Ancient Peruvians partied, spiked their beer with hallucinogens to make friends

Lacing the beer served at their feasts with hallucinogens may have helped an ancient Peruvian people known as the Wari forge political alliances and expand their empire, depending on a new paper published in the journal Antiquity. Recent excavations at a remote Wari outpost called Quilcapampa have unearthed seeds from the vilca tree that can be used to produce a powerful hallucinogenic drug. The authors believe the Wari staged a final large eruption before the site was abandoned.

“This is, to my knowledge, the first discovery of vilca at a Wari site where we can gain insight into its use,” co-author Matthew Biwer, an archaeobotanist at Dickinson College, told Gizmodo. “Vilca seeds or residues have been found in burial graves before, but we could only guess how they were used. These findings indicate a more nuanced understanding of Wari feasting and politics and how Vilca was involved in these practices.

the Wari Empire lasted from about 500 CE to 1100 CE in the central highlands of Peru. There is some debate among scholars whether the network of roads linking various provincial towns constituted a true empire as opposed to a loose economic network. But the Wari’s construction of complex and distinctive architecture and the discovery in 2013 of an imperial royal tomb lend credence to the Wari’s status as an empire. Cultivation began to decline around 800 CE, largely due to drought. Many central buildings were blocked, suggesting that people thought they might return if the rains came, and there is archaeological evidence of possible warfare and raids in the empire’s last days as the local infrastructure was collapsing and supply chains were failing.

Prior to this, however, the Wari enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity, with a capital (just northeast of the present-day city of Ayacucho in Peru) serving as the center of the Wari civilization. The use of hallucinogens, particularly a substance derived from the seeds of the vilca tree, was common in the region during the so-called Middle Horizon period, when the Wari Empire flourished.

Vilca generally grows in the dry tropical forests of the region. The trees produce long legumes filled with fine seeds. The seeds, bark and other parts of the tree all contain DMT, a well-known psychedelic that is also found in the ayahuasca tea Amazonian tribes. However, the main active ingredient is bufotenin, the effects of which wear off quickly if the drug is taken orally. It is therefore usually smoked, ingested as a snuff, or used as an enema by those seeking the full hallucinogenic effect. A 4,000-year-old pipe containing bufotenin residue and related paraphernalia was found in an Inca cave in Argentina in 1999 – the oldest archaeological evidence to date of vilca use in South America.

There is also evidence from historical accounts that a juice or tea derived from vilca seeds was sometimes added to girl, a fermented drink made from corn or the fruits of the soft tree native to Peru. It’s a way to take vilca orally and still get a weaker, more sustained psychedelic effect, because the beta-carbolines produced during shisha fermentation suppress stomach enzymes that counteract the high by turning off the active compounds. “The collective consumption of vilca-infused beverages is also documented ethnographically, with the more sustained experiences recounted contrasting with the overwhelming hallucinogenic rush produced when consumed in other ways,” the authors wrote.

For example, residents of the neighboring state of Tiwanaku were known to mix these hallucinogens with alcohol, especially corn beer. There are monoliths depicting figures holding a drinking cup in one hand and a snuff tray in the other, and smoking or inhaling vilca was part of a long-standing ritual tradition to promote personal spiritual journeys.