Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This paper explores narratives of mushroom pickers in southern Lithuania, where mushrooms are treated as beings with agency and personhood. Through stories, rituals, and taboos, foragers articulate interspecies relations that shape human life near the forest.

Paper long abstract

Among the Dzūkai people of southern Lithuania, mushroom picking is not only an economic activity but also a narrative practice that attributes agency and personhood to mushrooms. Beliefs persist that mushrooms can respond to human actions: a boletus may wither if looked at, shouting may frighten mushrooms away, while rituals of greeting and farewell help ensure successful foraging. In local stories and practices, mushrooms are described as living beings with heads, legs, and eyes, whose behavior resembles that of animals.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork—walking with mushroom pickers, observing their foraging techniques, and collecting narratives—I explore how mushrooms are embedded in a multispecies network where humans, plants, animals, and inanimate beings co-create shared environments. These narratives do not simply reflect symbolic beliefs but shape practical engagements, guiding how people move, perceive, and orient themselves in the forest.

By attending to the ways mushrooms are animated in Dzūkai narratives, I argue that foraging practices reveal an animistic ontology in which the forest is a community of interdependent beings. This challenges rigid separations between human and nonhuman life, highlighting instead the permeability of boundaries and the co-creation of meaning across species.

The paper contributes to discussions of new animism and belief narratives by showing how everyday practices of mushroom picking generate stories of interspecies cooperation, respect, and negotiation, situating mushrooms as active agents in the lived world of the forest.