Like every year, this Christmas we have seen the streets invaded by “Santas.” Without a doubt, he is a distinctive character who filled our childhood with wonder and our adulthood with indignation and disillusionment at such an elaborate fable. Gifts no longer bring us the same joy; they fall into the cold reality of knowing they are given by normal people, just like you or me.
By Raúl del Pino
When I was a kid—not a mythical one, just a small human—I preferred to think that Santa Claus brought the gifts from the North Pole. That man with a prominent abdomen, dressed in his red suit with white cuffs and trim matching his thick hair and beard, who rode his gleaming silver sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer, would traverse the icy winter sky to deliver gifts to all the children of the world, sneaking into houses to leave them in the fireplace (the wealthy version) or under the PVC Christmas tree (the poor version).
This mysterious being, who travels back and forth on the night of December 25 at speeds exceeding the speed of sound, squeezed into his sleigh, distributing gifts to more than 400 million Christian children and making a tremendous effort to slide down chimneys like a skilled chimney sweep, is known worldwide in various forms and names: Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, Father Winter, or “Danta Kurosu” in Japanese, among others. He is part of an ancestral myth that contains both legend and reality.
I am not going to present quantum theories that explain his probable existence and his defiance of classical physics through wormholes or tachyons. What I intend in this article is to stick to reliable, proven facts that have their cradle in Siberia and whose origins date back more than 6,000 years.
A Pagan and Shamanic Origin
The most plausible theory that best fits the Santa Claus myth is, likely, its shamanic origin and its relationship with the consumption of Amanita muscaria, although this character has undergone variations and transmutations over time to reach the colorful commercial formulas that Coca-Cola proposes today.
The Christian tradition of Christmas is of pagan origin, since the winter solstice occurs on the night of December 21. This event has been celebrated across the planet for millennia by peoples who lived as observers of celestial phenomena; as the 21st approaches, the nights grow longer, and it is precisely this night—the longest of the year—when the eternal cycle of death and rebirth is worshipped: the slow death of the sun toward the solstice and its rebirth with increasingly longer days. The “petite mort.” The Phoenix. Christianity simply adapted its calendar to overlap this event with the birth of Christ, another clear example of Death and Rebirth.
But what leads us to think that Santa Claus comes from practices as remote as Siberian shamanism? What parallels make us think there is any similarity?
We must remember that great migrations occurred from Siberia throughout prehistory, spreading shamanic practices throughout Europe, Asia, and America, and there are numerous vestiges representing the ritual or symbolic consumption of Amanita muscaria.
Northern European and Siberian peoples, especially the Sakha, Koryak, Chukchi, Sami, Yukaghir, or Kamchadal, have—and in some cases still maintain—the custom of eating A. muscaria both to get intoxicated and in shamanic practices. Shamans, great mycophagists, entered trances through the ingestion of the mushroom in order to access the Mundus Imaginalis, the Axis Mundi, and contact spirits in search of answers.
The Testimony of Explorers
It is very likely that Siberian peoples learned this practice by observing reindeer, due to their habit of “getting drunk” on the amanita. In 1833, Adolf Erman described the reindeer’s experience with the mushrooms:
Wild reindeer that have eaten them are often so stupefied that they can be tied up and used as a means of transport. And their meat also intoxicates whoever eats it.
On the other hand, a century earlier, a Swedish army colonel named Filip J. von Strahlenberg, after twelve years of imprisonment in Siberia and after studying the customs of Siberian peoples, provided perhaps the first account of amanita ingestion in modern literature.
When they hold a feast, they pour water over some of these mushrooms and boil them. Then they make a liquor, which intoxicates them.
And he added:
Those poorer ones who cannot afford to store their own mushrooms station themselves, on such occasions, near the huts of the rich, waiting for the guests to come out to urinate. At that moment, they hold out a wooden bowl to receive the urine, which they drink avidly, as if it still contained part of the mushroom’s virtue, so that they get drunk too.
Amanita muscaria is a psychoactive mushroom with visionary qualities whose effects range from euphoria to deep sleep, passing through all sorts of perceptual alterations. Its active principle is ibotenic acid, which, once ingested, transforms into muscimol. It usually grows in forests in autumn, and the species most valued for their potency are those that grow among the roots of conifers, such as pines or firs. There are numerous studies and archaeological findings that highlight the importance this mushroom has had in the genesis of cultures and religions. The “Soma” for the Hindus, the “Tree of Knowledge” for the Christians, the “Tree of Life” for the shamans, or the “Mushroom of Immortality” for the Taoists. It also often has a wide representation in children’s stories, and its presence in the forests tends to create a certain sympathy.
From Siberian Shamans to Santa Claus
Well then, days before December 25, when the winter solstice occurs, shamans would collect these mushrooms in the pine forests—which were normally frequented by reindeer—to distribute them among the members of their tribe. Usually, the entrance to the huts in winter was blocked by snow, so they were forced to access them through the roof to leave this precious gift for the inhabitants. The mushrooms were usually dried near the fire in small bags. When the mushrooms were consumed, the people lived and understood the trance the Sun went through, to finally be reborn and ascend to the sky again (Malagón, www.sindioses.org, 2003).
Without a doubt, there are more than enough parallels to trace the beginning of this myth, understanding the concept of myth not only as a story anchored in reality but as the embodiment of values and virtues in living characters and sequences of their lives.
So far, we have seen that the shaman was an intelligent being, usually with a thick beard, a reflection and symbol of wisdom in many cultures. Dressed in extravagant and striking garments, his visit before the December solstice was highly anticipated, especially for the “gifts” he carried. He collected the amanitas in the pine forests where they grow thanks to their mycorrhizal relationship with the roots. He would sneak through the roofs to distribute them. They were dried in bags near the fire. Reindeer ate amanitas, and their effects made them “fly.”
Curious, isn’t it?… Our Santa Claus dresses in red and white (like the amanitas), has a long beard, and distributes gifts on the night of December 25, leaving them by the fireplace or under the tree once he has passed the test of entering through the roof. He is carried through the skies in his sleigh thanks to his flying reindeer with names like Dasher, Dancer, and Prancer. And let’s not forget the pine or fir Christmas tree that presides over our homes, adorned with red balls and gifts.
Undoubtedly, this is not the only tradition or story that has an origin related to entheogens (God generated within), to inebriation, or to the eternal cycle of death and rebirth.
Perhaps after reading this, you won’t look at a Santa Claus with that same expression when you see him stationed at the corner of a shopping mall; perhaps after seeing him, you’ll only feel like eating him.
