Datura, the Mimbres Flower World, and Ideational Cognition

Abstract

Abstract Prehistoric and historic Native Americans had a physical, practical, and spiritual engagement with the environment. These relationships caused their perception to become intertwined with specific creatures and plants, which became part of the basis of their ideational worldviews. In the case of the Mimbres people who lived between AD 1000–1140, their engagement with datura, a plant with powerful hallucinogenic properties, integrated into a cosmological framework called the Flower World. The visions provided by datura allowed people to travel into the otherwise hidden Flower World realm. To understand their ideational world, we employ an ethnosemantic approached based on ecological and neuropsychological models to analyze Classic Mimbres images depicted on Black-on-white pottery bowls. These images reflect ecological relationships (e.g., the association of the hawkmoth and datura, the opening of datura blossoms) and also the altered states of consciousness created by ingesting datura. These include depictions of geometric designs characteristic of datura intoxication, spinning (which coincides with the opening datura blossom) and the transformation of a person into a spirit being like a mothman. Applying cognitive models to Mimbres imagery consequently provides an understanding of Mimbres cosmology and the cultural importance of ecological relationships that structured the Mimbres ideational worldview.