Richard Evans Schultes (''SHULL-tees'';
[Jonathan Kandell]
''The New York Times'', April 13, 2001, Accessed April 26, 2020. January 12, 1915 – April 10, 2001) was an American biologist. He may be considered the father of modern
ethnobotany. He is known for his studies of the uses of plants by
indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
, especially the
indigenous peoples of the Americas
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...
. He worked on
entheogen
Entheogens are psychoactive substances that induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior for the purposes of engendering spiritual development or otherwiseRätsch, Christian, ''The Encyclopedia of Psychoac ...
ic or
hallucinogenic
Hallucinogens are a large, diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mood, and perception as well as other changes. Most hallucinogens can be categorized ...
plants, particularly in Mexico and the
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
, involving lifelong collaborations with
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...
s. He had charismatic influence as an educator at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
; several of his students and colleagues went on to write popular books and assume influential positions in museums, botanical gardens, and popular culture.
His book ''The Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers'' (1979), co-authored with chemist
Albert Hofmann
Albert Hofmann (11 January 1906 – 29 April 2008) was a Swiss chemist known for being the first to synthesize, ingest, and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Hofmann's team also isolated, named and synthesi ...
, the discoverer of
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
, is considered his greatest popular work: it has never been out of print and was revised into an expanded second edition, based on a German translation by
Christian Rätsch
Christian Rätsch (20 April 1957 – 17 September 2022) was a German anthropologist and writer on topics like ethnopharmacology, psychoactive plants and animals.
Life
Rätsch was born in 1957 in a Bohemian community in Hamburg, Germany. His fat ...
(1998), in 2001.
Biography
Schultes was born in Boston; his father was a plumber.
[ He grew up and was schooled in ]East Boston
East Boston, nicknamed Eastie, is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts annexed by the city of Boston in 1637. Neighboring communities include Winthrop, Revere, and Chelsea. It is separated from the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown and d ...
.[Richard Evans Schultes: Memorial Minute]
''Harvard Gazette'', September 18, 2003, Accessed March 11, 2015. His interest in South American rain forests traced back to his childhood: while he was bedridden, his parents read him excerpts of ''Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and the Andes,'' by 19th century English botanist Richard Spruce.[ He received a full scholarship to Harvard.][
On entering Harvard in 1933, Schultes planned to pursue medicine. However that changed after he took Biology 104, "Plants and Human Affairs," taught by ]orchid
Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant.
Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowerin ...
ologist and Director of the Harvard Botanical Museum Oakes Ames.[ Ames became a mentor, and Schultes became an assistant in the Botanical Museum; his undergraduate senior thesis studied the ritual use of peyote cactus among the ]Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...
of Oklahoma, and he obtained BA in Biology in 1937.[ Continuing at Harvard under Ames, he completed his Master of Arts in Biology in 1938 and his Ph.D. in Botany in 1941. Schultes' doctoral thesis investigated the lost identity of the Mexican hallucinogenic plants teonanácatl (mushrooms belonging to the genus '']Psilocybe
''Psilocybe'' ( ) is a genus of gilled mushrooms, growing worldwide, in the family Hymenogastraceae. Most or nearly all species contain the psychedelic compounds psilocybin and psilocin.
Taxonomy
Taxonomic history
A 2002 study of the mol ...
'') and ololiuqui
''Ipomoea corymbosa'' is a species of morning glory, native throughout Latin America from Mexico as far south as Peru and widely naturalised elsewhere. Its common names include Christmasvine, Christmaspops, and snakeplant.
Description and names
...
(a morning glory
Morning glory (also written as morning-glory) is the common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae, whose current taxonomy and systematics are in flux. Morning glory species belong to many genera, some of ...
species) in Oaxaca
Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
, Mexico.[ He received a ]fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
ship from the National Research Council National Research Council may refer to:
* National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development
* National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome
* National Research Council (United States), part of ...
to study the plants used to make curare
Curare ( /kʊˈrɑːri/ or /kjʊˈrɑːri/; ''koo-rah-ree'' or ''kyoo-rah-ree'') is a common name for various alkaloid arrow poisons originating from plant extracts. Used as a paralyzing agent by indigenous peoples in Central and South ...
.[
The entry of the United States into ]World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
saw Schultes diverted to the search for wild disease-resistant '' Hevea'' rubber species in an effort to free the United States from dependence on Southeast Asian rubber plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
s which had become unavailable owing to Japanese occupation. In early 1942, as a field agent for the governmental Rubber Development Corporation, Schultes began work on rubber and concurrently undertook research on Amazonian ethnobotany, under a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.[
Schultes' botanical field-work among aboriginal American communities led him to be one of the first to alert the world about destruction of the Amazon rain-forest and the disappearance of its native people. He collected over thirty thousand herbarium specimens (including three hundred species new to Western science) and published numerous ethnobotanical discoveries including the source of the dart poison known as ]curare
Curare ( /kʊˈrɑːri/ or /kjʊˈrɑːri/; ''koo-rah-ree'' or ''kyoo-rah-ree'') is a common name for various alkaloid arrow poisons originating from plant extracts. Used as a paralyzing agent by indigenous peoples in Central and South ...
, now commonly employed as a muscle relaxant
A muscle relaxant is a drug that affects skeletal muscle function and decreases the muscle tone. It may be used to alleviate symptoms such as muscle spasms, pain, and hyperreflexia. The term "muscle relaxant" is used to refer to two major therap ...
during surgery.[ He was the first non-native individual to academically examine ]ayahuasca
AyahuascaPronounced as in the UK and in the US. Also occasionally known in English as ''ayaguasca'' ( Spanish-derived), ''aioasca'' (Brazilian Portuguese-derived), or as ''yagé'', pronounced or . Etymologically, all forms but ''yagé'' desce ...
, a hallucinogenic
Hallucinogens are a large, diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mood, and perception as well as other changes. Most hallucinogens can be categorized ...
brew made out of ''Banisteriopsis caapi
''Banisteriopsis caapi'', also known as ayahuasca, caapi, soul vine, or yagé (yage), is a South American liana of the family Malpighiaceae. It is one half of ayahuasca, a decoction with a long history of its entheogenic (connecting to spirit) us ...
'' vine in combination with various plants; of which he identified ''Psychotria viridis
''Psychotria viridis'', also known as ''chacruna'', ''chacrona'', or ''chaqruy'' in the Quechua languages, is a perennial, shrubby flowering plant in the coffee family Rubiaceae. It is a close relative of '' Psychotria carthagenensis'' (a.k.a. ...
'' (Chacruna) and '' Diplopterys cabrerana'' (Chaliponga), both of which contained a potent short-acting hallucinogen, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine
''N'',''N''-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT or ''N'',''N''-DMT, SPL026) is a substituted tryptamine that occurs in many plants and animals, including human beings, and which is both a derivative and a structural analog of tryptamine. It is used as ...
(DMT).[Tedd Mann]
Magnificent Visions
''Vanity Fair'', December 2011, Accessed March 11, 2015. In his travels he lived with the indigenous peoples and viewed them with respect and felt that tribal chiefs were gentlemen; he understood the languages of the Witoto and Makuna
The Macuna are a Tucanoan-speaking group of the eastern part of the Amazon basin, located around the confluence of the Pira Paraná River and Apaporis river, in the Colombian Vaupés Department and the Brazilian state of Amazonas. There are ...
peoples.[ He encountered dangers in his travels, including hunger, ]beriberi
Thiamine deficiency is a medical condition of low levels of thiamine (Vitamin B1). A severe and chronic form is known as beriberi. The two main types in adults are wet beriberi and dry beriberi. Wet beriberi affects the cardiovascular system, ...
, repeated bouts of malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
, and near drowning.[
Schultes became curator of Harvard's Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium in 1953, curator of Economic Botany in 1958, and professor of biology in 1970. His ever-popular undergraduate course on economic botany was noted for his Victorian demeanor, lectures delivered in a white lab coat, insistence on memorization of systematic botanical names, films depicting native ritual use of plant inebriants, ]blowgun
A blowgun (also called a blowpipe or blow tube) is a simple ranged weapon consisting of a long narrow tube for shooting light projectiles such as darts. It operates by having the projectile placed inside the pipe and using the force created ...
demonstrations, and hands-on labs (using plant sources of grain, paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
, caffeine
Caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant of the methylxanthine class. It is mainly used recreationally as a cognitive enhancer, increasing alertness and attentional performance. Caffeine acts by blocking binding of adenosine to ...
, dyes, medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
s, and tropical fruit
A tropical fruit one that typically grows in warm climates, or equatorial areas.
Tropical fruits
Varieties of tropical fruit include:
*Acerola ( West Indian Cherry or Barbados Cherry)
* Ackee
*Banana
*Barbadine (granadilla; maracujá-açu ...
s). His composed and kindly persona and expressive eye gestures helped capture the imagination of the many students he inspired.
In 1959, Schultes married Dorothy Crawford McNeil, an opera soprano who performed in Europe and the United States. They had three children, Richard Evans Schultes II, and twins Alexandra Ames Schultes Wilson and Neil Parker Schultes.[ Schultes retired from Harvard in 1985.][ He was a member of ]King's Chapel
King's Chapel is an American independent Christian unitarian congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association that is "unitarian Christian in theology, Anglican in worship, and congregational in governance." It is housed ...
church in Boston.[ Despite his Germanic surname he was an ]anglophile
An Anglophile is a person who admires or loves England, its people, its culture, its language, and/or its various accents.
Etymology
The word is derived from the Latin word ''Anglii'' and Ancient Greek word φίλος ''philos'', meaning "frien ...
.[ He would often vote for the ]Queen of the United Kingdom
The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiw ...
during presidential elections because he didn't support the American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
.[D. James Romero]
The Father of Psychedelics? Just a Plant Guy
''Los Angeles Times'', October 20, 1996, Accessed March 11, 2015.
Influences
Schultes was led to study psychoactive drugs by Heinrich Kluver, a leading scholar of this subject (personal communication from Schultes). This interest evolved by way of Schultes' field observations on peyote, studying the peyote cult among the Plains Indians in his travels with Weston LaBarre in the early 1930s (in 1938, LaBarre based ''The Peyote Cult'' on these travels and observations).
In Western culture, Schultes' discoveries influenced writers who considered hallucinogens as the gateways to self-discovery, such as Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxle ...
, William Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
and Carlos Castaneda
Carlos Castañeda (December 25, 1925 – April 27, 1998) was an American writer. Starting with ''The Teachings of Don Juan'' in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that purport to describe training in shamanism that he received under the tu ...
. Although he contributed to the psychedelic era
The Psychedelic era was the time of social, musical and artistic change influenced by psychedelic drugs, occurring from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s. The era was defined by the proliferation of LSD and its following influence in the development of p ...
with his discoveries, he personally disdained its proponents, dismissing drug guru and fellow Harvard professor Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
for being so little versed in hallucinogenic species that he misspelled the Latin names of the plants.[ When Burroughs described his ]ayahuasca
AyahuascaPronounced as in the UK and in the US. Also occasionally known in English as ''ayaguasca'' ( Spanish-derived), ''aioasca'' (Brazilian Portuguese-derived), or as ''yagé'', pronounced or . Etymologically, all forms but ''yagé'' desce ...
visions as an earth-shaking metaphysical experience, Schultes famously replied, "That's funny, Bill, all I saw was colors."[
Schultes' personal hero was Richard Spruce, a British naturalist who spent seventeen years exploring the Amazon rainforest.][
Schultes, in both his life and his work, has directly influenced notable people as diverse as biologist E.O. Wilson, physician ]Andrew Weil
Andrew Thomas Weil (, born June 8, 1942) is an American celebrity doctor who advocates for alternative medicine including the 4-7-8 breathing technique.
Early life and education Early years
Andrew Thomas Weil was born in Philadelphia on June 8, ...
, psychologist Daniel Goleman
Daniel Goleman (born March 7, 1946) is an author, psychologist, and science journalist. For twelve years, he wrote for ''The New York Times'', reporting on the brain and behavioral sciences. His 1995 book ''Emotional Intelligence'' was on ''Th ...
, poet Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
, ethnobotanist, conservationist and author Mark Plotkin
Mark J. Plotkin (born May 21, 1955) is an ethnobotanist and a plant explorer in the Neotropics, where he is an expert on rainforest ecosystems. Plotkin is an advocate for tropical rainforest conservation and host of Plants of the Gods: Hallucino ...
, and authors Alejo Carpentier
Alejo Carpentier y Valmont (, ; December 26, 1904 – April 24, 1980) was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, of French an ...
, Mary Mackey, and William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
. Timothy Plowman, authority on the genus ''Erythroxylum
''Erythroxylum'' (''Erythroxylon'') is a genus of tropical flowering plants in the family Erythroxylaceae. Many of the approximately 200 species contain the substance cocaine,Bieri S, Brachet A, Veuthey J, Christen P. Cocaine distribution in wil ...
'' (coca) and ethnobotanist, and Wade Davis were his students at Harvard.
Distinctions
Schultes received numerous awards and decorations including:
* Gold Medal from the Linnean Society of London
The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...
(1992), the most prestigious prize in botany;
* Gold Medal from the World Wildlife Fund
The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...
.
* Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...
(1988).
* Boyaca Cross (Cruz de Boyacá) 1986, highest award from the government of the Republic Of Colombia.
Schultes is one of the leading characters in the prestigious Colombian film ''El abrazo de la serpiente'' ('' Embrace of the Serpent'') (2015), directed by Ciro Guerra
Ciro Guerra (born 6 February 1981) is a Colombian film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his 2015 film ''Embrace of the Serpent'', the film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards.
Career
He made hi ...
and critically acclaimed. The film depicts Schultes' search for a mysterious plant through the Amazon jungle, and he was played by actor Brionne Davis Brionne Davis (born Dallas, Texas, 1976) is an American actor, director and producer of theater, film and TV. Davis grew up in Paris, Texas and has developed his career in theater, TV and indie films in Austin, New York City and currently in Los Ang ...
. The film specifically credits both his diaries and those accounts of an earlier Amazonian explorer, the German scientist Theodor Koch-Grünberg.
In 1962 botanist Harold E. Moore
Harold Emery Moore, Jr. (July 7, 1917 – October 27, 1980) was an American botanist especially known for his work on the systematics of the palm family. He served as Director of the L. H. Bailey Hortorium at Cornell University, and was appoint ...
published '' Resia'', which is a genus of flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...
s from South America, in the family Gesneriaceae
Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World (almost all Didymocarpoideae) and the New World (most Gesnerioideae), wi ...
and named in his honour. Then in 1977, botanist Hunz. published '' Schultesianthus'' which is also a genus of flowering plants from South America, but belonging to the family Solanaceae and also named in Moore's honour.
Selected works
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
See also
* Ethnobiology ]
Ethnobiology is the scientific study of the way living things are treated or used by different human cultures. It studies the dynamic relationships between people, biota, and environments, from the distant past to the immediate present.culture ...
* Psychoactive plant
Psychoactive plants are plants, or preparations thereof, that upon ingestion induce psychotropic effects. As stated in a reference work:
Psychoactivity may include sedative, stimulant, euphoric, deliriant, and hallucinogenic effects.
Sever ...
s
* List of psychoactive plants
This is a list of plant species that, when consumed by humans, are known or suspected to produce psychoactive effects: changes in nervous system function that alter perception, mood, consciousness, cognition or behavior. Many of these plants ...
Notes
External links
* Plotkin, Mark (2022)
Richard Evans Schultes: Brief life of a pioneering ethnobotanist and conservationist: 1915-2001. Harvard Magazine
* Plotkin, Mark (2022)
The Life of a Harvard Ethnobotanist: Richard Evans Schultes. Harvard Magazine. (Video)
* Audio of Richard Evans Schultes on Hallucinogenic Plants
''The Richard E. Schultes Research Award''
*
American Ethnography -- The appeal of peyote (Lophophora Williamsii) as a medicine
Photo of Richard E. Schultes
*
''The Amazonian Travels of Richard Evans Schultes''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schultes, Richard Evans
1915 births
2001 deaths
American botanists
Ethnobiologists
Ethnobotanists
Botanists active in South America
Psychedelic drug researchers
American psychedelic drug advocates
Harvard University alumni
Harvard University faculty
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences