rhoea, convulsions, unconsciousness. Supernatural expertness 
in the hunt results from the hallucinations which are interpreted 
as communication with forest spirits (Furst, 1974). 
There can no longer be any doubt that the high place occupied 
in magico-religious spheres by frogs and toads must be attrib- 
uted in great part to the toxic properties of some species. 
Although the potently poisonous South American species can- 
not be termed hallucinogenic in the usual sense of that word, 
their toxins do act upon the central nervous system with effects 
so unreal as to induce the Indian to ascribe supernatural powers 
to the animal and actually visual and other hallucinations may 
indeed accompany the violent intoxications caused by agents 
that can in no wise be considered true hallucinogens (Furst, 
1974, 1976). For, as has been correctly pointed out: “. . . the 
massive assault on the system brought on by _ bufotenine- 
containing Bufo venom is of a very different order than the shift 
from one state of consciousness to another triggered by bufo- 
tenine-containing snuff” (Furst, 1974). Perhaps it may not be 
wholly coincidental that toads were so frequently added as an 
ingredient of the hallucinogenic witches brews of medieval 
Europe. 
Whether as hallucinogen-inducing organisms, or as poisonous 
animals causing what might be termed pseudohallucination syn- 
dromes, these amphibians assumed —for this and other peculiari- 
ties—a significance in aboriginal mythology and magic, an 
xalted position amongst the peoples who created the Colombian 
gold work. 
In almost every gold-working culture of Colombia, there are 
numerous examples of the toad-frog motif. There are hundreds 
of specimens in the Museo del Oro in Bogota. These are espe- 
cially abundant in the Tairona area of the Sierra Nevada de 
Santa Marta. From the surviving aboriginal groups of Indians 
still living in this region, it is known that the frog is considered a 
mythological being at the center of the cosmos (Reichel- 
Dolmatoff, 1963). 
We believe that, especially when other characteristics of the 
gold pectorals (wings, birds, mushrooms) are taken into account, 
the constancy of the frog-toad motif on these artifacts must of 
necessity be interpreted as an indication that they played some 
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