Their psychedelic and other potentially mind-bending compounds didn't evolve to give people a trip.
Indigenous peoples of central California once ate California harvester ants during rituals including vision quests.The venom of the California harvester ant is made up of enzymes that aren’t known to cause hallucinations on their own, but the Indigenous peoples of central California once ate them during rituals including vision quests. Ethnographic reports suggest people would swallow hundreds of live ants in balls of eagle down feathers. No doubt the people were stung, likely on the insides.
Justin Schmidt, an entomologist at the Southwestern Biological Institute and University of Arizona in Tucson , said the pain of being stung by so many ants, along with extreme cold, fasting and in some cases sleep deprivation, triggered hallucinations that connected the people with spiritual guides.. “The pain is intense, comes in waves, and is deeply visceral.” Lasting from four to eight hours, the pain is accompanied by a numb sensation at the site of the sting. The ants deliver stings to defend their colonies from large predators, including lizards, birds and people.
A person who eats 1,000 ants would probably die; according to Schmidt’s book, one ant is enough to kill a mouse. But some predators have defenses: The regal horned lizard has a mucus lining its mouth and digestive system that allows it to eat hundreds of ants and a substance in its blood that neutralizes the venom. Some birds somehow avoid getting stung too.
It’s hard to get more information on how the ants were used in rituals and the nature of the experience. Disease and violence that came with Westerners during California’s gold rush destroyed the Indigenous communities in the Central Valley and their way of life.
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