The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing Page B
Authors: Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
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hillock, very rare. Instead, I think of sensing a heave, an effect like the inhalation of breath in the chest. The heave is easy to imagine as the breath of the mushroom. There may be a crack, as if the mushroom’s breath escaped. Mushrooms do not breathe like that—and yet this recognition of common life forms the basis of the dance.
There are lots of lumps and cracks in any forest floor, and most of them have nothing to do with mushrooms. Many of them are old, static, and without indication of life’s movement. The matsutake picker searches for those that signal a living thing slowly, slowly pushing. One then feels the ground. The mushroom may be several inches below the surface, but a good picker knows, having sensed its liveliness, its life line.
Searching has a rhythm, both impassioned and still. Pickers describe their eagerness to get into the forest as a “fever.” Sometimes, they say, they didn’t plan to go, but the fever catches you. In the heat of the fever, one picks in the rain or snow, even at night with lights. One gets up before dawn to be there first, lest others find the mushrooms. Yet no one can find a mushroom by hurrying through the forest: “slow down,” I was constantly advised. Inexperienced pickers miss most of the mushrooms by moving too fast, for only careful observation reveals those gentle heaves. Calm but fevered, impassioned but still: the picker’s rhythm condenses this tension in a poised alertness.
Pickers also study the forest. They can name host trees. But tree classification only opens the door, determining the area a picker might search; it is not so helpful in actually finding mushrooms. Pickers do not waste much time looking up into trees. Our gaze is directed below, where the mushrooms rise through the heaving earth. Some pickers mention that they pay attention to the dirt, favoring areas where the soil looks right. But when I press for specifications, they always demur. One picker was probably tired of my asking, and so he explained: the right kind of soil is the soil where matsutake grows. So much for classification. Discourse has its limits here.
Rather than a class of soils, the picker scans for lines of life. It is not just the tree that is relevant but the story that the area around it tells. Matsutake is unlikely to be found in fertile, well-watered places; other fungi will grow there. If there are dwarf huckleberries, the ground is probably too wet. If heavy machinery has been through, this spells death for the fungus. If animals have left droppings and tracks, this is a place to look. If moisture has found a place to hide next to a rock or a log, this too is good.
There is one little plant on the forest floor that depends on matsutake for far more than minerals. Candy cane ( Allotropa virgata ) forms a red-and-white striped stalk adorned by flowers but completely without the chlorophyll that would allow it to make its own food. Instead, the plant drains sugars from matsutake, which in turn takes them from the trees. 2 Even after the flowers fade, candy cane’s dry stalks can be seen in the forest, and they are an indicator of matsutake—whether fruiting, or just a ball of fungal threads underground.
Life lines are entangled: candy cane and matsutake; matsutake and its host trees; host trees and herbs, mosses, insects, soil bacteria, and forest animals; heaving bumps and mushroom pickers. Matsutake pickers are alert to life lines in the forest; searching with all the senses creates this alertness. It is a form of forest knowledge and appreciation without the completeness of classification. Instead, searching brings us to the liveliness of beings experienced as subjects rather than objects.
Hiro is an elder in an urban Japanese American community. 3 Now in his late eighties, he has led an exemplary working-class life. When World War II broke out, Hiro was a young man living on a farm with his parents. His parents lost the farm when the authorities moved them to
There are lots of lumps and cracks in any forest floor, and most of them have nothing to do with mushrooms. Many of them are old, static, and without indication of life’s movement. The matsutake picker searches for those that signal a living thing slowly, slowly pushing. One then feels the ground. The mushroom may be several inches below the surface, but a good picker knows, having sensed its liveliness, its life line.
Searching has a rhythm, both impassioned and still. Pickers describe their eagerness to get into the forest as a “fever.” Sometimes, they say, they didn’t plan to go, but the fever catches you. In the heat of the fever, one picks in the rain or snow, even at night with lights. One gets up before dawn to be there first, lest others find the mushrooms. Yet no one can find a mushroom by hurrying through the forest: “slow down,” I was constantly advised. Inexperienced pickers miss most of the mushrooms by moving too fast, for only careful observation reveals those gentle heaves. Calm but fevered, impassioned but still: the picker’s rhythm condenses this tension in a poised alertness.
Pickers also study the forest. They can name host trees. But tree classification only opens the door, determining the area a picker might search; it is not so helpful in actually finding mushrooms. Pickers do not waste much time looking up into trees. Our gaze is directed below, where the mushrooms rise through the heaving earth. Some pickers mention that they pay attention to the dirt, favoring areas where the soil looks right. But when I press for specifications, they always demur. One picker was probably tired of my asking, and so he explained: the right kind of soil is the soil where matsutake grows. So much for classification. Discourse has its limits here.
Rather than a class of soils, the picker scans for lines of life. It is not just the tree that is relevant but the story that the area around it tells. Matsutake is unlikely to be found in fertile, well-watered places; other fungi will grow there. If there are dwarf huckleberries, the ground is probably too wet. If heavy machinery has been through, this spells death for the fungus. If animals have left droppings and tracks, this is a place to look. If moisture has found a place to hide next to a rock or a log, this too is good.
There is one little plant on the forest floor that depends on matsutake for far more than minerals. Candy cane ( Allotropa virgata ) forms a red-and-white striped stalk adorned by flowers but completely without the chlorophyll that would allow it to make its own food. Instead, the plant drains sugars from matsutake, which in turn takes them from the trees. 2 Even after the flowers fade, candy cane’s dry stalks can be seen in the forest, and they are an indicator of matsutake—whether fruiting, or just a ball of fungal threads underground.
Life lines are entangled: candy cane and matsutake; matsutake and its host trees; host trees and herbs, mosses, insects, soil bacteria, and forest animals; heaving bumps and mushroom pickers. Matsutake pickers are alert to life lines in the forest; searching with all the senses creates this alertness. It is a form of forest knowledge and appreciation without the completeness of classification. Instead, searching brings us to the liveliness of beings experienced as subjects rather than objects.
Hiro is an elder in an urban Japanese American community. 3 Now in his late eighties, he has led an exemplary working-class life. When World War II broke out, Hiro was a young man living on a farm with his parents. His parents lost the farm when the authorities moved them to
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