Depictions of a rare fungus in Northwest Coast Native art

What is it about?

This chapter explores how within Haida and Tlingit societies, life and death are intricately linked to a particular fungus, known as Agarikon (Laricifomes officinalis). I explain how this woody conk features prominently in Haida origin stories, where Agarikon is anthropomorphized as the legendary “Fungus Man” character, whose bravery and power are credited with the creation of women. Amongst the Tlingit, Agarikon plays a complementary role and was employed in pre-colonial mortuary settings, where the fungus offered protection for the deceased. Examining 19th century Haida artist Charles Edenshaw’s carved argillite platters that depict Fungus Man, as well as ancient Tlingit grave effigies carved from actual Agarikon, this chapter draws upon traditional ecological knowledge, oral history, mycology, and material culture to explore the unique spiritual, symbiotic relationship between fungi and First Nations. As further evidence of its protective qualities, Agarikon possesses properties that fight against tuberculosis and smallpox, both diseases that significantly affected Native nations after contraction from European settlers. Now critically endangered because of logging and timber industries—a visceral reminder of settler colonialism’s extractive impact on the Pacific Northwest’s lush rainforests—Agarikon’s future is uncertain. Nevertheless, the fungus remains spiritually, cosmologically, and culturally significant to the Haida and Tlingit, even as Agarikon becomes increasingly associated with a pseudo-mythical, pre-colonial past. Just as Agarikon was responsible for creating women, the life-givers and cultural caretakers of Haida society, the fungus was a meaningful Tlingit reminder of death and dying. As we grapple with the modern Anthropocene and accompanying dystopian events (climate change, old growth forest devastation, disease epidemics) that have disproportionately impacted and forever altered Indigenous nations, material reminders of Agarikon offer a new lens through which to view these challenges. Unlike other studies of human-fungi relationships that emphasize solely the medicinal, culinary, or hallucinogenic uses of mushrooms, this case study represents a deeper, more nuanced example of how human and fungus or plant-like entities are intertwined and dependent upon each other. Agarikon reminds us that we cannot reference human origins or even death without acknowledging the agency and influence of local ecology.

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Photo by Irina Iacob on Unsplash

Photo by Irina Iacob on Unsplash