in both lists seem to be the same; this means that there 
are six different names in all, 
We now come to our own list of the mushrooms that 
the natives say may cause ‘mushroom madness.” The 
problems in assembling this list were quite different from 
our difficulties in Mexico, where the identity of the 
sacred mushrooms was a secret (albeit shared among 
many natives), to be ferreted out with patience and deli- 
‘racy. In Mexico these mushrooms all belonged to three 
closely related genera of Agaricaceae,— Psilocy be, Stro- 
pharia, and Conocybe, of which one—the first —covered 
“most of the species, which reached a dozen in all. The 
whole subject was instinet with religious feeling and awe. 
In the Wahgi everyone was ready to be an informant, 
and it was the abundance of informants that became 
a danger, the testimony of each witness having to be 
carefully assayed. In other words, each sought to outdo 
the others. Thus a man named Wapi, in the home of 
the Phillipses at Tombil, said that every edible mush- 
room could cause madness. The others, more selective, 
offered lists that differed one from another. We shall cite 
the names of eleven species that appeared (with one ex- 
ception) in response to many of our inquiries made in 
the Valley. The notes in quotation marks are from a 
memorandum of Miss Reay’s drawn up in the course of 
our joint visit in the region of Min). 
1. Nonda ngam-ngam. (No. | in above list) ‘When four or five fungi 
come up on one stem both men and women are atHicted with mad- 
ness after eating it. This is the ordinary mushroom madness, the 
men aggressive, the women with delusions ; common to both sexes 
are shivering and staring. ‘This mushroom can be cooked in the 
steampit or in ashes. The leaf of the fosgag/ shrub (in Pidgin, 
mosong kumu) is cooked with it.’ 
2. Nonda ngamp kindjkants. (No. 2 in above list.) “This grows 
among the pit-pit reeds where the bush has grown after the pigs 
have been walking about.’ 
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