More than 2,000 years ago, the Tukano people of the Colombian Amazon may have documented the soundtracks to their hallucinogenic experiences in drawings on volcanic boulders. Carved into rocks at the Toro Muerto site, the dancing figures are surrounded by shapes and patterns that may represent the music sung by the Shamans during Ayahuasca-fueled encounters with gods and ancestors.
"The cosmos constituted the space that the shaman explored in his visionary journey, while the wavy and zigzag lines could have been visualizations both of the songs taking him to that parallel reality as well as the sensation of being in that other world," write the archaeologists from the Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego and University of Warsaw in a scientific paper.
From IFL Science:
Within a Tukano context, these shapes depict the shamanic music that enchants ritual participants under the effects of ayahuasca, delivering them to a "parallel world" in which they are able to reconnect to their ancestral mythology. Applying this same interpretation to the artworks at Toro Muerto, the study authors suggest that "the central danzante surrounded by wavy lines is actually 'surrounded' by songs, which – embodying energy and power simultaneously – were the source of transfer to another world."
