The Voice of the Antelope Mushroom
JOURNAL ENTRY 003Coordinates: Near Turmi, Southern Nations, Omo Valley, Ethiopia
Ethnographic Group: Hamar
Today I was led by Abba Kale, a Hamar elder and hunter, to a termite mound cluster where the dábo ayya, a type of elfin saddle fungus, possibly Helvella crispa, has emerged following last week’s rains. The locals regard this fungus with high reverence. It is not considered edible nor medicinal, but rather an animal-caller. “The mushroom speaks like the antelope,” Kale told me, gesturing toward a faint trail of hoof prints not far from the fungal bloom. According to Kale, when the dábo ayya rises, it emits a scent, “only the beasts and the old ones can smell it”, that alerts hunters to the presence and direction of migrating kudu.
I collected samples, noting a distinct earthy, musky aroma, although nothing seemed chemically unusual at first scent. What is more intriguing is the ecological-mythic linkage: Kale recited a myth in which this fungus is a sky-being punished for revealing to humans the secret of movement, hence its exile to the termite mound, an in-between realm of earth and decay. “It cannot go up again,” Kale said, “but it still whispers.”
What struck me was how the Hamar myth aligns with ecological function. Termite mounds create microclimates that support unique fungal growth (Bignell & Eggleton, 2000). If dábo ayya emerges seasonally just before antelope migrations, due to rains stimulating both vegetation and fungal life, the narrative might encode a phenological calendar.
But it isn’t merely functional knowledge. Dábo ayya is part of a spiritual ecology. To touch it improperly, without a chant or tobacco offering, is to disrupt its guidance. Kale described one such event, where a boy uprooted a fungus, and “the antelope scattered and the hunt failed for weeks.” Whether coincidence or ecological feedback, it reinforces respect, ritual, and restraint.
This challenges extractive ethnobotany. The knowledge isn't simply “there” to be lifted and analyzed in isolation; it is participatory, relational, and wrapped in cosmology. The antelope does not just follow seasonal rains; it follows the guidance of dábo ayya, which itself is seen as a go-between, not unlike a shaman in the fungal kingdom.
Bignell, D. E., & Eggleton, P. (2000). Termites in ecosystems. In Termites: Evolution, Sociality, Symbioses, Ecology (pp. 363-387). Springer.
