one species. The hor putka is the "man putka,"' not in the sense 

 of male but of a human being, or of the "Santal" whom they 

 naturally regard as par excellence the human being. The seta 

 putka, which is rough, is the "dog putka,'' the dog not being 

 despised as it is in Hindu culture. A few of the Santal spoke to us 

 of a third putka, the rote putka or "toad putka." Most Santal 

 did not recognize this term and of those who did. most could not 

 say what kind of mushroom it meant. But when we were in 

 Kathikund, a village in the Santal Parganas, we witnessed from 

 our veranda a violent midday thunderstorm and within hours 

 and then throughout the night a host of puffballs appeared on 

 the plain before our bungalow. One of our Santal companions 

 told us with assurance that these were indeed rote putka. In this 



ffb 



ffb 



a rote putka. In short, the rote putka, which is not eaten by the 

 Santal, is a false putka. ...The entheogenic mushrooms of 

 which Ludgi Marndi and Ganesh Ran Ho had told us, probably 

 Stropharia cuhensis, are not putka: they are mrely ot', or ud in 

 the Ho* language, enjoy no grammatical distinction in the lan- 

 guages, and so far as I learned no distinction in folklore. But it is 

 imperative that this be explored much further. Does its entheo- 

 genic virtue account for the colored geometrical designs, end- 

 lessly varied, that decorate the exteriors of many Santal houses? 



Throughout our visits to the Santal country the people we 

 spoke with said that pigs dug for the putka, thus confirming 

 what the canonical Pali Commentary on the Udana says of 

 sukara-maddava. But I was seeking a quotation and after 

 returning to New York the Rev. Johannes Gausdal, a retired 



M 



M 



through Mr. Gausdal whether 

 forest. Here is what he replied: 



Whether the pigs eat pulka or not? In this case also 1 got some 

 puika from the forests. 1 tried them on a few pigs— the old puika 

 were not liked, hut the new ones seemed to be delicacies of the 



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