing the overall habit of Echinopsis pachanoi, its multiple ribbed columns rising from the base. The image is a derivative work reworked from an earlier upload by the contributor Photohound.
13. 1900 - San Pedro cactus in flower. A photograph of the bloom of Echinopsis pachanoi, captioned in Spanish by the photographer as the flower of the cactus. It is filed on Commons both under the species and among the Echinopsis flower photographs, and is the only flowering view in this set.
14. 1900 - Banisteriopsis caapi vine growing in Peru. The living ayahuasca vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, photographed in Peru in November 2024 by Anthony Baratier. Commons files it under both the species and the ayahuasca brew prepared from it.
15. 1900 - Cut sections of caapi vine prepared for brewing. Lengths of Banisteriopsis caapi cut and set aside for use in preparing the ayahuasca decoction, as described in the Spanish-language source caption. The image documents the processing stage rather than the plant in the wild.
16. 1950 - Psilocybe mushrooms (1950). The "flesh of the gods" of Mesoamerica, psilocybin fungi used ritually long before the West named them. The subject dates from 1950; this photograph was taken in 2021.
17. 1955-01-01 - Maria Sabina, the Shaman Who Introduced Americans to Mushrooms
18. 1955-01-01 - Maria Sabina: The Mazatec Shaman
19. 1955-01-01 - Maria Sabina - The Mushroom Priestess of Huautla de Jimenez
20. 1957-01-01 - Maria Sabina - Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico (1957). Maria Sabina - Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico, María Sabina, the Mazatec mushroom curandera.
21. 1994-01-01 - The Peyote Road (1994) - Documentary. (1994).
22. 2013-10-25 - Carl P. Ruck, Peter Webster - The Mythology and Chemistry of the Eleusinian Mysteries. (2013).
23. 2014-04-08 - Chavin - Peru's Enigmatic Temple in the Andes | Museum Rietberg. Chavin - Peru's Enigmatic Temple in the Andes (2014).
24. 2017-01-30 - Huachuma (San Pedro): The Forgotten Psychedelic - Full Documentary. (2017).
25. 2017-12-10 - Exploring the Complicated History of Peyote | Hamilton's Pharmacopeia. Exploring the Complicated History of Peyote, The small spineless cactus of the Rio Grande, a sacrament of Indigenous peoples for thousands of years.
26. 2019-01-01 - The Nature of Ayahuasca (2019) Documentary. (2019).
27. 2019-11-02 - Giorgio Samorini - The Archaeology of Psychoactive Plants. (2019).
28. 2020-09-15 - Chavin de Huantar and the Religious Revolution | Ancient Americas. Chavin de Huantar and the Religious Revolution (2020).
29. 2021-10-04 - The Native American Church and the Sacrament of Peyote | Harvard Divinity School. The Native American Church and the Sacrament of Peyote (2021).
30. 2021-11-21 - The Archaeology of Ecstasy: Psychedelics in the Ancient Mediterranean | Harvard Divinity School. The Archaeology of Ecstasy: Psychedelics in the Ancient Mediterranean (2021).
31. 2021-12-09 - Peyote: The Divine Messenger - Hamilton's Pharmacopeia. (2021).
32. 2022-07-03 - Mystical Initiation in Ancient Greece: The Eleusinian Mysteries | Let's Talk Religion. Mystical Initiation in Ancient Greece: The Eleusinian Mysteries (2022).
33. 2022-07-14 - The Eleusinian Mysteries Explained (Ancient Greek Mystery School). ), The secret Greek rite at Eleusis, whose initiates drank the possibly-psychoactive kykeon.
34. 2022-10-22 - Psychedelics as Medicine: The History of Peyote | NOVA PBS. Psychedelics as Medicine: The History of Peyote (2022).
35. 2025-02-23 - Huachuma - The San Pedro Cactus and Its History. (2025).
36. 2025-03-12 - Inside an Ayahuasca Ceremony in the Amazon | She Is a Shaman | Aeon. Inside an Ayahuasca Ceremony in the Amazon (2025).
37. 2025-08-31 - The Flesh of the Gods: Ancient Psychedelic Rituals. (2025).