What did your grandparents tell you about mushrooms?

Do you have a story you’d like to share with us? Perhaps your grandparents told you about or showed you a specific use for a certain type of fungi? Do you know whether they used to go out to gather them or used them as medicine?

We’d love to know more. We invite you to complete this form, which has been created according to our Ethical Guidelines.

Fungi have played various roles among indigenous and traditional communities, from being used as medicine and food to being essential elements when carrying out spiritual ceremonies.

Ethnomycology, which is the study of the sociological impact and historical uses of fungi by different peoples of various ethnicities, races, or nationalities, has shed light on the multiple ways in which fungi have been integrated into traditional practices, often serving as a bridge between human beings and nature.

_{Watch the short film “Hongos Ancestrales” to learn more about the relationship between fungi and humans.}

At Fundación Fungi, we are working to uncover, document, and protect the ancestral and traditional uses of fungi among the diverse cultures of the world. Through our Programa Ancestros, we have catalogued more than 200 uses of fungi in 45 different countries, creating a global ethnomycological index based on publicly available information.

As we lose cultures, languages, habitats and species, we simultaneously also lose valuable knowledge about the uses of fungi, and we believe that these ancestral relationships are key to a sustainable future.

Humanity has co-evolved culturally with fungi over time. For example, the speciesGanoderma australeand Fomes fomentarius, Known as “orejas de palo”, they have had a relationship with different cultures separated from one another by an enormous distance. The Mapuche People in southern Chile andHunters who lived in Europe 5,300 years ago used these fungi to carry fire.from one place to another.

The use of the Reishi(Ganoderma lucidum) in traditional Chinese medicine,It has been documented since at least the 1st century AD.., whereas the**“bejín”** → **“puffball”**(Calvatia sp.), which grow in different parts of the world, have been used as food, medicine and even tinder.

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You’ve probably also heard about the Amanita muscaria, a psychoactive fungus widely used by shamans throughout the northern hemisphere to communicate with spirits, to bolster courage and to induce altered states of consciousness. It was (or was it…Please paste the Spanish text you want translated (right now I only see “es”).…even used since the Middle Ages to prepare a fly-catching mixture, by soaking the mushroom’s cap in water or milk.

To continue uncovering and safeguarding the uses of fungi around the world, we seek to incorporate into our catalogue ancestral and traditional uses that have been passed down from one generation to another through oral history.

We would love to hear about your experience and find out what your grandparents told you. We invite you to take part in the Oral History campaign through this form., which has been created according to our Ethical Guidelines.

References

Comandini, O., & Rinaldi, A. C. (2020). *Ethnomycology in Europe: The Past, the Present, and the Future*. In J. Pérez-Moreno, A. Guerin-Laguette, R. Flores Arzú, & F.-Q. Yu (Eds.), *Mushrooms, Humans and Nature in a Changing World: Perspectives from Ecological, Agricultural and Social Sciences* (pp. 341–364). Springer International Publishing.

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Grienke, U., Zöll, M., Peintner, U., & Rollinger, J. M. (2014). European medicinal polypores – A modern view of traditional uses. *Journal of Ethnopharmacology*, 154(3), 564–583.

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