For modern Westerners, Christmas means the myth of Father Christmas, who comes down the chimney and brings presents. He lives in the Arctic and travels around the world at Christmas time with a sleigh and flying reindeer. The reindeer, Santa's red and white suit and the mistletoe are all part of the myth surrounding Christmas. Many of these Christmas myths originally come from the cultures of the pagan natives and do not have much to do with Christianity.

Where do traditions come from around which our Christmas today revolves?

The pagan festival of the invisible sun on the winter solstice is a European tribal tradition that has been celebrated on the shortest day and longest night for ten thousand years. European natives have celebrated the rebirth of the sun god at this time since time immemorial, a time that later became known as Christmas.

Native traditions of many indigenous peoples have been borrowed for modern Christmas, such as the mistletoe from Celtic fertility rites. Originally, Father Christmas was not red and white, but was first depicted in these colours because of indigenous spiritual traditions involving the hallucinogenic red and white mushrooms known as toadstools. Later, the Coca Cola company patented and popularised these colours, which are now generally accepted as the colours of Santa's costume.

Hallucinogenic mushrooms

The red and white toadstool also played a role in the origins of the flying reindeer, which is now often associated with Christmas. These mushrooms were used by the shamans in their rituals around the sacred reindeer, which are still practised today by reindeer herders in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia according to the traditional lifestyle. The Siberian shamanic peoples gained notoriety in the Western world when their use of the toadstool during winter solstice rituals was observed and recorded by anthropologists. This gave rise to many modern Christmas myths.

During the ceremony, the shamans ingest the mushrooms in their tents to reach a state beyond reality, which enabled them to transmigrate their souls. The western interpretation calls this a hallucination. For the primitive peoples, transmigration was as much a part of concrete reality as Christmas trees and presents.

Soulwalkers bring gifts

The transmigrators visited the tents of their neighbouring tribesmen on their flying reindeer, the reindeer being a sacred totem for the indigenous people. They entered the tent through the smoke hole in the roof and brought more mushrooms as gifts. Then they left the tent through the chimney hole and flew away on their reindeer.

The traditional reindeer herders wear red coats and long fur hats.

Many Western Christmas traditions are obviously linked to the rituals of the indigenous Nordic peoples, such as Santa entering through the chimney, presents, the colours red and white, Santa's home in the Arctic North and the mistletoe.

The Christmas season is a good time to acknowledge the contributions of indigenous peoples around the world in terms of culture, innovation and global knowledge since the Age of Discovery. So much of our technology, food, textiles, traditions and mathematics that laid the foundation of the modern western world were borrowed, expanded or developed from indigenous rituals.