Inca tripping on hallucinogens before sacrifice

Mike McRae (ScienceAlert/MSN, 5/22); Pat Macpherson, Xochitl, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

What is "reality" when death approaches? Suddenly everything comes into perspective.

 Pot of ayahuasca brewing like a cauldron of magic potion full of DMT.

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For more than 500 years, the mummified remains of several small children frozen high on a volcano in Southern Peru kept a secret record of their final days. Since the mummies' discovery in the 1990s, researchers worked to unlock ancient children's pasts, unraveling a shocking tale that seems to end in human sacrifice.

Now a new finding by an international team of researchers adds fresh details to their fate, uncovering traces of material in their hair and nails suggestive of high doses of a psychedelic substance.

Taken in context with historical knowledge of ancient Inca culture, it's possible – even likely – ill-fated victims of what's now known as a capacocha ritual were intoxicated with stimulants, antidepressants, and sometimes alcohol as they knowingly faced certain death.

One will need a reliable guide on this journey.

While it's difficult to know the exact emotions the children might have experienced, whether they were [eager,] proud, [deluded,] touched with anxiety, [fully accepting,] or confused and scared, the researchers speculate the use of hallucinogens might have been used to ease the depressive states of the children.

The remains at the center of this latest study were among a small number of mummies uncovered by US explorer Johan Reinhard and Peruvian archeologist José Antonio Chávez on their expeditions up the Ampato Volcano in the Andes in 1995.

It wasn't until 2019 that the bodies, along with a third found on the same plateau, would be subject to a rigorous bio-archeological examination that concluded two were most likely young males, and the third a female. More