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Title: The peyote cult
Author: Weston la Barre
Release date: January 26, 2026 [eBook #77791]
Language: English
Original publication: Hamden, CT: The Shoe String Press, 1959
Credits: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEYOTE CULT ***
Transcriber’s Note: The author’s citations of works published in
languages other than English are sometimes inaccurately spelt. In
addition, he uses a mixture of standard and nonstandard IPA symbols
to transcribe words in the Kiowa and other Native American languages;
these are preserved as originally printed.
THE PEYOTE CULT
BY
WESTON LA BARRE
_Professor of Anthropology
Duke University_
REPRINTED BY
THE SHOE STRING PRESS, INC.
Hamden, Connecticut
1959
© 1959, THE SHOE STRING PRESS, INC.
Originally published as
Yale University Publications
in Anthropology
NUMBER 19
Reprinted by permission of the Department of Anthropology,
Yale University
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
The field work which is a partial basis of this study was begun in
the summer of 1935, when the writer was a member of the Laboratory
of Anthropology at Santa Fé ethnological group which worked with the
Kiowa under Dr. Alexander Lesser of Columbia University. The field work
was continued alone in the summer of 1936 with funds granted by Yale
University and the American Museum of Natural History. Field data were
gathered with varying completeness from fifteen tribes: Kiowa, Comanche,
Shawnee, Kickapoo, Osage, Quapaw, Seminole, Delaware, Pawnee, Cheyenne,
Caddo, Oto, Ponca, Kiowa Apache and Wichita; in the case of the Kiowa,
Oto, and Wichita two peyote meetings each were attended.
The debt to my almost constant field companion, Charles Apekaum (Kiowa),
game warden, ex-Navy man, graduate of Chilocco, Haskell, and Carlisle,
and my chief interpreter, is such that I may say my work could not have
been carried out with such comparative facility and speed without his
aid. His knowledge of people and places was invaluable to me. Special
appreciation is expressed to Mr. Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne) of Thomas,
Oklahoma, several times state president of the Native American Church,
for lending me numerous letters and other documents from the official
files of the organization, and to Jim Waldo (Kiowa) and Kiowa Charley
for similar documents, including the articles of incorporation and state
charter. To Jim Pettit (Oto) of Red Rock, local president of the Native
American Church, and Charles Tyner (Quapaw) of Miami, the added debt
of personal hospitality was incurred. The following informants were of
particular help in gathering data: Cecil and Henry Murdock (Kickapoo);
Sly Picard, George May and Henry Hunt (Wichita); Jim Aton, Belo Kozad and
Homer Buffalo (Kiowa); Howard White Wolf (Comanche); Carl Pettit, Murray
Little-crow, and Mrs. George Pipestem (Oto); Albert Stamp (Seminole);
Tom and Collins Panther (Shawnee); Tennyson Berry (Kiowa Apache); Robert
Little-dance and Louis MacDonald (Ponca); Mack Haag (Cheyenne); Elijah
Reynolds (Delaware); and Sun Chief and James Sun-eagle (Pawnee). To
Jonathan Koshiway (Oto), founder of the Church of the First-born, I wish
to express appreciation for his painstaking efforts at completeness of
information made on my behalf.
In a study of this scope one necessarily incurs considerable debts to
colleagues for aid generously given and gratefully received. The notes
of James Mooney on Kiowa, Comanche, and Tarahumari peyote, deposited
in the Bureau of American Ethnology, as well as manuscripts by Frances
Densmore on Winnebago, and Dr. Truman Michelson on Sauk and Fox peyote,
were made available through the generosity of Dr. Matthew Stirling,
to whom I express particular thanks. Mrs. Elna Smith very kindly lent
further Bureau of American Ethnology material which had been in her
care. Mr. D. F. Murphy of the Indian Office amplified my Osage notes,
and Mr. John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, has been generous
with information of legal and administrative nature. To Donald Collier,
student at the University of Chicago, and Ing. Luis Híjar y Haro of
Mexico City, I express appreciation for bibliographic items, as well
as to Dr. Ralph Beals of the University of California at Los Angeles.
Richard Schultes, student at Harvard University, who was with me for
an ethnobotanical study during several weeks of my second summer of
work, has also been generous in giving help on bibliographic as well
as botanical and pharmaceutical matters. Dr. E. A. Hoebel of New York
University made available his notes on Northern Cheyenne and Comanche
peyote. Dr. Ruth Benedict of Columbia University and Dr. M. E. Opler
of the University of Chicago have aided with Mescalero Apache notes,
and the latter has very generously lent valuable manuscript notes on
Tonkawa, Carrizo and Lipan peyotism. Dr. Frank Speck of the University
of Pennsylvania was fertile with suggestions during the second period of
field work, and since its completion has contributed important Delaware
material. Mrs. Erminie Voegelin, student at Yale University, kindly lent
her voluminous notes on Shawnee peyote, as did Mrs. Anne Cooke for the
Ute, and John Noon, student at the University of Pennsylvania, for the
Kickapoo. Dr. A. H. Gayton kindly lent an interesting paper on datura.
While the present paper was still in proof form, Dr. Leslie A. White
of the University of Michigan and Dr. Fred Eggan of the University of
Chicago generously lent material on Taos and Northern Cheyenne peyotism
respectively.
To Dr. Edward Sapir of Yale University, to the Laboratory of Anthropology
at Santa Fé, and to Dr. Clark Wissler of the American Museum of Natural
History, I wish to express my thanks for making available the funds on
which field work was undertaken. To Dr. Sapir and to Dr. John Dollard
of the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University I owe the warm
personal debt of founding a knowledge and an interest in matters of
psychological import herein treated. And to Dr. Leslie Spier, my
dissertation adviser, I express gratitude for his constant stimulating
interest, valuable bibliographic help, and leads of considerable
ethnographic significance.
WESTON LA BARRE
_Note to the Reprint Edition_
In the twenty years since the original publication of this book, studies
of peyotism have continued to appear, until there are at present over one
thousand bibliographic items on the ethnography of peyotism and related
subjects. The author has summarized recent studies in an extended review
of “Twenty Years of Peyote Studies,” which is in press for appearance in
an early issue of _Current Anthropology_. Readers interested in following
two decades of developments in peyotism may wish to be referred to this
publication.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 3
INTRODUCTION 7
BOTANICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTE 10
Botany 10
Ethnobotany 11
Names for peyote 14
Etymology of “peyotl” 16
Identification of peyote 17
Physiology of Peyote Intoxication 17
THE ETHNOLOGY OF PEYOTISM 23
Non-ritual Uses of Peyote 23
Ritual Uses of Peyotl 29
Huichol 30
Tarahumari 33
Comparison of Mexican peyote rituals 35
Mescalero Apache and transitional forms of ritual 40
Kiowa-Comanche type rite 43
Comparison of Mexican, transitional, and Plains peyotism 54
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PLAINS PEYOTISM 57
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTISM 93
HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS 105
The Pre-peyote Mescal Bean Cult 105
History of the Diffusion of Peyotism 109
APPENDIX 1: Peyote in Mexico 124
APPENDIX 2: Peyote and the Mescal Bean 126
APPENDIX 3: Peyote and Teo-nanacatl 128
APPENDIX 4: “Plant Worship” in Mexico and the United States 131
APPENDIX 5: Chemistry of Peyote 138
APPENDIX 6: Physiology of Peyote 139
APPENDIX 7: John Wilson, the Revealer of Peyote 151
APPENDIX 8: Christian Elements in the Peyote Cult 162
APPENDIX 9: The Native American Church and Other Peyote Churches 167
BIBLIOGRAPHY 175
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
Explanation of plates AT END
1. Peyote leaders
2. Altar and ash birds
TEXT FIGURES
PAGE
1. Arrangement of tipi for peyote meeting (Kiowa) 44
2. Peyote paraphernalia 47
3. Peyote drum 49
4. Peyote altars or moons 75
5. The diffusion of peyotism 122
6. Cement altar of the Big Moon rite (Osage) 154
7. Altar in West Moon Church (Osage) 155
THE PEYOTE CULT
INTRODUCTION
Peyote (Nahuatl, peyotl) or _Lophophora williamsii_ Lemaire, is a small,
spineless, carrot-shaped cactus growing in the Rio Grande Valley and
southward. It contains nine narcotic alkaloids of the isoquiniline
series, some of them strychnine-like in physiological action, the rest
morphine-like. In pre-Columbian times the Aztec, Huichol, and other
Mexican Indians ate the plant ceremonially either in the dried or green
state. This produces profound sensory and psychic derangements lasting
twenty-four hours, a property which led the natives to value and use it
religiously. Peyote is not, however, the same as teo-nanacatl, as Safford
believed; the latter is a narcotic mushroom which likewise had a Mexican
distribution. The term “peyotl” is also used in Mexico to designate other
cacti and non-cacti, some of which, like peyote, are reputed to have
aphrodisiac and other properties.
Physiologically, the salient characteristic of peyote is its production
of visual hallucinations or color visions, as well as kinaesthetic,
olfactory and auditory derangements. Psychiatrists have used it
(experimentally) with unsatisfactory results in producing temporary
psychosis, and therapeutically its use has been similarly disappointing
because of the uncertainty of action of the antagonistic alkaloids of
pan-peyotl. First, exhilaration is produced by the strychnine-like
alkaloids, followed by profound depression, nausea and wakefulness, and
finally, under the influence of the morphine-like alkaloids, brilliant
color visions are produced, which last for several hours. There are no
ill after-effects, and peyote is not known to be habit-forming. These
properties have led to a number of non-ritual uses by natives for
prophesying, clairvoyance, finding lost objects and the like, as well as
empirically for the cure of all manner of illnesses.
In Mexico peyote was used seasonally in an agricultural-hunting religious
festival, preceded by a ritual pilgrimage for the plant. Participants
danced all night around a fire to the rasp-music of the shaman, as they
ate the drug in this tribal celebration. Since about 1870 the cult has
spread to the United States, particularly in the Plains, where nearly all
groups use it. In the Southwest transitional region peyote became deeply
involved in shamanistic rivalries and witchcraft, and in the Plains with
war. A pre-peyote narcotic, the “mescal bean” (_Sophora secundiflora_)
had there prepared the way for its introduction. The Plains cult is
like the warriors’ societies of earlier times in some respects. The
Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo were the chief agents of the spread of the
cult throughout the entire Plains region to southern Canada and parts of
the Great Basin. The standard ritual is an all-night meeting in a tipi
around a crescent-shaped earthen mound and a ceremonially-built fire;
here a special drum, gourd rattle and carved staff are passed around
after smoking and purifying ceremonies, as each person sings four “peyote
songs.” Various water-bringing ceremonies occur at midnight and dawn,
when there is a “baptism” or curing rite, followed by a special ritual
breakfast of parched com, fruit, and boneless meat.
The Caddo-Delaware John Wilson had peyote visions that led him to
modify the altar and ceremony; this new form has spread to the Caddo,
Delaware, Quapaw, Osage and others. Wilson was one of a long line of
Indian prophet-messiahs, and his “moon” has been somewhat exploited
economically. The Oto teacher, Jonathan Koshiway, founded a Christianized
version of peyotism which spread to the Omaha, Winnebago and others. An
organization of confederated tribes known as “The Native American Church”
grew out of Koshiway’s “Church of the First-born” (which latter spread to
Negro groups also). The cult has had considerable legal difficulties.
Praying and doctoring in meetings, and occasionally public confession
of sins, are the major means for the liquidation of life-anxieties of
this profoundly functional cult’s many present-day communicants. In the
following pages we shall attempt to delineate the history of the study
of the cult, the various botanical questions surrounding peyote, its
physiological action and the various ethnological, psychological and
historical questions involved in its diffusion.
First of modern students to describe the peyote rite was James Mooney,
who visited the Kiowa, Comanche, Tarahumari, and “a number of other
tribes, among them the Mexican tribes of the Sierra Madre, and as far
south as the City of Mexico.”[1] But at his death he had published no
further study of peyote; ethnographers of the period were in general
concerned with preserving complete records of older native cultures, and
ignored or paid scant attention to the modern cult of peyote. Mooney
himself gave little notice to the rite in his monographs on the Cheyenne
and the Kiowa,[2] although at the time he was undoubtedly the authority
on the subject.
Wissler, for example, barely mentions the peyote cult.[3] Indeed, in its
role of modern destroyer or supplanter of older native religions, peyote
was even a matter of concern[4] and annoyance to some ethnographers.
Lumholtz, with wonted thoroughness, published considerable data on
Huichol and Tarahumari peyote in 1898 and later, and Kroeber in 1902
wrote a chapter on Arapaho peyote which has remained a model for later
investigators.[5]
It remained for Paul Radin, however, in his studies of Winnebago
peyote,[6] to point out to ethnographers an engrossingly interesting,
but widely ignored, religious cult which was growing and spreading
before their very eyes. Since the appearance of his papers in the
years following 1914, the ethnographic literature on peyote has grown
considerably, due importantly to the impetus Radin gave such studies.
Lowie devoted a chapter partly to peyote in his book _Primitive
Religion_; Rouhier paid some attention to ethnographic questions in his
pharmacological monograph on peyote; and Wagner wrote a short comparative
paper based largely on the Comanche and Huichol cults. Petrullo’s
_Diabolic Root_ was devoted entirely to Delaware peyotism.[7]
No comparative treatment of the peyote cult of the order of Mooney’s on
the Ghost Dance, Lowie’s on Plains societies, or Spier’s on the Sun Dance
had ever been made when Dr. Maurice Smith of the University of Oklahoma
began his studies. The unfortunate death of this investigator, however,
prevented the finishing of his work, of which only a short paper[8] has
seen publication. But studies of the peyote cult in individual tribes,
both published and in manuscript, have multiplied to such an extent since
the time of Kroeber’s and Radin’s studies that the time appears ripe to
attempt an integrated comparative treatment of the religion.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mooney, _A Kiowa Mescal Rattle_, 64-65; _Mescal Plant and Ceremony_
(from which dates the medical and pharmaceutical interest in peyote);
statement in _Peyote, as Used in Religious Worship_, 58.
[2] _The Cheyenne_, 418; _Calendar History_, 237-39.
[3] _The American Indian_, 376.
[4] Skinner, _Material Culture_, 42-43; _Societies of the Iowa_, 693-94,
724.
[5] Lumholtz, _Tarahumari Dances_; _Huichol Indians_; _Explorations en
Mexique_; _Symbolism of the Huichol_; _Unknown Mexico_; Kroeber, _The
Arapaho_, 398-410.
[6] Radin, _Sketch of the Peyote Cult_; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 388-426;
_Crashing Thunder_.
[7] Lowie, _Primitive Religion_, 200-204; Rouhier, _Monographie du
Peyotl_; Wagner, _Entwicklung und Verbreitung_; Petrullo, _The Diabolic
Root_.
[8] Smith, Mrs. Maurice G., _A Negro Peyote Cult_.
BOTANICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTE
BOTANY
Numerous errors involved in the study of peyote, many of them still
widely current, make it advisable to identify our subject-matter clearly
at the very outset of our study. The plant peyote was first described by
Sahagún in 1560 as a narcotic cactus used ritually by the Chichimeca, the
root peiotl.[1] Jacinto de la Serna[2] in 1626 mentioned peyote, which
he distinguished from other intoxicants. The first properly botanical
description was made in 1638 by Hernandez,[3] the naturalist of Philip
II of Spain, under the rubric De Peyotl Zacatensi, seu radice molli et
lanuginosa. Ortega,[4] again, in 1754, mentioned peyote as used in a Cora
dance.
Since 1845 peyote has had numerous modern botanical classifications,
being listed variously as _Echinocactus williamsii_ Lem., _Anhalonium
williamsii_ Lem., _Mammillaria williamsii_ Coulter, _Echinocactus
lewinii_ Hennings, _Mammillaria lewinii_ Karsten, _Lophophora lewinii_
Thompson, etc. The commonest designation in the older ethnological
literature is _Anhalonium lewinii_ or _A. williamsii_. For a considerable
period it was thought that these last were two species—a point argued
both on botanical and ethnographic grounds—but the present classification
of peyote is as a single species, the unique member of its genus,
_Lophophora williamsii_.[5]
The peyote plant is a curious and unique little cactus. It has no spines
whatsoever, and ranges from the carrot-like to the turnip-like in shape
and size, without, however, any branches or leaves. The rounded top
surface, which alone appears above the soil (and which, cut off and
dried, becomes the peyote “button”), is divided radially by straight,
or slightly spiral, or sinuous furrows that in some specimens become so
complex as to lose the appearance of ribs altogether. These ribs bear
little tufts or pencils of matted grayish-white hair, not unlike artists’
fine camel’s-hair brushes. It is from these that the cactus takes both
its modern botanical designation, _Lophophora_ (“I bear crests”) and its
Aztec name _peyotl_ (from the resemblance to cocoon-silk). In the center
of the top there is a little spot of closely matted fuzz, from which the
ribs derive and grow; the flower, borne on a stalk, grows from here too,
the pinkish-whitish blossom growing into a rapidly maturing club-shaped
pinkish-reddish fruit.[6]
ETHNOBOTANY
Several matters regarding the botany of peyote should be discussed, for
their having given rise to legends about the plant. After discussing the
nefarious uses to which the Chichimeca put peyote, Hernandez writes that
on this account the root scarcely issues forth, but conceals
itself in the ground, as if it did not wish to harm those who
discover and eat it.[7]
Dr. Parsons[8] recounts a Taos origin legend in which peyote acts even
more spectacularly. A warrior on the war-path heard a singing, and when
he approached,
the plant would go open and shut like this [the narrator moves
his finger-tips close together and then opens them].... Then
the plant told the Indian to come inside. But the opening was
so small. Then it got bigger; it got to be a big hole in the
ground, a square hole. The Indian went down the hole. There was
a big hollow place down there in the ground, round like a kiva.
And the story continues, telling of how the Indian learned the peyote
rite from the man in the kiva. On scrutiny this appears to be the Kiowa
origin legend for peyote, modified by the addition of familiar Pueblo
folk-tale motifs. The Kiowa themselves say,
you must look closely at peyote, because it is like a mole when
it comes on top of the ground—if you don’t look closely it is
gone again.
These curious legends, however, are not without some histological[9]
and ecological reality. In this semi-desert region the subterranean
funnel-formed tap-root of the plant is covered with woody scales which
form a rigid shell. Rouhier writes:[10]
All this chlorophyll-region [the portion above the ground] is
tumid, plump and fleshy, firm and elastic to the touch, when,
after the season of heavy rains, the plant is replete and
vigorous. During the hot season it droops and shrivels, becomes
soft, and has a dull rumpled look. It retracts then into the
rigid cylinder formed by the desiccated corky desquammated
part of the stem; the plant literally gives the impression
of pulling its head into its neck. (M. Diguet has told us
that the plant, at this time, buries itself in the soil, as
though drawn, by a powerful force of traction of its adventive
radicles, at the base of the funnel which its tap-root has
bored.)
Another matter of ethnobotanical interest concerns the supposed existence
of two varieties of peyote.[11] In discussing Peyotl Zacatensis
Hernandez[12] writes that “they say they are male and female.” The
Huichol likewise distinguish two kinds of Peyote, one, the more
active and bitter in taste and presenting smaller and more numerous
mammillations on the surface, called Tzinouritehua-hicouri, “Peyotl of
the Gods,” the other, whose physiological effect is less pronounced,
called Rhaïtoumuanitarihua-hicouri, “Peyotl of the Goddesses.” In the
opinion of Rouhier,[13] “The Peyotl of the Goddesses ... is the young
form of _Echinocactus williamsii_ [= _Lophophora williamsii_], and the
Peyotl of the Gods is its adult form.”
Nor is this the end of the matter. It is well known that sex is
attributed to plants in the Plains, but there is also a well-defined
pattern regarding the sex[14] specifically of peyote throughout Mexico
and the Plains. The Huichol have a tutelary goddess for peyote called
Hatzimouika; the peyote deity of the Tarahumari, on the other hand, is
male, and great reverence is paid by them to the hikuli walúla sälíami,
or “hikuli great authority,” literally, who is surrounded by smaller
plants, his “servants,” and who, not satisfied with mere sheep and goats,
demands the sacrifice of oxen.
Being persons, peyote plants naturally talk and sing on occasion.
Lumholtz[15] writes of the Tarahumari belief that
in the fields in which it grows, it sings beautifully, that the
Tarahumare may find it. It says, “I want to go to your country,
that you may sing your songs to me.” ... It also sings in the
bag while it is being carried home. One man, who wanted to use
his bag as a pillow, could not sleep, he said, because the
plants made so much noise.
Bennett and Zingg[16] mention the Tarahumari belief that the singing one
hears as the bakánawa moves about in the night near the sleeper may be
made clearer by chewing a bit of the plant. Indeed, Mooney[17] says the
Tarahumari find the peyote by hearing its song, Híkurówa, which it sings
day and night. Peyote speaks to the Tarahumari shaman during the night of
dancing and curing, and encourages him with words and by singing to him.
The fetish-plant in the ceremony proper is placed on the altar under a
half-gourd resonator; the rasping of the shaman, thus amplified, is very
pleasing to peyote, who manifests his strength by the amount of noise
produced with his aid.
In the Plains, however, when pleased with the singing, the peyote goddess
actually joins in with it.[18] The Kiowa call her sęⁱmąyi, literally,
“Peyote Woman.” Mooney describes a Kiowa peyote rattle on which she
is represented, and at her feet the Morning Star, which heralds her
approach. A Taos origin legend for peyote tells of a warrior abandoned
by his companions, who heard a singing and rattling near where he lay,
and finally discovered it coming from the blossom in the center of the
top of the plant.
The Shawnee[19] say that if you listen carefully you can “catch songs”
from Peyote Woman. The Kickapoo likewise have the concept of the peyote
“goddess” who sometimes sings in meetings when pleased; one informant
further said that “the spirit of a woman who had been faithful to peyote
sings after she has passed away. Sometimes we put pieces of food near
the fire for spirits of a dead man or woman or child. Sometimes you hear
a man’s voice too.” The Lipan say they hear “Changing Woman’s” voice in
peyote meetings. The Wichita believe it is kicu·ídie, “the woman who
stays in the water,” and her little son, wi·ḱιdiwιdá, “the boy who rolls
along the banks of the water,” who are mentioned in prayer, and who give
power in meetings. The “peyote-woman” belief is attenuated elsewhere in
the Plains.[20]
NAMES FOR PEYOTE
Native terms for peyote differ somewhat in denotation and connotation.
For clarity sake we shall list only those terms referring specifically
to _Lophophora williamsii_. Native classifications of cacti, as well as
extensions of the term “peyotl,” will be discussed in an appendix, as
involving special problems.
The Huichol of Jalisco call peyote hícuri, hicori, xicori or hicouri (in
the notation of speakers of different European languages); sometimes
they refer to it metaphorically as foutouri, “flower.” The Cora of the
Tepic mountains term peyote huatari, houtari or watara; the Tepehuane
of Durango, kamaba. The Tarahumari of Chihuahua call it hikuli or
hikori, sometimes adding, according to Lumholtz, the epithet wanamé (or
houanamé), “superior,” to designate the peyote par excellence; the same
meaning appears to be indicated in the reduplication híkurí-íkuríwa.[21]
The Opata[22] call it pejori, the Otomi beyo. The Pima of the Gila River
region use the name peyori. The Comecrudo or Carrizo of Tamaulipas
call peyote kóp, and Gatschet recorded the term kúampamát for “bailar
el peyote” (“many are dancing [the peyote dance]”). The Lipan name
is xʷucdjiyahi, “pricker one eats.” The Tonkawa of southern Texas
call peyote nonč-gáⁱɛn; the Taos name is walena, the generic term for
“medicine.” Mescalero Apache call it ho or hos; the Wichita nesac’. The
Comanche wokwi or wokowi is said by Mooney to be the generic name for
cacti.[23] The Arapaho call peyote hahaayāⁿx. Most of the Oklahoma tribes
have their own version of the term peyotl, such as the Kickapoo pi·yot,
or, like them, they may use some older native term for “medicine” such
as natáⁱnoni. John Wilson (Caddo-Delaware), curiously, called peyote
“sugar” or “bee-sugar”; and some Anadarko Delaware call peyote-eating
“ear-eating.”
Whites have used numerous confusing and erroneous non-botanical terms for
_Lophophora williamsii_. Of these usages the commonest, “mescal,” “mescal
beans” or “mescal buttons” are the most confusing. Mescal (from the
Nahuatl mexcalli, “metl [maguey] liquor”) in northern Mexico, properly
refers to the _Agave americana_ or _Agave_ spp. baked in earth ovens
and widely eaten in the Southwest, and from which the Mescalero Apache
take their name. By extension the term is applied to the intoxicant
distilled from the native beer, pulque, also made from _Agave_ spp. A
more precise designation of this native brandy (as opposed to the native
beer) is tesvino and its variants, from the Nahuatl tehuinti or teyuinti,
“intoxicating.”[24]
“Mescal bean” as used to designate _Lophophora williamsii_ is quite
indefensible, being wrong on two counts: the “mescal” bean proper is
_Sophora secundiflora_ (= _Broussonetia secundiflora_) or, incorrectly,
_Erythrina flabelliformis_. The former is a red bean which was used
in a pre-peyote narcotic cult of the southern Plains, to be discussed
later. The adjectival use of “mescal” in the designations “mescal
beans” or “mescal buttons” no doubt comes from the known intoxicating
properties of the distilled liquor mescal, as extended in meaning to
other unfamiliar new intoxicants, _Sophora secundiflora_ (bean), and
_Lophophora williamsii_ (cactus); the term “dry whisky” bears this out.
Lumholtz,[25] indeed, wrote that the Texas Rangers, during the Civil War,
when taken prisoner and deprived of all other stimulating drinks, soaked
peyote (which they called “white mule”) in water and became intoxicated
on the liquid. Further confusion of peyote with mescal has arisen from
the north Mexican habit of mixing the two in a drink. Dealers call peyote
the “turnip cactus” or “dumpling cactus” from its shape, to which also
refers the local Mexican term biznagas, “carrot.” A local name in Starr
County, Texas, where the plant grows abundantly, is challote, but the
usual dealers’ name is “peyote buttons,” from their flat shape when dried.
ETYMOLOGY OF PEYOTE
A precise understanding of the meaning of this term is essential,
for it gives a linguistic clue of primary importance in botanical
identification. Molina[26] in 1571 recorded the Nahuatl term peyutl,
whose elastic and imprecise sense designates something white, shining,
silky or woolly, and which applies to the moth-cocoon, a spider-web, a
fine tissue, or, indeed, from its appearance (familiar enough to the
Aztecs) even to the pericardium or covering of the heart. Rémi Siméon,
in his Nahuatl dictionary of 1885, lists “Peyotl or Peyutl—A plant whose
root served to make a drink that took the place of wine (Sahagún);
silkworm cocoon; pericardium, envelope of the heart.”[27]
This etymology, the oldest as well as the most authoritative, is
accepted by Rouhier.[28] The present writer, having been informed of
its linguistic impeccability, further finds it explanatory of otherwise
curious extensions of the term “peyotl” in Hernandez,[29] as well as
later Mexican usages. Various plants in Mexico besides _Lophophora
williamsii_, some of them not even belonging to the Cactus Family, have
been called “peyote.” In each case, however, there has been some part
of the plant to which the meanings of flocculence or cocoon-like woolly
pubescence descriptively can legitimately apply. An appendix is devoted
to the clearing up of this terminological confusion.
IDENTIFICATION OF PEYOTE
We have now touched upon the etymological connotation of “peyotl,”
and its extended denotation in Mexican usage. But one further matter
remains to be pointed out, _viz._, incorrect identification and
misusages involving peyote. Safford[30] in 1915 adequately indicated the
identity of the modern peyote of the Plains with the peiotl of Sahagún
and other earlier Spanish writers. Not content, however, with proving
this somewhat obvious point, he went beyond and even contrary to his
evidence and attempted to prove the identity of peyote with a further
narcotic mentioned in Spanish sources, a yellow thin-stemmed mushroom,
called teo-nanacatl by the Aztec. This confusing and wholly erroneous
identification is discussed at length in an appendix, inasmuch as it has
unfortunately won wide acceptance.
A more widespread error is the application of the terms “mescal,” “mescal
bean” or “mescal button” to the cactus _Lophophora williamsii_ or peyote.
These misusages are common in the literature on peyote, and arise from
confusion with a pre-peyote narcotic of the southern Plains and Texas,
the red bean of _Sophora secundiflora_, a true member of the Bean
Family. The word “mescal” as applied either to the cactus or the bean
is erroneous and misleading, and should properly be applied only to the
“Indian cabbage” (_Agave_ spp.) of the Southwest, or the brandy distilled
from Agave-beer or pulque.[31] The true “mescal bean” is discussed
elsewhere.
PHYSIOLOGY OF PEYOTE INTOXICATION
The present section of our study proposes to deal with the physiology of
peyote intoxication only insofar as it may be supposed to have influenced
the form of native culture-patterns and rites surrounding its use. The
efficacy of native doctoring with peyote, however, must be decided on the
basis of properly controlled medical experiments, of a sort discussed in
Appendix 6, and is not at issue here.
So far as the brute effect of the drugs is concerned, the first stage
is one of physical and mental exhilaration. To this physiological fact
no doubt is due the Mexican use of peyote in foot-races, in war and for
allaying hunger and thirst when on fasting pilgrimages for the plant.
Expression of this exhilaration by dancing is common in Mexico, and is
found likewise among the Tonkawa, the Lipan and sporadically in the
Plains.[32]
Gross attitudinal behavior may be exhibited in extreme cases.
Lumholtz[33] says of the Huichol that
in a few cases a man may consume so much that he is attacked
with a fit of madness, rushing backward and forward, trying to
kill people, and tearing his clothes to pieces. People then
seize upon him, and tie him hand and foot, leaving him thus
until he regains his senses. Such occasions are thought to be
due to infringements of the law of abstinence imposed upon them
before and during the feast.
This semi-psychotic state is no doubt as much conditioned culturally as
the Malay “running amok”; in Mexico early Spanish writers repeatedly
describe native visions as sometimes horribly frightening as well as
sometimes laughable. Indeed, in Mexico, among the Mescalero, and the
early Plains users, aggressions welling up under peyote intoxication
commonly took the form of witchcraft fear and counter-witchcraft.
Typically in the Plains, however, the attitude repeatedly emphasized is
that of intertribal brotherhood and an individual feeling of friendliness
and well-being. Nevertheless some fifty native visions collected indicate
great variability in the psychic state. A Taos instance records euphoria
to the point of laughter,[34] but Crashing Thunder (Winnebago)[35]
experienced a state of deep depression and intense _fear_:
The next morning [he writes] I tried to sleep. I suffered a
great deal. I lay down in a very comfortable position. After
a while a fear arose in me. I could not remain in that place,
so I went out into the prairie, but here again I was seized
with this fear. Finally I returned to a lodge near the one in
which the peyote meeting was being held, and there I lay down
alone. I feared that I might do something foolish to myself if
I remained there alone, and I hoped that someone would come and
talk to me. Then someone did come and talk to me, but I did
not feel any better. I went inside the lodge where the meeting
was taking place. “I am going inside,” I told him. I went in
and sat down. It was very hot and I felt as though I was going
to die. I was very thirsty, but I feared to ask for water.
I thought that I was surely going to die. I began to totter
over. I died and my body was moved by another life. I began to
move about and make signs. It was not myself doing it and I
could not see it. At last it stood up. The eagle feathers and
the gourds, these it said, were holy. They also had a large
book there. What was contained in the book my body saw. It
was the Bible.... Not I, but my body standing there, had done
the talking [this schizoid quality of consciousness in peyote
intoxication has been frequently noted by white observers].
After a while I returned to my normal condition. Some of the
people present had been frightened thinking I had gone crazy.
Others, on the other hand, liked it. It was discussed a great
deal; they called it the “shaking state.”
The vision experiences of John Wilson (Caddo-Delaware) and Enoch
Hoag (Caddo) are typical results of physiologically-induced
hallucinations in individuals whose culture-background highly values
vision-experiences.[36] The Enoch Hoag “moon” had its origin apparently
in a (tetanic?) trance, wherein he saw himself as dead, with many people
around him weeping and his arms composed on his chest as with a corpse.
His companions tried to give him water with a spoon, but his jaws were
stiff—a common symptom of strychnine poisoning.[37]
The stimulating effect of peyote may partly account for the holding of
meetings at night, for there is no desire or ability to sleep for ten or
twelve hours after eating peyote; however, all-night meetings for various
purposes are not unknown in the Plains, and the older culture pattern
merely exploits the physiological fact as a limiting condition probably.
Some observers report that, although there is heightened reflex-activity
(including those of the skin), peyote induces a partial skin anaesthesis.
A Zacatecas ceremony reported by Arlegui,[38] on the occasion of the
birth of the first male child, appears to utilize this virtue of the
plant:
The relatives gather and invite other Indians to a horrible
ceremony of which the father is the object. They give him to
drink a brew concocted of a root called peyot and which not
only has the property of intoxicating him who drinks it, but
also renders him insensible and drugs the flesh and paralyzes
the whole body. This drink is administered to the patient after
twenty-four hours of fasting. Then he is seated on a staghorn
in a place specially chosen for this. The Indians come with
sharpened bones and teeth of different animals. Then with
different ridiculous ceremonies, they approach the unfortunate
victim one by one; each one makes a wound on him, without pity,
making a great deal of blood flow out; and as those present are
numerous, the wounds are many and the unfortunate person is
so maltreated that, from head to foot, he offers a lamentable
spectacle.... According to how the miserable victim has borne
this, they augur the valor which the son of a father who has
suffered so much will possess.
The stages of peyote intoxication have been noted by natives. Writing
of the Kiowa and Comanche, Mooney[39] maintained that “in the peyote
ceremonies, the songs of those present are more vigorous after
midnight,” and informants frequently indicate their awareness of
this.[40] Kroeber says of this period late in the intoxication that[41]
the physiological discomforts have usually worn off, and the
pleasurable effects are now at their height. It appears that
new songs, inspired perhaps by the visions of the night, are
often composed during this day.
Many well known songs composed by such leaders as Quanah Parker
(Comanche), Enoch Hoag (Caddo) and John Wilson (Caddo-Delaware, called
Nĭshkûntŭ or “Moonhead”) are said to have arisen from the auditory
hallucinations of peyote intoxication. The popular song “Heyowiniho” came
to John Wilson in a synaesthetic auditory hallucination in which he heard
the sound of the sun’s rising. Crashing Thunder[42] said of the beating
of a drum that “the sound almost raised me in the air so pleasurably loud
did it sound to me.” Other kinaesthetic derangements have been reported
in visions.
The dilation of the pupils of the eyes possibly explains the Huichol[43]
belief that the squirrel- and skunk-fetishes of their ceremony can see
better than ordinary people, guiding and guarding the hikuli-seekers on
their way. Visual phenomena, indeed, are perhaps the most conspicuous
effects of peyote eating. The colors red and yellow, usually with
reference to birds and feathers, are common in both Mexican and Plains
peyote symbolism.[44] The widespread Plains belief that peyote makes one
see better may derive from pupil-dilation; white observers have reported
acuter vision in peyote intoxication from this cause. Indians frequently
manifest a marked “photophobia” even in the mild morning sunlight after
meetings, and many younger men affect colored glasses at this time.
The peyote alkaloids cause increased salivation, and there is a constant
noise in meetings of spitting as the users eat peyote; in some meetings
attended individual tin-can spittoons were provided. The increased
flow of saliva probably accounts for the thirst-allaying effect of the
plant encountered in the origin legends and elsewhere, but this and the
diuretic[45] action of the drugs cause thirst to reappear more strongly
later. A regular feature, therefore, of the typical Plains ritual
is the bringing in of water at midnight and in the morning, which is
passed around clockwise.[46] The widespread taboo on the use of salt in
connection with peyote may have some reference to this action of the
plant.[47] On the other hand, the use of sweet[48] foods is a necessary
part of the ritual; these are stereotyped both in the Plains and Mexico
to include parched corn in sugar-water, sweet fruit, and sweetened meat
either dried and powdered or cut into chunks, and candy is a regular
feature in some meetings. Sugar may in effect relieve the stage of
depression in peyote intoxication somewhat.[49]
The classification of plants into male and female on the basis of
their physiological action has, as we have seen, a botanical basis. We
are convinced on the other hand, however, that peyote has no effect
whatsoever in the curbing of an appetite for liquor. Both native and
white apologists[50] for peyote advance this argument in extenuation
and defence. Natives are perfectly sincere in their belief that the
antagonism of peyote and alcohol is physiological (even in the face of
conspicuous contrary evidence),[51] and Plains Indians are annoyed and
hurt at the widespread association of drinking and peyote-eating through
the confusion of the term “mescal.” Yet the stubborn ethnographic fact
remains that in Mexico peyote is commonly drunk _with_ tesvino or mescal.
Various other physiological effects noted by whites find native
parallels. Many of the visions recorded for natives deal with
synaesthesias of sight and hearing and smell, and there occur cases of
taste- and smell-hallucinations as well as the more common auditory and
visual ones. Kinaesthetic derangements are also not unknown.[52]
One final question is less of physiological than psychological and
ethnographic import. Along with teo-nanacatl, marihuana (_Cannabis_ spp.)
and the Peyotl Xochimilcensis (_Cacalia cordifolia_), peyote has been
said to have an aphrodisiac action. This association suggests that a
matter of Spanish-White or Mexican-Indian ethnography is involved.[53]
But love-magic was not unknown either in Mexico or the Plains, and it is
conceivable that this new medicine (particularly since it was used for
“witching”) because of its other spectacular effects, might have been
valued for this purpose also.
We have now discussed the bearing of physiological reactions on the
peyote ritual and other native behavior: the _exhilarating_ first effect
of the drug (in the allaying of hunger and thirst on the march, to give
courage in war, and strength in dancing and racing) and the second stage
of _depression_ and _visions_ (“running amok,” witchcraft-suspicion,
psychic fear-states, euphoria and feeling of brotherhood, partial
anaesthesia, the “suffering to learn something” characteristic of
the Plains vision quest, synaesthesias, auditory hallucinations, and
“catching songs,” visual hallucinations, and “learning” of painting- and
bead-designs, symbolical birds and feathers, etc.).
We found, too, behavior definitely related to the pupil-dilating
power of peyote as well as its sialogogue and diuretic action; the
injunction against salt and the use of sweet foods, however, may
involve culture-historical matters. We have been skeptical of the
alleged anti-alcoholic virtue of peyote, and have likewise doubted that
_physiologically_ peyote is either aphrodisiac or anaphrodisiac, despite
heated claims on both sides. The efficacy of native doctoring with peyote
is a special problem treated elsewhere along with the therapeutic and
psychiatric experiments of Whites.
The following ethnographic part of our study deals first with the
non-ritual uses of peyote, arising from its special properties, and
secondly with the ritualization of its use.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “They [the Chichimeca] have a considerable knowledge of plants and
roots, their qualities and their virtues. They were the first to discover
and use the root called peiotl, which enters among their comestibles in
the place of wine” (Sahagún, _Histoire générale_, 10:661-62). Again,
“There is another herb, like tunas of the earth [tunas is the Spanish
name for the fruit of the prickly pear, _Opuntia opuntia_]; it is called
peiotl; it is white; it is produced in the north country; those who eat
or drink it see visions either frightful or laughable; this intoxication
lasts two or three days and then ceases” (Sahagún, _Historia general_,
3:241; in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 294-95).
Translations from the Spanish have been made with the aid of Mr. H. W.
Tessen of the Yale Graduate School.
[2] “Teo-nanacatl [has] ... the same properties as _ololiuhqui_ or
_peyote_, since when eaten or drunk, they intoxicate those who partake of
them, depriving them of their senses, and making them believe a thousand
absurdities” (_Manual de Ministros_; in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_,
309-10).
[3] “Peyote of Zacatecas, or soft and lanuginous root. The root is of
nearly medium size, sending forth no branches nor leaves above ground,
but with a certain wooliness adhering to it, on which account it could
not be aptly figured by me” (_De Historia Plantarum_, 3:70; in Safford,
_An Aztec Narcotic_, 295. See also Rouhier, _Monographie du Peyotl_,
43-44).
[4] “Nearby [the leader] was placed a tray filled with peyote, which is
a diabolical root [raiz diabolica] that is ground up and drunk by them
so that they may not become weakened by the exhausting efforts of so
long a function” (Ortega, _Historia del Nayarit_; in Safford, _An Aztec
Narcotic_, 295).
[5] Those interested in the taxonomic problem should consult the numerous
botanical references in the bibliography. Britton and Rose, in their four
volume work on the Cactaceae classify peyote as _Lophophora williamsii_,
which will be followed in the present study.
[6] The most succinct and complete description of the plant is found in
Britton and Rose, _The Cactaceae_, 83-84.
Peyote’s range is comprehended within an irregularly-shaped lozenge from
Deming, New Mexico, to Corpus Christi, Texas, to Puebla, Sombrerete,
Zacatecas, and back to Deming. That is, the valley of the Rio Grande
(north), Tamaulipecan Mountains (east), the watershed of the affluents
of the right bank of the Rio Grande de Santiago and Rio de Mezquital
(south), and the foothills of the Sierra Madre, the Sierra de Durango and
the Sierra del Nayarit (west). It prefers the calcareous and argillaceous
soils of the Cretaceous formation in the north of this region.
[7] In Safford, _Aztec Narcotic_, 295; see also _Narcotic Plants_, 401.
[8] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 63.
[9] The best histological account is in Rouhier, _Monographie_, 34-42;
the work of Dr. Helia Bravo, _Nota acerca de la Histología_, is more
recent. Richard Schultes at Harvard has also pursued histological
studies. It is noteworthy that the Indians ordinarily take only the upper
portion of the plant, which contains a larger proportion of the alkaloids
according to Rouhier.
[10] Rouhier, _op. cit._, 25. I am persuaded that many such insights
would be afforded us in ethnography if we had a less cavalier attitude
toward native science and history: for after all even our own science
grows from criticism of traditional notions.
[11] From the middle of the last century there has raged an acrimonious
debate as to whether there are two varieties of peyote corresponding to
_Anhalonium williamsii_ and _A. lewinii_. The former, it was contended,
had seven or eight straight ribs and lacked most of the alkaloids of
the latter, which had more numerous (twelve or more) sinuous ribs. This
long, somewhat nationalistic debate may be regarded as ended since
Rouhier (_Monographie_, 67) in 1926 figured a bicephalous plant on the
same root, one head being a true _williamsii_, the other a perfect
_lewinii_. It is apparent that the _lewinii_ “variety” is merely an older
plant, which often takes the _williamsii_ aspect in its younger stages
of growth; the more numerous alkaloids of the former more mature plant
is likewise purely a growth-phenomenon, as are the rib-configurations
and mammillations, though environmental and seasonal conditions may be
involved as well.
[12] Hernandez, _De Historia Plantarum_, 204, “Se dice que hay macho y
hembra.” Inaccurately translated by Safford, _Aztec Narcotic_, 295, and
Rouhier, _Monographie_, 43. The simplest and most obvious translation is
the most satisfactory. According to the Lipan (Opler, _Use of Peyote_,
279) male peyotes bloom red, female peyotes white.
[13] Diguet, _Le Peyote_, 25; Rouhier, _Monographie_, 133.
[14] _Handbook of the American Indians._ 1:604b. Spier informs me this is
also Navaho and perhaps Pueblo as well. As indicated elsewhere, peyote,
teo-nanacatl and associated plants have repeatedly been thought to be
aphrodisiacs. The supposed sex of the plants may have some reference
to this belief; cf. the Huichol belief that “Maize is a little girl
whom one sometimes can hear weeping in the fields; she is afraid of the
wild beasts, the coyote and others that eat corn” (Lumholtz, _Unknown
Mexico_, 2:279). Different colors of corn belong to different deities
also; it is interesting to note that the Huichol attribute different
colors symbolically to peyote which have no effective reality (Rouhier,
_op. cit._, 133). In 1935, in a non-peyote context, Apekaum told me that
cotton plants in a field we were passing were male and female; some trees
were male, too, and others female, he thought. No botanical realities
were involved in any of these cases. The Jivaro also attribute sex to
plants (Karsten, _Civilization_, 301, 304-06, 314-15, 323) as do the
Aymará and others.
[15] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:362.
[16] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 295.
[17] Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:365;
Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 293.
[18] This auditory hallucination of hearing voices in peyote intoxication
is most striking. Several explanations may be offered: the cultural (the
belief is common in Mexico and the Plains that peyote talks and sings),
the physiological (white observers, many in obvious ignorance of the
ethnographic facts, have reported aural hallucinations), or the physical
(the peculiarly resonant vibrations of the water-drum echoing from the
taut, cone-shaped canvas of the tipi). A physiological constant for
Indians and whites (culturally modified) seems indicated. See Mooney, _A
Kiowa Mescal Rattle_, 65; Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 63.
[19] Statements without references are understood to be made from my own
field work.
[20] The Cora peyote goddess appears to be “Mother Hūrimoa” (Preuss,
_Die Nayarit-Expedition_, 103). Tarahumari dancers sometimes imitate
hikuli’s talk with a sound which reminded Lumholtz of the crow of a cock
(_Tarahumari Dances_, 455). The Lipan information is from Opler (_The Use
of Peyote_).
[21] Diguet, _Le peyote et son usage_, 21, 25; Rouhier, _Monographie_,
4; Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 297; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:357,
2: _passim_; Preuss, _Die Nayarit-Expedition_, 103; Bennett and Zingg,
_Tarahumara_, 135; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_.
[22] Rudo Ensayo (1760) in Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_. A note by F. W.
H[odge] indicates a purely medicinal use of peyote for the Opata. Otomi:
León, _fide_ Mooney; Mooney doubts this, somewhat unwarrantedly I think.
Pima: Alegre, in Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_. Comecrudo: _Handbook of
the American Indians_, 1:209a; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_, whose source
is probably Gatschet. Lipan: Opler, _The Use of Peyote_. Tonkawa: Mooney,
_op. cit._ Taos: Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 114, note 115. Mescalero Apache:
Rouhier, _Monographie_, 4 (Opler records this as xuc); Safford, _An Aztec
Narcotic_, 297; Mooney, _op. cit._ Comanche: Mooney, _Miscellaneous
Notes_; the present writer recorded wↄ´kweᵖⁱ and pua´kιt (= “medicine”).
[23] Mooney (_Peyote Notebook_, 21) likewise says the Kiowa term for
peyote sęⁱ means “prickly” or “prickly fruit” and is generic for all
cacti. But peyote, it will be remembered, is conspicuous for its lack of
spines; perhaps this was an older term for the prickly pear, _Opuntia
opuntia_, transferred to the more recently known plant. In any case it
occurs nowadays in many compounds: sęⁱmąyi, “peyote woman,” sęⁱpiⁱ,
“peyote meeting,” etc., and in the phrase behábe sęⁱᴅɔki, “smoke, peyote
power.” (Compare the Comanche hos mäbä´mho’i.) See also Mooney, _Calendar
History_, 239; Rouhier, _Monographie_, 4; Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 399;
Speck, _Notes on the Life of John Wilson_, 552.
[24] See _Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:845, 846 (the Yuma,
Mohave, Ute, Apache, etc., use it). The Mescalero Apache do not derive
their name from the use of the peyote, “mescal,” as Mooney stated,
being so designated long before they knew or used peyote. In the second
etymology see Siméon, _Dictionnaire_, 436; also Safford, _An Aztec
Narcotic_, 293. See also La Barre, _Native American Beers_, 225.
[25] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:358. For “dry whiskey” see the _New
Century Dictionary_, Supplement: “Mescal Buttons.” For the other names
see Rouhier, _op. cit._, 4; Britton and Rose, _The Cactaceae_, 3:84 (the
spelling pellote of Velasco, from Mooney, is a Castillianization of the
Nahuatl); _Peyotes, datos para su estudia_, 209. The spelling pezote in
Alarcón, _Tratato de las Supersticiones_, 131, is obviously a copyist’s
error.
[26] de Molina, _Vocabulario_, 80, “Peyutl—capullo de feda, o de gufano.”
The Spanish o and u constitute a single phoneme in Nahuatl, according to
Mr. Benjamin Whorf, so the vowel is purely a matter of recording. On the
other hand, Reko’s etymology in _Was bedeutet das Wort Teo-Nanacatl?_
(lent through the courtesy of R. E. Schultes) is inadmissable. He writes:
“Pe-yotl, Old-Aztec Pi-yautli, is quite clear in its etymology: Pi is the
significative (or affix) for ‘little.’ ... Yau-tli is always something
narcotic or strong narcotic-smelling substance. Yau- is the root, -tli
the post-positive article (substantive significative).... A pi-yautli
(pe-yotl) is therefore the mildly intoxicating poison, in contrast with
Hua-yautli (today Guayule, sap of the Gum-tree, which smells very strong)
which means extremely intoxicating.” This is an ad hoc forcing of an
etymology on a word, according to Whorf: in the first instance “old
Aztec” pi-yautli appears to be an assumed rather than a quoted form; but
even so, -yautli should not give -yotl or -iotl of Sahagún’s recording,
but an unchanged -yautli. If the rules for Nahuatl sound-change are to be
observed, peyotl must come from an uncontracted stem of two syllables,
plus the absolutive suffix, this stem being pe-yo; -yautli, on the other
hand, must come from a contracted stem, originally of two syllables,
ya-wi (the -i standing for a variable or unknown vowel), plus the
absolutive suffix, having the form -tl when preceded by a vowel, -tli
when preceded by a consonant, i.e., a contracted stem. As for the first
syllable, pi- and pe- are absolutely distinct phonemically in Aztec. The
etymology, therefore, is neither phonetically nor phonemically correct,
and assumes random and unexplained sound changes. The writer is grateful
to Mr. Whorf for the preceding information. P. Augustin Hunt y Cortes
(in Rouhier, 7) derives peyotl from the active verb pepeyoni, pepeyon,
“to move, to stir, to set into motion, to excite, to activate.” Other
offerings are “child” and a derivation from peyonanic, “stimulate, goad,
prick, incite.” These are untenable for the same reasons that Reko’s is.
[27] Siméon, _Dictionnaire_ 412, 436.
[28] Rouhier, _Monographie_ 7.
[29] _De Historia Plantarum_, 3:70 (Peyotl Xochimilcensi). Peyote,
because of its abundance in certain localities, figures frequently in
place names.
[30] Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_; see also other items by this author in
the bibliography.
[31] See the _New Century Dictionary_, “Pulque,” 4841, a word conjectured
to be of Carib (Haiti or Cuba) or Spanish origin. Agave and maguey are
the American aloe, sometimes called “century plant” (cf. “maguey,” 3578,
“agave,” 108). “Mescal” proper, therefore, = Agave americana = maguey =
American aloe = “century plant.”
[32] White Wolf (Comanche) tells of Kuaheta, at the time acting as
fireman in Comanche Jack’s meeting, that he once failed to return after
having asked to leave the tipi. Commissioned to investigate, White Wolf
found him outside “jumping like a deer” from deep peyote intoxication.
Hoebel relates a similar experience in a Northern Cheyenne meeting.
Tonakat, the well-known Kiowa “witch,” once forced a man to get up and
dance in a meeting (_Autobiography of a Kiowa Indian_, recorded by the
writer, 1936). Jonathan Koshiway (Oto) laughingly told me of a meeting in
Kansas where the singer’s jaw became locked; the whole meeting was upset
while they shook and fanned him with cedar incense until his jaw “came
back.” This may have been an effect of the strychnine-like alkaloids in
peyote, as in the case of Tom Panther (Shawnee) who became unable to talk
or sing once in George Fry’s meeting: “it took me four or five minutes to
say the word ‘study’,” he said.
[33] Lumholtz, _Huichol Indians_, 9.
[34] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 63.
[35] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 198-99.
[36] Fernberger (_Further Observations_, 368), citing Petrullo,
writes: “The best reporters of this group of Indians [Delaware] insist
that visions may occur under peyote intoxication but that it has
become socially admirable to suppress these visions and that, after
some practice, this may be successfully accomplished.” But after
establishing ordinarily friendly relations with informants I found no
such reticence about visions; these, indeed, were publicly discussed
in the Sunday forenoons after meetings (usually spent lounging under
“shades” quietly exchanging peyote experiences). Many, like Spotted Horse
(Kiowa), Tom Panther (Shawnee) and Sly Picard (Wichita) distinguished
the ordinary effects of peyote from full-blown “visions”; and some
corrective modesty is occasionally exhibited for the familiar Plains
assertiveness and individualism, for, in fact, through peyote visions
individuals push themselves to positions of leadership and influence.
Fernberger continues: “The informants also state that they are able
to control visions when they occur, that is, to change the vision to
that of any particular known object or to hold a vision that occurs in
consciousness for a considerable time. Both of these statements are
totally at variance with the descriptions of all previous observers of
the visual manifestations.” We disagree with this dictum; many informants
would paraphrase the statement of Tom Panther (Shawnee) that in peyote
intoxication, “I wasn’t boss of myself.” White observers too have
remarked on the dualism of consciousness exhibited by Crashing Thunder.
One might even go so far as to say that this is a reason natives think of
peyote as an _external_ “power” working its influence on them.
[37] Is the peculiar mode of wearing a blanket in meetings due to the
necessity of supporting the back in strychnine-opisthotonos (from
lophophorine and anhalonine)?
[38] Arlegui, _Crónica_, 144; Rouhier, _Monographie_, 331.
[39] Mooney, in Rouhier, _op. cit._, 344.
[40] “We’re pulling for daylight now—that’s the time those boys sang a
little faster” (Voegelin, _Shawnee Field Notes_). “I wish you could see
Quanah’s songs—they just like beautiful race horses—go fast” (Mooney,
_Peyote Notebook_, 12).
[41] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 404-405. Maillefert (_La Marihuana_, 6)
says that marihuana habitués in Mexico have special songs that they sing
together; a marked feature of the Mexican use of drugs, of which this may
be a case, is the pattern of group-narcosis.
[42] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 178.
[43] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:272.
[44] This is obviously heavily culture-conditioned, but Klüver
(_Mescal_, 41) records the predominance of red and green early in
peyote intoxication, and yellow and blue in later stages, with possible
reference to the Ladd-Franklin phylogenetic theory of color vision.
[45] Maillefert (_loc. cit._) says marihuana habitués believe water
decreases the effect of the drug, and therefore they do not use it when
smoking. Although the peyote leader must otherwise be present all through
the meeting (to prevent rival witching among the Apache), a fixed part of
the Plains ritual is his exit alone at midnight to whistle at the four
points of the compass, an opportunity which is no doubt exploited. Again,
spitholes are a part of Tarahumari altars (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_,
1:365).
[46] The Caddo, however, make a point of not drinking water at night,
as though looking upon the meeting as a vision-ordeal; this aberrance
is given point by the fact that they do no doctoring in peyote meetings
either, and must make four rounds of the drum before quitting, no matter
if it takes until noon of the next day.
[47] The Comanche exclude the eating of pork also, but whether this is
because pork is commonly a salt meat or because it is oily like the flesh
of another tabooed food animal, the bear, I do not know.
[48] Maillefert (_op. cit._, 6-7) says marihuana smokers believe that
sugar augments the effect of the “grifos” (“reefers” in Harlem parlance),
so they eat sweets while smoking them. Compare the consuming of honey
with teo-nanacatl in Mexico.
[49] The Arapaho (Kroeber, 407) use a more magical means to this
end: they tie four bunches of yellow-hammer or other feathers at the
northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest poles of the tipi to brush
the bodies of worshippers who become tired.
[50] E.g., Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 694.
[51] For mescal (the agave-drink distilled from pulque) and peyote are
mixed and _used together_ in northern Mexico. Yet Mooney often and at
length produced this argument with regard to alcohol; Skinner said it
destroyed the desire of tobacco as well (see appendix on the Native
American Church). But peyote, physiologically and culturally, is only
one more means of achieving the culturally valued state of psychic
derangement, and such fundamentally deep-rooted patterns as this one is
in native America do not change over-night. Even so, is the cure any
better than the disease? The writer was a little startled when a Kiowa
friend, an ardent peyote user, suggested that we go to a neighboring
town one mid-week to drink. When I sought to discover his attitude on
this he soon made it clear that it was no matter of moral sentimentality
but purely one of physiology: there wasn’t another peyote meeting
until Saturday, so what was the harm? One can eat lobsters one day
and ice-cream the next, but one ought not eat them the same day. This
informant conceived of the antagonism as a fight between liquor- and
peyote-power, a matter-of-fact attitude probably not universal, and by no
means as cynical as it seems.
[52] Rouhier (_Monographie_, 320) however suggests that the illusions
of phonation (the distance, strangeness and hollowness of the voice)
may not be entirely sensory, i.e. auditory, but may also be a matter of
voice-production; he cites Ellis, Putt, and Eshner.
[53] Note the ritual necessity that a woman bring the morning water into
a meeting formerly restricted to men, and the mythological significance
of the “Peyote Woman.” Opler (_The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_)
says that Mescalero saw women in visions and wanted them, believing that
if one began with visions of women they would stay with him. Crashing
Thunder (Radin, 177) confessed that at one time he attended meetings
chiefly to find “a woman whom I cared to marry permanently. Before long,”
he says, “that was the only thing that I would think of when I attended
the meetings.” We have on the other hand, however, the healthy skepticism
of an Oto who said, “You can see dead people in meetings, but peyote
won’t get you a woman you desire though. She makes up her mind.” But may
not other explanations than the physiologically-aphrodisiac be involved?
Might there not be an association with promiscuity of the ritual mingling
of the sexes (for in the older Sun Dance just this was implied when the
main lodge-pole was brought in) in a region where sexual segregation
ritually was usual? Compare the injunction of one Ghost Dance prophet to
the people not to think of women, but to join hands with them on either
side and dance the Ghost Dance. Would he have made the explicit statement
if it had not been implicitly considered reasonable to expect natural
sexual arousement or preoccupation in a rite in which men and women are
not separated? Indeed, there is evidence among the Shawnee at least that
sexual opportunities afforded through the Ghost Dance were not left
unexploited.
THE ETHNOLOGY OF PEYOTISM
NON-RITUAL USES OF PEYOTE
An Oto in all seriousness informed the writer that “peyote doesn’t work
outside meetings, because I have tried it”—a belief understandable in
a group whose sole acquaintance with the plant is through a recent
ritual.[1] Nevertheless, owing to its marked physiological properties
peyote is widely used both in Mexico and the Plains non-ritually, a fact
which forms an interesting ethnological background to the rite proper.
One of the most important and striking of these uses is in prophecy and
divination. We find the Spanish missionaries in Mexico early protesting
against this abomination. The confessional of Padre Nicolás de León[2]
contains the following questions for the priest to ask the penitent:
Art thou a sooth-sayer? Dost thou foretell events by reading
omens, interpreting dreams, or by tracing circles and figures
on water? Dost thou garnish with flower garlands the places
where idols are kept? Dost thou suck the blood of others? Dost
thou wander about at night, calling upon demons to help thee?
Hast thou drunk peyotl, or given it to others to drink, in
order to discover secrets, or to discover where stolen or lost
articles were?
This last was no idle matter, as appears from other evidence;
Hernandez[3] says that
[the Peyotl Zacatensis] causes those [Chichimeca] devouring
it to be able to foresee and to predict things; such, for
instance, as whether on the following day the enemy will make
an attack upon them; or whether the weather will continue
favorable; or to discern who has stolen from them some utensil
or anything else; and other things of like nature which the
Chichimeca really believe they have found out.
Padre Arlegui,[4] after mentioning the therapeutic uses to which the
Zacatecans put peyote, complains that
this would not be so bad if they did not abuse its virtues,
for, in order to have a knowledge of the future and find out
how their battles will turn out, they drink it brewed in water,
and, as it is very strong, it intoxicates them with a paroxysm
of madness, and all the fantastic hallucinations that come
over them with this horrible drink they seize upon as omens of
the future, imagining that the root has revealed to them their
future.
Prieto[5] says of a Tamaulipecan group that
often in these orgies was wont to impose silence, at the height
of their drunkenness, the voice of some ancient, who, assuming
a magisterial tone, prognosticated to them future events,
usually depicting them as sad and unhappy, and in spite of
the lugubriousness of his predictions, he usually ended his
harangue by exhorting them to enjoy in the dance the interval
between the present and the next unhappiness.
Alarcón[6] adds other functions and relates of other drinks similarly
used:[7]
If the consultation is about a lost or stolen article or
concerning a woman who has absented herself from her husband,
or some similar thing, here enters the gift of false prophecy,
and the divining that has been pointed out in the preceding
treatises; the divination is made in one of two ways, either
by means of a trance or by drinking peyote or ololiuhqui or
tobacco to attain this end, or commanding that another drink
it, and ordering him to remain under its spell; and in all this
goes implicitly hand in hand the pact with the devil who by
means of said drinks appears to them and speaks to them, giving
them to understand that he who speaks to them is the ololiuhqui
or the peyote or whatever beverage that they had drunk for the
said end; and the sorry part of it is that many put faith in
[the drink] as in the very lying cheats themselves, [indeed]
even more than in the evangelical predicators.
As we move farther north in Mexico the use of peyote in prophesying
becomes valuable in warning of the approach of the enemy.[8] For the
Tarahumari Lumholtz[9] says that the various kinds of hikori were
particularly good “to drive off wizards, robbers, and Apaches, and to
ward off disease.” Of _Anhalonium fissuratum_ he says “robbers are
powerless against it, for Sunami calls soldiers to its aid,” while the
variety Rosapara “is particularly effective in frightening off Apaches
and robbers.”
In the Comanche version of the usual Plains origin tale of peyote, the
leader of a group on the war-path goes up alone to an Apache camp where
a peyote ceremony is in progress. Though an enemy, he is invited in, the
leader telling him that peyote had predicted his coming in a vision.[10]
One Comanche informant said eating peyote enables one to _hear_ an enemy
coming, though still far away; peyote likewise predicted the success of
one of the last Comanche horse-raids, and aided in its prosecution.
From these uses of peyote in war it is no jump to its fetishistic use as
a protector in war[11] and in ordinary witchcraft. Sahagún[12] writes
that peyote
is a common food of the Chichimecas, for it stimulates them and
gives them sufficient spirit to fight and have neither fear,
thirst, nor hunger, and they say it guards them from all danger.
De la Serna[13] said that ololiuhqui and peyote were carried by persons
“forsaken of God” as charms against all injuries, and Arlegui deplored
the custom of parents to “hang little bags on their children, and inside
of them in place of the four Evangels that they place around the necks of
children in Spain, [to] place peyot or some other herb.” Arias described
a surreptitious worship of the fetish: the natives hung the herb in
the choirs “as a special creation of the malignant spirit which they
designate with the name of Naycuric,” and they communicated with the
numen by drinking an infusion of peyote instead of wine.[14]
Peyote is also a powerful protection against witchcraft in ritual
foot-races. Rivals are liable to throw bones and herbs on the track and
cause the Tarahumari runner to be bewitched and lose the race, which is
run at night. For this contingency, however, “hikuli and the dried head
of an eagle or a crow may be worn under the girdle as a protection.”[15]
Peyote is a great protection too when traveling, both in war and on
peyote-pilgrimages.[16]
The Comanche commonly wore peyotes in buckskin bags attached to beaded
bandoliers, recalling the mescal bean bandolier which the Kiowa and
others commonly wore in battle. Indeed, peyote was even a part of the
Θawikila and Kispoko war bundles of the Shawnee, long before they knew
the generalized peyote ritual—a custom similar to the Iowa use of mescal
beans in their war bundles.[17]
But in Mexico and the Southwest war and witching are closely connected
ideologically. As a matter of fact, peyote itself as well as the peyote
shaman’s rasp, is employed in Tarahumari witchcraft.[18] Among the
Mescalero Apache,[19] however, witching _within_ the tribe by rival
peyote shamans was an ever-present anxiety, their feuds being conceived
in terms of battles and war, with the “shooting” of arrows and struggles
to see who had the more powerful and compelling songs. The Mescalero
peyote leader was merely a shaman _primus inter pares_, whose major
function was to prevent witching in meetings. The purpose of the Tonkawa
peyote songs, it is said, was to ward off the enemies’ witching. Witching
with peyote is less in evidence in the Plains, save among the Kiowa,
Comanche, and Cheyenne who early received it, but as late as the time
when the Caddo-Delaware messiah John Wilson took peyote and the Ghost
Dance to the Quapaw there was witching by “shooting” objects. The
Northern Cheyenne feared the “trickiness” of peyote itself; and the Lipan
fireman was chosen for his braveness because “he has to go out at night
to get wood and it is a frightening job sometimes, especially when one is
under the influence of peyote; peyote is sure a joker!”
Besides this fetishistic use in war, peyote was also used somewhat more
“technologically” to cure wounds. Alegre writes that the Sonoran
manner of curing the wounds is with peyote, that they call
peyori after it has been made into a powder, with which they
fill the cut, cleaning it and renewing it three times every two
days, or with a species of balm composed of [maguey].
Prieto says that, in Tamaulipecan war, among the provisions carried by
the women in the rear were
gourds full of peyote and water ... and in addition to all
these provisions they carry some plants, which, chosen and
prepared beforehand serve to stop hemorrhages from the wounds,
and to aid in their curing.
The Opata used pejori for arrow-wounds, cleaning them out with cotton
squills on sticks dipped in the powder; the Lipan put peyote on wounds of
all kinds.[20]
The other therapeutic uses of peyote are various. At Taos it was used
for snake-bite. The Caxcanes of Teo-caltiche employed peyote for cramps
and fainting spells, the Chichimeca for relieving painful joints.
The Tarahumari apply peyote externally for bruises, snake-bites and
rheumatism. The Huichol use few remedies except hikuli, unlike the
Tepecano who use many, but it is good for anything from a minor ache to
a major wound. Medicinal uses are also recorded for the Tepecano, Yaqui,
Opata, Pima, Papago, Cora and Lipan.[21]
In the Plains a Wichita case of blindness of fifteen years’ standing
was cured by the sole application of peyote-infusion.[22] Radin cites
a similar Winnebago case. The Kiowa use peyote as a panacea: uses are
recorded for tooth-ache, hemorrhages, headache, consumption, fever,
breast pains, skin disease, hiccough, rheumatism, childbirth, diabetes,
colds and pulmonary diseases in general. Mooney records the further use
as a “tonic aperitif.” The Shawnee chew peyote into poultices for sores
and snake-bites and eat it for colds, pneumonia, rheumatism, aches and
pains.[23]
The remaining non-ritual uses of peyote are quite varied. The Acaxee
employed it in some manner in their ball games, probably eating it in
small doses, according to Beals. In Tlaxcala peyote was used by “the
auxiliary forces of the conquistadores, in order not to feel fatigue on
their marches”—a widespread use in Mexico; in the Plains the typical
origin legend tells of peyote aiding a seriously wounded warrior or a
woman and child left behind by their companions without food or drink.
The legend is not unlike the common Plains stories of receiving power
from animals in a stress-situation; Old Man Horse (Kiowa) said “peyote is
the only plant from which one can get power,” obviously thinking in terms
of the old vision quest. Peyote in fact gave power to perform shamanistic
tricks in the old days.[24]
The Tarahumari, among other things, left a hikuli plant with the corpse,
the motive for which is unstated.[25] A Wichita, captured in war and
imprisoned, was aided in escaping unseen from the enemy camp by his
fetish-plant; the lobbying power of peyote in influencing Federal bonus
legislation has already been mentioned. Indeed, peyote has had a record
of unbroken success in preventing Federal anti-peyote legislation.[26]
RITUAL USES OF PEYOTE
Despite the unsatisfactory state of the literature, it is clear that
the ceremonial use of peyote in Mexico differs widely from that in the
Plains. First we shall characterize the Mexican type by summarizing the
Huichol and Tarahumari rites, and later adding comparative Mexican data.
HUICHOL
Though the most important of their fiestas, Huichol peyotism is a
seasonal matter, the hikuli seldom being eaten outside the ceremonial
period in January. In October a preliminary trip lasting fifteen days
each way is made to Real Catorce (San Luis Potosí) to obtain the plants.
The eight or twelve pilgrims bathe and sleep in the temple with their
wives the night before leaving, not washing again until the feast
some four months later. After receiving new names for the trip, the
next morning they pray around a fire, wearing squirrel tails tied to
their hats, and sacrifice five tortillas[27] to the fire. Then, after
sprinkling their heads with a deer-tail dipped in water steeped with
certain herbs, all weep as each man puts his right hand on his wife’s
left shoulder and bids her farewell.[28]
Their route is full of religious associations, since formerly the gods
went out to seek peyote and now are met with in the shape of mountains,
stones and springs; their dreams en route are also important in deciding
religious arrangements for the coming year (who is to sacrifice cattle
for rain, who is to be fire-maker, etc.). The pilgrims carry sacred
hour-glass shaped gourds and the leader also carries the yákwai, a ball
of native-grown tobacco called macuchi, which is solemnly distributed
after they pass Puerta de Cerda. In the afternoon they place ceremonial
arrows toward the four corners of the world, and sit around a fire until
midnight. Tobacco belongs to the personified fire; after much praying the
leader touches the tobacco-ball with his plumes and wraps small portions
in corn husks[29] “so that they look like diminutive tamales,” and each
man puts one in a special tobacco-gourd tied to his quiver. This act
symbolizes the birth of tobacco and henceforth they must preserve ritual
order on the march, and only cease to be the “prisoner” of Grandfather
Fire when the sacred bundles are given back to him, i.e., burned.
On the fourth afternoon the women at home gather to confess their sins to
Grandfather Fire; they knot palm-leaves lest they forget the name of even
a single lover and the men consequently find no hikuli. After this public
confession each woman throws her leaf into the fire and becomes ritually
clean. The men make a similar confession “to the five winds” a little
beyond Zacatecas and burn their tallies in the fire. The hikuli-seekers
are henceforth gods and the leaders fast (save for eating stray plants)
until they reach the peyote country.[30]
Arrived, they line up, each man with an arrow on his bow-string which
he points successively to the six regions of the world without letting
it fly. As they march toward the mesa-“altar” where the leader has seen
hikuli as a “deer,” each man shoots two arrows each over five hikuli
plants, crossing over their tops that they may be taken “alive.” They
make a ceremonial circuit of the mesa, but the “deer” assumes the form
of a whirlwind and disappears, leaving two hikuli in his tracks; there
they sacrifice votive bowls, arrows, paper flowers, beads, etc., and
pray. After this they return to get their five hikuli, and eat and gather
others. The whole ceremony is of hunting deer, and after five days they
reverse the logs of their fireplace and return home with gourds of holy
water, wood for the shaman’s rasp, sotol for the “godseats,” yellow paint
material and the hikuli they have gathered. Their tobacco-gourds and
faces are painted yellow, the color of the God of Fire. The face-painting
represents the faces or masks of the gods, and expresses prayers for
rain, luck in deer-hunting and good crops, symbolized as corn field,
cloud, ear of corn, “rain-serpent,” squash-vine and -flower designs.[31]
Approaching home, they must hunt deer until they have enough for the
feast, before being freed from the ritual restrictions of continence,
fasting, and non-use of salt, meanwhile being sustained by slices of
green hikuli eaten from time to time. The deer meat is cooked and
then cut into small cubes which are strung (precisely as peyote is)
on cords.[32] The deer-killing is to obtain rain for the next growing
season.[33] The hunting period over, men and women bathe for the first
time since the beginning of the hikuli-pilgrimage.
For the hikuli feast the men deck their hats lavishly with brilliant
macao and hawk feathers, and wear supernumerary girdle-pouches; the women
wear strings of yellow and red plumes across the back. A temple fire,
another at the east of the patio to “guard” the dancers, and a third
at the north for visitors from the underworld are built in a special
fashion: the shaman carefully brings an eighteen-inch billet of green
wood, offers it to five directions and finally to the sixth by placing it
on the ground, after which others place sticks pointing east and west on
this molitáli or “pillow” of Grandfather Fire.[34]
Then the shaman and hikuli-seekers ceremonially circle the freshly
white-plastered “god-house of the Sun,” enter, pray aloud and give a
long account of their journey until late at night. The temple fire place
(áro) is a circular clay basin in the center with a slightly raised rim;
the poker is the “arrow” of the God of Fire. The niches at the west of
the temple behind the shaman are filled with god-images; the others
sit on either side of him in a semi-circle on sotol or century-plant
stools. Their wives, flower-garlanded and painted, sit farther back
in the temple, while the pilgrims smoke and sing all night about
Greatgrandfather Deer-Tail, the Morning Star and all the other gods who,
long ago, went out to seek hikuli. The next morning all wash their faces,
heads and hands in water from the hikuli-country, and salute the rising
sun with a bowl of burning incense, sprinkling water to the four corners
of the world with a flower and praying for life and for luck in hunting
deer.[35]
Meanwhile the patio has been prepared for dancing. Beside the fire are
jars of holy water and tesvino, a stuffed fetish-skunk tied to a stick,
and a stuffed grey squirrel decorated with dark green beetle wing-covers,
small clay birds, feathers and a crucifix.[36] The shaman, sitting west
of the main fire (behind the usual ceremonial arrows, plumes, tamales,
and a pot of hikuli-liquor) sacrifices water to the six regions with
a stick; then, with assistants on either side who take turns helping
him, the shaman sings the mythological songs, unaccompanied by a drum,
and the long dance begins.[37] Both sexes take part in the dance, “a
quick, jumping walk with frequent jerky turns of the body,” in a circle
counter-clockwise around the shaman and the fire—though the circle tends
to an ellipse as they approach the fetish-animals at the northwest.[38]
At sunrise of the third and last day comes the corn-roasting ceremony
which gives its name to the entire festival, Rarikira (from raki,
“toasted corn”).[39] The shaman fastens a plume with a ribbon in the
hair of the woman who is to do the toasting and gives her a coarse straw
whisk to stir the corn on her comal, supported on three stones over the
fire. The hikuli-seekers appear with large varicolored ears of corn in
their pouches, and after ceremonial circuits they shell it, sacrificing
five grains to the fire. The woman then prepares the esquite, and all eat
this, together with deer meat and broth, thus ending the festivities.[40]
The Huichol ritual paraphernalia is heavily symbolized. With his eagle
and hawk plumes the singing shaman can see and hear everything anywhere,
cure the sick, transform the dead, and even call down the sun; they
symbolize the antlers of deer, and deer-antlers in turn symbolize peyote
and the “chair” of Grandfather Fire. Peyote itself symbolizes both corn
and deer, while the flames of the greatest shaman of all, Grandfather
Fire, are his plumes (the brilliantly-colored macao is his particular
bird). Deer-antlers, furthermore, for the Huichol symbolize arrows,[41]
arrows being the symbol _par excellence_ of prayer. Again, arrows
symbolize a bird flying with outstretched neck, the feathered portion
representing the heart. The peyote plant, finally, is considered the
drinking-bowl of the god of fire and wind.[42]
This intricate symbolic complex (corn = peyote = drinking-bowl of
Grandfather Fire = god of wind = whirlwind = deer = deer-tracks = peyote
= deer-antlers = shaman’s plumes = deer antlers = chair of Grandfather
Fire = flames of fire = brilliant bird [macao] plumes = flying bird =
arrow = prayer for rain, corn and deer-hunting, etc.) is deeply rooted
in Huichol religion, and each one of the symbolic equations has a ritual
reflex.[43]
TARAHUMARI
Tarahumari peyotism is on the decline in Samachique, Quírara and
Guadalupe, though still remaining around Narárachic; in Guadalupe the
bakánawa cactus is valued instead. From two or three to a dozen men make
the month-long trip to the region around the mouth of the Rio Conchos at
any time of the year, though usually not in the rainy season. They first
purify themselves with copal incense; on the way anything may be eaten,
but in the hikuli country they eat only piñole, and speech is forbidden.
Arrived, they erect a cross near the first plants found, in order to
find an abundance of others, and carefully cut off the tops with wooden
sticks to leave the roots uninjured. They sing and eat green peyote while
gathering it and in the evening they dance the dutubúri around the cross
and a fire. The harvesting lasts several days, some taking turns dancing
while the others sleep. Each variety of hikuli is put in a separate bag,
for they would fight if mixed.[44]
The plants are left on a blanket in the mountains near home, and the
blood of a slaughtered sheep or goat is sprinkled on them to “feed” them,
with a special song. After drying they are placed in covered ollas away
from the house. The hikuli-seekers are met on their return with singing,
and a fiesta is held with the sacrificial sheep or goat. The dutubúri and
the hikuli-dance are then danced all night around a large open-air fire,
much green peyote and tesvino being consumed. This ceremony is to “cure”
the pilgrims: the shaman’s necklace of _Coix lachryma-Jobi_ seeds is
dipped into a bowl of agua-miel, sotoli, or mescal, each one receiving a
spoonful, while the shaman sings of hikuli standing on a Job’s Tears seed
as big as a mountain.[45]
Tarahumari hikuli-feasts are held at other times also. The women grind
the plants with water on a metate into a thickish brown liquid. The
dancing-patio is carefully swept with a straw broom and several crosses
are planted, and near one of these the peyote is piled with jars of
“tea” and tesvino, baskets of unsalted tamales and bowls of meat and
“medicine.” A large fire is built with logs in an east-west position and
hikuli and yumari are danced all night.[46]
Near the shaman and his assistants who sit west of the fire is a
leaf-covered hole into which they carefully spit; the olla-cuspidor of
the men to one side and the women to the other is passed around and
emptied here also. With a drinking-gourd rim the shaman makes a circle on
the ground and in it the right-angled cross of the world-symbol. Then he
inverts a gourd over a hikuli placed on the cross, as a resonator for his
rasp; hikuli enjoys this music and manifests his strength by the noise
produced.[47] The shaman’s headdress is of bird-plumes, which prevent the
wind from entering and causing illness; through them the birds impart to
him all their wisdom. The assistants, of both sexes, carry incense bowls
of copal, kneeling and crossing themselves at the cross, and then pass
out the peyote.[48]
At times the shaman dances, at times his assistants, and women may dance
either separately or simultaneously with the other men participants. The
bare-footed men are wrapped to the chin in white blankets; the women wear
clean skirts and tunics. The clockwise dancing (with a turn of the body
at the shaman’s place) consists in a “peculiar quick, jumping march, with
short steps, the dancers moving forward one after another, on their toes,
and making sharp, jerky movements, without, however, turning around.” The
men have deer-hoof sonajas, and the rasping and singing are continuous
save when the shaman politely excuses himself to the fetish hikuli;
others must also ask permission to leave the patio. In the intermittent
dancing they beat their mouths with the palm imitating hikuli’s talk, or
cry “Hikuli vava! (Hikuli over yonder!)” in shrill falsetto.[49]
At dawn the dancing stops at three raps on the shaman’s rasp. All rise
and gather at the east cross. Then the shaman, followed by a boy with a
gourd of palo hediondo medicine (ohnoa roots steeped in water), “cures”
each one with his rasp wetted in the medicine, as they cry, “Thank you!”
The shaman makes three long raspings with his stick on the man’s head;
its dust is so potent in curing that it is carefully gathered from
around the resonator and preserved in buckskin bags. A spoonful of other
medicines is sometimes swallowed as the shaman blows and makes passes;
sometimes tesvino exclusively is used. Blankets are also smoked with
copal now. Then, facing the rising sun, the shaman makes three raspings
at arms’ length, waving home hikuli who had come from the east early in
the morning, riding on green doves, to prevent sorcery in the meeting;
now he turns into a ball and returns, accompanied by the owl. Doctoring
of the sick as well as “curing” may now occur. Then all wash carefully,
and after the shaman sacrifices tortillas and tesvino as they stand in a
line facing east, they all participate in a feast.[50]
COMPARISON OF MEXICAN PEYOTE RITUALS
Huichol peyotism is more intricate and important than Tarahumari, though
it is seasonal only and the latter venerated several varieties of cactus.
The state of the literature advises caution, but a far better case could
be made for the Huichol as a center of diffusion: the neighboring Cora,
for example, had a vigorous peyote rite, while the Tubar, who share
tesvino and the yohe dance with the Tarahumari and otherwise resemble
them culturally, lack it.[51] Beals, however, points out that since the
Cora-Huichol do not live within the region of growth of peyote, they
must have borrowed it; our sole knowledge of Huichol peyotism is modern,
unfortunately, but the Cora rite is known from 1754. On the whole, the
gaps in our knowledge are too great to discuss possible centers of
diffusion of Mexican peyotism; they may, indeed, lie in the little known
area to the northeast.[52]
A relatively full account of the Tamaulipecan rite is extant:[53]
One of the Tamaulipecan tribes would usually hold feasts for
only those of its own community, or it would invite some
of those that were neighbors and friends. They took place
generally by night. Devoting two or three previous days to
the preparation of a sufficient quantity of peyote, and the
gathering of fruits of the season, and in allotting certain
fruits of the chase, which, broiled on the hearth that
illuminated the feast, were served at a common banquet. The
feast always had an object among these peoples. With feasts
they celebrated the beginning of summer, which was the season
least rigorous for these nude people, or the abundant harvests
of corn, or of forest fruits, or their victory in some attack
on their enemies. When these feasts were held for one tribe
alone they took place commonly in the rancherías where they
lived permanently. But when one who was promoting the feast
invited some of his neighbors, then he chose an intermediate
point between the two places that they inhabited, and that
was picked out generally in the most inaccessible or hidden
places in the mountains. As soon as everything was prepared for
the banquet and the guests had collected, a great bonfire was
lighted. They placed around it the fruits of the hunt prepared
before hand. Those that took part in the dance immediately
formed a circle around the fire, and to the measured beats of
the drum (the drum was made of an aro of wood over which they
attached the parchment of a deer or a coyote) which, united
with the voices, composed the music. They took part in the
dance alternately raising one foot and then the other, or the
whole circle started circling around the fire. During the dance
dancers and spectators broke out in discordant howls, each one
reciting in his own strophes, alluding to the cause that was
motivating the feast. Of this versification I have already
previously given you an idea: relative to the celebration
of some triumph gained in their skirmishes; and in the same
way they directed their phrases to the sun, to the moon, and
to the clouds, when they were enjoying good weather; to the
earth and to the rain when they had an abundance of fruit; and
finally to their strength and bravery when they recalled their
hunts in the mountains or their wars. The poetic enthusiasm
of the guests became more animated with the first fumes of
the peyote, which, placed on a counter that was improvised on
the trunk of a tree, was served to them by young Indian girls
and the old men, and in the same gourds, jars, or rude baked
clay vases. This class of feast always used to end with the
complete drunkenness of all the guests, who, exhausted moreover
by the dance, fell asleep around the almost burnt-out fire.
[As previously noted, prophecy was a feature of these rites].
In addition to these feasts that are called mitotes, they also
have other games and recreation during the hours of the day,
such as ball, fighting, and foot-racing; and these games are
often that which gives the motive for their mutual discontent,
and sometimes precipitates formal wars among them.
We note in this account the connection of peyote with corn harvests, deer
hunting and war; and dancing, racing and a morning ceremony are also
mentioned. Regarding the ball-game:[54]
Among the Acaxee [peyote] was reported to have been placed on
one side of a ball ground during a game; its further use here
is unknown, but it is likely that it was taken in small doses
by the players during the game, as is done in the kicking race
of the Tarahumare in modern times.
Chichimecan peyote-eating appears to be connected with war:
Those that eat it or drink it see frightening and laughable
visions. This spree lasts two or three days and then stops. It
is a common food of the Chichimecas, for it stimulates them and
it gives them sufficient spirit to fight and have neither fear,
thirst, nor hunger, and they say it guards them from all danger.
The Zacatecan use of peyote seems likewise to pertain to war, since they
eat it to learn the outcome of battles. The drugging and ceremonial
wounding of the father of a new-born male child, further, is to augur its
valor in war. The Caxcane used peyote ceremonially, with associations
unknown to us, but the Tlaxcaltecan use points again, though uncertainly,
to war. Preuss writes that “the god of the Morning-Star has a close
relationship to this cactus, among the Huichol,” and the Morning Star has
definite war associations.[55]
Dancing is commonly associated with peyotism in the Mexican area, being
recorded for the Comecrudo, Chichimeca, Cora, Huichol, Tamaulipecan,
Tarahumari and Lipan.[56] Use in ritual racing is known for the
Tarahumari, Huichol and Tamaulipecan tribes; and the Acaxee tied strips
of deer-hide or -hooves (the word used means either) on the instep as
an aid in climbing hills—a custom recalling the carrying of hikuli-deer
in racing and the Wichita use of mescal beans. The ritualized journey
for peyote is recorded for the Cora, Huichol, Tarahumari, Tepecano and
somewhat doubtfully for the Tlaxcaltecan.[57]
The ceremonial fire has no definitive association with peyotism in
Mexico,[58] though it is a prerequisite of the Plains rite even on the
hottest summer nights; nor has the copal incense of the Huichol and
Tarahumari any relation to the Plains use of sage and cedar.[59] The
corn shuck cigarette among the Huichol and Tarahumari is, furthermore,
in a somewhat different context, though Plains ceremonial cigarettes
are certainly Mexico-Southwest in origin.[60] The gourd rattle is Mayo,
Tarahumari, Gila River Pima, Walapai, Havasupai, Pueblo, Mescalero,
Lipan, Karankawa, Wichita, Seri, Chitimacha, Cherokee, Creek, Koasati
and Yuchi (i.e., southern Mexico, the Southwest, peripheral Plains and
Southeast) and therefore has no special association with peyote, though
again, it may be the origin of the gourd rattle in the central and
northern Plains.[61] Though the staff is a constant feature in the Plains
ceremony, in Mexico[62] this is decidedly not the case. The shaman’s
rasp among peyote-using tribes is noted only for the Cora, Huichol and
Tarahumari—and has a far wider distribution among non-users of peyote,
while being absent in the Plains rite.[63] The Tamaulipecan aro with
drumhead of coyote- or deer-skin is unlike the peyote drum of the north,
and further, the use of the drum is untypical in the Mexican rite.[64]
On the other hand, the use of parched corn is more clearly a part of
Mexican peyotism, as is also deer-hunting.[65] “Plant-worship” is most
evident perhaps for the Tarahumari, who revere hikuli, bakánawa, mulato,
rosapara, sunami, ocoyomi and dekúba; the Tepecano sometimes substitute
marihuana or rosa maria (_Cannabis sativa_) for peyote in their worship,
and elsewhere other plants are involved.[66] Birds are a recognizable
feature in Mexican peyotism: the Huichol macao, humming-bird and swift
are noted, and the Tarahumari humming-bird, green dove and owl.[67]
Bennett and Zingg on the Tarahumari would as well apply to all Mexican
peyotism:[68]
... the use of peyote resembles an elaborate curing ceremony
rather than a cult. There is nothing to suggest a society
centered around peyote-eating.... The group of peyote-eaters
does not involve any exclusiveness, requirements, or ritual
pertaining to individuals. The peyote ceremonies are not given
for the pleasure of eating the plant, but to cure some disease.
Properly speaking, then, Mexican peyotism is a tribal affair, centering
around the shaman, on whose shoulders rests the whole tribal welfare
as involved in abundant corn harvests, successful deer-hunting, and
success in war (which he may prognosticate).[69] Shamanistic curing is
conspicuous in both Huichol and Tarahumari peyotism. Beals,[70] writing
of northern Mexico says that
the degree of shamanistic influence apparent at present is
greater than at some time in the past.... Possibly the use
of peyote also had some influence in extending and reviving
shamanistic concepts.... Visionary experiences reach their
highest development ordinarily in religions of the shamanistic
type.
These remarks go far toward explaining the differential diffusion of
peyotism. Peyote never penetrated the Yuman Southwest, perhaps because
the _dream_ performed the psychological function of the peyote vision
(which, moreover, was not very significant in Mexico). Again, the
ritual use of peyote failed to penetrate the Pueblo Southwest or the
Aztec, both strongholds of priestly religion; perhaps the stereotyped
institutional rituals of these regions stifled such orgiastic individual
emotional experiences as peyote is calculated to induce. On the other
hand, peyotism entered the shamanistic Southwest (the Mescalero) and one
Pueblo, Taos, where the kachina cult was weak, and once it reached the
individualistic vision-valuing Plains, it fairly ran riot.
MESCALERO APACHE AND TRANSITIONAL FORMS OF RITUAL
Peyote came to the Mescalero[71] about 1870, in the same “general
movement which resulted in its adoption by a large number of the tribes
of the United States.”[72] Like other Apache ceremonies its origin was
attributed to an individual’s encounter with a power, but the tribe
involved was the Tonkawa, Lipan or “Yaqui.” Like the Plains groups,
the Mescalero made a trip south to get peyote,[73] which was kept by
the shaman for ceremonial use only, lest private individual users who
did not “know” and have the right to use the power go mad. The primary
purpose of meetings was for doctoring,[74] though “occasionally a peyote
meeting was called for some other purpose—for peyote, like other sources
of supernatural power, was believed to be efficacious for locating the
enemy, finding lost objects, foretelling the results of a venture, etc.”
The news that a peyote shaman is conducting a meeting for a sick person
spreads rapidly, and all who are to attend bathe at noon of the appointed
day.[75] At nightfall they enter the tipi, where the peyote chief is
sitting west of the fire facing the door, with a gourd rattle in one hand
and an incised wooden staff in the other.[76] The staff is his protection
against witchcraft, and he “sings to it”; he exchanges the gourd for the
drum of his assistant, but retains the staff in his left hand. In front
of him on an eagle feather or piece of buckskin lies the large talismanic
“chief peyote” or “Old Man Peyote.”[77]
He is assisted by a door-keeper and a fire-tender, who builds a crescent
mound of earth around the fire-pit with the horns east, and keeps the
fire going all night.[78] Once having entered, one is not supposed to
leave the tipi until morning save briefly, taking one of the eagle
feathers lying on either side of the door, and replacing it as soon as
possible. The peyote,[79] in a sack or on a woven tray, is first eaten by
the peyote chief, who then administers their first buttons to novices,
using two eagle-tail feathers as a spoon, with three ritual feints, after
which these “fly” into their mouths. Then after smoking[80] the peyote
is passed around by the assistants as the leader prays. Beginning at the
southeast the drum is passed clockwise as each person sings four songs,
his own ceremonial songs or songs received in visions, while the leader
or his assistants shakes the rattle. The leader sings most of the songs.
There was a mild bias against women[81] among the Mescalero; they
received medicine power, but could not become a peyote chief, because
the responsibilities of the office were too great—for a leader must
prevent anything happening between even the greatest of rival shamans
in meetings.[82] In this he was aided by the chief peyote which “he
frequently consulted ... to ascertain whether anything were amiss; any
evil thoughts or efforts at witchcraft were said to ‘show’ on this ‘chief
peyote’.” A favorite device of witches to weaken the leader was to make
his assistants vomit the peyote.
Peyotism was readily accepted by the Mescalero, in whose older culture
were patterns of receiving supernatural power from animals, etc. Indeed,
Opler calls the Mescalero
a tribe of shamans, active or potentially active [and peyote
became another among many sources of power for them]. It will
be readily grasped, however, that since peyote leadership and
the conduct of peyote rites were open to any one who claimed
a supernatural experience with the plant, since, in other
words, an individualistic, shamanistic premise underlay the
utilization of peyote for religious purposes, centralized
leadership and definite organization could not be achieved. The
Mescalero use of peyote never developed into a cult or society
with a regular membership and place of meeting, with officers
and principals selected or agreeable to the entire body of
devotees ... [even with the] emphasis on curative rites....
This, in Mexico, made the rite tend to be tribal in character,
the shaman quasi-priest. Mescalero peyotism, therefore, is truly
transitional between the Mexican all-inclusive rite of _tribal_ cure
and the individualistic Plains _societal_ ceremony; no equilibrium
was permanently reached between the two, and Opler adduces abundant
evidence of the _rival_ nature of peyotism among competing shamans.[83]
The concept was that everyone was to get in rapport with his power(s)
via peyote, with the peyote shaman, however, remaining the figurehead
leader—a multiple “working together” of powers, peyote being the power
_par excellence_ that worked with other powers. The Mescalero, then,
attempted to force the physiologically somewhat refractory individual
peyote experience into the shamanistic mold. The leader remained the
arbiter and mediator, and held special symbols of authority, the staff
and the rattle, to compensate for his real loss of status as cynosure,
when participants in the curing rite were enlarged beyond the patient and
his relatives.
Notable is the lack of Christian elements in Mescalero peyotism, in
contrast with some Plains groups; indeed, “far from becoming a weakened
and Christianized version of native beliefs, the Mescalero Apache
acceptance of peyote resulted instead in an intensification of the
aboriginal religious values at many points.”[84] On the other hand,
when we recalled the history of their relations with Whites and such
psychologically similar cults as the Ghost Dance of the Plateau, Great
Basin and Plains, it is somewhat surprising that a warlike and predatory
group like the Mescalero did not associate peyote and anti-White feeling.
Opler has recorded a Tonkawa peyote ceremony with clear anti-White
features; but the Mescalero had an aboriginal ceremony before peyote
whose function was the consternation and defeat of enemies, and this,
directed toward the whites, usurped the function of ritual opposition
through peyote.[85]
KIOWA-COMANCHE TYPE RITE
Aside from the John Wilson, John Rave, and Church of the First-born
variants, the basic Plains ceremony is remarkably homogeneous in various
tribes. Since the Kiowa and the Comanche, historically considered, were
the center of this diffusion,[86] in the interests of economy we choose
their ceremony to detail as the “Plains type-rite.” In the following
account care is taken that every statement be specifically true of the
Kiowa and at the same time representative of the Plains; minor Comanche
differences are shown in footnotes.
Living beyond the habitat of peyote, all Plains tribes have to make
pilgrimages for it or buy it. The journey is not ritualized, but there
is a modest ceremony at the site: on finding the first plant, a Kiowa
pilgrim sits west of it, rolls a cornshuck cigarette and prays, “I have
found you, now open up, show me where the rest of you are;[87] I want to
use you to pray for the health of my people.” He sings and eats green
plants while harvesting them; only the tops are taken, that the root may
regenerate buds, a fine large one being saved as a “father peyote” for
meetings later.[88]
Many groups, like the Kiowa, “vow” meetings as in the Sun Dance. They may
be held in gratitude for recovery from illness, on a child’s first four
birthdays, for doctoring the sick, to pray for the successful delivery of
a child, or for the health of the participants in general. Present too
is the possibility of instruction and power through a peyote vision; in
the Plains this is the primary motive, with doctoring second. In the last
twenty years “holiday meetings” have been introduced.[89]
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Arrangement of interior of tipi for peyote
meeting. a, Kiowa “standard” peyote meeting; b, Comanche horseshoe moon
variant.]
In preparation, the Kiowa commonly take a sweatbath.[90] In the old
days buckskin dress was prescribed, but nowadays a “blanket” or folded
sheet for men and a shawl for women satisfies this requirement; buckskin
moccasins are more comfortable than stiff-soled shoes during a night
spent sitting cross-legged. Older men still paint for meetings; one
leader for example had a yellow hair-part with a short red forehead line
perpendicular to this, vertical red lines in front of the ears, and
yellow around the eyes.[91]
The sponsor selects his leader (ᴅωλḱi) or himself acts as one; a leader
usually has his own drummer (o’ᴅ’asodeḱi) and fireman (ɢ’iɢ’uḱi), and
some a “cedar man” also. The sponsor’s womenfolk erect the tipi, prepare
and bring the food and water the next morning. The floor is carefully
cleaned and plumes of sagebrush are spread around the inside of the
tipi, as in a sweat-lodge, for a seat. The sponsor stands the cost of
the meeting (from twenty-five to fifty dollars), or others may help
in paying; he also supplies the peyote or pays the leader for it, but
communicants often bring their own buttons also.
The leader supplies the paraphernalia: the staff (ᴅo’ᴅę́ä, “brace-to
hold-stick”) of bois d’arc, the gourd rattle, eagle wing-bone whistle,
cedar incense, altar cloth, drum, and perhaps his personal “feathers”
for doctoring. The drum (ᴅωä´ᴅω or ʙώλkωᴅωä`ᴅω) is a No. 6 cast-iron
three-legged trade-kettle with the bail-ears filed off. The buckskin head
is well soaked and tied over the kettle, a third- or half-filled with
water into which ten or a dozen live coals (and sometimes herb-perfumes)
have been dropped; the Kiowa say the drum represents thunder, the water
in it rain, and the coals lightning. Seven marbles are put under the
buckskin around the outside kettle rim to serve as bosses for the thong
wound once-and-a-half times round them; the same thong is passed through
each loop and laced criss-cross seven times under the kettle, unknotted,
to tighten the head and form on the bottom the seven-pointed “Morning
Star.” The single drumstick (ʙωλkωtωn) is straight, carved, beaded, and
embellished with a buckskin tassel or fringe on the handle end. The
gourd-handle is also beaded and fringed, and tufted with red horse-hair
(ɢuλks’ǫgʸä) at the top end passing through the gourd, the neck of which
is plugged with half a spool; the gourd itself may be covered with
texts or symbolical drawings.[92] Participants are free after midnight
to use the cult drumstick and gourd or their individual ones as they
choose. Formerly “only the leader brought in the medicine fan with him,
but now many young men bring them in who have no special business to.”
These have a beaded and fringed cylindrical handle, with feathers loosely
supported in individual buckskin sockets sewed around the shafts; often
they are notched, tipped with horse-hair, or down feathers are added at
the base—as individual “visions” dictate. The leader also supplies the
fetish “father peyote,” but no Bible is used in the Kiowa or usual Plains
ceremony.[93] Formerly only old men and warriors attended meetings, but
now women and girls over thirteen come in, when not menstruating, though
they may not sing the songs or use the paraphernalia.[94]
The tipi is entered any time after nightfall, with a preliminary
clockwise circuit outside as in the sweatbath (all circuits inside
must be clockwise also). Sometimes several line up behind the leader,
who prays briefly: “I am going into my place of worship. Be with us
tonight.” Entrance however is often informal and made one by one, before
the leader comes in with his rattle and staff in one hand, and his
paraphernalia-satchel[95] in the other; he sits west of the fire, which
has been started by the fireman, north of the door, who comes in first
of all. His drummer is south of him, to his right, his cedar-man (if
there is one) north and left. Others enter and informally take places,
but after he is seated they kneel on the right knee at the door for a
moment, looking to him for permission to enter and be assigned a place;
the sponsor meanwhile may call out, “Come in! So-and-so,” to these,
informally welcoming them. A tipi some twenty-five feet in diameter seats
thirty people comfortably. In summer the sides are raised to allow a
breeze to blow through.
At the west center, horns to the east, is the crescent altar[96] (piέtᴅω)
with a groove or “path” (ɢ’ωmhoṇ) along it from horn to horn, interrupted
by a flat space in the center where the “father peyote” is later to
rest on sprigs of sage. The “path” symbolizes man’s path from birth
(southern tip) to the crest of maturity and knowledge (at the place of
the peyote) and thence downward again to the ground through old age to
death (northern tip). The crescent, carefully shaped beforehand by the
fireman out of clayey earth, also represents the mountain range of the
origin story where sęmąyi or “Peyote Woman” first discovered the plant.
East of it in a shelving depression is a fire, constantly mended by the
“fire-chief” during the night to keep it in a worm-fence arrangement, the
closest approximation to the ritual crescent-shape possible with straight
sticks. The accumulating ashes are shaped with great care into another
crescent between fire and altar. A “smokestick”[97] is kept smoldering in
an east-west position close to the fire to light all cigarettes.
[Illustration: Fig. 2. Peyote paraphernalia. _Left to right_, Mescal bean
necklace; “peyote” necktie from a strip of trade-blanket with selvage
stripes, and bead-work representing peyote buttons; beaded and fringed
pheasant feather fan; black velvet, gold-fringed altar cloth; smokestick
carved with water bird, etc., eagle bone whistle; drumstick; peyote
buttons; corn husk cigarette “papers”; bundle of sage plumes; pile of
powdered cedar incense; a beaded, fringed, and carved drumstick; mescal
bean necklace.]
All seated, the leader places the father peyote on the sage sprigs,
orienting it by the thorn or mark made when he cut it.[98] After this the
ceremony is considered begun, all informal talking and joking ceases,
and others entering are late-comers. Everyone begins to stare at the
fetish peyote and the flickering fire.[99] Then the leader leans his
eagle-humerus whistle against the west outside of the moon, mouth end up,
takes out his cedar incense bag, gourd, tobacco, etc., and arranges them
conveniently near him.
The first ceremony is smoking or praying together. The leader makes
himself a cigarette of Bull Durham with corn husk “papers” dried and
cut to shape, and passes the makings clockwise to the rest, including
women.[100] His own made, the fireman presents the smokestick to the
leader (who may first offer it courteously to his drummer) and this
too is passed to the left. While all smoke, the leader prays: “beha´be
sęį´ᴅɔki (smoke, peyote power). Be with us when we pray tonight. Tell
your father to look at us and listen to our prayers.” He holds his
cigarette mouth end toward the peyote and motions upward that it may
smoke as he prays:
We are just beginning our prayer meeting. We want you to be
with us tonight and help us. We want no one to be sick at this
meeting from eating peyote. I will pause again at midnight to
pray to you. I will pause again in the morning to pray to you.
[Then he prays for the person who is sick or whose birthday the
meeting celebrates or for relatives and participants.] If there
are any rules connected with you, peyote, that we don’t know
of, forgive us if we should break them, as we are ignorant.
All pray silently to ᴅómᴅɔki, “earth-creator” or “earth-lord,” and older
men may add their prayers aloud after the leader. Then, following the
leader, all snuff their cigarettes in the ground and place them on the
west curve of the altar, outside, or at either horn; the fireman may
gather those of women, old people or visitors.
The incense-blessing ceremony immediately follows. The leader (or his
“cedar-man”) sprinkles some dried and rubbed cedar on the fire; then he
makes four clockwise motions of the peyote bag toward the fire, takes
out four buttons and passes the bag. Kneeling on both knees, he reaches
down beneath the hides or blankets of the seat, and bruises a tuft of
sage between his palms, and smelling it with deep inhalations, rubs his
hands over and down his head, breast, shoulders and arms, with outward
downward movements, ending with the thighs. Though the peyote may not yet
have reached them, the others follow suit, reaching out their palms to
absorb the blessing of the incense and rubbing themselves.
[Illustration: Fig. 3. Peyote drum with lashing around bosses.]
This done, all eat[101] their peyote, to the accompaniment of much
spitting out of the woolly center of the buttons; hereafter during the
night in the intermissions of singing, anyone can call for the peyote
bag (the incense burning may or may not be repeated). Then more cedar is
sprinkled on the fire and the leader makes four motions with the staff
in his left hand and the rattle in his right toward the rising incense
smoke.[102] The drummer motions similarly with the drumstick, pulling
smoke from the fire to the drum. The leader takes a bunch of sagebrush
from between the tipi-cover and pole behind him (previously prepared by
the fireman), holds it with his staff and the singing begins.[103] The
drummer shifts his left thumb over the drumhead or sloshes the water
inside on it or blows on it to get the proper tension and tone, then the
leader holds his staff and sage at arm’s length between himself and the
fire and rattles for the Hayätinayo or Opening Song.[104] The leader
exchanges his staff and rattle for the drum the latter always passing
_under_ the staff,[105] and the drummer sings four songs of his own
choosing. The paraphernalia, staff preceding drum, are then passed to the
left; each man sings to the drumming of the man on his right, and then
himself drums for the man on his left.[106] This singing, rattling, and
drumming forms the bulk of the ceremony during the night. At intervals
older men pray aloud, with affecting sincerity, often with tears running
down their cheeks, their voices choked with emotion, and their bodies
swaying with earnestness as they gesture and stretch out their arms
to invoke the aid of Peyote. The tone is of a poor and pitiful person
humbly asking the aid and pity of a great power, and absolutely no shame
whatever is felt by anyone when a grown man breaks down into loud sobbing
during his prayer.[107]
About midnight the leader announces that he is going to put incense on
the fire after the next four songs, and when he does, everyone blesses
himself in the smoke. The announcement gives the fireman time to mend
the fire and build up the ash moon[108] and sweep the cigarette butts
into the fire. If the paraphernalia are north of the door they are passed
backwards to the leader drum first, if at the south (i.e. past the door)
clockwise and staff first as usual. Smoking stops, and the leader, to the
drumming of his assistant, sings the Midnight Song.[109] When the first
of the four is finished, the fireman (sometimes given a feather for
this errand by the leader) leaves, gets a bucket of water, returns, sets
it in front of the fire and unfolds a blanket on which he sits in line
with it facing west. The leader, finishing the second song, blows four
increasingly loud blasts on the eagle wing-bone whistle (to imitate the
water bird) then replaces it by the peyote and sings the last two songs.
While his assistant holds the staff and gourd, he spreads an altar cloth
just west of the fetish, and places on this the staff, gourd, sage and
his fan, together with the “feathers” of communicants passed to him for
this purpose; the drum is to the south of this, the drumstick, etc., on
the cloth.
After cedar-incensing, the fireman makes a smoke, puffs four times
and prays, thanking those responsible for the honor of being chosen
fire-chief, and praying for the leader and his family, the sick and
the absent. Next the leader prays, then the drummer, using the same
cigarette, and to complete the figure of a cross, the man to the north
or “cedar-man” prays. When the butt is placed by the altar, the fireman
makes a circuit of the altar and passes the bucket to the man south
of the door. Quiet conversation is permitted in the somewhat informal
drinking period.[110] When the fireman has drunk, the leader passes back
the fans and the paraphernalia to where the singing had been interrupted,
and leaves the tipi. He goes about thirty feet east of the tipi,
whistles four times and prays, repeating this at the south, west and
north.[111] When four songs are completed, he returns, blessing himself
in the incense smoke which the drummer throws on the fire.[112] Now is
the preferred time to leave the tipi and stretch cramped legs. Singing
continues as before until dawn.
As the first grey light appears, the leader tells the fireman to waken
or notify the woman who is to bring the water (she has no special seat,
if she has attended the meeting). The fireman always brings the midnight
water, a woman that at dawn.[113] The leader whistles four times, even
in the middle of a song, when the fireman tells him she has arrived
outside. When the singer finishes his four songs, the leader calls for
the paraphernalia and sings the four Morning Songs; after the first of
these the woman enters, arranges a blanket and sits as did the fireman.
Finishing the three remaining songs, the leader calls for feathers and
spreads them with the paraphernalia on the altar cloth, as at midnight. A
smoke is made for the woman, who thereupon prays, after which the leader
and his assistants smoke it. Doctoring[114] is best done at this time;
the leader may do this, or he may ask an older man to fan the patient
with consecrated feathers from the altar cloth.
Then the fireman spills a little water before the fire, the woman drinks,
and the bucket moves clockwise as before from south of the door. The
woman makes a circuit of the altar, picks up her blanket and takes the
bucket out. The feathers are passed out again, and the paraphernalia
returned to the place of the next singers in the circle (because of such
ritual interruptions, praying, passing of peyote, etc., a complete round
of the drum requires two or three hours).
While waiting for the ritual breakfast, the meeting is again somewhat
informal. Several women may leave to help the water-woman prepare
the food, and younger men may go outside for a stroll and a secular
smoke. Old men often lecture younger members on behavior at this time,
“preaching” directly to a relative, and more indirectly to others.[115]
When he has finished another old man may exhort: “You must do as that old
man has said. He’s had experience. What he’s telling you is good.” At
this time too visitors are given opportunity to express gratitude for the
hospitality of their host, who in turn thanks them for coming.
When the food arrives outside, the fireman notifies the leader, who
calls for the paraphernalia and sings four songs, the last of which is
the Quitting Song. The food meanwhile is passed in and placed in line
with the father-peyote and fire, west-to-east thus: water, parched corn
in syrup, fruit and meat.[116] No one sits east of it as in the water
ceremonies. The four songs completed, the leader tells the drummer to
unlace the drum, and all the paraphernalia are passed around (between the
food and the fire at the east) for everyone to handle,[117] as an older
woman (“because food is their life-work”) or a Ten-Medicine keeper, who
typically functions at such Kiowa group-prayers, asks a blessing. The
leader then removes the father peyote from the altar, and when he puts it
in his satchel with the rest of the paraphernalia the meeting is ended.
Complete social informality now reigns as the food is passed to the man
south of the door and thence clockwise. Much joking[118] goes on during
this meal, which has none of the seriousness of the Christian partaking
of the Host. When the fireman has finished eating, at the leader’s
instruction, he leads the line out of the tipi.[119] The tipi may be
taken down immediately, or moved bodily a little, but the older men
drift back into its shade and lie around talking and exchanging peyote
experiences.[120] As meetings are ordinarily held on Saturday nights,
Sunday forenoon is free for such visiting, talking and dozing under
arbors. Nearly everyone stays for a secular dinner at noon, and they
take home what they cannot eat; sometimes other guests come who have not
attended the meeting.
COMPARISON OF MEXICAN, TRANSITIONAL, AND PLAINS PEYOTISM
Having now characterized the Huichol-Tarahumari type-rite for Mexico,
the Lipan-Mescalero for the transitional nomad Southwest, and the
Kiowa-Comanche as the historical prototype for the Plains, we may attempt
a comparison and contrasting of them.
In Mexico as a whole “curing” is perhaps the most salient characteristic,
while both curing and doctoring are conspicuous in Mescalero. In the
Plains, while doctoring is an important feature it is by no means
indispensable.[121] Peyotism in Mexico, therefore, has a tribal
character, while in Mescalero the ceremony is a _forum for rival
shamans_—a trait not altogether absent in early Plains rites—and in the
Plains peyotism has a societal nature. These facts have an important
bearing on the cultural manifestations of the physiological action of
peyote. In Mexico visions are turned to the uses of prophecy;[122] in
Mescalero they enable a shaman to detect rival witchcraft; while in
the Plains, visions are a source of individual power. These categories
should not be made too rigid, however, for clairvoyance, if not prophecy,
as well as witchcraft anxiety are known for early Plains peyotism,
and on the other hand, peyote medicine-power is a source of Mescalero
shamanistic rivalry. Yet as indications of relative emphasis these
statements might be allowed to stand.
The Mexican symbolisms point to an association with hunting, agriculture
and gathering activities, and the typical anxiety expressed in the
religion is the desire for rain. In Mescalero, peyote is the focal
point for the warfare of antagonistic powers, and expresses the mutual
suspicion of formerly small local groups; the intense and ever-present
anxiety is the fear of aggression and reprisal by witchcraft. In the
early Plains peyote ceremonies, associations with warfare were prominent
(influenced no doubt by a forerunner of peyotism there, the mescal bean
ceremonialism), though in later times this element had become so nearly
absent that Mooney could point quite properly to the “international”
character of the cult in his time.[123]
Areal contrasts in minor points are no less striking. Dancing was
conspicuous in Mexico, less important transitionally, and on the whole
lacking in the Plains. Painting of a symbolic nature was ritually
significant in Mexico; in the Plains individual styles were dictated
by peyote visions. Peyotism in Mexico is a seasonal matter, but in the
Plains the rite occurs the year around (in the south the trip for peyote
may have been associated more with the ritual salt pilgrimage, in the
north with the ritualized war journeys; parallels are also suggested in
the Maricopa ritualized mountain-sheep hunting and Navaho deer hunting).
In Mexico peyote was a tribal affair and women participated on equal
terms with the men in dancing, etc. In Mescalero, women were excluded
from meetings, as in the Plains also originally. The rite was held
principally outdoors in Mexico, and in a tipi transitionally and in the
Plains—a patio arrangement in Mexico, and an altar centering around
the “moon” in the Plains. Ritual racing and ball games[124] are part
of Mexican peyotism, but not elsewhere. Smoking is inconspicuous in
Mexico, but in the Plains it has been important enough to involve church
schisms.[125] Huichol peyote had no drum, though elsewhere in Mexico a
wooden drum was used, while in the Plains the water-drum (intrusive from
the Southwest) is universal. The rasp is Mexican, but the Plains rite has
the gourd rattle and eagle wing-bone whistle in addition to the drum. The
“staff” is a special problem in the Plains.
The Huichol and Tarahumari have a squirrel fetish in addition to the
fetish plant; the Plains have only the latter. Ceremonial drunkenness
with tesvino, etc., is an integral part of Mexican “curing”; in the
Plains peyote and alcohol are so far mutually exclusive that the familiar
propaganda calls the first a specific against the second. The alleged
aphrodisiac virtue of peyote is a Mexican belief; but curiously enough
in Mexico, where many “peyotes” were said by natives to be aphrodisiac,
Lumholtz pronounced _Lophophora williamsii_ definitely anaphrodisiac;
while in the Plains, where the natives most strenuously deny this virtue
for peyote, enemies of the cult most consistently claim that it produces
aphrodisiac orgies.[126]
In Mexico the shaman alone sings, though his assistants may “spell”
him; in the Plains all male participants drum and rattle. In Mescalero,
though the drum circles the tipi, the staff and gourd remain with the
leader. Finally, Mexican and Mescalero peyotism are almost wholly free
of Christian elements; so too were the early Plains rites diffusing from
the Kiowa-Comanche, though in the John Wilson rite, the Oto Church of
the First-born (and its successor, the Native American Church) and the
Winnebago Rave-Hensley variant, Christian symbolism and interpretations
are frequent.
Common elements are numerous: the ceremonial trip for peyote (more
elaborate in Mexico, to be sure), the meeting held at night, the fetish
peyote, the use of feathers and the abundance of symbolisms connected
with birds, the ritual circuit, ceremonial fire and incensing, water
ceremonies, the “Peyote Woman,” morning “baptism” or “curing” rites,
“talking” peyote, abstinence from salt, ritual breakfast, singing,
tobacco ceremonials, public confession of sins, Morning Star symbolisms,
and (for northern Mexico) the crescent moon[127] altar. The fear of
being blinded by the peyote-fuzz is Mescalero, Lipan and Plains, and the
water-drum is shared by both non-peyote Southwestern groups and those of
the Plains who have the peyote rite. The use of parched corn in sugar
water, boneless, sweetened meat and fruit for the “peyote breakfast” may
be regarded as universal for peyotism, wherever found.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Rouhier (_Monographie_, 91, n. 1) argues immense antiquity
for peyotism, _circa_ 300 years B.C., among the Chichimeca on
quasi-historical grounds. Our knowledge of peyote from Spanish documents
goes back to the sixteenth century in Mexico. A manuscript in the
Library of Congress reports the trial of a Taos Indian, February 3-8,
1719, for having “taken peyote and disturbed the town” (cf. Twitchell,
_Spanish Archives_, 2:188). See Bandelier, _Manuscript_; Mooney,
_Tarumari-Guayachic_.
[2] Adapted from Lewin, _Phantastica_, 96, and Nicolás de León in
Brinton, _Nagualism_, 6.
[3] Hernandez, _De Historia Plantarum_, 3:70.
[4] Arlegui, _Crónica_, 2:154-55 in Urbina, _El Peyote y el Ololiuhqui_,
26.
[5] Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24, in Mooney, _Peyote
Notebook_.
[6] Alarcón, _Tratado de los supersticiones_, 195.
[7] Lindquist, _The Red Man_, 70-71, is in error in stating that the Zuñi
use peyote for religious purposes; moreover the document of 1720 cited
refers to Taos, not Zuñi. Mr. An-che Li assures me that the Zuñi lack
peyote even today. Lindquist has evidently confused peyote with datura;
see for example Safford, _Narcotic Plants_, 405, 406. Still other plants,
e.g., datura, cohoba snuff, coca, yahé, aya-huasca, etc., were used in
Middle America as prophetic aids; see for example Safford, _op. cit._,
393; Gayton, _Narcotic Plant Datura_.
[8] Bennett and Zingg (_The Tarahumara_, 135) write that “in a culture
where animals are thought to talk and cattle are supposed to warn their
masters of impending drought or plague, it is not surprising that plants
also are imbued with personality and harmful or helpful attributes.
The small ball of cacti is especially revered by the Tarahumara.” Some
_Mammillaria_ spp. have a striking resemblance to a head of hair; one
figured in Higgins with flowing white “hair” is called “Old Man Cactus”;
again, natives have an intense fear of even touching these plants—an
attitude recalling the Pima belief that even one drop of Apache blood
falling on a person would make him ill (Hrdlička, _Physiological and
Medical Observations_, 243). In this connection it is interesting to note
that Spier has collected evidence bearing on the magical use of enemies’
scalps. The magical malevolence of the enemy or his scalp is cited
(_Warfare_) for the Maricopa, Yuman and Piman groups, Navaho, Jicarilla,
and Pueblo. The Yumans and Pimans required stringent purification from
contact with the enemy or his scalp; the Pimans, again, along with
the Navaho and Pueblos turned this power to account in curing and
rain-bringing. Spier states that for the Pima-Papago the scalp is turned
into an ally against the enemy, and made a specific prophylactic against
such enemy-engendered dangers as paralysis, swooning at the sight of
blood or a violent death; the Maricopa, indeed, convert a scalp into one
of themselves, much as a captive is ceremonially converted and purified.
Further still, according to Spier, the Maricopa and Yumans received
prophetic foreknowledge of the enemy from these scalps, which therefore
they carried with them to war. Still more strikingly, scalps are thought
to laugh and cry and babble incessantly, much as the noisily talkative
peyote plant is supposed to do.
[9] Lumholtz, _Tarahumari Dances_, 452; also _Unknown Mexico_, 1:372-74.
[10] Spier (_Warfare_) writes that “Clairvoyance on the part of the
shaman who accompanied a war party is noted for Maricopa, Yuma, Pima,
and Papago [as well as] in the Plains and Plateau.” Zuñi war chiefs, he
adds, sought sound-omens on the eve of setting out on the war-path. In
this last connection the detailed similarities in attitude and conduct of
war-expeditions, peyote-pilgrimages, and salt-gathering expeditions in
Mexico and the Southwest should not be overlooked. (The Huichol shooting
of the peyote plant, however, is a hunting rather than a war symbolism,
that of hunting the hikuli-deer of the peyote origin legend.) Information
on the Comanche horse-raid is from E. A. Hoebel; unfortunately the
Government took most of these peyote-given horses back again.
In the 1850’s the only Kiowa who ate peyote was Big Horse. When he
wished to know the whereabouts of an absent war party he would take a
drum and a rattle into a tipi, saying “gʸägūṇboṇta” (I am going to look
for medicine), eating peyote and afterward telling what he had seen;
sometimes he made the sound of an eagle, the bird that flies high above
the earth and sees afar.
C. W., president of the Kickapoo Native American Church, often has
prophetic peyote visions; Kishkaton says they are of “Judgment Day” when
the “new world” will come, and makes them a proselytizing argument for
peyote. The debt to earlier Kickapoo prophets is obvious. A specific
Caddo prophecy among the visions collected would have prevented a serious
industrial accident if it had been properly interpreted.
[11] In the Plains the “father peyote” is often carried as a fetish.
Kroeber (_Arapaho_, 406) cites a typical case: “The pouches used to
contain the peyote plant have room for only one of the disks, which
is usually carried more or less as a personal amulet, in addition to
being the center of worship during ceremonies. A circular area of
bead-work covering the front of the pouch itself, is said to represent
the appearance of a peyote-plant while being worshipped. In the center
a cross of red beads represents the morning star. Around the edge of
this circular bead-work are eight small triangular figures, which denote
the vomitings deposited by the ring of worshippers around the inside of
the tent in the course of the night. The yellow fringe around the pouch
represents the sun’s rays.”
War Eagle, Delaware (Speck, _Delaware Peyote Symbolism_) told of a
man gassed in the World War whom peyote cured after his case had been
pronounced hopeless. Quanah Parker, the famous Comanche chief, used to
carry a peyote on his chest as protection in battle. A Ponca story tells
of J. W. and his wife returning home as a cyclone was coming up; when
they finally arrived the house was destroyed, but in an undisturbed
drawer they found four articles still intact: a “peyote chief,” a bag of
peyotes, a Bible, and a peyote drumstick.
[12] Sahagún, _Historia general_, 3:241; _Histoire générale_, 737.
Lumholtz (_Unknown Mexico_, 2:354) adds marihuana to the list of plants
which protect against witchcraft injury: the doctor comes on a Tuesday,
Thursday or Friday, reverses the ill person’s sandals, shirt and drawers,
recites the credo backwards to summon the owl, and burns a heap of
marihuana and old rags in the house. Many persons also carry marihuana in
their girdles as a protection against sorcery. The Cocopa and Yuma uses
of an unidentified plant (awimimedje) to offset fatigue and give luck
suggests peyote (Gifford, _Cocopa_, 268).
[13] De la Serna, in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 390; Arlegui in
Urbina, _El Peyote y el Ololiuhqui_, 26; Arias, in Urbina, _loc. cit._
[14] See the modern Tepecano votive bowl altar used with peyote or
marihuana (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:124-25).
[15] Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 1:284-85. The Wichita use the “mescal bean”
in racing, and the Kiowa as a prophylactic against stepping on menstrual
blood. Peyote is associated with racing in Mexico by the Huichol,
Tamaulipecans, and Tarahumari (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:49-50;
Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24; Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 1:372;
Bennett and Zingg, _Tarahumara_, 136-37, 295, 338).
[16] A Wichita leader envisioned a flag three months before being drafted
into the army; the fetish-peyote he carried over-seas miraculously
escaped confiscation during an inspection and disinfection of clothing,
and because of it he was only slightly wounded in battle. One meeting
I attended was in performance of a vow if the Bonus legislation then
pending would pass. This same leader prophetically dreamt of how peyote
would protect him on a pilgrimage to Mexico and aid him through the
customs with a supply of plants, and all happened as predicted.
The Tarahumari dare not touch the dekúba (datura) plant lest they go
crazy or die; this presents a problem since the plants are common in
their winter caves. The peyote shaman, however, armed with the more
powerful plant uproots the datura with impunity. Peyote is the only cure
for the otherwise fatal disease which comes from touching dekúba (Bennett
and Zingg, _op. cit._, 138, 294).
[17] Hoebel, _Comanche Field Notes_; Voegelin, _Shawnee Field Notes_. The
Iowa Red Bean medicine bundle was used for war, horse stealing, hunting
and horse racing (Skinner, _Ethnology of the Ioway Indians_, 245-47,
_Societies of the Iowa_, 718-19). A similar mescal war bundle and cult
was present among the neighboring and related Oto. The Red Medicine
bundles of the Pawnee contained mescal beans likewise; indeed the Pawnee
are thought to be the origin of the Iowa bundle and associated war-dance.
The Pawnee “kill” the beans by breaking and stirring them in a large
kettle, drinking the concoction toward morning until they vomit, to
“clean out” the body. There is an unmistakable similarity to the “black
drink” ritual vomiting here (see Appendix 4).
[18] Mulato, sunami, and rosapara cacti, however, protect against Apache
machinations; Mooney (_Tarumari-Guayachic_) cites a Chalája arroyo near
Conaguchi (from chärä or chälä, “squirrel,” the epithet of witches)
where witches were formerly burned; cf. the use of the squirrel-fetish
in the Tarahumari peyote ritual. In Tamaulipas intertribal peace was
so precarious that peyote mitotes were commonly held in remote and
inaccessible intermediate mountain regions; the recital of war deeds was
sometimes part of the rite (Prieto, in Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_).
De la Serna (in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 310) describes the use
of teo-nanacatl in witching. For Tarahumari witching with hikuli see
Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:314, 323-24, 371-72.
[19] A favorite diversion of witches to weaken the leader was to make his
assistants vomit (Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_). My Kiowa
companion vomited in a Ponca meeting, the first he had ever attended
in that tribe. He attributed it to their unfriendly feeling and felt
considerably relieved when we visited next morning a meeting held by old
friends among the Oto; but he himself had once witched a Comanche in a
meeting (_Autobiography of a Kiowa Indian_). Tonkawa data is from Opler,
_Autobiography of a Chiricahua Apache_. The exploits of the Kiowa witch
Tonakat have already been mentioned. The Comanche “used it in the old
times, but not rightly; the medicine men used it for sorcery, so people
got scared and stopped using it” (Hoebel, _Comanche Field Notes_). Among
the Cheyenne, Flacco and Cloud Chief strongly opposed the introduction
of peyote; the former said “it was used to witch people and make them
crazy.” The Northern Cheyenne (Hoebel, _Field Notes_) and Lipan (Opler,
_The Use of Peyote_) and Winnebago “fear states” may have a physiological
basis.
Mrs. Voegelin (_Shawnee Field Notes_) quotes an informant: “Wilson showed
them how to swallow mescal beads.... N. S. didn’t go; she was afraid of
them. The Delaware had it too; she never wanted to go look. John Wilson
also taught them how to shoot a person with red beads two inches long;
the person would fall down, hard; then John Wilson doctored on them with
medicine. [Several Shawnee] crept up in the grass when the Quapaws were
holding a Ghost Dance once, at night. S’s wife got shot.... Finally some
one spoke to John Wilson, ‘You men, you abuse the women.’ An old Peoria
woman who went all the time, and swallowed those red beads—she was kind
of crazy—told Wilson that. The agent finally stopped it.... When they
were shot, John Wilson used peyote to bring them back.”
[20] Alegre, _Historia de la Compañía_, 2:219-20; Prieto, _Historia y
Estadistica_, 131. It is not proven that peyote applied externally has
an anaesthetic or anodyne action (the Zacatecan use in the childbirth
ceremony is internal); but natives recognize the ability of peyote to
induce a stuporous state. The Aztec (Gerste, _Notes sur le médicine_,
51) used peyote to stupify sacrificial victims. But peyote does not
cause sleepiness, and the following Maratine Indian battle song (in
Prieto, _op. cit._, 119-20; Mooney, _Peyote Notebook_) should perhaps be
translated “become stuporous:” “The women and ourselves shouting with
pleasure, Shall drink peyote and shall fall asleep.” For Opata data see
Ensayo, in Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_; for Lipan see Opler, _The Use of
Peyote_.
[21] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 59; Flores, in Urbina, _El Peyote y el
Ololiuhqui_, 26; Rouhier (_Monographie_, 96) adds the Caxcane use “for
swellings and spasms”; Hernandez, _De Historia Plantarum_, 3:70; Safford,
_An Aztec Narcotic_, 295; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 294;
Hrdlička, _Physiological and Medical Observations_, 173, 242, 244, 250,
251; Lumholtz, _The Huichol_, 9; _Unknown Mexico_, 2:241-42.
[22] Would pupil-dilation from peyote cause temporary “cures” satisfying
the uncritical?
[23] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 183, 196; Mooney, _The Mescal Plant_, 9.
Lumholtz (_Unknown Mexico_, 2:157) himself confidently prescribed peyote
for a scorpion-sting.
[24] Beals, _Comparative Ethnology_, 131 (Acaxee); Rouhier,
_Monographie_, 12, fn. 3 (Tlaxcala). The Kiowa witch Tonakat fixed a
fireplace in the form of a turtle, the source of his power, and used
a meeting once for shamanistic display, being shot with a cartridge
and remaining unharmed, etc. A Caddo-Delaware tells of a famous Kiowa
doctor who used similar tricks in doctoring a woman. He held a black
handkerchief over her to see the location of the disease, dipped a
feather in water, cut the skin and removed two 1½″ bugs, the wound
healing immediately. Both popped when thrown into the fire, thus
prognosticating her recovery from a twenty years’ illness. Wild Horse
(Caddo-Delaware) said doctors did “wizard sleight-of-hand tricks” in
meetings; “some Indians can make you believe you see things.” Some
Tonkawa who visited the Kiowa about 1890 performed tricks in meeting like
eating fire (Mooney, _Peyote Notebook_).
[25] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:241-42.
[26] The suppression of peyote was sought under an act of Jan. 30, 1897
(29 Stat. 506), Sect. 6 of the Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906 (34
Stat. 768-72), Sect. 11 of the same act, and Service and Regulatory
Announcement No. 13, Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry (issued
May 3, 1915)—all without success. Specific Federal anti-peyote bills
were next attempted: Senate 1862 (65th Congress 1st Sess. Apr. 17,
1917), House of Representatives 10669 (64th Congress 1st Sess.), House
of Representatives 4999 (65th Congress 1st Sess. June 12, 1917), House
of Representatives 2614 (65th Congress 2nd Sess. May 13, 1918-Oct. 7,
1918). These all failed of passing. An anti-peyote proviso attached as
a rider to Appropriations bill House of Representatives 8696 of March
28, 1918 was deleted before passage, under pressure from a powerful and
alert Indian lobby. Later bills were House of Representatives 398 (66th
Congress 1st Sess.), House of Representatives 2071 (about March 29,
1924), House of Representatives 5057 (not passed by Senate, but amended
as:) House of Representatives 5078 (about Jan. 24, 1924, 68th Congress
1st Sess.)—all defeated. The Senate bill 1399 of Feb. 8, 1937 is pending
at the present writing.
State laws against peyote have been more successful. The Oklahoma law of
March 11, 1899 was automatically repealed by omission in the codification
of the state laws; the Darnell bill of 1927 was defeated April 13, 1927.
The following states have anti-peyote laws: Colorado (before 1923),
Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana (by 1925), Nebraska, Nevada (by 1918), New
Mexico, North Dakota (before 1923), South Dakota, Utah (before 1918), and
Wyoming (1929). The Native American Church is incorporated in Oklahoma
and Montana, however, under state charters.
[27] The trip is made after the rainy season and the corn harvest
(Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:127); the roasting of corn is of equal
ritual importance with the hikuli-harvest and the deer-hunt: the three,
indeed, deer, corn and peyote are symbolically the same (Lumholtz _op.
cit._, 2:156, 279).
[28] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:82, 126-27, 141, 157, 271, 272;
_Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:576-77; Klineberg, _Notes on the
Huichol_, 449. For the gourd-symbolism see also Lumholtz, _op. cit_.,
2:57-58, 129, 220; for the arrows, _Handbook of the American Indians_,
2:663.
[29] Cf. the universal corn shuck cigarette of Plains peyotism (a
region of deep-rooted pipe ceremonialism), a remarkable case of
culture-continuity.
[30] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:129-35.
[31] Lumholtz, _The Huichol_, 8; _Unknown Mexico_, 2:129-32, 141, 277-78;
for the use of the water see 2:57-58, 220.
[32] Cf. the Plains mode of preparing the meat, though the memory of the
meaning of this feature (like the corn shuck cigarette and ritual parched
corn) is long since gone.
[33] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:132-35, 153, 156, 189, 271. The triple
corn-deer-peyote symbolism is completed when the women grind peyote on a
metate.
[34] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:54, 272, 273-74. Cf. the Plains
“fire-stick” and fire-arrangement.
[35] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:29-31, 142-44, 149-50.
[36] Spanish friars came in after 1722, but Huichol peyotism is almost
wholly free of Christian beliefs (_Handbook of the American Indians_,
1:576-77). Even the “baptism” rite is probably native.
[37] Klineberg (_Notes on the Huichol_, 449) mentions special dances led
by “angels” the next day—a boy and a girl dressed in their finest. It is
not clear if this refers to the dance leaders or to the ceremonial “race
for life” with the eating of cake-animals and spraying of the runners
by the elders. But elsewhere Lumholtz describes a dance with carved
bamboo serpent-sticks, deer-tails on short sticks, and whiskbroom “combs”
(_Unknown Mexico_ 2:49-50).
[38] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:272, 274-75.
[39] But the whole peyote ritual might be divided into (1) the trip
for hikuli, (2) the deer hunt, and (3) the roasting of corn, though
peyote-deer-corn are symbolically identical.
[40] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:279. Tamaulipecan peyotism is
similarly a hunting and first-fruits ceremony.
[41] “The idea of the antlers being arrows readily occurred to the
Huichol, since they are the animal’s weapon of attack and defence”
(Lumholtz, _Symbolism of the Huichol_, 69).
[42] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:7-8, 56, 172-73, 201-203; _Handbook of
the American Indians_, 1:663b; _Symbolism of the Huichol_, 42, 66, 71,
174; _The Huichol_, 10.
[43] Bits of deer meat, corn-tamales and strung peyote-plants are treated
with exactly equivalent ritual. In the peyote dance serpent-sticks are
thrust into the air (like prayer sticks, praying for rain?), and small
whisks made of materials brought from the hikuli-country represent
deer-tails. In the origin legend, peyote first arose in the tracks of
a gigantic deer; indeed, when the gods first used peyote they ground
deer-antlers on a metate with water to make an intoxicant, just as
peyote is ground to make “tea” and corn to make tesvino. The fire is
built in a special way suggesting deer-antlers or the god-chairs. Arrows
as definitely symbolize prayer as the prayer sticks of the Southwest.
The poker or fire-arrow of Grandfather Fire is smeared with blood and
decorated with plumes; it is his “pillow” and the rest of the sticks
are his “chair.” (One “appearance” of the god is a heart, modelled of
the paste of the sacred wáve seed toasted and ground like corn, and
renewed in the god-house every five years.) Facial paintings of the
Huichol are called úra, “spark,” being made of a yellow root dug in
the peyote country when the hikuli is gathered; yellow particularly
symbolizes the fire gods, of whom there are two. Tatévali, “Grandfather
Fire,” is the god of prophesying and curing shamans whose birds are
the macao, royal eagle, cardinal bird, etc. The other, Tatótsi Mára
Kwári, “Greatgrandfather Deer-tail,” is the god of singing-shamans,
whose bird is the white-tailed hawk. Their relationship is peculiar:
Greatgrandfather Deer-tail, the symbol of fertility, is the son of
Grandfather Fire, from whose plumes he sprang. Lumholtz (_Symbolism of
the Huichol_, 10-11) explains the difficulty by indicating that the
former represents a spark, the latter a fire fed by wood.
[44] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, ix, 136, 291-92; Mooney,
_Tarumari-Guayachic_; Lumholtz, _Tarahumari Dances_, 453; _Unknown
Mexico_, 1:362.
[45] Bennett and Zingg, _op. cit._, 292; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_,
1:363. The rasp is not used in the fiesta on returning from the trip, but
in later ones.
[46] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:171-72, 343-44, 363-64. The shaman’s
women assistants are called rokoro, “stamens”; he is the pistil—a
botanically erroneous symbolism, however.
[47] The Tarahumari rasp is definitely associated with peyotism,
indicating (Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 71) a Huichol
provenience; but they list rasps for the Cora, Mayo, Pima (“rain
sticks”), Hopi (in the kachina dance) and N. Paiute (to charm antelope
into a corral). The rasp is not exclusively Uto-Aztecan however;
it occurs for the Wichita, Hidatsa, Salinan, and archaeologically
in Illinois. Tarahumari Brazil-wood rasps are brought from the
hikuli-country.
[48] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:313, 363-66; Bennett and Zingg, _op.
cit._, 293; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_.
[49] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:367-69, 371; Bennett and Zingg, _The
Tarahumara_, 293. Near Eagle Pass a folk-Catholic saint is El Santo Niño
de Jesús Peyotes, whose attributes are a staff, gourd, feathered hat and
basket similar to but distinct from El Santo Niño de Atoche. In Mexican
legend he is a little boy; his statue is in the cathedral or cathedral
square at Rosales, Mexico. Another attribute is said to be the crescent
moon.
[50] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:292-93, 314, 344, 347-48, 371-72, 384;
Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 294. The ceremony is called napítshi
nawlíruga, “moving (dancing) around the fire” (Lumholtz, _Unknown
Mexico_, 1:364). In the dry season the Tarahumari dance the yumari
almost nightly to the Morning Star, and sacrifice tesvino to the sun; a
man is often deputed to do the dance alone while the others work in the
fields, to bring rain (Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 1:352). The Morning Star
is important in the Cora rite too (Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 1:344; Preuss,
_Nayarit-Expedition_, _passim_) as well as figuring in Plains peyotism,
though somewhat vaguely.
[51] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:357-58, 444; Bennett and Zingg, _The
Tarahumara_, 360, 366-67, 379, 383.
[52] Beals, _Comparative Ethnology_, 131. He adds, though, that “This
[use] may also be aboriginal, and very probably dates back to the
separation of the Huichol from their peyote-using relatives, the
Guachachiles.” He cites Thomas and Swanton (_Indian Languages_, 22) but
evidence is meagre. For the Cora we have Ortega (in Safford, _An Aztec
Narcotic_, 295, and _Narcotic Plants_, 402): “Close to the musician was
seated the leader of the singing whose business it was to mark the time.
Each of these had his assistants to take his place when he should become
fatigued.... They began forming as large a circle as could occupy the
space of ground that had been swept off for this purpose. One after the
other went dancing in a ring or marking time with their feet, keeping
in the middle the musician and the choirmaster whom they invited, and
singing in the same unmusical tone that he set them. They would dance all
night from five o’clock in the evening to seven o’clock in the morning,
without stopping or leaving the circle. When the dance was ended all
stood who could hold themselves on their feet; for the majority from the
peyote and the wine which they drank were unable to utilize their legs or
hold themselves upright.”
[53] Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24.
[54] Beals, _Comparative Ethnology_, 131.
[55] Sahagún, _Historia general_, 3:241 (Chichimeca); Prieto, _Historia
y Estadistica_, 119-20, cites a Maratine Indian (Tamaulipecan) peyote
song referring to war. Arlegui, in Urbina, _El Peyote y el Ololiuhqui_,
26; see also Rouhier, _op. cit._, 12, note 3, 96, 331, note 3; Alegre, in
Urbina, _op. cit._, 26; Preuss, _Die Nayarit-Expedition_, 39. The Morning
Star is the principal Cora god (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:511, see
also _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:348a). Elder Brother among
the Huichol is the god of wind and hikuli (Lumholtz, _Symbolism of
the Huichol_, 42). The Tarahumari dance yumari for the Morning Star
(Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:344). In the Plains the drum-lacing
signifies the Morning Star. Spier (_Yuman Tribes_, 165) writes: “[The
battle leader’s] song first described the morning star, ‘big star,’
which in some unidentified way is connected with war. Just what was his
function in battle was not ascertained.” He also dreamed he saw cacti
fighting like men.
[56] Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_; Sahagún, _Historia general_, 3:118;
Ortega, _Historia del Nayarit_, 22-23; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_,
1:367-68, 2:274-75; Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24.
[57] Racing (Tarahumari, Huichol, Tamaulipas, Acaxee): Lumholtz, _Unknown
Mexico_, 1:284-85, 2:49-50; Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24;
Beals, _The Acaxee_, 8.
[58] Beals (_Comparative Ethnology_, 127, 141, 211-12) lists it for
Southern Mexico, Jalisco-Tepic, Southwest.
[59] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:362, 2:54; Bennett and Zingg,
_The Tarahumara_, 295. See also Wissler, _The American Indian_, 213;
_Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:604b. In the Plains some tribes
differentiated twigs and leaves as male and female.
[60] The Tarahumari feast for the moon involves smoking to make clouds
(Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:130; _Tarahumari Dances_, 441). The
Huichol carry “tamale” cigarettes in their gourds and offer them to
Grandfather Fire.
[61] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 67; Beals, _Aboriginal
Survivals_, 32; Russell, _The Pima_, 168; Spier, _Havasupai Ethnography_,
272; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:313; Opler, _The Influence of
Aboriginal Pattern_, _The Use of Peyote_; Sayles, _An Archaeological
Survey_, Table 2; Oliver, in Gatschet, _The Karankawa Indians_, 18;
Gatschet, in Swadesh, _Chitamacha Texts_; Kroeber, _The Seri_, 14, 42;
Roberts, _Musical Areas_, 21; Paz, _Koasati Field Notes_; Bartram,
_Travels_, 502; Speck, _Yuchi_, 61.
[62] Tarahumari officials are called igúsuame, “stick-bearers” (Bennett
and Zingg, _op. cit._, 375-76) but this may be an Hispanicism. However,
Aztec merchants (Sahagún) carried staffs. But so far as the peyote
ritual is concerned, the staff is not mentioned for the Cora-Huichol or
Tarahumari; and the various names for the peyote staff in the Plains
suggests either an indigenous or a Southwestern, not a Mexican, origin.
[63] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumari_, 71, 293-94; Lumholtz, _Unknown
Mexico_, 1:366-67. The Tarahumari hunter used a notched deer-bone rasp.
The Cora, Mayo, and Pima, Hopi and Northern Paiute suggest a general
Uto-Aztecan occurrence of the trait, but the rasp, is also Wichita,
Hidatsa.
[64] Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24. See the Plains section for
discussion of drums.
[65] A little white flower, tōtó, of the wet corn-producing season
symbolizes corn for the Huichol and is a prayer for it, being plastered
on women’s cheeks, woven in girdles, etc. (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_,
229-30). The Tamaulipecan rite celebrates the harvest and deer-hunting as
well as war; the Tepehuane all-night rite with a mimicry of deer-hunting
ends with a feast on the first “toasted corn” of the season (Lumholtz,
1:479). Acaxee corn toasted on the ear was the usual food on war-parties
(Beals, 10). Concerning the standardized parched-corn in sugar-water of
the Plains, note that the Aztec made offerings of toasted corn (sometimes
with honey), and to the culture-hero Opuchtli offered mumuchtli “a sort
of corn which when toasted opens up and shows the white marrow [popcorn]
forming a very white flower. They said this represented hail, which is
attributed to the water gods.” (Sahagún, _A History of Ancient Mexico_,
1:36, 40, 87.)
[66] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 138, 295; Lumholtz, _Unknown
Mexico_, 1:357-58 (wherein all but the last named are cacti), 2:124-25
(Tepecano). The accepted etymology of teo-nanacatl, “divine mushroom,”
suggests the same attitude; in the Antilles “among the most prominent
of the plants worshipped ... [are] mushrooms, pines, opuntias, zapos,
and zeybas.” (Rafinesque, cited in Bourke, _Scatological Rites_, 91; but
Rafinesque is an undependable authority). The Cherokee called casine
yapon (the “black drink”) “the beloved tree” (Bartram, _Travels_, 357).
It is also said that in Virginia toadstools were an object of worship
because of their mysterious growth (Bourke, _ibid._). In Peru coca was
looked on with veneration and suppliants must approach priests only with
some in their mouths. Compare the use and attitudes toward tobacco,
mescal beans, datura, guarana paste, cohoba, chocolate (_Theobroma
cacao_), aya-huasca, yahé, etc.
[67] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:172-73, 207, 263 ff. The Huichol had
hikuli-shields; curiously, Crow-Neck (Kiowa) about 1860 made a peyote
shield according to a vision he had at Mescalero, but he threw it away
when he was captured on his first fight in Mexico. The Kiowa, however,
had heraldic shield-societies before peyote, of which this is probably
an aberrant example. (For the bird and arrow equation see Spier, _Yuman
Tribes_, 331, Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 2:201-202.) See also Lumholtz, _op.
cit._, 1:313, 323-24, 371-72; _Tarahumari Dances_, 452.
[68] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumari_, 294.
[69] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:311, writes: “Without his shaman the
Tarahumare would feel lost, both in this life and after death. The shaman
is his priest and physician. He performs all the ceremonies and conducts
all the dances and feasts by which the gods are propitiated and evil is
averted, doing all the singing, praying, and sacrificing. By this means,
and by instructing the people what to do to make it rain, and secure
other benefits, he maintains good terms for them with their deities, who
are jealous of man and bear him ill-will. He is also on the alert to
keep those under his care from sorcery, illness, and other evil that may
befall them ... the Tarahumare ... keeps his doctor busy curing him, not
only to make his body strong to resist illness, but chiefly to ward off
sorcery, the main source of trouble in the Indian’s life.”
[70] Beals, _Comparative Ethnology_, 128.
[71] This entire section is summarized from data collected by M. E.
Opler. I gratefully acknowledge the courtesy and generosity of his
lending me the article _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_ before
publication, as well as _The Autobiography of a Chiricahua Apache_,
and unpublished notes on Lipan, Tonkawa and Carrizo peyotism; it would
be difficult to establish Mexican-Plains continuities without these
invaluable data and the warm coöperation of Dr. Opler.
[72] The Mescalero are listed neither in Shonle (_Peyote: The Giver of
Visions_, 53-75) nor in Newberne and Burke, _Peyote_. Mescalero peyotism,
like Tarahumari, is on the decline.
[73] The Lipan make a smoke and pray when the first plant is found; they
are hard to find unless one eats one, then “a noise like the wind” comes,
and one by one the plants appear “just like stars.” Only the tops are cut
off.
[74] Though this was general in Mescalero ceremonialism, they also
controlled the weather thus, found lost objects, located the enemy,
etc.; a Chiricahua prayed for health, in the name of Yuan and Child of
the Water. The Lipan formerly did not use it for doctoring apparently.
The Tonkawa, according to Mooney, performed shamanistic tricks in
peyote meetings; and a Carrizo chief, for example, filled the tipi once
with down-feathers blown from his mouth, then sucked them all in save
one which he gave to a Lipan visitor. Others made a bear, turtle, and
buffalo, etc., appear.
[75] The Lipan wash themselves with yucca or soapweed and perfume
themselves with mint, and use the same kind of sage in meetings as they
wear in their hats against lightning. The Tonkawa wore G-string, leggings
and blanket, and preferably long hair and face paint; native perfumes
were proper but white men’s were forbidden. The Carrizo entered barefoot,
wearing only a G-string. Some Lipan fasted the day before.
[76] The Lipan leader “is supposed to stop all arguments in there; he has
to watch all the men.” Unlike the Mescalero, the Lipan staff and gourd
were passed around clockwise (both preceding the drum); the retention of
these by the leader is probably an aspect of his special authority among
the Mescalero, since the Lipan lacked the rasp, retained by the leader,
which might have been transmitted from Mexico. The Tonkawa sometimes used
a lard-can drum covered with buckskin, and passed the rattle (aberrantly)
after it; the leader never drummed.
[77] Some shamans trace a cross of pollen on the chief peyote. The
Tonkawa use the largest one they can find, put some red paint on the top,
and surround it with smaller buttons on a fine buckskin; they claimed to
be able to see far off with the aid of peyote and to detect witchcraft.
Some Lipan like the Mescalero put peyote buttons in a circle around the
fire pit and the chief peyote (cf. the Comanche placing of them in a sage
horseshoe west of the altar).
[78] The Lipan fire-tender, like the Carrizo and some Mexican groups,
made simply a fire-pit, with no crescent altar; this form originated with
the Mescalero or in northwestern Mexico, not around the lower Rio Grande.
The Carrizo, like the Tamaulipecan, held the ceremony in the open.
[79] The Lipan used peyote green or dry or pounded up in a wooden bowl,
which was passed like the drum from the southeast. The Carrizo made a
peyote “tea” (compare the neighboring Karankawa “black drink”). The
Tonkawa used a flat basket. Among the Mescalero (also Lipan and Kiowa),
“Care was taken to keep the ‘fuzz’ from the top of the peyote button from
coming in contact with the eye, for it was thought to cause blindness.”
[80] Not all Mescalero leaders do this; oak-leaf cigarettes are usually
used but one leader has a red stone Sioux pipe, which is passed
clockwise. The Lipan smoke oak-leaf or corn husk cigarettes at the
beginning and at the end. Their eagle wing-bone whistle in peyote is
recent, and not all Mescalero leaders use it.
[81] The Carrizo on each side of the door had a woman wearing a red
blanket; the one at the south had hers fastened with a red flicker
feather, the other with a woodpecker. This non-exclusion of women is
Mexican. But the Lipan allow no women around; they may not even erect the
peyote-tipi. The Tonkawa originally allowed no women in peyote meetings;
but doctoring gradually broke down this restriction.
[82] “The virulence of these rivalries and attempts to harm others at
peyote meetings led to the development of a number of protective measures
and safeguards.” For these see Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal
Pattern_.
[83] In the old shamanistic curing, the shaman was the performer and the
others merely onlookers, but in peyotism the inevitable physiological
effects of the drug made all present potential receivers of power, and
shamanistic display and rivalry was correspondingly increased. This had
not wholly disappeared even in early Plains peyote-using groups: the
Tonkawa, Lipan, and Kiowa had shamanistic displays of power in peyote
meetings, and we have recorded considerable witchcraft anxiety in early
Kiowa, Comanche, Caddo, and Tonkawa meetings.
[84] The reasons for this are several: a nomadic people presents few
opportunities for the establishing of missions; the Apache were one
of the American Indian groups last subjugated; they are notoriously
suspicious and unfriendly toward innovation, and recognized the alien
origin even of peyotism; and further, the rite they received from Mexico
had few or no Christian elements in it. It might be suggested that the
“baptism” ceremonies in the morning or the ritual breakfast are Christian
in origin; but this is thoroughly doubtful, since it occurs in pre-White
peyotism (e.g., Lipan).
[85] In the Plains, peyotism largely followed the Ghost Dance frustration
of anti-White sentiment and preached conciliation instead; such Christian
elements as were added had a largely propagandist function in this
direction.
[86] Wagner, _Entwicklung und Verbreitung_, 74; Shonle, _Peyote: Giver of
Visions_, 55.
[87] As told, this seemed to have reference to the miraculous
proliferation of the Biblical loaves and fishes, but it is sufficiently
similar to aboriginal hunting beliefs.
[88] The Comanche and others usually had a meeting on the spot, eating
green peyote.
[89] The Kiowa now have five Easter meetings, six on New Year’s Day, four
to six on Thanksgiving, and two or three on Armistice Day (by World War
soldiers and sailors). Bert Crow-lance vowed to eat a hundred if all the
Kiowa boys returned safely from the War (but this is an enormous quantity
actually to have eaten). The Kiowa differ from other groups in having
no funeral meetings; mourners commonly abstain for several months from
meetings. Meetings have been held for heyoka-like display. The Comanche
formerly held meetings before a war journey to invoke peyote’s protection
from the enemy, and to prophesy the outcome of the battle.
[90] “A sweatbath was always undergone by warriors preparing for war ...
and perhaps generally, before any serious or hazardous undertaking....
Sweating was important in medical practice for the cure of disease....
Sometimes the friends and relatives of the sick person ... assembled in
the sweathouse, sang and prayed for the patient’s recovery” (_Handbook of
the American Indians_, 2:661b). The peyote meeting and sweating present
many such analogies.
[91] Painting is commonly dictated in visions: a Kiowa saw a red-bird
after a meeting once as a red-blanketed man who told him to use red paint
thereafter. Comanche formerly went in wearing only breech-clout and
“blanket,” being painted white or yellow all over the body. One Comanche
had an all-over body yellow with blue zigzags up the arm and down the
side and leg, with a red zigzag paralleling this (on the outside of
the arm and therefore on the inside of the leg); on each cheek a small
blue-bordered red spot, and a large three-inch red spot on the breast
under the throat. The Tonkawa painted the top of the fetish-plant red
also. Leaders often wear otter skin braid-coverings, and at certain
points in the ritual fur headdresses. Mescal beans as necklaces or on
moccasin- and gourd-fringes are common (the Kiowa wear them on their
moccasins as protection against stepping on menstrual blood). The
“blanket,” or sheet (in the summer), is invariable.
[92] Mooney (_A Kiowa Mescal Rattle_, 64-65) describes a Kiowa gourd with
the Peyote Woman, peyote, moon, ash crescent, and Morning-Star under her
feet heralding her morning approach with water.
[93] The basic rite is practically free from Christian symbolism. Some
call the sage under the fetish a “cross”; some leaders make a cross
under the water-bucket or in the water with feathers at midnight. Mooney
wrote that “many of the mescal eaters wear crucifixes ... the cross
representing the cross of scented leaves ... while Christ is the mescal
goddess.” But all crosses are not necessarily Christian. See Appendix 8.
[94] Older men carry real “feathers,” but younger ones often bring small,
ribbed, commercial, folding ladies’ fans—an interesting compromise. The
Comanche nácihita “resting-stick, to walk,” was formerly a bow, according
to Hoebel, on war-party meetings, while the drum was formerly of wood.
The Lipan formerly used a bow, hit with a stick.
[95] Following a suggestion of Dr. Wissler, I made a special note of this
and found that the ubiquitous satchel is as much a “trait” of the peyote
leader’s paraphernalia as his staff or gourd or feathers.
[96] The Kiowa moon is crescent-shaped, the Comanche horseshoe-shaped—a
significant point in tracing provenience of altars in other tribes. Some
Comanche garland the entire west side of the altar with sage, in which
the fetish rests. In war the Comanche used a shield as an altar. A cement
moon made by a Choctaw adopted by the Kiowa was an innovation much in
disfavor, as was a Seminole altar made among the Caddo; the symbolical
interior of the latter was removed to make a simple crescent. Indeed,
many Caddo are moving away from the John Wilson symbolic cement moon.
[97] Cf. the Huichol “pillow” for Grandfather Fire.
[98] Belo Kozad’s (Kiowa) father peyote had been Quanah Parker’s
(Comanche) and was handed around after the meeting almost as an heirloom.
Mumsika (Comanche) still preserves a famous peyote button of Kutubi’s
(Hoebel). Howard White Wolf (Comanche) has a peyote he addresses as
“older brother” since it had cured him as a baby. Clyde Koko (Kiowa) quit
peyote one Christmas night and gave Charley two father peyotes to take
back to Laredo and plant with smoke and prayer; uncertain, the latter
brought them back to find Koko had completely changed his mind: “I never
made such a mistake in my life. If you’d done that it sure would have
ruined me. I’ve learned a lesson!”
[99] “The neophyte is constantly exhorted not to allow his eyes to
wander, but to keep them fixed upon the sacred mescal in the center of
the circle.” (Mooney, _The Mescal Plant_, 11). Changing the cross-legged
position too often, leaning backward on one elbow or the like to rest is
considered frivolous, indicating lack of seriousness. One may leave the
meeting at any time with permission, but it is best to try to wait till
after midnight, unless there is the emergency of nausea from peyote. In
leaving and entering the leader is always consulted to see if the path
to one’s seat is “clear,” i.e., that no one is eating peyote or smoking;
as smoking or eating peyote is conceptually praying, it is extremely bad
manners to pass between a person doing either and the altar fire, hence
the need for instruction from the leader. This is old Plains etiquette
(_Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:442b). Thus, to avoid his having
to pass before smokers, the brand might be passed backwards to the
fireman; his movements in tending the fire never entail passing before
anyone, and the feather given him by the leader symbolizes delegation
of power to enter or leave as necessary for wood. But no one may pass
between him and his seat while tending the fire.
[100] Corn shucks are standard, but Comanche and Shawnee sometimes use
black-jack oak-leaves (just so the materials are native). Interestingly,
the elbow pipe is never used in the Plains, but at Mescalero a pipe was
used instead of the usual Southwestern cigarette—a case of reverse or
reciprocal borrowing.
[101] There are many individualized modes of eating peyote. Hoebel
describes a Comanche way: chew into a ball, spit into palm of hand, rub
in clockwise circle, swallow bolus. On the war-path one spits in his
hands again and rubs his head and ears, the better to hear. Belo said
he once ate a button when each person sang. Kiowa often make several
clockwise motions of buttons toward the fire before eating, to prevent
nausea, or hold the palms out toward it and rub themselves. One may
request another to chew peyote for him if he has bad teeth or is sick,
and swallow the bolus so prepared. The number of buttons eaten ranges
from four to about thirty.
[102] Mooney (_Miscellaneous Notes_) mentions an odorous root from New
Mexico, but is unclear about its use; cedar incense was universal in the
writer’s experience. The sage may be passed around also; some chew, eat
it.
[103] Cf. the whisk of sage used in sweat-bathing; in view of other
parallels, this otherwise functionless item in the peyote meeting should
not be overlooked.
[104] This is the first of four sets of four songs each, sung at stated
times in the ritual; the others are: Yáhiyano (midnight water song),
Wakahó (daylight song for morning water) and Gayatina (Closing Song). All
are Esikwita (Mescalero); all end with a fast unrhythmical shaking of the
gourd. The two Kiowa groups sęįhoṇ (Peyote Road) and Goihoṇ (Kiowa Road)
differ in that in the former only the initial song of each group is set,
in the latter all songs of all four groups are set.
[105] There are specific and detailed rules about passing the
paraphernalia. Ordinarily, save in the case of the leader and his
assistant at the opening song, etc., the paraphernalia (here the staff)
never move counter-clockwise. The drum always passes inside the staff,
i.e., proximally, the staff at arm’s length in the left hand, the drum
being passed under it with the right, when for any reason this occurs.
The symbolism of this is perhaps obvious. A man may not be the singer
more than once in a round, but he may be successively drummer, singer and
drummer. (Though the staff may not go backward, the drum may, and in this
case A receiving the staff, passes the drum with his right hand under
his outstretched left, from the man on his right to the man on his left,
B. A then sings to B’s drumming; the staff is then passed forward from A
to B, and the drum exchanged or passed backward from B to A, this time A
drumming and B singing. Still going clockwise, the staff may be passed
from B to C, and the drum from A to B, C singing this time and B drumming
a second time.)
[106] At the east door the drum may be passed as stated to the second man
so that the first man south of the door gets a chance to sing (because
the fireman is too far away to drum for him) then an exchange and normal
passing again, staff first. If a person right of the singer is old, sick,
a woman or a visitor, he may request a friend to drum for him of the
leader; the friend moves clockwise and sits by him temporarily. Women
neither drum nor rattle nor sing (but like other participants they tend
to sing softly favorite songs or the universally known set songs). Men
try to make their four songs different from those previously sung, but
favorites may be repeated.
[107] Kutubi (Comanche) in a war-party peyote meeting once visioned that
they would be killed, and wept and upbraided peyote for doing this. H. H.
(Wichita) during a meeting wept with total unrestraint for his brother
and nephew, who had been hurt in an auto accident.
[108] The Kiowa sometimes make a humming-bird of the ashes (a prominent
Kiowa family is called Hummingbird); cf. the Comanche, Oto, Shawnee,
Yuchi and (?) Ute ash-birds.
[109] Peyote Road cultists: one fixed song, three optional; Kiowa Road:
four fixed songs. The words of the standard song are unintelligible. Many
tribes use their own language for these set songs (e.g., one Winnebago
group). The schism in the Kiowa, if such it may be called, is excessively
minor and communicants of one are freely welcomed in the other; though it
purports (probably wrongly) to be the original and more pure rite, the
Kiowa Road (led by Atape) is felt to be an uncalled-for variant.
[110] Mooney (_The Mescal Plant_, 8) writes: “At midnight a vessel of
water is passed around, and each takes a drink and sprinkles a few drops
upon his head.” We believe Mooney has slipped into error here, for this
“baptismal” ceremony comes in the morning when the contents of the drum,
not the bucket, are used. Non-Kiowa data likewise agree on this point.
According to Mooney, the leader drinks first among the Comanche. The
Caddo drink no water at this time: “One must suffer to peyote.” Such
abstemiousness with a thirst-producing substance like peyote suggests
the psychological flavor of the vision quest. Note that Anhalonium means
“without salt.” “If there is suffering, this is the time. That’s the
reason I took a good rest so I could stand it. Many a time I have fallen
over at this time. The hour of the Crucifixion. Everyone is suffering now
... the dark hour” (Simmons, in _Peyote Road_).
[111] “The four whistles at midnight by the leader outside the tipi are
to notify all things in all directions that they were having a meeting
there at the center of the cross ... calling the great power to be with
us while we were drinking so that it could hear our prayers and bless us”
(Hoebel, _Comanche Field Notes_).
[112] Others may be incensed when they reënter too, and everyone holds
out his fan for the blessing. If a communicant is smoking when another
reënters, it is good manners to place the cigarette on the ground
temporarily that he may pass in front of him.
[113] There is a suggestion that this woman, usually the wife of the
sponsor, symbolizes sęįmąyi or “Peyote Woman”; the Morning Star heralds
her approach (see Mooney, _A Kiowa Mescal Rattle_).
[114] Doctoring is second only to the vision for individual knowledge
and power in the Plains. Kiowa peyote doctors have special prestige
among other tribes. In 1936 I sponsored a Kiowa meeting near Stecker,
Oklahoma, for Belo Kozad to doctor Ernest Kokome who was suffering
from tuberculosis. (Ernest had given me his trade-blanket beaded
peyote-necktie in 1935 on the morning after a meeting at which I had
admired it.) After midnight, Belo chewed four peyote and gave them to
Ernest, fanning him with feathers and cedar incense; then he made a
cross in front of the patient with a glowing coal, and, putting it in
his mouth, blew all over the face and chest of the sick young man, who
unbuttoned his shirt for the purpose. Next Belo fanned or batted him with
his feathers, the patient holding up his palms to absorb the medicine
virtue. Finally he took a mouthful of water and blew it on Ernest’s head,
praying and beseeching in the name of Jesus Christ for him to get well.
Peyote gave Belo the power to doctor thus and not be burned by the coal.
Peyote was brought to the Creek, indeed, for doctoring by Jim Aton
(a famous Kiowa peyote doctor). Much in demand, he has doctored in
peyote meetings of the Yuchi, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Creek, Caddo, Osage,
Comanche, Kiowa Apache, Kiowa, Mescalero Apache and Quapaw; also whites
and Mexicans. His methods of doctoring have been described previously.
The well-known Comanche peyote doctor, Jim Post-oak, “hollers like a
bear in doctoring.” (People often imitate the animal-sources of their
power in the morning, in the midst of others’ singing, either from
peyote-“euphoria” or in praise of particularly good singing.) Peyote
doctoring by Old Man Horse (Kiowa) influenced the Oto rite of the Church
of the First-born too. Peyote can perform cures unassisted outside
meetings also, as shown by the case of Tommy Cat who ate peyote over the
protests of his nurse in a hospital and was cured.
[115] Polonian obviousness is usually the note in these harangues (sit up
straight and keep awake in meetings, wear clean clothes and bathe before
coming, wear a blanket, keep your mind on good things in the ceremony,
don’t look around the tipi, don’t drink whiskey, don’t lie to your wife
or show off, but pray for your wife and children, respect old people,
humble yourself, go home again if you come to a crowded meeting)—but
occasionally specific admonitions are made. A Kiowa jokester, J. S., had
had trouble with his wife, and was plainly talked to in meeting. Quanah
Parker used to lecture young people in the morning. Long prayers are
another means of making psychological transactions. Some tribes make
individual public confessions at this time.
[116] Mooney, _The Mescal Plant_, 8.
[117] Some rattle the marbles of the drum, put them in the mouth and
spit them into the palm. Members commonly “baptize” themselves with the
drum-water, using the drumstick to moisten the palm and rubbing the
hair, face, chest, arms and thighs as in blessing with cedar incense;
some paint themselves with the charcoal in the drum. The remaining water
in the drum is poured along the moon. The sage under the peyote may be
passed to the patient, if there is one, or it may be requested for absent
ailing relatives.
[118] Sometimes the stories have a moral point; the following was told
by O. W. (Comanche) to E. R. (Delaware): the leader of a Wichita Easter
meeting had a fine watch, costing from $150 to $200. At daylight, before
water time, wanting to display it, he put it down by the feathers. A man
to the north was singing and making vigorous punches toward the peyote.
When he looked at his watch later, “it was just a mess of works in there
loose, and the hands dropped off,” though nobody had touched it. “It
don’t pay to go in there and then try to show off.”
[119] “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” Hoebel says
the Comanche fire-chief takes one step outside, turns completely around
once, and continues his way, the others exiting in a straight fashion.
Cf. the Huichol turns.
[120] A Comanche told me a Kiowa ate a lot of peyote once and tried to
sing a Comanche song. He sang the wrong words, which meant “Mentula
exposita est, Mentula exposita est!” (Cf. the Oto jokes about songs.)
A typical experience of Belo Kozad involves the hearing of a new
peyote song, psychological anxiety, a moral, and an explanation about
power-getting: A peyote song, without words, once came to him in a
vision. He seemed to be in the south, in soft grass. In the distance he
saw a man, whom he followed. He did not know it, but this man represented
Temptation. Belo followed the man, who was leading him off somewhere.
Suddenly the man kicked backwards with his foot [a familiar folkloristic
element] and went on. When Belo approached he found apples there; he
refused to take one. Further on the man kicked back with his other foot.
This time Belo found dollar bills and playing cards; these he refused
too. A third time he found pictures of beautiful girls in various poses,
but he withstood temptation. Finally he came to the top of a hill, over
the brow of which the man had disappeared ahead of him. Then he heard the
man talk to him from behind: “The apples, the cards, and the pictures all
meant temptation. You have withstood them all. Upon the top of this hill
you will find good fortune if you take this peyote.” Belo went up and saw
there a terrible chasm, crossed by a bridge of a single tipi pole. The
man said that the pole had to be crossed with four steps; if he did this
he would have great curing power. The man danced forward and backward
across the pole to show Belo, singing this song the while. But Belo was
afraid to cross the chasm and turned back thus not acquiring the curing
power.
[121] Indeed, among some groups like the Caddo, doctoring is expressly
absent.
[122] In Mescalero, too, “prophecy and advice were no small part of the
performance. It was rarely that his power did not vouchsafe the shaman
some reassuring information concerning the longevity of his patient, the
number of grandchildren with which he would be blessed, and the future
state of his fortunes.” They also controlled the weather thus, found lost
objects, located the enemy, etc., but doctoring was the main feature of
Mescalero peyote meetings.
[123] Shonle (_Peyote: Giver of Visions_, 57) notes that peyote was
latterly a reservation phenomenon, when tribal enmities were gone. The
Ghost Dance had been anti-White; peyotism was a compromise, and the
friendly intertribal contacts growing out of the Ghost Dance could now be
exploited.
[124] Cf. Tamaulipecan rites and the black-drink ball-game of the
Southeast. (The black drink was as nearby as the Karankawa.) The
Southwest-Southeast connections are more than superficial; Beals
(_Comparative Ethnology_, 142) believes there is a probable connection of
Southwest-Mexican alcoholic drinks with the Southeastern black drink.
[125] Curiously the cigarette of the region farther west is universal in
the intrusive Plains peyote rite, while at Mescalero the stone elbow pipe
is passed around in the calumet fashion of the Plains in one leader’s
ceremony.
[126] Is this a culture-environmental problem?—for the same substance
which was spectacularly aphrodisiac in Lame Deer, Montana, was stubbornly
anaphrodisiac in Philadelphia. Unfortunately for the accusing school
of thought, Bennett and Zingg’s trait-distribution tables indicate a
negative association of sexual promiscuity and the ritual use of peyote
in Mexico.
[127] Opler says that “in no other Mescalero ceremony is a mound of earth
in the shape of a crescent found. On the other hand, crude earth tracings
did grace a Mescalero rite occasionally, and the moon was much in
evidence in ritual song and design. The staff of the peyote shaman seems
an innovation at first thought; yet it has a counterpart in the ‘old
age stick’ held by the singer in the girl’s puberty rite.” The gourd in
Mescalero has exclusively peyote associations. On the whole, the standard
Plains ceremony appears to have taken shape among the Lipan-Mescalero.
But Curtis (_North American Indian_ 19:199-200) says that the White
Mountain Apache were the first United States users and that “the ritual
[in the United States] is obviously copied from the Wichita ceremonial
form.”
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PLAINS PEYOTISM
We have now compared the basic Plains rite with that of Mexico and the
transitional Lipan-Mescalero. Yet an independent development of this
basic rite in the Plains and a multiform flowering of the cult there,
influenced by older cultural concepts of a different nature, necessitates
a discussion of more minute variants within the region. In other words,
we have determined in the previous section the major variations of the
peyote ceremony as aboriginally constituted, and now trace the fate of
the cult as it invaded a different cultural terrain and came under the
influence of other culture patterns, including the Christian.[1]
_Trip for Peyote._ A typical nine-day trip was made by the Cheyenne
in 1914 from Watonga, Oklahoma, to Laredo, Texas. Ten “peyote boys”
contributed the total cost of $61.85, and several suitcases full
of buttons were brought back (about 1,400 each); these were bought
from a White dealer in Laredo.[2] Another time a Southern Cheyenne,
then President of the Native American Church, brought back a special
trailer full of peyote from Romer, Texas. The northern Plains tribes
make infrequent pilgrimages for the plant, depending largely upon
supplies shipped from Texas or bought from Indians nearer the source.
One Wichita leader sold 40 acres of land to buy a car in which to make
a trip to Mousquis, his fourth or fifth such trip in about ten years.
An early Comanche party going for peyote in the Apache region had much
the character of a war journey; as described by Hoebel it involved a
clairvoyant discovery of the enemy, prophecy of the outcome, and a
horse-raid. Typically, however, the Kickapoo “chip in” money for peyote
pilgrimages, and precede this with prayers for the safe-keeping of the
travellers.
_Rite at Site._ The Lipan[3] say that
peyote is pretty hard to find when you are looking for it ...
a person who is not used to it doesn’t recognize it though he
is in the middle of a whole clump of peyote. Once he sees one,
another appears and so on until they all come out just like
stars. If you are having a hard time finding them you do this:
when you find just one by itself you eat it. When it takes
effect, when you get a little dizzy, you will hear a noise like
the wind from a certain direction. Go over there ... from the
place where the noise is coming you will get many peyote plants.
Mrs. Voegelin[4] reports an interesting Shawnee concept:
You can get power by visiting the peyote patch in Texas, and
telling it at evening that you want help to cure people and get
medicine. You sprinkle tobacco there. The next morning, when
the Morning Star comes up, the person goes to the patch where
he put the tobacco and when he comes close he hears a rattler
rattling. If he has nerve enough to go over there, likely
he does not find a snake there, but just something to scare
him. If he does find a snake there, he grabs the rattlesnake
(which is coiled up on top of the medicine) and takes it off
and then he picks one peyote button from that place. Then he
goes to another bunch and picks another button.... Perhaps at
the fourth spot where he picks his fourth button, the snake
is there again and he must remove it.... Jim Clark related
this defying of a rattlesnake to the obtaining of another very
powerful herb in the old days.[5]
The typical Plains gathering ceremony has been described to the writer
for the Kiowa, Wichita, and Kickapoo: one sits west of the first peyote
found and makes a smoke-prayer before orienting the plant with a thorn or
mark that it may be properly used as a “father peyote” later; this first
plant shows the gatherer where to find more.
_Vowing of Meetings._ Spier has traced the pattern of “vowing” the Sun
Dance in the Plains and it is interesting to note the persistence of
this trait in the peyote ceremony. It is particularly a pattern of the
Algonquian-speaking peoples; but we have recorded it for the Kiowa and
Wichita as well as the Shawnee, Kickapoo, and Northern Cheyenne.[6]
_Time of Meetings._ Peyote meetings are generally held Saturday nights
so that the forenoon of the following Sunday may be spent relaxing and
talking under a “shade”; but the Comanche and Seminole sometimes set
theirs for Sunday night, following the White pattern for religious
meetings.[7] The Caddo, Tonkawa and Lipan often had four meetings on
successive nights, particularly for sick persons; the Caddo sometimes
mark four birthdays with meetings a year apart. Holiday meetings on
Easter, New Year’s, Thanksgiving and Christmas are common; an Arapaho
meeting was once held with a Christmas tree. Many tribes like the
Northern Cheyenne drink tea outside meetings, when practising songs or
“to sharpen one’s mind” when solving some particularly knotty personal
problem, but some groups maintain that it is forbidden to use peyote
outside meetings, for it would be useless then, even for doctoring.
The frequency of meetings throughout the year would be difficult to
ascertain, though there is no seasonal restriction as in Mexico; perhaps
one or two meetings a month in each tribe might be an average number when
the whole year is considered.
_Purpose._ Doctoring of the sick is the commonest reason given for
calling a meeting; but though infrequently expressed as an official
motive, the vision-producing physiological effect of peyote is probably
the major reason. However, so various are the stated purposes of
meetings, that one is led to conclude that when a man wishes to have one,
he ordinarily finds little difficulty in discovering a reason for it. A
Lipan Apache said,
In the early days they just had a good time for one night. It
was not used as a curing ceremony then.... At first they wanted
to have good visions, that’s what they were after. But then,
recently, they began to use it as a medicine for sick people.[8]
The Kickapoo and Caddo do not doctor in meetings; the latter pray for the
sick, however, and commonly have four meetings in close succession for
this purpose, as well as on the first four anniversaries of a child’s
birth or a man’s death.
The primary reason for Northern Cheyenne meetings is social, with
doctoring second; they knew of meetings held for rain, but despite
prolonged droughts in their region never made them themselves. Comanche
formerly held meetings to exercise clairvoyance about the enemies’
position, to obtain protection from them[9] and to ascertain by prophecy
the outcome of battle; like the Mescalero they also held meetings to
divine and combat sorcery, and one meeting was held to celebrate the
surveying of their lands. Delaware meetings were for the welfare of the
community in general, to show hospitality to visiting friends and to mark
the first four anniversaries of a death.[10] Kickapoo hold meetings to
obtain rain, in consolation for a death, to name a child[11] and for a
dead person.[12]
Mescalero ate peyote to locate the enemy, to find lost objects and to
foretell the future as well as for curing.[13] The Osage have funeral
meetings, and meetings to “see the face of Jesus” or the faces of their
dead relatives;[14] the Oto say they can see the deceased in meetings
too. In the Oto Church of the First-born, Jonathan Koshiway baptized,
married, and conducted funerals; the Pawnee have no funeral meetings but
celebrate birthdays, New Year’s Eve, Christmas and Easter.[15]
A typical Ponca meeting attended at White Eagle was to doctor a sick
child with peyote tea. Another, a Shawnee meeting at McCloud, had been
vowed if the soldiers’ bonus legislation passed Congress. One Shawnee
held meetings for his eldest daughter yearly for thirteen years;
sometimes they hold purely social meetings and for health and doctoring,
but not for rain. Wichita, on the other hand, set up meetings to pray for
rain and good crops, on anniversaries, and for doctoring; and a Wichita
“bonus” meeting was held in 1936. Prophecy has been present in Wichita
meetings also. The Winnebago[16] have death-consolation meetings,
death-anniversary meetings and meetings to doctor the sick. At Taos[17]
meetings are for curing, or simply when “someone thinks they ought to
have a peyote meeting.”
_Participants._ The Carrizo had two women by the door to bring water
into the meeting, but the Lipan permitted no women to be present or even
erect the tipi. In the early days the Kiowa, Comanche, Tonkawa, Sauk,
and Oto prohibited women from attending, and only old men used peyote,
but forty or fifty years ago women started coming in to be doctored and
gradually came in for other reasons, though they could not use the ritual
paraphernalia; under no circumstances may a menstruant woman enter.[18]
The restriction against women appears to apply only to groups who early
had peyote, when it still had much of the flavor of a warriors’ society
about it; for example, the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Ponca, Kickapoo, Mescalero,
Shawnee, Taos and Wichita apparently always allowed women to attend.[19]
In the Iowa meeting the women formed the outer of two concentric circles,
the men the inner, and the former were allowed only two buttons.[20]
Women never use eagle feather fans.
Some tribes, like the Caddo, still have a strong objection to the
presence of White men in meetings, but other groups do not object to
White men as such.[21] A number of tribes have a bias against the
attendance of Negroes, but this is not the case at least with the Kiowa,
Wichita, and Kickapoo.[22]
_Visiting._ All Indians, however, of whatever tribe, are welcome in the
meetings of all other tribes.[23] For example, at a Shawnee leader’s
meeting at McCloud there were 12 Kickapoo, 6 Shawnee, 3 Caddo, 2 Kiowa, 2
Whites, a Wichita, a Seminole, a Sauk-and-Fox, an Oto, a Potawatomi and
a Negro—a not untypical aggregate.[24] Individual users visit around a
great deal in trying to “learn about peyote”; an old Kickapoo user had
been in meetings of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Caddo, Delaware, Wichita,
Apache, Kiowa, Osage, Yuchi, Sauk-and-Fox, Oto, Iowa, Shawnee, Comanche,
Pawnee and Ponca. Indeed, the very origin legend of peyote indicates a
period of beginning intertribal contacts, and peyotism in later days
became the specific vehicle of intertribal friendships, when mutual
warfare disappeared.
_Place of Meeting._ The typical place of meeting for the Plains, as well
as Taos, Mescalero, and Lipan, is the tipi. The Arapaho-Winnebago peyote
tipi has twelve poles, symbolizing the earth.[25] The Pawnee have special
painted tipis for peyote, as in the Ghost Dance; and, like the Pawnee,
the Wichita and Winnebago dismantle the tipi immediately at the end of a
meeting.[26] The Osage, Quapaw, Omaha, Northern Winnebago and others[27]
have special peyote churches, or “round houses” (really polygonal), and
many, like the Taos, hold winter meetings in the home of some member.
But meetings were held elsewhere too in the past. The Carrizo had
meetings in the open within a circle of sticks. The first Kiowa meetings
took place within a circle of upright poles with canvas stretched around
it, open to the sky; Comanche also used simple wind-breaks as do even now
the Northern Cheyenne, who sometimes also hold the ceremony on a hill-top
in the open.[28] The Caddo have held meetings in a canvas-covered
subconical “stick house” holding over forty people in two rows; and
the Bannock of Idaho, on account of opposition to peyotism, have held
meetings in backwoods log-houses—in short, the holding of the meeting in
a tipi, while common and typical, is not ritually required.
_Bathing._ The Lipan customarily washed their hair in yucca suds before
a meeting, and perfumed themselves with mint. In the Plains and at
Mescalero they take a sweatbath or a bath with water; the Arapaho[29]
plunge once against the current and once with it, then rub themselves
with teaxuwineⁿ or waxuwahan and other scented plants. The Osage build a
sweat lodge as an integral part of their church, in a direct line east of
it. A man in Hominy specializes in giving Osage old-style sweat baths,
but some of them somewhat ostentatiously travel to Claremore, a hundred
miles away, to take “radium baths” before meetings.
_Painting._ Face and body painting is recorded for the Arapaho, Comanche,
Delaware, Kiowa, Oto, Shawnee, Tonkawa, Wichita and Winnebago, yellow
being the commonest color used by the Arapaho and Comanche.[30] A Kiowa
story tells of the acquiring of an individual paint design in a vision
of a red bird which turned into a man. The Tonkawa even painted the fuzz
on the top of the fetish peyote red, according to Opler. Painted stripes
symbolize for the Wichita the extent of one’s experience with peyote: a
beginner paints the part of the hair yellow and puts one blue line on his
face, adding up to four finally: “He’s supposed to know something then.”
Both men and women painted for Winnebago meetings.[31]
_Clothing and Headdress._ Formerly native dress was prescribed for Plains
peyote meetings, and even now a blanket (in summer a folded sheet)
among male communicants and a shawl among female is common—to symbolize
affiliation with “blanket Indians.” Younger men, otherwise in ordinary
White dress, often wear a “peyote-necktie” made of an old-fashioned
trade blanket, beaded, and with the selvage-stripes as a design; soft
neckerchiefs drawn through rings with “water-bird” and “Morning-Star”
designs are also common. The Arapaho[32] water woman wears a symbolically
painted buckskin dress; men wear special wrist-bands and headdresses of
yellow hammer and woodpecker feathers. Carrizo men wore only a loincloth
in meetings, not even moccasins; the women attendants wore red blankets,
the one to the north with woodpecker feathers and the one to the south
with a red flicker feather.[33] Iowa wear Kiowa-Comanche style leggings,
the thongs of which are knotted with “red medicine” or mescal beans.[34]
A turban or head-scarf has been observed among the Delaware, Shawnee,
Kickapoo, Wichita and Winnebago,[35] but the otter-skin cap of the Kiowa
and Winnebago is optional. At Taos the variant dress of the “peyote boys”
has become a symbol of the strife of the old and the new. The young men
who use peyote cut out the seats of their trousers, thus converting them
into a G-string and leggings and necessitating a blanket, and let their
hair grow in Plains fashion.[36] Among older Osage men the “roached”
style of scalp lock was formerly still in vogue, but the younger men who
have adopted the peyote religion wear their hair long, parted and braided
on each side with ribbons and yarn.[37] Among the Winnebago, on the other
hand, the progressivism of the peyote cult demands that long hair be
cut, and Crashing Thunder discovered that it was a “shame to wear long
hair.”[38]
_Ritual Restrictions._ Salt may not be eaten on the day that peyote is
consumed among the Huichol, Tarahumari, Arapaho, Comanche, Kickapoo,
Wichita, etc.; the distributional gaps are more likely gaps in our
information than lack of the taboo, which is probably universal at
least among the early Plains users of peyote.[39] It is also considered
hygienically if not ethically unwise to use peyote in connection with
alcoholic drinks; indeed, many insist that the former cures addiction to
the latter. The Arapaho[40] did not bring sharp instruments into a peyote
meeting, a taboo elsewhere unreported.
_Officials._ The “road chief” is the most important individual in a
meeting. Kroeber writes of the Arapaho leader in a manner which might
apply to any Plains leader:[41]
The leader of each ceremony is sole director of it. He may
... base [his ceremony] partly on visions during previous
ceremonies. In other cases, he follows ceremonies that he
has participated in, changing or adding details to suit his
personal ideas. No two ceremonies conducted by different
individuals are therefore exactly alike; but the general course
of all is quite similar.
We do not agree with Petrullo that the leader is a mere “figurehead.”
Indeed, as we shall see later, the variation in ceremonies is a function
of leadership far more than of tribal affiliation. The leader has full
authority to change the ceremony in any way he wishes, and his permission
must be asked and secured even in such little matters as leaving the tipi
temporarily; even the fireman, his chief assistant, constantly consults
with him and receives directions.[42]
In fact, peyote leadership is a matter bringing much prestige, and in
these days is a major means of advancement among one’s fellows. John
Rave, Albert Hensley, Jonathan Koshiway, Quanah Parker and John Wilson
find parallels to a less degree in all peyote leaders, and rare is the
man who does not seize the opportunity presented by his authority to
introduce some change, however trifling, into the ceremony.[43] Each
tribe has a limited number of recognized peyote leaders which can be
named. The Shawnee, for example, have nine only and the Pawnee have only
eight recognized leaders in a population of eight hundred. In the case
of the Osage the number of leaders is further limited by the number of
permanent “churches” available; Murphy lists eighteen “East Moons” on the
reservation and three “West Moons.”
Originally the officials in a peyote meeting appear to have been limited
to the “road-chief,” drummer, and “fire-chief.”[44] The “cedar-chief”
is a later development. Among the Winnebago the leader, drummer and
cedar-man symbolize respectively the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost, and the leader gives the drummer his staff even as God delegated
authority to Jesus.[45] In the Quapaw “Big Moon” the officials number
eight: three firemen north of the door (required since every person must
be fanned with feathers every time he reënters the tipi), the leader,
drummer and cedar-man west of the altar, and in addition “one good man”
at each arm of the altar-crucifix cross-piece.
_Economics._ On the basis of 13,300 peyote users in 1922 (and the number
has since substantially increased) in the United States alone, it is
clear that the cult is of economic significance in a number of ways. The
price of peyote from dealers in Laredo, who supply most of the northern
Plains and Great Basin users, is from $2.50 to $5.00 a thousand buttons;
it is said that “the inhabitants of the small town of Nuevo Laredo,
on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, derive their livelihood almost
exclusively from the peyote trade.” Schultes estimates $20,000 as the
annual commercial transactions involved north of the Rio Grande.[46]
The Tarahumari used to combine their peyote journeys with trading and
other commercial transactions, but the trip was otherwise profitable
since peyote itself commanded a good price; Lumholtz says one plant cost
a sheep at one time in Tarahumariland, and he himself was asked $10 for
a dozen plants.[47] The Huichol sold part of their harvest sometimes to
non-pilgrims.[48]
In the Plains the sponsor usually meets the expense of a meeting himself,
but some groups like the Oto pass around a vessel in the morning for a
“free-will offering.” At Taos the peyote chief bears the expense, though
others may make contributions to help defray the cost. The chief expense
at Tarahumari, as elsewhere, is the sacrificial beef. The total cost of
a meeting varies considerably, according to the number of persons fed
at the secular meal the next day. Meetings that Mooney attended in 1918
cost $15, $58 (including a beef costing $35), and $80 respectively, but
these amounts seem excessive. The writer has sponsored an average meeting
costing only about $15, and Hoebel has supplied “groceries” for meetings
at from $6 to $10 only.[49]
Considering their importance and authority, it is not surprising that
the peyote chiefs come in for some financial recompense. The Tarahumari
peyotero was given a quarter of the slaughtered beef, and one peyote
doctor at Narárachic made his entire living by peyote cures. Several
Kiowa doctors nearly or completely match this. A Sioux doctor at Taos was
given a silk dress of the patient’s wife, a belt and $5 cash. Indeed,
one of the complaints against Wilson, the Caddo-Delaware peyote messiah,
was that he over-exploited the financial opportunities afforded by
peyote leadership.[50] Victor Griffin (Quapaw) claims to be the only man
authorized by Wilson to make Big Moons, and for the building of a small
Quapaw “round house” near Miami, Oklahoma, he and his assistant, Charles
Tyner (Quapaw) received $750. There was and is considerable exchanging
of gifts in connection with peyote meetings and intertribal visiting;
feathers, drum sticks, etc. are common gifts, as well as “father peyotes”
which have become heirlooms.[51]
_Amount of Peyote Eaten._ The minimum number of buttons eaten by each
participant is usually four. Several persons claim to have eaten 75 to
100 or more, but the average is nearer a third or a fourth of this.[52]
Personal observations tend to confirm Mooney’s estimate of 12 to 20 as a
night’s average consumption; he said that 90 was the most any Kiowa had
ever eaten, and he believed this was possible since the individual was
powerfully built—although that number would amount to about a pound and
a half. This may be so, but one is skeptical of alleged consumptions of
more than 30 or 40 average-sized buttons in the dry form. For the green
form we should set the maximum at considerably fewer, perhaps 15 or 20
good-sized plants, which even so is a liberal estimate. About 300 each
was the average for two Winnebago meetings, and assuming an ordinary
group of 20 communicants this amounts to only 15 buttons apiece. We
should call this a fair estimate of the average for beginners and old
users combined in a meeting; before accepting larger estimates it should
be recalled that there is a certain prestige in eating and retaining
large amounts of peyote, a fact which may color statements somewhat.
Peyote is also consumed as tea, especially by the old and the sick; in
one case 24 discs made 15 cups of tea, and in another 30 made 2 quarts of
the infusion. A pneumonia patient drank the latter, one cupful every two
hours, to induce perspiration deemed necessary for his cure.
_Peyote Paraphernalia in General._ Typical Plains peyote paraphernalia
includes minimally the leader’s satchel, gourd rattle, water drum, drum
stick, staff, feathers, eagle wing-bone whistle, corn shucks and loose
tobacco, bags for peyote and cedar incense, altar cloth, sage, water
bucket and ritual-breakfast containers. The rasp is not used by the
Lipan or Mescalero or in the Plains, and the whistle is recent for the
two former. The Lipan previously used a bow struck with a stick in place
of the later one-sided tambourine drum; the kettle drum, from Mexico,
is still more recent.[53] Mescalero shamans sometimes added the use of
pollen, which they used to trace a cross on the father peyote, and like
the Tonkawa, occasionally served the peyote on woven trays instead of
in bags. Taos paraphernalia is standard Plains in type. A common color
for Arapaho peyote objects is yellow; Skinner thought the bead-work on
Iowa gourds and magpie feather fans indicated a Kiowa or Kiowa-Apache
provenience. Among the Delaware and others each devotee has his own gourd
rattle, but this (like personal drum sticks and feathers) may not be used
until after midnight.[54]
_Staff._ From ancient times, and possibly before Columbus, the cane or
staff was a symbol of authority in Mexico,[55] and for this reason we
should hesitate before labeling this feature of peyote an Hispanicism.
Again, Opler equates the staff of the Mescalero shaman (which he holds
throughout the ceremony, not passing it around with the drum) with the
“old age stick” held by the singer in the aboriginal girl’s puberty rite.
Similar syncretism with older patterns seems to have occurred also in the
Plains. The Comanche used a bow for a staff when holding peyote meetings
on the war path, but the term naci-hιta means literally “resting stick-to
walk,” according to White Wolf. In the Iowa Red Bean war bundle ceremony,
the rattle was held in the left hand [sic] while the bow and arrow were
waved in the right as the person sang. The Delaware call the leader’s
staff “arrow,” and so also do the Osage, Quapaw and Oto; the Ponca,
on the other hand, call it a “bow.” The Kiowa suggest that a bow was
formerly used, but the term ᴅo’ᴅęⁱä means “brace-to hold-stick”; it must
be of bois d’arc (_Maclura pomifera_ C. K. Schneider), however, and some
are nocked at the top and bottom like a bow. The Lipan “cane” was called
ilkibenatsi´e or “ram-rod.”[56]
The Shawnee, according to Mrs. Voegelin, called the peyote staff the
walking stick of the old, but the red tassel at the top symbolized the
headdress worn with a single feather at the war dance. The t’owayennemö
of Taos was held in the left hand “for the strength of life,” and the red
and white horse-hair tufts encircling the top (so Dr. White was told)
were there “because the White man is above the Indian.” A Delaware staff
which Dr. Speck saw contained designs representing a tipi, water, the
door of the lodge, the blue sky and fire, symbolized by the colors of the
bead-work.
Reinterpretations of the meaning of the staff are common. A Wichita
called it the “staff of life.” The Iowa staff represents the staff of the
Saviour, while the Winnebago variously interpret it as a shepherd’s crook
and the rod with which Moses smote the rock (in obvious reference to the
leader’s calling for water in the ceremony). Differences in the staff
have even come to symbolize a schism in the Winnebago church: that used
by Rave was decorated, as elsewhere in the Plains, but Clay used a simple
undecorated staff, lacking even feathers, calling attention to the fact
that Moses staff was undecorated.[57]
_Gourd Rattles_. Rattles made of gourds (_Lagenaria_ spp.) have become
universal in the Plains since the spread of peyotism; but the Iowa had a
small gourd rattle with beaded handle in their Red Bean war bundle dance,
and the peripheral-Plains distribution of this trait in pre-peyote times
has been traced elsewhere. Some groups (Delaware, Osage, Ute, etc.) have
individual rattles for each participant.[58] A large one seen at Apache,
Oklahoma, made by Spotted Crow (Cheyenne) had drawn on it a moon with a
fire and a Morning Star in negative, together with the following “Jesus
talk:”[59]
Help me O Lord
My God O save me
According to thy Mercy
O God my heart is
fixed. I will sing
And give praise
Even with my glory.
A Wichita gourd was said by one informant to represent the world or sun;
the beads are “people talking” and the bead-work in general is “things on
the earth,” while the horse-hair tuft dyed red on the top represents the
rays of the rising sun. A Delaware gourd of Dr. Speck’s has bead-work on
its handle symbolizing morning (blue), fire (red) and a row of X X X’s
(the songs sun).[60]
_Drum._ The standard peyote drum, already described for the Kiowa, made
of a small iron kettle with seven bosses in the lacing, is found also
among the Arapaho, Comanche, Iowa, Cheyenne, Lipan, Pawnee, Ute, Shawnee,
Kickapoo, etc.[61] The Kickapoo say the seven marbles represent the days
of the week, just as the twelve eagle feathers of the fan symbolize the
twelve months of the year; the four coals which are dropped into the
water of the drum are lightning, the water rain and the drumming itself
thunder.[62]
In drumming, the vessel is given an occasional shake to wet the head
with the contained water, and the left thumb is used to test the tone
and tighten the head: sometimes too the head is sucked or blown upon, so
that the water is forced to ooze through the skin. The Ponca, however,
do not permit the drum head to be touched—“peyote makes the sound, not
the hand,”[63] they say—and hence make a handle of the lacing-rope
twisted upon itself. Old Man Sack (Caddo) also forbade blowing on
the drum, “even when it cups up and sounds like a tin can,” a Kiowa
peyote-boy said; in the stricter Caddo moons no water is drunk until the
drum has made four rounds, with the result that some of their meetings
consequently last well into the forenoon of the next day—a genuine
ordeal according to informants. Among the Iowa, and possibly also in
some Caddo Delaware “Big Moons” the drum chief accompanies the drum
around the circle, drumming for each singer. The Jesse Clay style of
drumming among the Winnebago, described by Densmore, is common among the
southern tribes: a rapid unaccented beating before the beginning of the
singing, gradually slackening to match the speed of the voice. Another
mannerism may be noted at the end of each song, when the rattle is shaken
unrhythmically as fast as possible during the last few bars of the song,
then suddenly stopped with the last drum beat.[64] The water drum is
typically Southeastern in distribution, but its presence in the Plains
peyote cult must be accounted another Southwestern feature, inasmuch as
it was standardized and diffused over the Plains before Southeastern
groups in Oklahoma received peyote and hence could have introduced the
trait into it.[65]
_Feathers._ Feathers are important in peyote symbolism. In the original
Comanche rite only the leader brought in a medicine fan with him; “now
many young men bring them who have no special business to.” Skinner wrote
that eagle feathers were “badges of the society” among peyote-using Iowa;
women were never allowed to use eagle feathers in meetings, however.
Younger Oto men carry modern ribbed folding-fans, older ones commonly an
entire wing. The individual fans of the Northern Cheyenne, as elsewhere,
are not produced until the full effects of the peyote come on, some time
after midnight. The eagle feather fans of the Winnebago represent the
wings of birds mentioned in Revelations, while the Kickapoo state that
the twelve feathers of the eagle fan symbolize the twelve months of the
year; twelve is a common Delaware ritual number also.[66]
The Arapaho hang bunches of feathers on the northeast, northwest,
southeast and southwest tipi poles to brush off the bodies of tired
worshippers. The Mescalero use eagle feathers as a spoon to feed their
first peyote to neophytes. The Winnebago, like other tribes, pass a
feather around with the staff in its circuit. The Kiowa, Ponca and others
use feathers in the water rites: the former make a cross in the midnight
water with the feathers of all present, held in a bunch, while the latter
place a single feather across the top of the bucket and whistle along
the feather. The use of feathers among the Ponca, where cedar incensing
is not a strong trait, is especially conspicuous: a feather is passed
to the fireman as a symbol of authority, allowing him to leave the tipi
without express permission each time from the “road-man,” and there is
a “baptism” with feathers in the water ceremonies too. The vanes of
Ponca feathers are often notched. The red blankets of the two Carrizo
women helpers were fastened with a woodpecker and a flicker feather
respectively.[67]
Feathers are common in visions too. A Kiowa envisaged his barred
hawk-feathers as a ladder rising through the smoke hole of the tipi
to heaven, like a Jacob’s Ladder, and another time as rippling water.
Feathers are commonly arranged and cut, colored and tufted, etc., in
accordance with visions seen during meetings.[68] Jonathan Koshiway
(Oto) had assembled a favorite fan from individual gift feathers, each
of which had a different history—one from an old Osage woman who wished
for him her long life, two from Hunting-horse (Kiowa), and the like. An
interesting development in the Big Moon ceremony is the ritual necessity
for each person to be fanned at the fire by the fireman or others every
time he re-enters the tipi. This trait is Delaware, Caddo, Osage and
Quapaw[69] in distribution, the latter having two special “guards” at
the north and south arms of the altar cross who are charged with fanning
each entrant; ordinary incensing with cedar has been reported even among
the Ute and is probably universal in peyotism. Perhaps with the same
purpose in mind, protection from dangerous influences, the Mescalero
takes an eagle feather from either side of the door as he makes his exit,
returning as soon as possible.[70]
_Birds._ We have already noted the importance of birds in Huichol and
Tarahumari peyote symbolism, and are to discover that they are equally
significant in the Plains. Here the “water-bird” somewhat ambiguously
suggests a bird that lives in the water or the bird involved with the
whistling for the midnight water. Arapaho songs refer to peyote and the
birds which are its messengers, and sparrow hawk, yellow hammer and other
woodpecker feathers are common in their meetings. When the fireman goes
to get the water he carries an eagle wing, and the whistling which he
makes is said to imitate the cry of a bird in search of water (the end of
the eagle wing-bone whistle is finally dipped into the water bucket, as
though it were the bird drinking).[71]
The Comanche peyote bird is the “sun-eagle,” said to be just under
the rising morning sun; “Comanches always mention that bird in their
meeting.” This bird, the kʷina-óhap (literally, “eagle-yellow”), which is
represented in the shaped ashes west of the peyote fire, “flashes like
the sun; ... water bird feathers are used just because they are pretty.”
In this connection it is interesting to recall the Tarahumari place name
Couwápigóchi, “place of the wapigóri,” from the name of a fishing bird,
“a cross between an eagle and a hawk, with feet like an eagle,” which
the Mexicans call aquillala, and the brilliantly colored macao and other
birds belonging to the Huichol “Grandfather Fire.”[72]
The Kiowa represent their “water-bird” on peyote tie-slides as a
long-necked bird like a kingfisher or crane; these have been traded all
over the Plains. If a Kiowa peyote-user sees an eagle in a vision, he
thereafter carries his eagle-feather fan in his left hand as a sign of
this.[73] The peyote bird is prominent in symbolic Kiowa paintings also.
Jonathan Koshiway, the Oto peyote teacher, said:
The peyote spirit is like a little humming bird. When you are
quiet and nothing is disturbing it, it will come to a flower
and get the sweet flavor. But if it is disturbed, it goes quick.
Hence the admonitions to sit quietly in meetings and “study” to see if
you can “maybe learn something.” Tom Panther, a Shawnee leader, called
the ash-bird
a holy bird; it drinks as well as we do of the holy water
[_i.e._ some of the ritual water is poured on the ash-figure in
the morning] and it gets alive a little when people drink, and
from then on is lively until morning.
The martin is said to be the Shawnee peyote bird, as indicated perhaps
in the “scissors-tail” shape of some ashes. A Mexican who had long lived
with the Wichita had an interesting vision during the water-ceremonies
of an Arapaho meeting, when he saw a white feather of the leader “turn
into Christ and boss the bald-eagle feather of the fireman around.” The
association of birds with peyotism, therefore, appears to be universal in
the Plains and Mexico alike.
_Fetish Peyote._ Peyote is the only plant toward which the Kiowa and
other typical non-agricultural Plains tribes have a religious attitude
and from which they can get “power.” Yet the fetishistic attitude as
a psychological phenomenon is not unknown in the Plains of pre-peyote
times; the Kiowa taime or Sun Dance image and the “Ten-Medicine” bundles
have widespread parallels in the Plains—the Cheyenne fetish-arrows
and sacred heart, the Iowa red bean war-bundles, and the ubiquitous
medicine-bundles of which the Blackfoot are a type.[74] The Arapaho wore
the fetish-plant in an amulet pouch covered with beads, and when placed
on the altar a head-plume was sometimes put nearby. The Cheyenne also
carry exceptionally large specimens in beaded buckskin cases,[75]
the bead-work being in the form of a star to represent the sun
[?] and the case being suspended from his neck by four strands
of beads “to represent the four thoughts that lead to peyote.”
A Wichita informant carried a peyote button with him to France in the
late War, and the fetish miraculously escaped detection during the
sterilizing of uniforms; it protected him until he could return to
collect his soldier’s bonus in 1936, when a special meeting was held to
thank peyote for these boons.
Some Shawnee call the hogimá or “peyote chief” the messenger between
humans and God; others call it the “interpreter” or the Holy
Ghost. Crashing Thunder addressed the most holy peyote medicine as
“grandfather,” but the usual designation of the fetish is “peyote chief”
or “father peyote.” While Wolf (Comanche) called it “elder brother”
because as a child one specific plant had protected him during an illness.
The Winnebago are evidently influenced by an older tribal pattern in
their use of two sacred peyotes, one “male” and the other “female.” John
Wilson in an early Caddo meeting near Fort Cobb, Oklahoma, “before the
country opened,” placed three peyote buttons on the moon (symbolizing the
Trinity of leaders?); his drummer saw one of these turn into a person he
had known in life. The Lipan usually had only one hucdjiya´isia, or “big
peyote lying,” but sometimes put buttons in a circle around the fire pit,
somewhat like the Comanche who placed them in the sage crescent west of
the fire.[76]
The Osage, with their usual flair for ostentation, place the “chief
peyote” “within the marked outline of a heart and set upon a beaded
cylinder support,” according to Dr. Speck. Iowa father peyotes are
notable for their size. The Tonkawa sometimes painted the fuzz on the
plant red, as though it were a person. The Taos addressed the peyote
chief as “Father Ear,” probably carrying over to peyote a common Pueblo
fetishistic attitude toward corn. Lipan and Mescalero father peyotes
were an active ally of the shaman leading the meeting, as any attempt at
witchcraft would “show” on it and inform him of something amiss.[77]
Some individuals particularly cherish and prize their “father peyotes.”
A well-known Wichita leader showed the writer his private collection of
them one forenoon after a meeting.[78] Some famous “peyote chiefs” are
almost heirlooms. Belo Kozad, a prominent Kiowa peyote leader, has one
which once belonged to the famous Comanche chieftain, Quanah Parker. This
was passed around at the end of the meeting and handled with the utmost
reverence.[79]
_Bible._ Peyote-users have also taken over the typical Protestant
fetishism of the Bible, but this Christian element in peyote meetings
is confined exclusively to Siouan-speaking groups. Radin states
categorically that “the use of the Bible is an entirely new element
introduced by the Winnebago,” but there is good reason to believe that
Hensley borrowed this trait from more southerly Oklahoma groups which he
visited in the early days of Winnebago peyotism. The Omaha placing of
an open Bible near the father peyote may indeed have been influenced by
the Winnebago (who put the peyote directly on the open book), and so too
the Iowa, but the Oto use of the Bible in the Church of the First-born
probably preceded it in Oklahoma, where, indeed, John Wilson’s Big Moon
cult embodied Christian elements. Further, the reading of the Bible is a
feature of the Rave rite only, not of the Clay version, a more aboriginal
form.[80]
The Winnebago use the New Testament, especially Revelations. Hensley used
to have the singing stop at intervals, so that the younger educated men
might translate and interpret portions for non-reading members. For some
individuals at least, the Bible was the touchstone of behavior:
Then we went home [says Crashing Thunder] and they showed me a
passage in the Bible where it said that it was a shame for any
man to wear long hair. I looked at the passage. I was not a
man learned in books, but I wanted to give them the impression
that I knew how to read so I told them to cut my hair. I was
still wearing it long at the time. After my hair was cut I took
out a lot of medicines, many small bundles of them. These and
my shorn hair I gave to my brother-in-law. Then I cried and
my brother-in-law also cried. He thanked me, told me that I
understood and that I had done well.
Another time, in a peyote vision, his body deserted Crashing Thunder and
turned the leaves of the Bible until it came to Matthew 16 and read[81]
that “Peter did not give himself up”; this meant that the peyote was
troubling him because he was stubborn and would not acquiesce to its
power.[82]
The Bible was also used to support rationalizations after the fact:[83]
At first our meetings were started without following any rule
laid down by the Bible, but afterwards we found a very good
reason for holding our meetings at night. We searched the Bible
and asked many ministers for any evidence of Christ’s ever
having held any meetings in the day-time but we could find
nothing to that effect. We did, however, find evidence that he
had been out all night in prayer. As it is our desire to follow
as closely as we can in the footsteps of Christ, we hold our
meetings at night.
The Bible is said to mention peyote in several places:
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire,
and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it
(Exodus 12.8).
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall
keep it as a feast by an ordinance forever (Exodus 12.14).
Mrs. Voegelin cites a Shawnee belief in a Bible reference to peyote, but
it is somewhat ambiguous and obscure.[84]
_Altars or “Moons.”_ Peyote altars range in complexity from the simple
war-shield of a Comanche war-party leader on which the peyote was laid,
to the elaborate permanent symbolic concrete altars in the Big Moon
round-house churches. All the Plains variants are built on the standard
crescent altar, grooved from tip to tip by the “peyote road” which
devotees must follow to a knowledge of peyote.[85] Interpretations of the
moon symbolism are almost as numerous as individual users; for, given
the physiological effects of peyote and the acceptance in Plains culture
of the individual vision “authority,” standardized meanings are not to
be expected. One Shawnee, for instance, said the mound represented the
mountain of the origin story where “Peyote Woman” first found peyote;
another that the place of the peyote on the moon represented the space
between Jesus Christ’s eyes, just over the brain, and the arms of the
crescent his arms as he lay face downward on the cross: “If we eat the
peyote which is on his brain, maybe it will make us think too.”
[Illustration: Fig. 4. Peyote altars or moons. a, Basic Caddo-Delaware
moon with a mound at the east of the cross; b, the Caddo Big Moon altar;
c, Enoch Hoag (Caddo) moon, as drawn by Elijah Reynolds (probably the
same as Petrullo, Plate 5 B).]
Again, given these factors and the nature of peyote leadership, it is
not surprising to find variations run riot; sometimes even the same
leader does not conduct two meetings exactly alike, or construct the moon
precisely the same (changing the ashes, etc.) Three Osage leaders, for
example, change the tribal altar by simply turning everything through
180° to make a “West Moon.” John Elcare (Delaware) is said to have a
unique “fish moon,” north of the fire and facing east, which he feeds
and gives to drink. The Omaha[86] dug a heart-shaped fireplace eight to
twelve inches deep to represent the heart of Jesus. We were unable to
discover the exact nature of Leonard Taylor’s (Cheyenne) “Heart Moon,”
no longer conducted, but it appears rather to resemble a Winnebago altar
figured by Densmore: a heart superimposed on a cross in the fireplace,
under the fire, with a small mound to the east representing the earth.
This mound opposite and to the east of the crescent appears to be of
Caddoan origin.[87] Jimmy Hunter’s moon shows this in perhaps its
earliest, and certainly its simplest form: a line joining the mound and
the center of the crescent, with another crossing this from horn to
horn of the crescent. Bob Dunlap’s moon has a further minor addition, a
heart at the juncture of the crossed lines. The moon of Ernest Spybuck,
pictured in Harrington, is Shawnee rather than Delaware-Caddo, but shows
definite Big Moon influence; it is intermediate in complexity, perhaps,
between the Caddoan small moons and the elaborately symbolic John Wilson
Big Moon. The Enoch Hoag moon[88] (a favorite among the Caddo nowadays)
shows features parallel with the Wilson moon: it has a star and a
heart at the hair-parting or forehead of the altar “face,” ash mounds
simulating eyes, an inverted heart at the crossing of the altar-lines as
a nose, four concentric lozenges for an oracular mouth, and another heart
east of this resembling a cleft chin; the moon itself is the figure’s
hair. Moonhead’s (i.e. John Wilson’s) altar similarly represents a man’s
head, and contains the leader’s initials or “foot-prints” and his “grave”
alongside that of Jesus. The Black Wolf moon is another elaboration of
the Big Moon type.
It must not be thought, however, that the bold innovations begun by John
Wilson and others have resulted in a complete chaos of individualism.
It requires considerable prestige and force of personality to vision
a moon impressively enough to gain an adequate following. In recent
years leaders in the Native American Church have expressed themselves
unfavorably on the growing variety and profusion of rival moons, and
have urged a return to the standardized simplicity of the older more
deeply entrenched forms. Perhaps for this reason, and personality factors
as well, several new “moons” have been considerably less than complete
successes. A case in point is that of Albert Stamp (Seminole). His design
is not strikingly original or different from the moons of the Caddo among
whom he lives: he has six concentric lozenges to Hoag’s four and has
added three concentric triangles. That is all. But his moon has not found
acceptance, and he has dismantled his cement altar, removing the entire
central symbolic portion, leaving only the crescent and simple polygonal
apron.[89]
This is only a single instance of a general movement back to more “pure”
original forms, stimulated perhaps by the standardizing influence of
the Native American Church. This sentiment has had its effect even
upon followers of the Wilson Big Moon rite, which is apparently dying
out among the Caddo-Delaware (though still strong among the Osage and
Quapaw), in favor of the “more Caddo” Hoag moon. If a generalization
might be made about the influence of the three tribes most important
in the diffusion of Plains peyotism—the Kiowa, the Comanche and the
Caddo (who because of their southerly position first received the new
religion)[90]—we might call the Kiowa the original standardizers and
teachers, who have departed only in the most minute ways from earlier
forms; the Comanche the proselytizers and missionaries of the new
religion; and the Caddo[91] the innovators.
_Fire._ Nowhere is the kind of wood for the fire ritually prescribed.
Mulberry, slippery elm, cottonwood and black jack are said not to be good
because they pop and give off sparks, tending to scatter the carefully
piled-up ashes. Red bud, which gives off much light and little heat,
is a favorite for summer use, while box alder is considered good for
winter. But “Grandfather Fire” (as the Delaware, Winnebago, Kickapoo and
Shawnee address it) is built in a ritually prescribed way, like the angle
of a worm-fence with the apex to the west. The Shawnee say the first
four sticks represent tipi poles. The ritual number of peyotism, seven,
appears in the number of sticks prescribed for the Northern Cheyenne and
Taos.[92]
The fire stick at a Kickapoo-Shawnee meeting attended near McCloud,
Oklahoma, was elaborately carved with a crescent, a bird, a father peyote
on a rosette, the word “Christ” and crossed sticks.[93] The Caddo say
this fire stick is the “heart,” while the twelve interlacing sticks of
the fire are the “ribs” and the two ash mounds the “lungs” of Jesus; in
some Caddo moons two fireman put sticks on alternately.[94] The Wilson
moon of the Quapaw and Delaware has three firemen who sit by the door
to fan entrants. The Arapaho[95] leader chooses his hictänäⁿtcä or
“fire chief” by silently pointing an eagle wing-feather at him, which
the latter uses as a fan during the ceremony; the feather of the Ponca
fireman is a symbol of authority. The ceremonial fire as a trait is
Mexican, Southwestern, Southeastern and southern Plains (e.g., Caddo
and Hasinai), but as involved in peyotism it is a Mexican-Southwestern
borrowing rather than Southeastern.[96]
_Ashes._ An interesting feature, remotely suggesting the Southwest,
is the building up of the ashes of the peyote fire into a figure. The
commonest form is a crescent, smaller than and parallel to the crescent
of the earthen moon, which is nearly universal in the Plains. At an early
date the Comanche began making the ashes into the shape of a “sun eagle”
and the Kiowa into a “humming-bird.” The Shawnee and Kickapoo call it
a “water bird”; one Shawnee leader occasionally makes buffalo heads. A
Pawnee leader, Good Sun, makes an “eagle” in the ashes. Jonathan Koshiway
(Oto) says the bird is “the holy spirit when Jesus was baptized; it’s got
good eyes like an eagle—you can’t fool it.”[97]
The separation of the ashes into two piles in the Big Moon rite comes in
for similarly varying interpretations. A Delaware informant said that
on one’s journey in life toward the peyote “if you’re the right kind of
fellow you can pass the fire and everything opens up” like the Red Sea.
Some say the two ash piles are the lungs of Jesus; others that one is the
grave of John Wilson and the other the grave of Jesus Christ. Some Osage
say the whole interior of the altar represents a grave.
_Smoking._ Most of the variations in this ceremony are rather minor.
In some groups like the Kiowa only the leader or an older man prays;
in others like the Oto all pray aloud at the same time with individual
prayers. The Kickapoo ask permission of the leader to make a smoke
prayer. The Caddo stop the singing while a prayer is going on, but this
is not universal elsewhere. The rule not to pass a smoker or a person
chewing peyote appears everywhere, save in the Wilson rite; in this only
the leader smoked, and “show-offs” who made requests for tobacco were
frowned upon. This descriptive fact is minuscule in importance, save in
pointing out the authority of the leader and personality traits of Wilson
himself. The original ceremony, as indicated by the Lipan, was a communal
smoke at the beginning. The Osage are said to smoke cigars in their
peyote meetings, but the usual insistence is on native materials, the
corn shuck or, occasionally, the oak leaf cigarette.[98]
In view of the nearly universal ritual use of tobacco in the Americas,
the negative cases which occur are interesting. This is traceable to the
influence of White Protestantism of the “Russellite” sect in Kansas upon
the founder of the Church of the First-born, Jonathan Koshiway. Persuaded
by the Kiowa, however, Koshiway and the Oto later abandoned this
prohibition, but meanwhile it had spread to other groups. The Iowa[99]
“threw away” smoking along with liquor, and did not smoke in peyote
meetings. The conjectured Oto origin of Winnebago peyotism is seemingly
confirmed by their rejection of smoking in the Jesse Clay meetings:[100]
My elder brother [says Crashing Thunder upon conversion to
peyote] hereafter I shall only regard Earthmaker as holy. I
will make no more offerings of tobacco. I will not use any more
tobacco. I will not smoke, nor will I chew tobacco. I have no
further interest in these things.
The non-use of tobacco in peyote meetings appears to be Pawnee[101] as
well. Nowadays, as though in compensation for his earlier defection from
the pure native rite, Koshiway uses extraordinarily long six-inch corn
shucks.
_Sage._ Sagebrush is used in several ways in peyote meetings: around the
periphery of the tipi as a seat, in a cross or rosette under the father
peyote on the altar, and in the perfuming ceremony before eating peyote,
when it is rubbed between the palms, smelled and rubbed over the head
and arms, body and legs.[102] Sometimes a bunch of sage tied together is
passed around with the singing-staff also.[103] Dr. Parsons says that at
Taos[104] the perfuming is done “to keep the smell of it [on us] so we
won’t feel weak or dizzy”; and as a similar protective function of sage
is reported by Opler for the Lipan and the “Sun Dance weed” by Mrs. Cooke
for the Ute, it is evidently widespread. The Ute sometimes place a willow
rope around the tipi, about four feet in from its circumference.
_Passing of Objects._ The standard clockwise circuit of tobacco,
sage, peyote, paraphernalia, water, food and persons has already been
described. This trivial ritual has nevertheless been made the vehicle of
expression of the leader’s authority to change it. Sometimes the circuit
begins at the door (Lipan), sometimes at the leader or cedar chief
(Iowa), and elsewhere smokes may begin at the leader but food and water
at the southeast.[105] In the morning after the untying of the drum the
ritual paraphernalia and the father peyote are commonly passed around for
participants to handle (Kickapoo, Kiowa, Ponca, etc.) The Ponca make a
point of passing the water between the fire and the paraphernalia at the
altar-cloth in the midnight ceremony.
The obsessive, involutional quality of ritualism is nowhere better
illustrated than in the minutiae of these rules for passing. We
have particularized for the Kiowa the standard modes of passing
paraphernalia,[106] but even experienced “peyote boys” are in need of
instruction concerning the “way” of an unfamiliar leader when they visit
other tribes. The Northern Cheyenne, for example, may not pass the drum
in his clockwise circuit to leave the tipi, save in grave emergencies
when permission is asked of the leader through the fireman. One may
not pass a person praying or smoking or eating peyote, and must again
consult the leader to see if the way out is clear; there is still another
obstacle in the fireman, for no one may exit between him and his seat
while he is fixing the fire (the smoker may temporarily put his smoke on
the ground before him, or the fireman temporarily take his seat in these
cases).
The Clay rite of the Winnebago has a unique method of passing objects:
clockwise along the north from the leader to the fireman at the east,
then counter-clockwise back to the leader and around along the south
to the door, and again clockwise to the leader. The Caddo meticulously
observe another rule in entering and leaving the tipi, as though the
interior were divided into north and south sides: those on the south
enter clockwise and exit counter-clockwise, while those on the north
enter counter-clockwise and exit clockwise.
These sometimes complicated “rules” are not the least part of “learning
about peyote,” and the ordering of them by the leader reflects similarly
complex psychological transactions among individuals. For instance, the
simple matter of leaving the tipi at recesses is involved in schism among
the Caddo. Translating the terms, they cite the full-blood Caddo, Enoch
Hoag’s, as the “systematic way,” or “pure tribal way,” to which they
are currently returning (because the leader must be consulted before
leaving); the half-Caddo, John Wilson’s, is “any kind of way” (because
he is said to have abrogated some of these rules). The Seminole, Stamp,
attempted a compromise, allowing persons to exit without permission if
they observed the rules about not passing in front of a smoker or eater
of peyote; “I’m right in the middle,” he said. But Elijah Reynolds says,
“The older men were skeptical. He just made it up to gain influence among
others. It’s a kind of racial feeling there.”
_Praying._ Minor variations occur in this procedure too. The Cheyenne
are said to pray at great length—“an hour or more sometimes,” a Comanche
told me. The Oto use cedar incense instead of tobacco when they pray.
The Ponca pray in unison and audibly before the meeting, seated. The
Winnebago stand up together to pray, and the leader stands up to pray
with a confessant west of the altar. The Shawnee pray on getting the dirt
for the “moon,” getting the sage, making the moon, putting a cross on it,
cutting the corn shucks, when the food is brought in, etc. The door-man
in Pawnee meetings makes a special prayer of dismissal. Often, as with
the Kiowa and Oto, the “tribal priest” or curator of the tribal palladium
is asked to make an official prayer at some time in the meeting. At Taos
the chief prays before the line of worshippers enters inside, and all
pray inside. Murie says all the Pawnee pray after the closing song, when
the sun’s first rays strike the altar through the opened door.[107]
Mrs. Voegelin gives a typical Shawnee prayer:
My prayer is that of a pitiful man. And also these people here,
visitors, I wish my creator to answer my prayer to take pity
on those visitors. They came to my daughter’s meeting for some
good reason to learn something about my daughter’s meeting. So
each of us give blessing, and bless the water that was brought
in this morning. So let our friendship purify it, that we might
drink this water, to give us long life, and a better life; and
I ask our father to bless all my children, and my wife, and all
of us who are in this meeting tonight. I am glad my friends
came here to help me with my prayer tonight, my daughter’s
birthday meeting, and we thank thee for this food she brought
in, that our friends who are going to eat this food, that they
might feel better from now on in everyday life. We ask in the
name of Jesus, Amen. (He then cried ceremonially at the finish
of the prayer; a few tears ran down his cheeks.)
Praying in peyote meetings appears to have much of the psychological
flavor of the old vision quest. The speaker’s voice becomes louder
as he proceeds, earnest and quavering as he sways with the fullness
of his emotion and stretches out his hands toward the peyote and the
fire. Sometimes his speech is wholly interrupted by uninhibited broken
sobbing as he cries out for the pity of the supernaturals. John Rave,
the Winnebago teacher, said that “only if you weep and repent will you
be able to attain knowledge.” Several of the Delaware face-paintings
collected by Dr. Speck represent “crying for repentance.”
_Incense._ Cedar incense is invariably placed on the fire at the
beginning of the ceremony to purify the paraphernalia and to “bless”
the participants before they eat peyote. A patient or one sick from
eating peyote is incensed and fanned with an eagle wing, and incense is
burnt for the fireman at midnight when he returns with the water, for
the leader on returning from the whistling ceremony outside, and for
the water woman in the morning. Others extend the incensing and fanning
to every person who re-enters the tipi after a recess, and the Wilson
rite[108] has special officials to perform this duty. Many leaders about
midnight provide for the cedar smoking of personally-owned feathers,
drum sticks, gourds, etc., and permit individuals to use their own after
midnight until morning in place of the equipment provided by the leader.
_Method of Eating._ Peyote is most commonly eaten in the raw dried state
as “buttons,” but when obtainable, in the green form also, which is said
to be more potent in action. Sometimes both are provided in the same
ceremony, as well as peyote “tea,” a dark-brown infusion made of soaked
and boiled buttons. For the old and sick the buttons may be soaked and
softened in water, or pounded dry in mortars and molded into small moist
balls; the latter form is reported for the Arapaho, Caddo, Delaware,
Lipan, Osage and Winnebago. In chewing the dry buttons the Kiowa,
Mescalero and others take care to pick off the fuzz on the top lest it
cause sore eyes and blindness.[109]
_Singing._ The leader always sings the four sets of Esikwita or Mescalero
Apache songs as his assistant drums: Hayätinayo (Opening Song), Yáhiyano
(Midnight Song), Wakahó (Daylight Song) and Gayatina (Closing Song). All
the other songs, sung by the participants during the rounds of the drum,
are entirely optional. But the standard set songs are not everywhere
used: those of the Ponca are said to be Comanche. The ritual songs of the
Pawnee are in the Pawnee language, and those of the John Rave rite are
in Winnebago (though the followers of Jesse Clay still use the Apache
songs.) The circumstances of the origin of some famous songs by Quanah
Parker, John Wilson (e.g., Heyowiniho) and Enoch Hoag (e.g., Yanahiano)
are widely known.[110]
Many show Christian influence. The Iowa, for example, sing the following
songs with Indian vocables, but in a high-pitched style which makes the
English words nearly unrecognizable:
i. Jesus’ way is the only way.
ii. Saviour Jesus is the only Saviour.
iii. Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord! It is not everyone who says that who
shall be saved.
iv. I know Jesus now.
v. You must be born again.
The closing song of the Winnebago varies; Yellowbank gave this one:
This is the road that Jesus showed us to walk in.
The followers of Rave close with the Lord’s prayer and a song about wings:
There are many wings [repeated five times]
It is God’s will that there should be many wings.
The first of these is said to have come from the Arapaho, the second from
Isaiah 6.2, although a New Testament explanation is offered.[111] The
last song of the Pawnee meeting refers to Christ.[112]
Other Winnebago songs (with repetitions omitted) are as follows:
God, I thank you for all you have done for me through Jesus’ name.
(This is an opening song, according to Yellowbank. Another opening song:)
God’s Son says, “Get up and follow Me.” Jesus said, “You shall
enter into the kingdom of God.”
The following are two morning songs:
Jesus said, “Whoever asks Me for water, I will give him the water of
life.
If I give him water he will never thirst again.”
The sun is coming up now. God made that light for us.
We are living now. God made us. To God is the glory.
Other peyote songs are not sung at ritually-set times:
Jesus, how do we know, Jesus, how do we know [him]?
We think about Jesus wherever we are.
How did I know, How did I know Jesus?
When I die I will be at the door of heaven and Jesus will take me in.
God said in the beginning, “Let there be light,”
He meant it for you.
Son of God, have pity on us [repeat]
Son of God, when you come again,
Where your people (the angels) are, let us be.
This is God’s way [repeat]
Whosoever believeth in Him will have everlasting life.
This is God’s way.
We are living humbly on this earth [five times]
Our Heavenly Father, we want everlasting life through Jesus Christ.
We are living humbly on this earth.
He is the only way, Christ is the Way of Life,
He is the only way.[113]
Radin[114] adds the following Winnebago songs:
Ask God for life and he will give it to us.
God created us, so pray to him.
To the home of Jesus we are going, pray to him.
Come ye to the road of the son of God; come ye to the road.
_Midnight Ceremonies._ The whistling outside the tipi at the four
quarters is variously rationalized. The Kickapoo say the leader’s circuit
follows that of the singing inside, the Shawnee that he whistles at the
cardinal points “on account of the four different winds.” The Northern
Cheyenne, according to Hoebel, say they are following the instructions
of their culture-hero Sweet Medicine in this, while the Comanche say the
whistling is to “notify all things in all directions that we are having
a meeting here in the center of the cross, and calling the great power
to be with us while we drink so that it could hear our prayers.” The
Winnebago “flute” blown at this time is to “announce the birth of Christ
to all the world”; it also represents the trumpet of the Day of Judgment,
and the leader’s otter skin hat symbolizes Christ’s crown of glory. Other
Winnebago[115] say the whistling symbolizes the song of praise of the
birds in heaven whom God created. The Arapaho say the whistling is an
eagle’s cry when it is searching for water, and imitates its coming from
a great distance until it dips its beak into the water.[116]
The midnight songs of the Pawnee are said to be for the protection of
the man who fetches the water. Old-time Comanche used a paunch for the
water, but a bucket is everywhere now used; Comanche and Iowa drinking
begin at the cedar chief, rather than south of the door as is usual.
The Ponca leader dips a feather in the water and sprinkles patients and
those nearby with it; and Shawnee sacrifice a cupful to the earth before
drinking. The Kickapoo and others drink directly from the bucket when the
fireman brings the midnight water, but use a cup when the woman brings
the morning water, in graceful symbolism. Some say the woman represents
“Peyote Woman”; others, like the Wichita, identify her with older native
powers.[117]
The Lipan have no midnight water ceremony. The Hoag (Caddo) rite has
no water ceremonies until the drum has made four rounds of the tipi,
but water is brought in for visitors who might call for it or provided
outside to be drunk at recesses.[118] In Moonhead’s meeting the fireman
gets a feather from the leader on leaving and touches the peyote on his
return as he is fanned and incensed with cedar.
_Recess._ After the midnight water ceremony anyone can leave on
permission of the leader when he has returned from the whistling ritual
outside and been incensed with cedar smoke. People usually leave in
twos and threes, as the meeting continues, but they return promptly
since others may wish to go out. The Pawnee are apparently unique in
their midnight recess: after the water ceremony all leave for a ten to
twenty-five minute period, the paraphernalia meanwhile resting on the
altar cloth.
_Doctoring._ Doctoring in peyote meetings (save those of the Kickapoo,
Caddo and possibly the Osage)[119] is of prime importance, and in a
majority of cases is the expressed purpose of calling a meeting. The
supposed therapeutic virtues of peyote, or in the less technological
view, its “power,” have been important in the history of the cult. Quanah
Parker, the great Comanche proselytizer of peyote, at first opposed to
it, was cured of a stomach ailment in 1884 and became one of the most
enthusiastic proponents of the herb. Peyote doctoring has been the
occasion many times of the spread of peyotism from tribe to tribe (e.g.,
the Kiowa bringing it to the Creek). Kiowa doctoring was also probably
influential in modifying the Church of the First-born on Koshiway’s visit
in their country, and in bringing it into the fold of the Native American
Church.
The motives for the spread of peyotism in the Plains could perhaps be
equally divided between doctoring and power-seeking, but the dichotomy
is somewhat artificial in terms of native ideologies: indeed, the chief
“power” one gets in meetings is for doctoring.[120] Winnebago attitudes
recorded by Radin[121] find parallels elsewhere:
The first and foremost virtue predicated by Rave for the peyote
was its curative power. He gives a number of instances in which
hopeless venereal diseases and consumption were cured by its
use; and this to the present day is the first thing one hears
about it. In the early days of the peyote cult it appears that
Rave relied principally for new converts upon the knowledge
of this great curative virtue of the peyote.... Along this
line lay unquestionably its appeal for the first converts. Its
spread was due to a large number of interacting factors. One
informant claims that there was little religion connected with
it at first, and that people drank the peyote on account of its
peculiar effects.
Densmore[122] says that prayer during Winnebago peyote doctoring “are
petitions to God for the recovery of the sick person, not affirmations of
his recovery.”
Opler quotes a Lipan informant on doctoring:[123]
In the early days they just had a good time for one night.
It was not used as a curing ceremony then.... At first they
wanted to have good visions, that’s what they were after. But
then, recently, they began to use it as a medicine for sick
people.... If a sick person comes in the tipi, they see what
is the matter with him. Perhaps a witch has shot something
into him, a bone or something like that. It is seen. Then the
sick one rolls a cigarette and gives it to someone there who
he thinks can cure him. Perhaps some man says, “I think I can
take that out with the help of peyote and these other men.”
So he does his ceremonial work in there and extracts what is
bothering the patient.... He sucks it out usually with his own
lips, not with a tube. It is nasty work right there. It might
be dirty and full of pus. But the medicine man doesn’t think of
it in that way. To them it is just as if they were sucking nice
juice out of something. Yet it will look terrible to others....
All the bad things have to go into the fire and burn down to
ashes.... Sometimes they suck out things like insects which
have been shot into people and these things pop. Sometimes when
they throw the evil object in the fire it blazes up blue but
does not pop.
Northern Cheyenne and Shawnee patients sit in special places in the
peyote tipi, as in the sweat lodge, suggesting that older patterns of
doctoring are involved; as we have seen, the sweat lodge is an integral
part of the Osage peyote round-house plan. That associations of curing
by peyote and curing in the sweat lodge lie close to the surface finds
affirmation in an interesting Arapaho case:[124]
One of the recent modifications of the peyote ceremonial
was devised by a firm devotee, to cure a sick person. The
originator of this new form of the worship believes himself
to have been cured by the drug. In this ceremonial, which was
repeated four times, the tent seems to have represented a sweat
house, and a path led from the entrance to a fire outside, as
before a sweat lodge. The ritual, while remaining a peyote
ceremony, conformed more or less to the ordinary processes of
doctoring a sick person.
One could easily over-emphasize the novelty of such a procedure,
considering the widespread use of peyote in doctoring, yet even the
Caddo, who do not doctor with peyote, often have four meetings to pray
for the recovery of the sick person; certainly cures by peyote do not
rest entirely on the “technological” procedure of the patient’s eating
and drinking peyote, but others present “help” by eating in the name
of the sufferer and praying. This is not at all unlike the presence
of relatives and others in the sweat bath praying for the patient’s
recovery; the various uses of sage, the fire pits in some altars, and the
ritual necessity for a fire even on the hottest summer nights further
suggest sweat bath parallels.[125]
Peyote is a panacea in doctoring. A Cheyenne woman was cured of a cancer
of the liver which had been pronounced hopeless at a White hospital. Such
invidious distinctions between White and peyote doctoring are common; for
the former represents merely human skill, and is not the unmodified herb
the direct creation of God? Belo Kozad, himself a well-known Kiowa peyote
doctor, spoke as follows:
When my sick wife was in there I chewed peyote for her. Her
skin got like wood bark—the hair come out. The doctors couldn’t
make it. We give it up, can’t do anything. [It was] diabetes,
and we shoot him every time she eats. That spoils the people;
they lose the mind and the skin gets bad. That morphine for
Howard [Sankadote, who was ill the night of the meeting and
could not be present] make him talk funny. It just ruin the
people in the mind. _Come_ to peyote! God knows more than any
people!
Perhaps Belo had every “pragmatic” right to talk thus: had he not himself
cured a boy’s hemorrhage by eating one hundred green peyotes for him?
Peyote indeed is a famous cure for tuberculosis and respiratory diseases.
John Bearskin (Winnebago) knew of two cures by “Sister Etta” in meetings:
one a woman with goitre, the other a boy who had previously been
dumb.[126] Pneumonia also readily yields to peyote, producing beneficial
perspiration when thirty buttons are drunk over a period of hours in two
quarts of water. The writer has seen doctoring with peyote for a crushed
thigh, tuberculosis, and malnutrition (?) in a two-year-old child; this
last cried fretfully in the early part of the meeting, but was fed “tea”
until it was blue and quiet in strychnine tetanus by morning. The wife of
our Quapaw host had also been “operated on in church.”
A Sioux doctor, who had gotten his power from a vision in which peyote
turned into a man, doctored at Taos; but an acquaintance of Dr. Parsons
imputed his trachoma to witchcraft on the part of “foreigners” who came
to large meetings. He found that peyote water prevented the inflammation
of his eyes. Another boy’s leg was “all gone, rotten,” and the boy
himself emaciated. Peyote men prayed over him for a month, whereupon he
became well and fat, though his leg remained drawn up because he had
taken too much White man’s medicine. The wife of a peyote man, herself
cured of neck sores by the plant, asserted that witch sickness is lacking
nowadays in Taos because of the power of peyote in exorcizing witchcraft;
a peyote chief, however, holding a button in his hand, had had to remove
a porcupine quill which some witch had shot into her nose. At Taos even
anti-peyotists consider it good for cures, and Dr. Parsons, no doubt with
some reason, makes the query: “Will peyote find its character of witch
prophylaxis an introduction to the southern pueblos?”[127]
Peyote is equally successful in treating mental cases. An Oto informant
told of four successive meetings held for a man who had “gone crazy”
when his wife left him. Formerly under observation at Norman, he was
afraid people were coming for him during the meeting; he could hardly
talk, wanted to run out and people had to wrestle with him. Old Man White
Horn gave him a peyote and told him it would protect him; finally, in
the third successive meeting the man “came to” and asked what had been
happening. Another Oto patient chopped wood incessantly, rolled and
unrolled strings, etc., and used to have “meetings” by himself, drumming,
singing and eating peyote all alone. An Oto told me of a Taos boy who
had “gone crazy”; some said it was peyote that was doing this. But a
doctor from west of Albuquerque came and pulled a snake and a dead water
dog out of him; these had been his medicines, taught him by his father,
and it was decided that he had clearly broken some taboo surrounding his
father’s medicine.
“_Preaching._” An interesting feature of peyotism, probably deriving
from earlier patterns, is the moral lecture in the morning. In one Caddo
“moon” the leader “talks to the boys, teaches them, just like a preacher,
telling them to do the right thing through life, and the consequences
if they didn’t do the right things.” White Wolf (Comanche) says Quanah
Parker lectured younger people in the morning; so too did Kickapoo,
Carrizo, Shawnee and Wichita leaders.
After passing peyote, the Delaware leader “addresses the peyote and the
fire, prays, and often delivers a regular sermon or moral lecture.” In
the Iowa meeting:[128]
The peyote chief ... leads in the preaching and Bible
reading.... The leader (or, as the writer understands it)
perhaps some visiting preacher of the faith, gets up and
delivers a sermon, while the cedar chief casts some more
incense on the fire. [He commonly exhorts them to confession.]
The leader then calls on other preachers to talk, and then
asks the fire chief [to pass the peyote again].... Meanwhile
he continues to read the Bible and exhort all sinners to
repent. He points out that all the old ways have been given
up, and with them their “idols,” such as the great drum of the
religious dance.
John Wilson ordinarily began his meetings with a talk by himself; the
Oto are commonly addressed in meetings by their “tribal priest.” The
estrangement of the lively J. S. (Kiowa) and his young wife was composed
through moral homilies delivered by older relatives in a peyote meeting—a
typical occurrence.
At the end of the Pawnee meeting[129]
the members ... sit in their places and talk over their
experiences.... The leader closes the meeting at noon with a
lecture, or sermon, on ethical matters, speaking especially
against the use of alcohol.
Possibly Osage “testimony” may have some relation to this.[130] The
Winnebago[131]
ceremony is opened by a prayer by the founder and leader, this
being followed by an introductory speech.... During the early
hours ... speeches by people in the audience [are made], and
the reading and explanation of part of the Bible.
The midnight sermon, after the midnight water, also occurs:[132]
Then the leader asks anyone he desires to make a speech. This
may emphasize any point in regard to peyote.
The moral harangue is no doubt derived from earlier Plains patterns,
though it is a Southwestern feature as well, among the Rio Grande Pueblos
and elsewhere.[133]
_Prophecy._ The gift of prophecy has often been claimed by individuals in
native America. The first well-known such was Popé of the Pueblo Revolt
in 1680, but his successors were many: Wabokieshiek, or “White Cloud,”
the Winnebago-Sauk prophet of the Black Hawk War; the Delaware prophet
of Pontiac’s Conspiracy (1762); Tenskwatawa, twin brother of Tecumseh,
and the well-known “Shawnee Prophet” (1805); Kanakuk, the Kickapoo[134]
reformer (1827); Smohalla, the Sokulk dreamer of the Columbia
(1870-1885); Tavibo, the Paiute; Nakaidoklini, the Apache (1881); Wovoka,
or Jack Wilson, the Paiute prophet of the Ghost Dance of 1889 and later;
Skaniadariio, or “Handsome Lake,” the Seneca teacher, etc.[135]
Save for the revelations of the Caddo-Delaware John Wilson, and the
teachings of John Rave and Jonathan Koshiway, this tradition has become
much attenuated as regards peyotism. Large-scale prophecies can no longer
be made to skeptical and disillusioned audiences, but prophecy in minor
matters still occurs via peyote (e.g., the Delaware case in which a
serious industrial accident might have been avoided if he had only been
able to interpret correctly a warning peyote gave him). Old-time Comanche
could hear the enemy while still away off when they ate peyote, and in
making raids could discover the whereabouts of horses, etc. White Wolf,
again, visioned Charley Seminole’s face all bloody at a peyote meeting,
but was unable to interpret the prophecy; somewhat later, sure enough,
the Seminole accidentally shot himself under the eye.
In the origin story of peyote, when the Kiowa or Comanche were on the
war-path, the Apache leader knew of their leader’s approach to the tipi
where they were having a meeting, and told his fireman to invite him in,
whence the visitor brought peyote back to his tribe; this story is known
all over the southern Plains. Around 1870 the only Kiowa who ate peyote
was Pabo, or Big Horse. When he wished to find the whereabouts of an
absent party he would go into a tipi and say “gʸäʰgūṇboṇta” (I am going
to look for medicine), and would drum and rattle and eat peyote, and tell
the results of his inquiry afterward. Pabo’s power was from the eagle,
but Kiowa owl-doctors had clairvoyant powers in pre-peyote times. Another
Kiowa user miraculously predicted the coming of telegraph lines and the
railroad to Anadarko, having previously never seen either, and a Wichita
predicted the World War.
_“Baptism” and Other Morning Ceremonies._ The “curing” ceremonies of
Mexico and the Southwest still find a reflex in the Plains “baptism” in
the morning ceremonies. The leader in the tipi whistles for the water
as in the midnight ceremony, and a smoke is made for the bearer, the
only difference being that this time it is a woman, often symbolically
costumed,[136] who some say represents Peyote Woman of the legend. Many
groups, however, have a ritual “baptism” in this morning ceremony, which
is lacking at midnight.[137] The Arapaho,[138] for example, untie the
drum and pass it around the circles; each man wrings out the wet drum
head, makes a loop of the lacing-rope and throws it lasso-fashion over
his foot to symbolize the roping of horses, presses the seven marbles of
the drum to various parts of his body, and drinks a little of the drum
water. The worshippers then wash the paint from their faces, and comb
their hair, a towel, a mirror, a comb and water making the round of the
tipi; then finally the drinking water is passed around.
The Delaware file out behind the fireman to greet the rising sun with
prayer, and, standing in the same relative positions they occupied in
the tipi, wash their faces with the water which the fireman pours on
their hands; those who fall down at this time are said to be visiting
heaven. The rest re-enter for the ritual breakfast. The Caddo similarly
file out to wash and comb their hair, and preserve the same order even
at the secular meal at noon. The Iowa wash with soap and water as they
sit in the tipi; “the peyote chief himself carries the water to show his
humility, because of Biblical references to the washing of feet.” The
Shawnee are marshalled outside in two lines at sun-up to wash their faces
and “do arm exercises.” The Kickapoo, Wichita, Oto, Northern Cheyenne and
others pass the drum and sometimes all the ritual paraphernalia around to
be handled; some lick the drum stick dipped in the water and touch it to
various parts of their bodies. The Ponca leader, using a feather, shakes
water on participants both at midnight and in the morning, and as in some
other groups, waters the drum also.[139]
The ritual “quitting songs” are sung by the Pawnee just at dawn, as the
first rays of the sun strike the altar through the opened door; the last
song is sung five times, and each member then prays in turn to God. The
“baptism” ceremony of the Winnebago John Rave cultists (derived from
the Oto) is more Christian in tone than that of the Jesse Clay rite (of
Arapaho origin). Rave dipped his fingers in a peyote infusion, and passed
them over the forehead of a new member saying, “God, His holiness,” (or,
as some say, “God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”).[140] A little water is
also poured on the ground as a sacrifice. The well-nigh universal mode
of disposing of the remaining water in the drum is to pour it along the
earthen “moon.”
_Peyote Breakfast._ The foods in the ritual breakfast in the tipi are
so standardized as scarcely to allow comparative treatment. They are
merely minor variations on the theme: water, parched corn in sweetened
water, fruit and dried sweetened meat.[141] From the Lipan (roasted
corn, yucca fruit, wild fruit and meat, according to Opler) to the Ute
(canned corn, canned peaches and corned beef, as reported by Mrs. Cooke)
the uniformity is striking. These foods are eaten from a common set
of four vessels,[142] which are passed around with a single spoon in
each. Sometimes ground hominy or parched corn mush is substituted, and
Hoebel reports the Northern Cheyenne use of Cracker Jack for the parched
corn. Beef is the usual meat, in boneless chunks or dried, pounded and
sweetened, but pork (tabooed for the Comanche) is reported for the Ponca
and Northern Cheyenne.[143] Wild fruits are somewhat preferred to canned
varieties, but are not always obtainable. Although the original meanings
and connections with agricultural, gathering and hunting ceremonies
have long since been lost sight of, the feeling for the proper foods in
a peyote breakfast is still quite strong in the Plains, a remarkable
instance of culture continuity.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For convenience of reference I have followed with all possible care
the sequence of the development and appearance of elements laid down in
the Kiowa-Comanche type-rite (above), of which the following paragraphs
are largely comparative discussions.
[2] Mooney, _Miscellaneous Notes_, 40.
[3] Opler, _Lipan Apache Field Notes_.
[4] Erminie Voegelin, _Shawnee Field Notes_.
[5] Ritual gathering of plants is not unknown elsewhere; see Mooney, _The
Sacred Formulas_.
[6] See G. A. Dorsey in _Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:650a (Sun
Dance), as well as Spier’s _The Sun Dance of the Plains Indians_.
[7] Hoebel says the Comanche formerly did not have all night meetings
because of the danger of attack while under the influence of the drug.
[8] Opler’s data suggest that even the vision-seeking motive is recent
among the Lipan.
[9] The Lipan prayed for protection from their enemies as well as for
health and long life.
[10] Petrullo, 48. The mourning council meeting was not unfamiliar in
pre-peyote times. One such council was held for Tarhe, chief priest
of the Wyandot, at Upper Sandusky, in the old days, attended by all
the tribes of Ohio, the Indiana Delaware and the Seneca of New York
(_Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:294).
[11] Four older men pray and the child is passed clockwise around the
tipi as every one present calls out its name.
[12] Meetings are held _for_ the corpse, which is present “facing east”
(head west) in the meeting; at the funeral next day he faces west. The
writer omitted to attend an Osage meeting at Hominy because it was a
funeral meeting.
[13] Cf. the uses of datura.
[14] La Flesche, _Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_, 21.
[15] A favorite Indian holiday in Oklahoma is Memorial Day, when graves
are lavishly decorated.
[16] Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_.
[17] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 12 ff.
[18] Only two cases are known of women who fully participated in
meetings: Dog-woman (deceased), wife of John Red-turtle (Cheyenne) sang
and beat the drum; a woman at Taos, Apekaum says, sings in meetings like
men.
[19] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 398-99; Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal
Pattern_; Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_; the rest field investigation.
[20] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 725.
[21] One William Richard Nebuchadnezzar West ate peyote with the Kiowa
for years. Petrullo mentions one Pat Noonigan who ate with the Delaware,
and the Shawnee had a white participant for some twenty years. Early
white familiarity with peyote in Texas must be postulated to account for
its use by Texas Rangers in the Civil War (Lumholtz, 1:358).
[22] A Negro brought by the Kiowa drummed and sang along with the rest in
a Shawnee meeting; the former existence of a Negro “peyote” church near
Tulsa argues for a considerable amount of such contact.
[23] Again excepting the Caddo, who are over-suspicious for reasons
discussed later.
[24] The most homogeneous meeting I attended was a special tribal Wichita
one which, nevertheless, was attended by three Kiowa, four Comanche, and
two Whites, beside fourteen Wichita.
[25] Radin, _The Winnebago Tribe_, 415.
[26] Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 638; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_.
[27] Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 2; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 388.
[28] Hoebel, _Northern Cheyenne Field Notes_.
[29] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 399; Smith (Mrs. Maurice G.), _A Negro
Peyote Cult_, 452, note 10; see also _Handbook of the American Indians_,
2:661.
[30] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 404-405; see also Petrullo, _The Diabolic
Root_, 101. Shawnee sometimes paint their temples; Oto use red bars
below side burns. Delaware examples from Speck: red hair-part,
red-blue-red-blue-red horizontal lines over the bridge of the nose and
cheeks (Wilson’s Big Moon meetings); red and blue lines below and at
corners of eyes (“crying for repentance”); green zigzags in yellow cheek
spots, two red and one blue line at corner of eyes; all red chin bounded
by a blue semilunar arc on the upper lip and up the cheeks (representing
the altar “moon”); and blue red-bordered dots on each cheek-bone and
forehead representing peyote-buttons (a woman’s design).
[31] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 182.
[32] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 403, 405.
[33] Opler, _Lipan Apache Field Notes_.
[34] Skinner, _Ethnology of the Ioway Indians_, 261.
[35] Densmore, _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_.
[36] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 119.
[37] Speck, _Notes on the Ethnology of the Osage_, 163.
[38] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 186-87.
[39] Anhalonium means “without salt.” The salt-taboo is a common
Southwestern one, unconnected with peyotism there (e.g., Kroeber,
_The Seri_, 45) but associated in Plains peyotism with such borrowed
Southwestern traits as the water-drum.
[40] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 400.
[41] _Idem_, 398. “The slight variations in pattern,” writes Opler of
the Mescalero, “... undoubtedly owe their existence to the fact that
there are a number of peyote shamans, each eager to assert his own
individuality and ‘way’ by some minor departure or ‘rule’.”
[42] The peyote shaman in Mexico was certainly no figurehead, and
the peyote leaders of the Carrizo, Tonkawa, Lipan and Mescalero were
important in preventing rivalry.
[43] The authority of the leader finds ritual reflection throughout the
John Wilson “moon”: e.g., only the leader might smoke and pray, and
others calling for smokes were frowned upon as presumptuous. Further,
John Wilson’s “moon” contains his “grave” alongside that of Jesus Christ,
and his initials W. (Wilson) or M. (Moonhead). The altar, indeed,
represented Moonhead’s face; he even prescribed face-painting styles
with his initials in them. A man equated with Jesus Christ is scarcely a
negligible person. Koshiway (Oto) performed marriages and baptisms and
conducted funerals in the Church of the First-born. The point is just as
well demonstrated by the negative cases of those who aspired to peyote
leadership and failed. Even the local Pawnee President of the Native
American Church, James Sun-eagle, does not lead meetings.
[44] Delaware meetings appear to have had only road-man and fire-guard
(Harrington, _Religion and Ceremonies_, 188) but this may be an error
of omission. The Kiowa, Pawnee, Cheyenne, Iowa, and Taos all have the
“cedar-man” in addition.
[45] Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 3; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 388.
Densmore (_Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_), lists only three
leaders but may not be counting the fireman. See Skinner, _Societies of
the Ioway_, 724; Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 62 ff.
[46] Schultes, _Peyote and Plants Used_, 129-31.
[47] Excessive prices for peyote have been reported elsewhere. Mooney
says (_Miscellaneous Notes_, 30) an Oklahoma White dealer once charged 25
cents a button, though they cost him only $5.00 a thousand. Hoebel says a
Comanche once traded a fine horse for five hundred buttons. See Bennett
and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 291-92; Lumholtz, _Tarahumari Dances_,
453-55.
[48] Diguet, _Le Peyote et son usage_, 28.
[49] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 60; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_,
293, xiv; Mooney, _Miscellaneous Notes_, 60 ff.
[50] Big Moon leaders apparently required fees; Speck (Peyote MSS.)
says the Seneca were too poor to pay more than the leader’s carfare
when the cult was brought to them. Wilson himself met his death when
some horses given him by the Quapaw and tied to the back of his wagon
pulled backward at a crossing as a locomotive approached, and some of his
enemies assert that this was in punishment for his avariciousness and
economic exploitation of peyotism. He even charged money for sweatbaths
he prepared in connection with meetings.
[51] Cf. Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 410. A Shawnee gave the meeting-tipi to
two old men the next morning, and the writer has exchanged gifts with
several tribes, notably the Oto and the Kiowa.
[52] Koshiway said he ate 100 once: “I was like a Ford, all broken down,
connecting rods loose. The next day I was overhauled and hitting on all
four, and went to work.” Belo Kozad, well-known Kiowa leader, said he
ate 100 green peyote once but had a “hard time keeping it down.” Big Bow
(Kiowa) claims to have eaten 75 at the time of his prophetic vision of
the World War. One Oto sometimes eats 40 to 50 at which a man comes and
instructs him. Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne) for eight years President of the
Oklahoma N.A.C. said he ate 84 green ones once. Densmore (_Winnebago
Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_) says Winnebago ate 40 to 100, and many of
them ate 60; elsewhere (_The Peyote Cult_) she states a Winnebago usually
ate 15, but some ate up to 40. Lipan (Opler, _Lipan Apache Field Notes_)
ate 12 to 50. A Tonkawa leader (Opler, _Chiricahua Apache_) ate 40. Users
at Taos (Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 66) ate as many as 60, but usually about
20 or 30. Mescalero (Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_) ate
from 4 to 40, with 12 as a “generous amount.” Iowa (Skinner, _Societies
of the Iowa_, 724-25) considered 16 a good amount, women being restricted
to 2. Huichol (Lumholtz, _The Huichol Indians_, 9) rarely ate more than 4
or 5 daily, but at times consumed up to 20. An Arapaho stated under oath
(_Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_, 49) he had eaten 12-30 peyote
at different times, agreeing with Kroeber’s average of 12, with amounts
of more than 30 eaten sometimes. A White observer in a Comanche meeting
said he had seen them eat 30 or 40 apiece (Simmons, _The Peyote Road_).
An Osage, on the other hand, stated before an official group that 5 was
the upper limit for women and 7 for men (_Peyote as Used in Religious
Worship_, 31), a statement open to doubt.
[53] Opler, _Lipan Apache Field Notes_.
[54] Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_; _Chiracahua Apache_;
Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 3; Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 402, 405; Skinner,
_Ethnology of the Ioway_, 249 (but the Christian symbolism here is
Plains); Harrington, _Religion and Ceremonies_, 187-88; Petrullo, _The
Diabolic Root_, 53.
[55] The cane was the symbol of the Aztec merchant, and his friends did
this utlatl or otate great reverence at a feast on the return from his
travels; it symbolized Yiacatecutli, the god of merchants. Slaves were
also sacrificed at a temple rite involving the canes (Sahagún, _A History
of Ancient Mexico_, 1:41-42). Among the Huichol the staff of the judges
in the native courts are accorded “a superstitious reverence” as symbols
of authority (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:250). And although Governor
Valdes had visited most of the pueblos to appoint native governors and
captains by the year 1642, in Tarahumari the native term for leaders
is igúsuame, “stick-bearers” or selfgame, “lance-bearers” (Bennett and
Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 375-76).
[56] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 718; Harrington, _Religion and
Ceremonies_, 187-88; Opler, _Lipan Apache Field Notes_.
[57] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 65; Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 725;
Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 4, 21; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_
(but there is no biblical authority for this in Exodus 7. 19, 20. or
concerning Aaron’s rod in Exodus 8 or 10.13).
[58] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 724; Cooke, _Ute Field Notes_.
[59] Winnebago gourds often have on them pictures of Christ, the cross
and “crown” of thorns, the shepherd’s crook and other Christian symbols
(White Buffalo, in Blair, _The Indian Tribes_, 282; see also Harrington,
_Religion and Ceremonies_, 188; _Handbook of the American Indians_,
2:355b; Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 400, 405; Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 20).
[60] The best gourds are relatively small, not more than 3″ in diameter,
somewhat flattened on the top rather than spherical, and elongated toward
the handle. A hole is made through the gourd opposite the neck, cut off
an inch or so from the round part; a stick is thrust through these, the
neck hole being reinforced and made smaller by whittling down half a
spool and glueing it in. There is no peg transversely through the portion
emerging through the top, but both this and the handle part are usually
covered with tightly-sewn buckskin to which bead-work is attached; some
handles are carved or left plain. A tuft of red-dyed horse-hair is often
put on the top and a buckskin fringe at the bottom; shot or pebbles make
the sound.
[61] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 400; Skinner, _Ethnology of the Ioway_, 249;
_Societies of the Iowa_, 724; Hoebel, Voegelin, Opler, and Cooke, _Field
Notes_; Mooney (_Miscellaneous Notes_) says Comanche drums had eight
marbles sometimes, as had also the Shawnee, according to Mrs. Voegelin.
[62] The Kickapoo once tried a four-legged brass kettle instead of the
regulation three-legged iron one, but soon discarded it, having decided
that the tone was not right (this probably rationalizes some criticism
of their ostentation). The Caddo had a 10-marbled crock drum with a deer
skin head; the Oto, who have the kettle drum, sometimes use a crock, as
do the Omaha (Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 166; _Uses of Plants_). The
Delaware sometimes used otter skin instead of deer skin, with four bosses
tightened with a sharp stick or deer-horn (Harrington, _Religion and
Ceremony_, 188; Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 50).
[63] Cf. the Mexican belief about the peyote under the gourd-resonator.
Such taboos in regard to drums are also Iroquoian I believe, and possibly
Southeastern.
[64] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 726; Densmore, _Winnebago Songs of
Peyote Ceremonies_.
[65] The Chickasaw beat on a wet deer skin tied over the mouth of a large
clay pot (Adair, _History_, 140). The Choctaw beat with one drumstick on
a deer skin stretched over an earthen pot or kettle (Swanton, _Social and
Religious Beliefs_, 222); they used the goat skin covered cypress knee
drum as well (Bushnell, _Choctaw_, 22), and also bear skin and deer skin
(Swanton, _op. cit._, 224). The Koasati older drum was deer skin over a
cypress knee, and later the small iron kettle (Paz, _Field Notes_). The
Taskigi Creek used a hollow vessel partly filled with water (Speck, _The
Creek Indians_, 137). The Yuchi, besides the log drum, had the pot drum,
containing water, about 18″ high; the hide was usually decorated with a
wheel-like design and the privilege of beating the drum was invested in a
certain individual (Speck, _Yuchi_, 61, cf. the Caddo, in some respects a
peripheral Southeastern group and who have the “crock” drum). The Catawba
and Quapaw also had the pot-drum (Speck, _Catawba Texts_; _Handbook of
the American Indian_, 2:335b). It is not known if the Tonkawa water-drum
is pre-peyote, but the Lipan pottery drum is late according to Opler. The
water-drum of the Southeast is continuous through the Antilles into South
America (Wissler, _The American Indian_, 154).
Wissler makes no mention of Mexican or Southwestern occurrences of the
kettle-drum or water-drum, but the trait is common in these regions.
The Aztec had the kettle-drum (Sahagún, _A History of Ancient Mexico_,
1:87, 91). Beals (_Comparative Ethnology_, 112, 188, Table 71) lists the
atabale or kettle-drum in Tehueco, Culiacan, Tepic (Zentispac), Tarasco,
and Mexico. The pottery drum is Lacandone, Natchez and Chitimacha also
(Swanton, _Aboriginal Culture_, 708, in Beals, 188). Stevenson (_The
Zuñi_, 39) mentions a Tepehan pottery drum struck loudly at certain
ceremonies to insure the presence of beings who would keep the singing of
songs correct. The Western Apache have “male” and “female” water drums
(Henry, J., _Cult of Silas John Edwards_). The Huichol use no drum in the
peyote ceremony; the Tamaulipecan peyote-drum is the wooden type, as is
also the Tarahumari drum (Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 67-68) and
the Huichol drum, which is “alive” (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:32-34).
The Taos is the standard peyote drum; but the pottery drum is found among
non-users of peyote: e.g., Navaho, Chiricahua, W. Apache, Jicarilla,
Yavapai and Pueblo in general (Spier, information).
[66] Hoebel, _Comanche Field Notes_; Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_,
724, 758; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 65; Speck,
_A Study of the Delaware_, _passim_.
[67] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 405-409; Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal
Pattern_; Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 176; Opler, _Carrizo Field Notes_.
The feather as a symbol of delegated authority is also found in the Ghost
Dance.
[68] Cf. Boas, _Anthropology_, 91, “... the feathers of the Dakota
Indians ... by the way they are cut and painted, express warlike
exploits.”
[69] Hills, _Eating Medicine with the Quapaws_.
[70] Harrington, _Religion and Ceremonies_, 188; Opler, _The Influence of
Aboriginal Pattern_. _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:455-56, “The
downy feather was to the mind of the Indian a kind of bridge between the
spirit world and ours.” Note the Ponca whistling along the water bucket
feather.
[71] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 403, 405, 407.
[72] The Oto and Arapaho wear tufts of down feathers on their hair in
meetings; cf. the Tarahumari shaman’s feather headdress which tells him
all the bird knew and protects him by preventing air from entering his
head and making him ill (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:313).
[73] Mooney, _Peyote Notebook_, 28. Crashing Thunder visioned an eagle
with outspread wings in a meeting once (Radin, 188-89).
[74] Huichol peyote fetishes include the squirrel, skunk, birds and the
shaman’s fetish plant; the Tarahumari have the squirrel, birds and peyote
plant; the southern Plains birds and the peyote plant; and the northern
Plains the plant only—an interesting degeneration in complexity of
symbolism, a sort of diffusionist law of inverse squares.
[75] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 401, 406; letter of L. L. Meeker to Mooney.
[76] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 181-82; _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_,
21; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 389, “They are regarded by a number of
people, certainly by Rave, with undisguised veneration [i.e., the peyote
‘chiefs’].”
[77] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 724; Opler, _Chiricahua Apache_;
_The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_; _Lipan Apache Field Notes_;
Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 64-65. Cf. the Anadarko Delaware phrase
“ear-eating” for peyote-eating (Speck, _Notes on the Life of John
Wilson_, 552).
[78] An especially handsome and regular one, oriented with a thorn on
its “north” side, had fifteen full radial lines of hair-tufts. Of three
others, one was kept in a woman’s small mirrored vanity-case, a pomade
jar, and a silk handkerchief, all carefully wrapped up. Another very old
one was given his brother-in-law, Yellow Bird, by a Comanche. A cracked
one was kept in a beaded buckskin pouch along with a Catholic medallion
dated 1890; it had been given him by an Apache. He has also preserved
one given his wife by Mexicans at El Rio on their first peyote trip in
1926, and tied up with the mother’s he keeps two little ones which helped
his little girl. And finally, there were seven which he laid behind the
whistle one New Year’s meeting to represent the seven days of the week;
his daughter drank the water in which they were soaked and became well
in seven days. She is a grown woman now and he still keeps these peyotes
which have so well demonstrated their power.
[79] The Comanche leader Mumsika still preserves a famous peyote button
formerly belonging to Kutubi which performed prophecies on an historical
war party into Texas (Hoebel, _Comanche Field Notes_). The anxiety of
Clyde Koko (Kiowa) when he thought he had lost his “father peyotes” after
changing his mind about sending them back to their original country, well
demonstrates the psychological reality of these fetishisms.
[80] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 169, note; Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_,
165-66; Speck (manuscript); Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 724;
Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_.
[81] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 200. This is indeed a miracle if he read
it in Matthew 16.
[82] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 186-87; _Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 5;
_The Winnebago Tribe_, 394-95.
[83] Radin, _Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 6; _The Winnebago Tribe_,
395-96. The reference to John 1.4 indicates nothing of relevance.
[84] Romans 11.16-18. No native with whom the writer is acquainted has
to date noted the obvious Shakespearean reference to peyote, in the
speech of Banquo as the three witches vanish incorporeally into thin air
(Macbeth I, iii): “Were such things here as we do speak about, or have we
eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?”
[85] The Carrizo-Lipan had no crescent mound, which is probably of
Mescalero origin.
[86] Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 165-66.
[87] Cf. _Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:2b, 661: “Formerly among
the southern Plains tribes a buffalo skull was placed on a small mound
in front of the sweat house, the mound being formed of earth excavated
from the fireplace.” The original Comanche and Caddo moons appear to have
been more horseshoe- than crescent-shaped, and the apron of the Caddoan
Big Moons obviously developed from an elongation of the horns. The
introduction of the heart is apparently Caddoan also, influenced probably
by the Catholic “Sacred Heart” of Jesus.
[88] Enoch Hoag was at one time John Wilson’s assistant or drummer.
[89] A Comanche told Hoebel of a “moon” with the entire tipi-floor of
cement; if this is identical with one I was told about, it has been
subsequently destroyed. The rationalization given was that the cement
floor distorted the sound of the drum, and a return to an earthen floor
was made.
[90] The Kiowa and Caddo are therefore at opposite extremes; the Kiowa
were the leading spirits in the institutionalizing of peyotism in the
Native American Church, which gathered to itself even the earlier Church
of the First-born. In this respect they are the “Catholics” of the
movement, and, tired of the warring rival Protestantisms let loose by
Caddo visionaries, many groups are undergoing an “Oxford Movement” back
to the simplest earlier native forms, sans Bible and sans elaborate
altars, which after all have been the vehicles for prestige and wealth of
ambitious individualism.
[91] Several of Petrullo’s examples (Hoag, Black Wolf, etc.) are Caddo
rather than Delaware. His Hoag moon (_The Diabolic Root_, pl. 5, B, p.
181) was given to the writer with a half-ellipse joining the moon-tips
to form the lower part of the “face,” and the ash-mounds in position as
“eyes,” and the two eastern hearts reversed.
[92] Hoebel, _Northern Cheyenne Field Notes_; Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 64.
[93] This specimen is figured in Schultes, _Peyote and Plants Used_,
7. Is this a reflex of an older Kickapoo pattern? The prophet Kanakuk
furnished his followers with a chart showing a path through fire and
water, and gave them prayer sticks graven with religious symbols. See
_Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:650b, “Kanakuk.”
[94] Petrullo, _Diabolic Root_, 50, 101, 113. The symbolism of twelve of
the Caddo here is clearly a Delaware borrowing; cf. the twelve panels in
the Big Moon altars, the twelve eagle feathers, and the twelve sticks of
the fire. See Speck, _Delaware Big House_, for the symbolism of twelve
(twelve “heavens” etc.; cf. the twelve steps in the altar apron of the
Wilson moon). Petrullo says the twelve sticks represent the months of the
year or the tail-feathers of the eagle.
[95] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 401. See also Speck, _A Study of the
Delaware Big House_, 47, 51. Cf. the Arapaho, Sitting Bull, the Ghost
Dance prophet giving feathers to his assistants.
[96] The ceremonial fire we have seen is Huichol and Tarahumari (cf.
the “pillow of Grandfather Fire” of the Huichol with the “heart” of the
Caddo-Delaware peyote fire: both are used as a “smoke stick”). The Caddo
ceremonial fire, however, was pre-peyote (_Handbook of the American
Indians_, 2:2b; Swanton, _Aboriginal Culture_, 701). Beals (_Comparative
Ethnology_, 127) lists the ceremonial fire for the Tarahumari, Caddo,
Hasinai, Chitimacha, Houma, Natchez, Tunica, Taënsa, Jalisco (Cutzalán),
Mexico, and Maya (Lacandone); it is lacking in Tepic-Culiacan, Old
Sinaloa, Old Sonora, Southern Sierra and Tamaulipas (whence a southern
Plains provenience for the ceremonial fire in peyotism is implausible).
See also Beal’s map 26, 209; table 121, 211-12.
[97] It is believed that the Yuchi example figured by Petrullo in Plate 2
is erroneous in the placing of the ash eagle and in the presence of the
redundant ash crescent.
[98] Interestingly, though the bulk of modern peyotists are Siouan,
Caddoan and Algonquian groups, none used the elbow pipe in the
ceremony—only Taos. See Wissler, _The American Indian_, 26, fig. 6.
[99] Skinner thought peyote destroyed the appetite for tobacco
(_Societies of the Iowa_, 694, 726).
[100] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_. See Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 401;
Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 64, for standard form.
[101] Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 640-41.
[102] The importance of taking a comparative viewpoint is indicated by
the statement of Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 165, “... the Omaha, of
Nebraska, have interjected the use of wild sage, _Artemesia gnaphalodes_,
in connection with mescal ceremonies, that plant having been an
immemorial symbol of sacredness among the Omaha.” But see Kroeber, _The
Arapaho_, 399, 401; Radin, _The Winnebago Tribe_, 415 and others.
[103] In view of other peyote parallels, note the sweat bath sage-whip.
[104] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 65. The Arapaho (Kroeber, 402), Kiowa, and
others chew bits of sage.
[105] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 722.
[106] Harrington (_Religion and Ceremonies_, 189) may be in error in
stating that the staff is passed to the drummer’s _right;_ the native
painting contradicts this; cf. Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 402, for the
standard method; concerning passing persons, see Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_,
65.
[107] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 171, 175-77, 185-87; cf. _The Winnebago
Tribe_, 394-95; Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 64. Murie, _Pawnee Indian
Societies_, 637.
[108] Cedar was used to purify the Delaware Big House (Speck, _A Study of
the Delaware_, 171), which may account for the special cedar-man in the
Delaware rite of Wilson. But the pattern may have been reinforced by the
censer of the Catholics, by whom Wilson is known to have been influenced.
The Mescalero ascribe sickness after eating peyote to witching by
rival shamans. Mooney mentions an odorous root from New Mexico used
protectively perhaps, in Kiowa or Comanche meetings. See Kroeber, _The
Arapaho_, 402-403; Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 65, 105; Densmore, _The Peyote
Cult_; _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_.
[109] Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_; cf. Parsons, _Taos
Pueblo_, 63, 65.
[110] Mooney, _Miscellaneous Notes_, 8; _Peyote Notebook_, 12, 14. Dr.
Maurice G. Smith collected a number of peyote songs near Anadarko in
1930 (see Densmore, _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_) as did
Richardson in 1935 (Kiowa largely); see also Klineberg, _Notes on the
Huichol_, 458. Radin (_A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 3; _The Winnebago
Tribe_, 388) implies that the paraphernalia circulate only among the four
leaders and others sing only occasionally. Songs are best in the morning
when the unpleasant effects of the peyote have worn off (cf. Mooney, _The
Mescal Plant_; Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 404-405; Rouhier, _Monographie_,
344). Koshiway (Oto) told a joke in the morning about a partially deaf
man’s misunderstanding the song “Jesus in the glory now, he ya na ha we,”
and singing “Jesus in Missouri now.” Jack said, laughing, “He must be
getting close, He’s just over the river now!” Opler’s informant said the
Lipan can sing songs of a personal ceremony such as bear songs in peyote
meetings, but not masked dancer songs.
[111] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 728. Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_:
“The greatness (power) of God is made manifest through seven beasts,
as prophesied. One beast is in power now, as seen by the troubles of
the present time, all of which are according to prophecy. There is some
spirit [the seraphim] praising God constantly, which signifies that we
also should do that in order to inherit eternal life.”
[112] Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 637.
[113] Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote
Ceremony_.
[114] Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 5; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 395.
[115] Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; Radin, _The Winnebago Tribe_, 416-17.
[116] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 403. A more concrete physiological reason
for the leader’s exit was suggested in the preceding section.
[117] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 725, 727. Murie (_Pawnee Indian
Societies_, 637) misplaced emphasis in stating that midnight ceremonies
as such are peculiar to the Pawnee, yet he was correct, I believe, in
implying that their special midnight recess was unique.
[118] Cf. Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 116. Spybuck follows this
Caddo-Delaware custom (Voegelin, _Shawnee Field Notes_.) Cf. the painting
in Harrington (_Religion and Ceremonies_, pl. 9); but Spybuck is Shawnee
not Delaware.
[119] The Osage case is offered thus tentatively as it was in answer to
a leading question in a public hearing. See Office of Indian Affairs,
_Discussion Concerning Peyote_, 44.
[120] Certainly doctoring was the most important element in the
Southwest; cf. Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 294: “The use of
peyote resembles an elaborate curing ceremony [among the Tarahumari]
rather than a cult.” Opler (_The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_) writes
that “Apache ceremonialism had for its primary object the curing of
disease,” and peyotism came within this framework.
[121] Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 12-13; _The Winnebago Tribe_,
423.
[122] Densmore, _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_, 3.
[123] To be sure, diagnosis of illness by clairvoyance, etc., is resorted
to, but this is to be expected when witchcraft is the main cause of
sickness. (Cf. the combination of doctoring and divination with cohoba
snuff in Haiti. Safford, _Narcotic Plants_, 393.) Obsessive elements of
interest to psychiatry are found both in the witchcraft fear and in the
methods chosen to cure the ill.
[124] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 405.
[125] Kiowa and Comanche parallels with older doctoring methods have been
collected also. One of the latter involves a 2 foot mound in the tipi
with a cedar sprig on it, a fire, a woman assistant, smoking of tobacco,
and blowing on the patient.
[126] Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote
Ceremony_.
[127] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 60, 67-68.
[128] Harrington, _Religion and Ceremonies_, 189; Skinner, _Societies of
the Iowa_, 725.
[129] Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 637.
[130] “[At] 5 o’clock in the morning, when suddenly the singing ceased,
the drum and the ceremonial staff were put away, and the leader,
beginning at the door, asked each person, ‘What did you see?’” (La
Flesche, in _Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_, 33).
[131] Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 3; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 388.
[132] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 176; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_.
[133] Wissler, _The American Indian_, 189: “One prominent feature of
Nahua life was the elaboration of the moral lecture. In the Pueblo region
of the Rio Grande the chiefs and head men were given to daily moral
lectures.... Perhaps we are again dealing with a general characteristic
of New World society.” Cf. the Tamaulipecan harangue (Prieto, _Historia y
Estadistica_, 123-24).
[134] The prophecies and predictions of C. W. (Kickapoo president of the
Native American Church) on the basis of his visions have an old-time
flavor, though colored by Christianity and proselytizing for peyote: he
prophesied the “Judgment Day” and the “new world” to come; “it will be
too late to go in [the peyote tipi] when the time comes—you’ve got to
start now,” Kishkaton reports him as saying.
[135] _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:65a, 309-10, 401-402, 650;
2:371a, 587a, 885-86. Cf. the elaborate Quichua and Aztec Messiah legends.
[136] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 403-404; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_.
[137] Mooney (_The Mescal Plant_, 8) errs, we believe, in citing a Kiowa
midnight baptism.
[138] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 404.
[139] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 93; Harrington, _Religion and
Ceremonies_, 190; Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 727; Voegelin,
_Shawnee Field Notes_; Hoebel, _Northern Cheyenne Field Notes_. “Baptism”
is Lipan also.
[140] Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 637; Radin, _A Sketch of the
Peyote Cult_, 3, 5; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 389; Densmore, _The Peyote
Cult_. It is said that “the peyote-eaters wanted to get baptized and
unite with the church in Winnebago, but the clergyman in charge would
not permit them, so they went and did their own baptizing through their
leader John Rave.”
[141] Some add cookies and candy. The use of sweet foods and the
sweetening of others recalls the eating of teo-nanacatl with honey,
and the eating of sweet-meats while smoking “grifos” or marihuana. See
Maillefert, _La Marihuana_, 6-7.
[142] Mopope (Kiowa) painted a special set of white enamel-ware vessels
for Kozad’s meetings: water-bucket (tipi and “water-bird”), parched-corn
pan (ear of corn and four-direction feathers), fruit-pan (thunderbird,
fruit within a crescent design) and meat-dish (cooking fire, buffalo
horns and sun design).
[143] A recurrence of an old custom ascribed to Sweet Medicine appears
in the Northern Cheyenne peyote breakfast, when an individual takes five
pieces of meat across the lodge to a visitor (Hoebel, _Northern Cheyenne
Field Notes_).
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTISM
A descriptive account of a ritual pattern, however meticulously detailed
it be, must always fall short of reality unless supplemented by further
information regarding its functioning in terms of individuals. The older
descriptive ethnography and the newer interest in the dynamics of culture
are as necessary to each other as anatomy and physiology, of which,
indeed, they are the anthropological parallels. We accordingly embark
upon the somewhat anecdotal filling in of the pattern sketched in the
preceding section.
Every student of peyote has been met with a sometimes odd mixture of
suspiciousness and candor, an ambivalence in attitude derived primarily
from the native attitudes toward peyotism itself. Most of the younger
adherents of the cult have had White schooling of a sort, but though
the express intent of this schooling has been the deculturation of the
Indian, on returning to their tribes old loyalties are characteristically
reestablished and old ways of thinking fallen into; the total effect of
Christian teaching on peyotism, therefore, has not been particularly
profound.
But all peyote adherents are aware of the efforts, both religious and
secular, to suppress the movement, and most of them are familiar with
the arguments advanced against peyote as an allegedly harmful drug.
They have commonly met this with the counter-propaganda that peyote is
a specific cure for alcoholism, but nevertheless this attitude on the
part of bearers of the powerful and prestige-full White culture has not
left them unimpressed, and there is a consequent lack of psychological
security in their belief and practice of peyotism. Though the cult is
a compromise solution between Christianity and older native religions,
there is still a large number of persons whose attitude toward peyote is
thoroughly precarious—as evidenced by the vacillations, defections and
rationalizations we are about to list.
Save for the Caddo (and there are perhaps historical reasons for this)
ordinary sincerity and interest are met by the Plains practitioners with
corresponding candor and friendliness toward the ethnographer. There
is no very great difficulty in a sympathetic White man’s attending a
peyote meeting nowadays. Indeed, some groups, out of naïve faith in the
plant’s power, seem even to invite attendance in the hope of producing
a propagandist for the cult to counteract the unfriendliness which they
feel, and not unrightly, has arisen from ignorance and prejudice. An
instance of this good faith and even naïveté occurs in an Osage petition
to Congress that in the event of a law being passed to regulate the
use of peyote, an exception be made for the “Indian lodges using it as
a sacrament,” and they promised to use it only under the supervision
of reservation superintendents![1] And a sincerity not open to doubt
was evidenced by a Cheyenne, one time president of the Native American
Church, who sent 200 peyote buttons on his own initiative through his
agency-superintendent to a chemist at Stanford University, requesting a
thorough and disinterested scientific analysis, and offering his further
services if necessary.[2]
Another factor making for insecurity of belief and practice has been the
intense opposition on the part of some leaders of older cults in the
tribe itself. We will recur to this subject in discussing the history of
peyote in specific groups, but cite here the rather accentuated example
of hostility at Taos.[3] Dr. Parsons tells of a lawsuit between a “peyote
boy” and one of the Mexican Penitentes which was resolved by both paying
the costs, to prevent the betrayal of native customs. Thereafter the
chiefs said:
[Peyote] does not belong to us. It is not the work given to us.
It will stop the rain. Something will happen.
But as desire for rain is the typical anxiety reflected in native ritual
in the agricultural Southwest, the peyote boys retorted in the same vein.
In the drought of 1922 they said:
“Now it is so dry this summer because the peyote boys can’t
have their meetings; they used to bring so much rain.” [Indeed,
nowadays,] the townspeople are given to referring all their
inclination to feud to the peyote situation.
But there is ample evidence that this tendency existed before peyote ever
came to Taos. On the other hand, the wife of one peyote-user asserted
that there was no more “witch sickness” in the town because of the
peyote people, who were able to exorcize witches; nevertheless, one man
attributed his trachoma to witching by “foreigners” in peyote meetings.
Such intense seriousness is in marked contrast to the situation in some
Plains tribes, where peyote jokes are told at times in the forenoons
after meetings, when sufficient rapport has been established. A Comanche
story tells of a leader who took his expensive watch into a meeting and
laid it on the altar cloth near the father peyote to “show off.” A man
shaking the gourd vigorously on the north side was making motions toward
the father peyote, and miraculously the watch became broken up; “it
was just a mess of works there loose, and the hands dropped off.” The
informant was highly amused at this story. An Oto told the tale of a man
whose jaw became stiff as he was singing, a contretemps which upset the
whole meeting. Though this effect was apparently due to peyote, the story
was greeted with much laughter. People laugh at the incorrect singing
of peyote songs too. We have already mentioned the one involving the
alarming proximity of the Messiah just across the river in Missouri.
Another story is told of a visiting Kiowa who attempted to sing a
Comanche song in meeting. He mispronounced the words and sang, “_Mentula
exposita est! Mentula exposita est!_” All the auditors of this story
laughed at this further proof that the Comanche have “no shame.”
The attitudes surrounding the plant itself are interesting. Perhaps the
Tarahumari[4] attitudes are most accentuated:
Those who have never eaten peyote fear it most. Should they
touch the plant, they believe they would go crazy or die. Those
who have once eaten it at a fiesta need have no fear of it,
providing they treat it properly.
At Tarahumari feasts of the dead peyote protects the living from the
ghost of the deceased, quite as eating it prevents bears from attacking
the hunter or deer from running away from him; it confers invulnerability
from the Apaches and warns of their approach, and likewise foils the
machinations of sorcerers and robbers. In short, “hikuli is a powerful
protector of its people under all circumstances.”
The Lipan well represent the attitude of early users in the United States:
If a fellow is not scared, is not afraid of it, he will surely
have a good time. A fellow who is afraid of it just gets dizzy
and frightened. He sees things that frighten him. What he sees
is not true, but is just playing a joke on him.... When a
fellow is honest and good natured it is easy for him. But when
a fellow is rough and ill tempered he will have a hard time
learning from peyote. It will scare him and make it hard for
him.... The chief peyote is pretty tough. It watches what is
going on. It keeps everything straight. It is a plant, but it
can see and understand better than a man. If someone has wrong
thoughts, he had better look out or he will go crazy....
When they first start eating peyote they put their thoughts on
something good, something they want, for they say that whatever
you are thinking about when you start is what you will see all
during the night in your vision.... Sometimes a man sees a
vision and it scares him and he goes out running. But he is all
right the next day. The thing that frightened him won’t happen
unless he thinks about it all the time and it frightens him
continually. Then he begins to be afraid of it and thinks it
will happen. But if he holds it off—holds off the bad thoughts
that frighten him—nothing will occur.... Sometimes it makes
you dream something pleasant, sometimes it makes you dream
something dangerous.... In the morning, just after the meeting
is over, you can tell others what you saw.
Hoebel writes that
the trickiness of peyote is emphasized by the Cheyenne. They
constantly reiterate that a man must keep hold of himself and
also that he must live straight or peyote will shame him.
A Delaware rationalized the unpredictable effect of peyote somewhat
differently:[5]
I had the feeling once that it was going to make me foolish,
but that happens to everybody, and is a test of one’s faith in
peyote.
Vomiting of peyote is a punishment for one’s sins, but it cleanses the
body of its impurities in the process and purifies the blood. Part of the
symbolism in the bead-work on an Arapaho fetish-pouch is the “vomitings”
deposited in a ring around the inside of the tipi.[6]
It would be naïve to suppose that peyote tastes any less unpleasant to
natives than it does to Whites. But we should remember that peyote is
eaten by Indians influenced by strong motives and deep belief, and the
consequent physiological state is easily and adequately rationalized. It
is not surprising that a man addicted to alcohol and shamed by it before
both Indians and Whites believes that “whiskey and peyote fight in a man,
and usually peyote wins and brings it out.” No doubt such a cure _ad
nauseam_ is as good as any, and more effective than some. The depressing
effect of peyote is also well recognized and measures are taken to
overcome it. The Arapaho have feathers at four corners of the tipi to
brush persons who tire during the meeting, and the “smoke” at Taos is
made to overcome the depression of the early stages of eating, as sage is
similarly used in the Plains.[7]
But suffering is counted even a positive virtue among people who had the
“vision quest” in the old days. A crippled Indian at Miami told me that
“to get power from peyote a man must suffer to it.” The four rounds of
the drum without water among the Caddo suggests an intention of making
the meeting an ordeal, and Mrs. Voegelin’s Shawnee informant emphasized
that the Spybuck moon modelled on the Caddo was “hard.” Most informants
would consider the Osage, who have “beds” in their meeting-houses
sometimes, not merely ostentatious but also “soft”; one old man said that
sage under the blankets of the seat as a cushion indicated a decadent
generation, for did not they sit on the bare ground in the old days? A
Kickapoo informant said Quanah Parker used to warn them that the taste of
peyote wasn’t good, though “it would keep you on the right path.” About
2:10 in the morning a Comanche informant of Simmons said:
If there is suffering, this is the time. That’s the reason
I took a good rest: so I could stand it. Many a time I have
fallen over at this time. It’s getting on to what they call
the dark hour, the hour of the Crucifixion. Everyone here is
suffering now.
The Winnebago[8] elaborated into a dogma the physiological effect of
peyote in producing occasional vomiting:
If a person who is truly repentant eats peyote for the first
time, he does not suffer at all from its effects. But if an
individual is bull-headed, does not believe in its virtue, he
is likely to suffer a great deal.... If a person eats peyote
and does not repent openly, he has a guilty conscience, which
leaves him as soon as the public repentance has been made....
If a peyote-user relapses into his old way of living, then the
peyote causes him great suffering.... The disagreeable effects
of the peyote varied directly with a man’s disbelief in it.
This explanation [Rave] persistently drummed into the ears of
beginners, who otherwise become terrified and give up too soon.
We have already noted the Huichol-Tarahumari belief that peyote sees and
punishes evil deeds. Similarly, when as an old man Kutubi (Comanche)
became sick he gave his father peyote to Mumsika, reasoning that he had
“probably eaten something peyote didn’t allow”; this is probably the
same father peyote which years before had predicted a bad fate for a war
party. The leader had wept and strenuously upbraided peyote for this and
may later have felt some guilt for his presumptuousness. In any case he
held peyote responsible both times for his bad fortune.
But if peyote is blamed for bad fortune, it is also accredited with
the liquidation of manifold anxieties. Fear of death is perhaps the
most conspicuous anxiety in Plains culture. It is not surprising,
therefore, that doctoring plays a major part in the cult. But the power
and authority of peyote are relied upon in other ways too. In a number
of tribes peyote or peyote tea is used whenever the individual finds
himself confronted with any important personal problem. To be sure, it
is the individual’s _total wishes_ which ultimately find expression in
the course of action followed, but the consultation with peyote composes
conflicts and gives an authority to the decision which the “unaided”
individual might not have been able to summon.[9]
The protective function of the father peyote is most highly
patterned, perhaps, among the Mescalero Apache.[10] In this culture
the aggressions arising from the particular socio-economic system of
marriage find expression in intense witchcraft activity. But for the
typical aggressions which a culture engenders, a culture often has a
patterned solution to offer. For though the means used were magical, the
aggressions and counter-aggressions were _real_ in the psychological
sense, and peyote had a real function in witch-prophylaxis. Shamanistic
rivalry was most virulent and witchcraft-anxiety was correspondingly
as intense as the projected hatreds. One never knew what dangerous and
powerful supernatural possessions a hated rival possessed, hence a
number of protective devices were developed in Mescalero peyotism.[11]
Yet characteristically in this uncomfortable culture, the power of peyote
was itself dangerous, and elaborate care had to be exercised in removing
the fuzz from the top of the buttons before eating. Should it touch the
eyes, it would cause blindness!
In the Plains the fear is often expressed, not without justification,
that the white man is ever about to take away the peyote religion
from the Indian, as he has taken almost everything else material and
immaterial. But the frequency of this asserveration, sometimes in
contexts which the writer thought were unrealistic, indicates that
Indians view peyote in a sense as a protector from the Whites. Peyote
is rather confidently thought to be able to take care of itself—which
accounts for the comparative ease with which a white man can obtain
entrance to a meeting, where he will be exposed to “proof” of peyote’s
power. We need not emphasize this function of peyote beyond its true
proportions, but it may be recalled that peyote enabled a native to
escape from a white man’s jail; that it aided peyote pilgrims to bring
plants undeterred through the white man’s customs; that it is the
sovereign remedy for the evil of the white man’s whiskey; that peyote
has so far protected itself against the white man’s attempted sumptuary
legislation; that it miraculously escaped detection and confiscation in
a white man’s war, through which it protected its bearer; and, not least
in psychological importance, that peyote characteristically succeeds
(because it is of God, not man) in cures which the white doctor has long
since given up as hopeless.
This function of peyote as protector is rooted in earlier history:
it sees from afar the approach of the enemy, predicts the results of
battle and protects one in battle from the hazards of war. Peyote would
have prevented a gun accident, and an accident with a mechanical saw,
in instances collected, if the persons involved had only been able to
understand its warning. And in another case, when a serious automobile
accident had already happened, peyote quelled the anxiety of worrying
relatives in assuring an ultimate cure. Again, Mary Buffalo, White Wolfs
mother and Belo Kozad’s wife had all lost many children, until they took
their sons into peyote meetings and prayed to the power that they be
spared; in each case the son grew to manhood. Peyote is the comforter in
the event of death also; a funeral meeting is often held as the last rite
of respect to the deceased, and some groups hold anniversary meetings for
four years after the death.
But peyote punishes as well. An inconstant result of its physiological
action is the production at times of an intense fear-state. Rave, for
example, (Winnebago)[12] in a period of mental stress experienced his
fear:
Suddenly I saw a big snake. I was very much frightened.
Then another one came crawling over me. “My God! Where are
these snakes coming from?” There at my back there seemed to
be something also. So I looked around and saw a snake about
ready to swallow me entirely. It had arms and legs and a long
tail. The end of its tail was like a spear. “Oh God! I am
surely going to die now,” I thought. Then I turned in another
direction and I saw a man with horns and long claws and with a
spear in his hand. He jumped for me and I threw myself on the
ground. He missed me. Then I looked back. This time he started
back but it seemed to me that he was directing his spear at
me. Again I threw myself on the ground and he missed me. There
seemed to be no escape for me.
A similar experience of Crashing Thunder (Winnebago) is noted elsewhere;
and in a story told of Bear Track (Cheyenne) and his Osage wife on their
visit to the Holy Land, the parents seem to have communicated some of
their anxiety and fear surrounding mysterious experiences there to their
small daughter, who awoke screaming one night at a presence she saw in
the room.
The peyote meeting of many groups has incorporated in it a powerful
mechanism for the liquidation of individual anxieties in the practice
of public confession of sins. It is difficult to over-estimate the
importance of this feature.[13] On the exhortation of the leader, many
members rise and accuse themselves publicly of misdemeanors or offenses,
asking pardon of persons who might have been injured by them. How large
a part peyote has in the production of such states is an open question
(for the pattern of public confession is widespread aboriginally in the
New World); but that confession to the father-peyote and his authority,
and repentance before the group is of profound significance cannot be
doubted. More than ritual tears stream down the confessant’s cheeks as he
acknowledges his faults and asks aid to keep his promise to mend his ways.
Peyote often figures in matters of personal adjustment. The story of John
Rave is too well known to require more than mention here. The somewhat
similar history of Jonathan Koshiway (Oto) is likewise interesting in
showing how a compromise was struck between the older pagan culture and
Christianity, to whose influence this individual had been exposed. The
personal solution in Koshiway’s case seems to have been a perfectly
satisfactory one: in the Church of the First-born he doctored and
“hollered” like the source of his power in good old Indian fashion, and
on the other hand baptized, conducted funerals and married couples just
as in white churches. The statements of Crashing Thunder’s father[14]
indicate a somewhat less happy and inclusive solution, which involved the
sacrifice of the old customs:
The peyote people are rather foolish for they cry when they
feel happy about anything. They throw away all the medicines
that they possess and whose virtues they know. They give up
all the blessings they received while fasting, give up all the
spirits who blessed them. They stop giving feasts and making
offering of tobacco. They burn up all their holy things,
destroy the war-bundles. They stop smoking and chewing tobacco.
They are bad people. They burn up their medicine pouches, give
up the Medicine Dance and even cut up their otter-skin bags.
Crashing Thunder, as we have seen, was himself persuaded by peyote
cultists that it was disgraceful to have his hair long, and he gave his
shorn hair with his medicine bundles to his brother-in-law, as both wept
and as he received the thanks of his relatives. Clothing and headdress
are also symbols of conflict between the old and the new for Taos and
Osage.
A dramatic solution of a life-long problem was offered Crashing
Thunder in peyotism. He had lied about having gotten power from a
vision-experience in connection with the the older native religion: so
important for personal prestige was this experience that he was betrayed
into fabrication to obtain it. But he never lied to himself. All his life
he was aware of the deception, and being a man of marked fundamental
honesty, he keenly felt the fraud. Finally at the age of forty-five
he did achieve through peyote the experience which he had missed in
his youth. His conversion to the peyote religion was consequently most
profound: “It is the only holy thing that I have become aware of in all
my life,” he said simply, after this experience.
Jack Thomas (Delaware) solved a problem of major importance to himself
through peyote. He had been appointed a Government policeman, and found
considerable conflict between his duty and his sympathies. Finally he
became gravely ill, and a meeting was put on by his brother and another
relative to pray for his recovery. In this meeting the answer came to him:
The others in the tipi did not like me. Peyote told me this. I
had been a man-catcher. That was the reason. The two persons
that loved me prayed for me and I got well. I did not go back
to my job of man-catcher. Peyote showed me that it is wrong.
The mechanisms for social control afforded by the public and communal
nature of the cult (as opposed to the individualism of the older
religions in the Plains) are on the whole very effective. The speeches
of the leaders and old men give ample opportunity for the expression of
opinions concerning the conduct of younger members in peyote meetings and
out. We have already noted the case in which a Kiowa marriage was saved
from destruction by timely advice and reprimand addressed to the husband
in a peyote meeting. The prayers, too, which almost any individual may
make by calling for a smoke, are further vehicles for quite various
psychological transactions.
Peyote leadership carries with it much prestige, and the great
road-chiefs like Quanah Parker, Belo Kozad, Old Man Horse, White Horn,
John Rave and Jonathan Koshiway are spoken of with considerable respect.
In the case of John Wilson peyote was further made the vehicle of
economic success. But the negative instances are just as interesting. We
have already mentioned A. S., a Seminole who lived and married among the
Caddo. He built a moon of the general John Wilson-Enoch Hoag type, which
differed from these in only minor details. His bid for personal prestige,
however, received so little support on the part of his group that he
removed the inner symbolic part of his altar to the woods nearby, and
left only the crescent and apron of a “small moon.”
Another case is that of H. B., a Kiowa. This group has been unimpressed
by any major changes in the rite, and success in leadership lies along
rather conventional lines since they regard themselves as the repositors
of the original native rite. H. B. aspired to be a peyote leader and to
increase his prestige through the cult. His wife’s brother was the leader
of the minutely variant “Kiowa Road,” his mother’s brother, further,
was one of the two original users of peyote among the Kiowa and his
step-father was an owner of one of the “Ten Medicine” bundles. All in all
his chances might have seemed good in the beginning. But a train of bad
luck befell him: his wife died, his step-son fell sick, and his mother’s
brother died, all within a year. His mother quarreled with the rather
well-to-do wife of her nephew, C. A., who among the middle-aged men is
perhaps the most promising and widely accepted peyote leader (though he
still modestly confines himself to the job of “fire chief”). Then, as C.
A. said—and he was not above sabotaging his rival H. B.’s chances—“he
couldn’t quite make the grade, because people wondered why all these
things had happened to him; some fellows are like that.”
There is much therefore that is psychologically precarious in peyotism.
Personal histories and happenings to the individual determine his
attitude toward the cult, and the attitude may change as new anxieties
arise and old ones are solved. A typical conversion perhaps is that of
John Bearskin (Winnebago), described by Densmore:[15]
The parents of John Bearskin belonged to the medicine lodge and
he belonged to that organization until 1912. The mother of John
Bearskin became sick in 1905 and told him that she was near to
death. He was so distressed that he went to town and became
drunk. The next morning they wakened him and said that his
mother was dead. His father died in 1909. At that time he had
a little girl two years old and his sister had a little girl
five years of age. Both children died a week after his father’s
death. Bearskin’s father left him a farm with house, stock and
implements. He disposed of these, spent part of the proceeds
and with the remainder bought a house in Winnebago [Nebraska]
but later sold that and spent the money. He was drifting from
place to place and working as he had opportunity when a cousin
wrote him about peyote, advising him to return and use it. He
went back and on January 19, 1912, he and his two daughters
joined the peyote organization, being baptized by John Rave.
His wife joined later, during an illness. Since that time he
has not wavered in his attachment to the peyote cult, neither
has he gambled nor used liquor nor tobacco.
But there are skeptics who do not join. Michelson[16] quotes a Sauk
informant, who first belonged and later quit the cult:
I do not believe in it because it gives you the same effect
as whisky when you are drunk four or five days; only peyote
will affect you when you eat it once. I have eaten so there is
nothing in it. I quit five years ago. And another reason why I
do not believe in it is because the man did not know who the
manitou was who did the talking [in the Peyote origin legend];
because the men pitied by manitous, among us Sauks, knew who
they were, such as Wolf, Wisake, Turtle, or such as that.
An Oto informant was skeptical at first about the power of peyote, and
experimented with it: for two days he drank tea to test its virtues,
and then went to a meeting. There he was converted or “saved” when he
realized that he was “pitiful like a stick.”
Delos Lonewolf (Kiowa) quit peyote and became a preacher again, though
he had been an important peyote leader and one-time president of the
Oklahoma Native American Church; he had had “family troubles” and
was apparently persuaded thereto by his wife. Cecil Horse and Albert
Cat (Kiowa) have also recently quit peyote. When Kiowa Jim lost his
son, he gave his staff, gourd and feathers to Baptiste Derond (Oto),
a brother-in-law of Jonathan Koshiway. Derond was later killed in an
automobile accident. His younger brother Frank now has the paraphernalia,
but according to Koshiway, “they are afraid of them, and want to return
them,” since they are associated with misfortune.[17]
Sometimes Christianity itself is invoked in defence of peyote. Old Man
Green (Oto) used arguments from the Bible to confound a Protestant
minister who had been unfriendly to the native religion. He quoted from
Genesis 1.12 an opinion from God Himself upon His completing the creation
of green herbs: “and God saw that it was good.” Said Green, “Peyote
was there then. If you condemn peyote, you condemn God’s work.” On the
whole, however, peyotism and Christianity are mutually exclusive in the
southern Plains at least, so far as membership in the one or the other
is concerned. This is partly due to the usual time peyote meetings are
held (i.e., Saturday night and Sunday forenoon), but partly also to the
intransigence and stubbornness to native overtures on the part of white
Protestant ministers.
Bert Crow-lance (Kiowa) is an interesting case of a man who has tried
both the old religion and peyote, and found both unsatisfactory. In
1935 he attempted the vision quest, fasting and praying on a hill west
of Anadarko. A hernia had partially incapacitated him for work, and he
was seeking means to support his large family. He went out to fast and
pray in the hope (so he told the writer) of finding gold and diamonds in
Oklahoma through a vision, and failing that, oil, which would make him
rich. But before he had completed the required four days, his deceased
mother appeared to him in a vision and told him that there were snakes
around which endangered him, and that he must return later with a pipe,
which he had forgotten. But the second attempt was no more successful
than the first.
Crow-lance had gone to a number of peyote meetings. In one of them he
prayed that his sick daughter be made well. She later died. Crow-lance in
disgust threw his peyote feathers into the Washita River. A friend who
heard of this was horrified:
Only when a Kiowa _dies_ do you throw things in the river. Your
children and grandchildren are living. That’s a mistake, and he
must right it now. We’re getting after him now—he threw away
all his good feathers!
The articles were recovered in part, and selections of gourds and
feathers were made by other peyote-users. Another anecdote we have
already recounted of a father peyote which was almost returned to the
place where it had been gathered. Again, Timbo (Comanche) formerly had
many cattle and horses. He has lost all of them now, and this he blames
on the displeasure of peyote. In short, all manner of happenings are
attributed to the approval or ill favor of peyote, and rare is the event
which may not be rationalized on this basis.
From these data, then, it may be well seen that peyotism functions
in all ways as a living religion: peyote christens the new-born and
protects their early years, teaches the young, marries young men and
women, rewards and punishes the behavior of adult years, and buries the
dead—offering throughout consolation for troubles, chastening for bad
deeds or thoughts, and serving as the focus for tribal and intertribal
life. Peyotism is without question the living religion of the majority of
Plains Indians today. Perhaps the statement of a Delaware may make this
clear:[18]
The old Delaware religion is too heavy for us who are
becoming few and weak. It is too difficult; Peyote is easy
in comparison. Therefore we who are weak take up this new
Indian religion. This is the very objection raised by the old
men, taking it up. But Peyote knows that the Indian’s burden
of becoming educated and at the same time keeping up the old
religion is too heavy, for he said that to the old woman who
was the first to discover our new religion. Peyote is to be the
Indians’ new religion. It is to be for all the Indian people
and only for them.
The intent of the present section was to give the reader some sense of
the emotional immediacy of peyotism to the present-day Plains Indian.
Such a study might properly be termed “functional,” and in biological
analogy corresponds to the physiology or dynamic aspect of the anatomy or
descriptive morphology attempted in our preceding discussion of cultural
traits and patterns. But we must at once abandon our analogy, lest like
some others we extrapolate illegitimately terms which have meaning in
one universe of discourse into another where they serve only to produce
confusion. In biology and medicine, anatomy may perhaps be understood
wholly divorced from palaeontological and physical-anthropological (i.e.,
historical) considerations, but this is peculiarly not the case with any
attempt to discuss a culture-pattern functionally or psychologically.
Here the immediacy and the momentum of past history, that is the
functioning of culture-patterns in terms of individuals, is precisely the
point at issue. And here the aggregation of traits into a complex is less
the result of organismic-biological factors than of “historical accident”
(e.g., the use of parched corn in the Plains ritual breakfast—its
function in the religious pattern of an agricultural economy having
long since been in abeyance). The traits of a complex do not gain
their relatedness or their adhesiveness from any biological-organismic
“function”; culture-traits are not chromosome-linked genes, and change of
one trait of a pattern need not organically change the rest. Indeed, if
we can speak of “the peyote cult” at all, it is only after demonstrating
its historical continuity as such.
For Bert Crow-lance and Homer Buffalo, we maintain, judged from the
vantage-point of any other culture than their own, would remain enigmas
or examples of inexplicably bizarre behavior if we did not fall back on
history—on the decadent pattern of the vision-quest, and on patterns
now almost vanished of prestige and power-seeking, etc. But the problem
of the ethnologist as we see it is not the reporting of the outlandish
and the picturesque; it is the discovery of plausible motivations in
terms of native meanings, the discovery of the essentially humane in its
to us often disguised manifestations. In practice, then, _we can never
know enough history_ either biographical or cultural, in explaining a
present culture as it functions in individuals acting in such and such
a (historically-conditioned) way. We feel the more free, therefore, to
trace in the next section the history of a pre-peyote Plains narcotic
used ritually, inasmuch as it affords an insight into the historical
problem.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_, 11, lent through the courtesy
of Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne).
[2] Letter of Mack Haag (Cheyenne), Calumet, Oklahoma, to Dr. R. W.
Miles, San Francisco, California, Sept. 16, 1925, and reply Oct. 2,
1925. What unfriendliness the writer met was largely the projection
of individual suspiciousness, e.g., that of a Caddo who concocted a
preposterous story out of his own imagination. When I returned to
Anadarko in 1936 with a White companion who remained for several weeks,
this man circulated the story that James Mooney’s son and the son of the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs had arrived to make a thorough check-up on
peyote, that to obtain an “absolute lowdown” we had a man stationed on
every corner in the town to check up on every Indian who took a drink of
beer in a saloon, picked up a woman, or was overheard swearing—in any of
a dozen Indian languages!
[3] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 66-68.
[4] Datura or Jimsonweed was also greatly feared; it killed or drove
crazy anyone who touched it. Only shamans armed with the more powerful
peyote dared uproot it. Bakánori was used by runners to rub on their legs
or to carry in the girdle to counteract witchcraft in the ritual races;
but if kept too long this plant also would drive a man crazy or kill him.
See Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 136-38, 292, 338, 347; Lumholtz,
_Unknown Mexico_, 1:359-60, 372-74; also Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_.
[5] Opler, _The Use of Peyote_; _Lipan Apache Field Notes_; Hoebel,
_Northern Cheyenne Field Notes_; Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 71.
[6] Can this be a reflex of an older pattern? Spier (_The Sun Dance_,
473) lists as a part of the Sun Dance of the Arapaho, Kiowa and Southern
Cheyenne a prepared drink and the induction of vomiting. Kozad (Kiowa)
believed peyote had a good effect whether vomited or not—the virtue being
in the quantity eaten. Cf. the emetic rites in connection with the “black
drink.”
[7] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 406-407; Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 65.
[8] Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 5-6, 19-20; _The Winnebago
Tribe_, 395.
[9] E.g., Charles Lonewolf (Kiowa) in _Peyote as Used in Religious
Worship_, 53; Hoebel, _Comanche Field Notes_. Again, all the prestige
of the culture itself was behind Old Man White Horn’s pronouncement to
the psychotic Oto, R. E., that peyote would protect him. This individual
suffered apparently from an obsessional neurosis (stereotyped actions,
collecting string, rolling and unrolling balls of it, persecutory fears,
avoidance of people, fear of being pursued etc.). If his difficulties
had originally arisen from real or supposed aggressions upon him of
members of his group, the therapeutic value of the assertion that the
fetish would protect him is obvious. For the belief that it would protect
him was shared by all the others present, and he had the support of the
enormous impetus a deep-seated culture-pattern possesses. The importance
of the fetish plant as a psychic “authority” should likewise not be
minimized.
[10] Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_, _passim_.
[11] For one matter, the shaman’s staff never left his hand to be passed
around as in the Plains; and each individual had some prophylactic fetish
in his hand which he never dared relinquish throughout the meeting.
Note, too, the fetish peyote on the altar: on this the leader could
detect evil thoughts and acts, such as the magic intrusive “shooting” of
water-beetles and feathers by rival shamans into each other.
[12] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 180, see also 193-94, 198-99; _A Sketch
of the Peyote Cult_, 8-9; Densmore, _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote
Ceremony_.
[13] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 725; Radin, _Crashing Thunder_,
177; _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 5-6, 19-20; _The Winnebago Tribe_,
395; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote
Ceremony_. Confession is present in Iowa, Oto, and Winnebago peyotism.
But I have noted non-peyote instances of public confession among Aztecs,
Aurohuaca, Carrier, Chichimeca, Crow, Dogrib, Eskimo, Guatemaltecans,
Huichol, Ijca, Inca, Iroquois, Maya, Nicarao, Plains Cree, Plains Ojibwa,
Salteaux, Shawnee, Slave, Tahltan, Western Apache, Yellowknife, and
Yucatecans. Related practices are reported for the Arikara, Blackfoot,
Southern Cheyenne, Oglala, and Sarsi.
[14] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 171, 186-87; Petrullo, _The Diabolic
Root_, 111.
[15] Densmore, _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_.
[16] Michelson, _Sauk and Fox Myths_.
[17] A Wichita told an anecdote which he thought evidenced his own
very good fortune. During a storm he was trying to get to a meeting
at Red Rock in his old car, which failed him. A tragedy occurred in
this meeting: Riley Fawfaw (Oto) was killed by lightning. A supporting
wire had been put on the tipi and along this the lightning apparently
traveled, for money in his pocket was melted, his neighbors made
unconscious and others thrown about the tipi by the force of the bolt.
Unfortunately it seemed inexpedient to inquire more deeply into detailed
attitudes about this incident.
[18] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 76.
HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS
THE PRE-PEYOTE MESCAL BEAN CULT
As we have noted in the section on the botany of peyote, the use of
the term “mescal” is surrounded with considerable confusion, and is
persistently used in the older literature to designate _Lophophora
williamsii_ or peyote. The true mescal is the _Agave_ spp. whose
cabbage-like center is baked by the tribes of the Southwest and
northern Mexico as a food; “mescal” also refers to the brandy distilled
from mescal beer or pulque. No doubt it is due to their intoxicating
properties that two other distinct plants, _Sophora secundiflora_
and _Lophophora williamsii_, have been called, respectively, “mescal
bean” and “mescal button.” A further confusion of these last has been
contributed to by the fact that both have been involved in Plains cult
uses.
_Sophophora secundiflora_ is an evergreen shrub bearing two or three
tough-shelled red seeds in a bean-like pod. Known in Mexico as “toleselo”
and elsewhere as mescal-bean, coral-bean,[1] frijolito, frijolillo and
mountain laurel,[2] it contains the extremely toxic narcotic alkaloid
sophorine or cytisine,[3] the physiological action of which accounts for
its ceremonial use by natives. This is a powerful poison causing nausea,
convulsions and finally death by asphyxiation; it is said[4] to resemble
nicotine closely in physiological action. A more complete botanical and
physiological account appears in an appendix, and we are here concerned
only with its ethnographic aspects.
Havard says that the Indians near San Antonio
formerly used the seed as an intoxicant, half of a seed
producing a delirious exhilaration followed by a deep sleep
lasting two or three days.
Opler tells a Chiricahua Apache coyote story in which the trickster
pounded up a number of the beans and gave them to the people to eat:
So while the people were out of their minds, Coyote cut out
their hair in patches the way Indians cut their hair. So there
they were, crazy.
Lumholtz says that the Tarahumari added the root (?) of the frijolillo
to their maguey wine “as a ferment,” and Bennett and Zingg report
an archaeological occurrence at a Rio Fuerte site in Chihuahua on a
Basket-Maker horizon:
Containers found here and in another site held nothing but
a few seeds of the poisonous wild “bean,” which may have
ceremonial significance.
This inference is not implausible when we recall the Mexican mode of
keeping peyote.[5]
The use of peyote in racing and in ball games is noted for the Tarahumari
and Tamaulipecan groups, and in this connection it is interesting to
learn that the Wichita used to eat mescal beans before they ran a race.
A Cheyenne informant said that his tribe used the “red-berry” as an
eye-wash long before they knew of peyote, though he never heard of their
eating it; “it’s poison,” he said. The Comanche used to get mescal beans
from near Fort Stanton, apparently for ornamental purposes only.[6] Like
most of the Plains tribes, the Kickapoo used mescal beans chiefly as
beads, but in common with the Cheyenne they used them medicinally: for
earache they boiled, mashed and strained the beans through a cloth.
The Kiowa use the ḱɔnḱoλ or mescal beans typically, as beads in peyote
meetings, much as they formerly wore bandoliers of them on the war-path.
One Kiowa is said to have chewed the inside of a mescal bean before
breaking a bad wild horse bareback. A Kiowa peyote chief had several of
the beans on his moccasin heel-fringe, to protect from the dangers of
inadvertently stepping on menstrual blood, and another Kiowa “peyote boy”
had a mescal bean attached to the thong of his gourd rattle. Mescal beans
are clearly thought to possess great medicine-power.
The Iowa had leggings which Skinner thought might have been of a modified
Kiowa-Comanche type, with a perforated scarlet mescal bean (Iowa, maka
shutze, “red medicine”) knotted on each thong of the fringe. The Omaha
used as beads and good luck charms bright red beans which Gilmore thought
were _Erythrina_, and which they called makaⁿ zhide or “red medicine”
likewise. In adopting the use of chinaberries (_Melia azerdache_ L.) as
beads, they likened them to mescal beans and called them, curiously,
makaⁿ-zhide sabe, “black red-medicine.”[7] Pawnee informants said that
long ago they used bat or mescal beans for medicine “to strengthen the
body,” but now use them only for decoration. The Oto used to eat “liar(?)
berries” or mescal beans in one of their lodges; they had the interesting
superstition that they breed (recalling the sex attributed to peyote):
Tie two or three in a bundle, leave it a year or so, and when
you open it again you’ll have a dozen.
The inference that the Pawnee and Oto used the mescal bean ritually is
borne out by the Iowa, who had a full-fledged ceremony called the “Red
Bean Dance:”[8]
This is an ancient rite (maⁿkácutzi waci) far antedating the
modern peyote eating practice but on the same principle. The
society was founded by a faster who dreamed that he received it
from the deer, for red beans (mescal) are sometimes found in
deer’s stomachs.[9] There are four assistant leaders, besides
the leader, and it is their duty to strike the drum and sing
during ceremonies.
In this society members were obliged to purchase admission from
some one of the four assistant leaders. This was done in the
regular ceremonial way. A candidate brought gifts and heaped
them on the ground before the assistant leader and begged for
the songs, etc., which he taught them and was then a leader.
There was no initiation ceremony. During performances the
members painted themselves white and wore a bunch of split
owl-feathers on their heads. Small gourd rattles were used and
the members while singing held a bow and arrow in the right
hand which they waved back and forth in front of the body while
they manipulated the rattle with the left.
This ceremony was held in the spring when the sunflowers were
in blossom on the prairie, for then nearly all the vegetable
foods given by wakanda were ripe. The leader, who was the
owner of a medicine and war bundle called maⁿkácutzi warúhawe
connected with this society, had his men prepare by “killing”
the beans[10] by placing them before the fire until they
turned yellow. Then they are taken and pounded up fine[11] and
made into a medicine brew. The members then danced all night,
and just past midnight they commenced to drink the red bean
decoction. They kept this up until about dawn when it began to
work upon them so that they vomited[12] and prayed repeatedly,
and were thus cleansed ceremonially, the evil having been
driven from their bodies. Then a feast of the new vegetable
foods[13] was given them and a prayer of thanks was made to
wakanda for vegetable foods and tobacco.
The connection of the maⁿkácutzi warúhawe, or red bean war
bundle with the society is not altogether clear to me, save
that it was a sacred object possessed by the society which
brought success in war, hunting, especially for the buffalo,
and in horse-racing.[14] Members of this society tied red
beans around their belts when they went to war, deeming them a
protection against injury.[15] Cedar berries and sagebrush were
also used with this medicine.[16] Sage was boiled and used to
medicate sweat baths on the war trail.
Further information is afforded by Harrington,[17] who collected a
typical red bean bundle figured by Skinner, indicating a Pawnee parallel
to the Iowa cult:
In addition to the two varieties of Ioway war bundles before
described, a third sort was found, Maⁿkaⁿshudje oyu, or Red
Medicine Bundles.... This was not discussed with the others,
for the reason that the Ioways claim that it did not originate
with them, but was derived from the Pawnee, who, in return for
many presents, gave them authority to use it, and instructed
them in its preparation and ritual. The legend of its origin
among the Pawnee was not known to my informants.
The bundle, says Chief Tohee, belonged to a society, whose
annual meeting was held about the time corn is ripe.[18]
There was but one main bundle, but each member had a “flute”
or whistle, and a small package of medicine. When the time
approached for the meeting, the member who was to give the
feast sent a crier or “waiter” around to the different members,
calling them to meet at a certain night in his bark house
or tipi, whichever he was using at the time. All painted
themselves and fixed themselves up in their best style for the
occasion. Music was furnished by a number of singers, who kept
time to the sound of drumming upon a tight bow-string,[19] and
the sound of small gourd rattles. During the ceremonies the
singers seated themselves in four different places at the side
of the lodge, corresponding to the four directions, and sang in
each one the verses prescribed by tradition, the order being:
east, south, west, and north.[20] The dance is said to have
consisted of peculiar jumping movements.
Now, the “Red Medicine” which forms the basis of the bundle, is
the sacred red Mescal bean (_Erythrina flabelliformis_) which
seems to have narcotic or perhaps intoxicating properties when
taken internally.[21] Formerly widely used by the Indians of
the Southern Plains[22] to produce dreams or visions at certain
ceremonies, it has now been supplanted by the more powerful
“button” cut from the Peyote cactus, which is sometimes wrongly
also called “mescal,” thus taking the name of its predecessor.
When morning put an end to the dances of the ceremony under
discussion, a large number of the red beans were broken up,
or “killed” as the Indians say (regarding the beans as alive)
and stirred up with water in a large kettle, together with
certain herbs which are said to make the decoction milder in
action. Then all the participants drank a cup or two of the
mixture. The only description of the action of the drug was
that everything looks red to the drinker for a while, when he
vomits, and evacuates the bowels, which the Indians say, cleans
out the system, and benefits the health, even in the case of
children. The medicine drinking, and the stupor and purging
consequent upon it end the ceremony.
It is said that the bundle has been handed down for a number
of generations, since it was obtained from the Pawnee, all
in one family, which must have benefited considerably, one
would think, from the valuable presents necessary to join the
society.... The [bundle’s] taboo was very strict, forbidding
its owners to break the bones[23] of any animal under any
circumstances. They must never allow the bundle to touch the
ground either....
When not in use, it was kept carefully wrapped in hides or
canvas so as to exclude the weather, hanging on a pole standing
just east of the owner’s lodge, in front of the doorway. In
addressing the bundle, they called it “Grandfather,” and made
offerings to it by throwing tobacco on the ground near the pole
where it hung. On festal occasions the sweet smoke of burning
cedar twigs was wafted upon it as an offering.
In time of war, a special man was appointed to carry it, as was
the case with most war bundles. Like them, too, it was opened
when the enemy was sighted, when its enclosed amulets were put
on by the warriors. Tooting their war-whistles, they rushed
gaily into battle, confident of the Red Medicine’s protection.
Mrs. Voegelin[24] quotes an informant on a Shawnee use of mescal in a war
connection:
Čalikwa’s grandfather gave him one of these mescal beans
(manitowimskočii’Oa). This old man knew prayers about these
beans.... He had four grandsons. He made a prayer to give each
of these boys a bean—one apiece.... He made a prayer about
how the Creator made these beans and how they’re used, using
tobacco ... out in the woods; he built a fire, where he offered
prayer. This old man wanted his grandsons to be warriors. So he
told the first grandson to swallow one of those beans.
When the first boy swallowed the bean, the bean came out. He
told the boy, “You can never be a powerful man or anything;
there’s something in the way, that that bean didn’t want to
stay (inside you).” This happened to three of the boys. The
last grandson to take the bean was Čalikwa; when he took it,
the bean didn’t come out. So when he saw his grandson keeping
that bean, the old man was thankful. He told him, “Now you
have a power; any time you see a battle you’ll be the leader.”
[And so he was in 1865, when the Shawnee almost wiped out the
Tonkawa in battle.]
HISTORY OF THE DIFFUSION OF PEYOTISM
Far too little is known—or probably ever will be known—about peyotism in
Mexico to attempt to reconstruct its history; but our earliest Spanish
sources indicate its pre-Columbian presence among the Aztec, and probably
also the Cora-Huichol.[25] But the latter do not live in the region of
growth of the plant, whence Beals argues that they must certainly have
borrowed the cult. Rouhier claims immense antiquity for Huichol peyotism,
but unconvincingly. If, indeed, as Beals with great plausibility argues,
peyote is historically associated with shamanism, then it may have been
involved in a late reinvigoration of shamanistic elements, at the expense
of the priestly-sacerdotal elements of an older, impoverished culture
stratum. Evidence is even less conclusive for other Mexican groups, but
on the whole it appears that the ritualization of the use of peyote was
already vigorous in many parts of Mexico at the time of the first Spanish
contact.
The approximate age of the peyote cult among the Tarahumari is likewise
unknown to us. It is not so integrated into their culture as in the case
of the Huichol, and in nearly all respects the southern cult is more
complex than the northern. Furthermore, Tarahumari peyotism has for
some time been in decline, indicating perhaps a borrowing which was not
sufficiently rooted—the neighboring Tubar, for example, did not use
hikuli, though their customs otherwise much resembled the Tarahumari.
Both Lumholtz and Bennett and Zingg consider Tarahumari peyotism a
diffusion from the Cora-Huichol; certainly the Tarahumari themselves show
very little indication of being a center of diffusion in Mexico in their
lack of characteristic traits[26].
Despite our comparative ignorance of the region, a much better case could
be made for northeastern Mexico as a center of diffusion, for the region
immediately south of the Rio Grande is one of the abundant growth of
peyote. The oldest use in the United States is in this region, rather
than in the Southwest as represented by the Mescalero. Tonkawan peyotism,
for example, may be quite old: Velasco wrote in 1716 that many of the
Indians of Texas drank “pellote” in connection with their dances. The
Lipan got peyote from the Carrizo before white contact, according to
Opler’s informants. The Lipan used to go to a place called Biγaguɫgai,
which was “wide grass country beyond the Pecos in Texas,” where the
Mescalero came sometimes to meet them. Wagner says the Mescalero got
peyote from the Lipan about 1880, but later Plains history of the cult as
evidenced by the Kiowa leads us to accept the date 1870 set by Opler, as
more plausible. Opler has well accounted for the ready acceptance by the
Mescalero of this shamanistically-colored complex, and its integration
into their pattern of aggression by witchcraft; he believes that peyotism
was brought to their door by the same movement which brought it to the
Plains, though Mescalero peyotism is appreciably older.[27]
From Dr. Parsons’ careful account, it is clear that Taos practises the
classical Plains rite. Contact with the Arapaho-Cheyenne version dates
at least as far back as 1907, and tentative beginnings of this sort
continued in later years.[28] Interestingly, Cozio recorded in 1720 the
prosecution of a Taos Indian who had taken peyote and disturbed the
town.[29] In any case the history of peyote at Taos has been a stormy
one.[30] About 1918 the hierarchy became bitterly opposed to peyote,
and turned three men out of their kiva membership in an attempt to
rout it out. Dr. Parsons[31] believes that the weakness of the kachina
cult at Taos accounts perhaps for peyote getting any foothold there at
all. It is no coincidence that the Water Kiva, which has to do with
the main elements of the kachina cult, the pilgrimage, is the one most
outstandingly opposed to peyote. Considerable political activity has
erupted over the issue, and Dr. Parsons surmises that the protective
influence of a recently deceased political figure in the pueblo was also
of significance. It may well be that recent Federal legislation will so
strengthen the hand of the civil authorities at Taos that the suppression
of peyote can be accomplished; in 1923 the number of “peyote boys” was
only 52 in a population of 635.
In the Plains the most important tribes in the diffusion of the peyote
cult were the Kiowa, the Comanche, and to a lesser degree perhaps, the
Caddo. Most Kiowa agree that they got peyote and the accompanying ritual
from the Mescalero Apache. The usual story is that a raiding party came
to the Apache country, and that during an Apache peyote meeting being
held at the time, the leader by clairvoyant means was made aware of the
approach of the war-party leader. He told his fireman to invite the man
in, enemy though he was. In this manner the man learned the ceremony, and
at the end he was presented with peyote and ritual paraphernalia to take
back to his tribe.[32]
Pabo, or Big Horse, was the only user among the Kiowa about 1868 or
1870, and Mooney began to notice Kiowa peyote only around 1886, so the
vigorous activity of a cult proper may be said to date from about this
time (though friendly contacts with the Mescalero in his opinion dated
as far back as 1850 or before).[33] But the introduction of peyote was
not exclusively the doing of one tribe, any more in the case of the
Kiowa than of other groups. Tribal contacts have been multiple since
the cessation of intertribal warfare, and one is not at all inclined
to discount the vague information from Kiowas that they knew of peyote
from the Cáγeso, the Zé·bakiɛni or “Long Arrows,” the Yæk’i (a loose
designation for various north Mexican tribes) and the Kωɔnhęɢo. These
last so-called “bare-footed” people are probably the Carrizo, who
ranged within the region of growth of peyote. The Tonkawa[34] also made
visits to the Kiowa around 1890 and performed shamanistic tricks in
peyote meetings. We therefore set the date of Kiowa peyotism somewhat
earlier than Shonle’s[35] “before 1891” (her data were based on official
Government sources which might not have become cognizant of the cult
until late in its history), for Kiowa were holding meetings by 1880 or
before. The Kiowa probably contributed little or nothing definitive to
the general shape of the ceremony, most of whose features were already
standardized among the Lipan and the Mescalero.[36]
At one time, however, there was intense opposition to peyote on the
part of some Kiowa. In the winter of 1887-88 Bąįgʸä had a revelation
on the strength of which he claimed to be the successor to Pate’te
or “Buffalo-Bull-Coming-Out” (the “Buffalo Prophet” of 1881-82 who
had promised to bring back the buffalo if his followers joined him in
resisting the Whites and returning to the old customs). He organized a
group of about thirty into an order called Baiyui or “Sons of the Sun,”
with a special costume, singing of guedωgʸä, or old “going-to-war”
songs, smoking ceremony and dance. These he commanded to resume the old
costume, weapons and customs, and distributed to them a sacred new fire
made with a drill to take the place of fires kindled with flint-and-steel
or matches. The Sons of the Sun were bitterly opposed to peyote on the
ground that it was in conflict with the Ten Medicine Bundles, though
since its introduction some years before there had been no special
opposition to peyote. One of their rules was to drink always from an
individual cup or bucket, in pointed contrast to the peyote custom.
Bąįgʸä predicted that a great whirlwind would come in the spring,
followed by a four-day prairie-fire in which the Whites and all their
works would be destroyed and the buffalo and the old Indian life
restored. He ordered all the Kiowa to gather at Elk Creek, where they
would be safe when the catastrophe came. He claimed that his followers
would be invulnerable to the white soldiers’ bullets, and that he himself
could kill the latter with the glance of his eye as far as he could see
them. As the time grew near there was intense excitement and the whole
tribe, save for a few skeptical chiefs and medicine men, assembled at
the appointed spot. When the holocaust failed to materialize the people
lost faith in him. He held his original group together until the coming
of the Ghost Dance in the fall of 1890. Shortly before this his son had
died, and when the Ghost Dance came he claimed to have seen the fresh
tracks of this son on his grave, resurrected, and through this revelation
attempted to identify his group with the Ghost Dance, without, however,
any success. His disciples continued to ride around together in a group,
and maintained their bitter hostility to peyote, but were not taken
seriously. Finally, indeed, Lone Bear and other Sons of the Sun, became
staunch peyote-users themselves and opposition vanished.
The first Comanche user of peyote was Buigʷat, who married an Apache
woman and is said to have learned it from the Mescalero. Other early
users were Dešode (“Smart Man”) and Tašipa, but by far the most important
peyote leader among the Comanche was Quanah Parker. Previously opposed
to it, he later changed his mind when peyote cured an illness of his.
One of the earliest Comanche meetings was held east of Fort Sill in
1873 or 1874, about the time Kicking Bird was imprisoned there. Quanah
subsequently visited the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ponca, Oto, Pawnee and Osage
among others[37] and conducted meetings among them in the early 1890’s.
The Comanche origin legend is similar to that of the Kiowa, except that
the White Mountain Apache were involved.
Regardless of priority, the prestige of both these tribes as teachers of
peyote is considerable.[38] Due to their influence, peyote spread rapidly
in Oklahoma until it assumed the proportions of an “international”
religion such as the Ghost Dance had been. Distinctly a reservation
phenomenon in the days following the cessation of intertribal warfare,
peyotism was able to exploit the friendly contacts growing out of the
Ghost Dance. As Opler writes, “The spread and increased prominence of
peyote ceremonies coincided suggestively with the final triumph of white
civilization over the tribes of our western plains, those very groups
upon whom peyote obtained so strong a hold.”
The express intention of Indian policy of the period was the
deculturation of the natives, to be obtained by sending the children
to white schools, away from the influence of tribal life.[39] But this
policy prepared the way for peyotism in several ways: it weakened the
tradition of the older tribal religions without basically altering
typical Plains religious attitudes, and multiplied friendly contacts
between members of different tribes. Friendships made as school-boys
account for considerable visiting and revisiting from tribe to tribe, and
nearly ideal conditions for the diffusion of the cult were established.
When Eagle Flying Above (Pawnee) got peyote from White Eyes (Arapaho)
the sign language was the vehicle used, but in modern times the use of
English as a lingua Franca is an enabling factor of great importance
in the diffusion of the cult. Thus, ironically, the intended modes
of deculturizing the Indian have contributed preëminently to the
reinvigoration of a basically aboriginal religion.
Among the groups of considerable secondary importance in this
diffusion, the Caddo are perhaps outstanding. The variations which the
Caddo-Delaware messiah John Wilson began, and taught to the Quapaw,
Osage and other “Big Moon” worshippers, is a somewhat special historical
development and is treated in an appendix. The significance of the Oto in
the development of the Christianized version among the Omaha, Winnebago
and other Siouan groups is shown in another appendix on the history of
the Church of the First-born and other peyote churches.
In the diffusion of the standard rite the Arapaho and the Cheyenne
perhaps come next after the Kiowa and the Comanche. Jock Bullbear was
one of the earliest Arapaho users, learning it from the Comanche when he
returned from Carlisle[40] in 1884, and by 1891 Arapaho peyotism came to
the attention of Mooney. A Cheyenne and Arapaho custom in connection with
peyote meetings is the giving of presents to friends and visitors the
next morning after a meeting.[41] The sweat lodge doctoring modification
of Arapaho peyotism has been described previously.
The Bannock of Idaho have used peyote since 1906-1911, apparently
against considerable opposition. They formerly met in log-houses in the
backwoods, and did not use the plant openly until the Oklahoma Native
American Church was organized. The Cheyenne are believed by the writer to
be the source of their cult.
The Blackfoot in 1913 were said to lack[42] the peyote religion, but
Wissler states that he heard them singing peyote songs within a hundred
yards of the very agent who denied the existence of the cult among them.
Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne), who as president of the Native American Church
has occasion to know, says that the Blackfoot have peyote, though they
were officially[43] listed as non-users in 1922.
The Five Civilized Tribes received peyote at a very late date. Wagner[44]
in 1932 said that the Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw do not eat peyote;
this agrees with the statements of Jim Aton (Kiowa) who said the Cherokee
did not have it when he himself took peyote to the Creek in 1931. The
Seminole have also taken it up recently, but some acquaintance with the
plant must be postulated as early as 1922, since Newberne and Burke[45]
list 40 users among the 101,506 population of the combined Five Tribes.
The influence involved here is probably the Yuchi, who in turn got it
from the Cheyenne.[46]
The Cheyenne are currently a source for peyote among the Blood in Canada,
who were being organized in the summer of 1936. The Canadian Cree and
Chippewa are very recent partial converts too; the latter received it
from the Chippewa of Minnesota.[47]
The Cheyenne in Oklahoma used peyote before 1885, the date of the first
Government census. The Government scout Flacco was violently against it
and said that it was used “to witch people and make them crazy.” Cloud
Chief, of the Snake Clan, also opposed the coming of peyote, as he had
previously opposed the Ghost Dance. But Leonard Tylor and John Turtle
went to the Kiowa country in 1884-85 and learned the ceremony. A little
later, in 1889-90, Henry White Antelope and Standing Bird visited the
Comanche and learned Quanah Parker’s “way.” Tylor later got a “heart
moon” of his own (Caddo influence?) some time after the allotment of
lands.
Northern Cheyenne peyotism is largely parallel in its history to that of
the Southern Cheyenne. It began among them around 1900 or before, some of
them having learned it at Haskell; recently they have become affiliated
with the Native American Church. Hoebel writes:[48]
There has been a limited amount of friction between the
religious conservatives and the Peyote worshippers, and a
distinction is drawn between a Peyote leader and a medicine
man. For example, a ranking Peyote leader volunteered to give
me much esoteric information on old cultural ways, explaining
that he could talk to me about sacred things because he is not
a medicine man. The Peyote people have taken over the entire
leadership of tribal life. All members of the tribal council
are Peyote worshippers and probably 80 per cent of the adults
in the tribe are affiliated with the Peyote cult. Only the very
old men abstained from Peyote and held to the old medicine
beliefs. Among the Northern Cheyenne, Issiwin or the Sacred Hat
is still revered and is under the care of an old medicine man.
The Peyote leaders took a sacred button to the hat keeper and
asked him to put it in the ancient bundle with the old hat but
they claim not to know whether the keeper had done so or not.
My guess is that they did know but did not care to tell.
There is a tendency to separatism between the sections on the
reservation, but nothing suggesting a schism in Northern Cheyenne
peyotism; there is interparticipation in meetings of the various groups,
though there is a mild rivalry between the Muddy Creek and the other
territorially-defined groups.
The Delaware got peyote from the Kiowa and Comanche about 1886, the
earliest users including Chief Charles Elkhair, Joe Washington, James
C. Webber, George T. and John Anderson, Benjamin Hill, Reed and Frank
Wilson, Mrs. Allie Anderson, Mrs. Ora Spybuck and Mrs. Little Tethlies.
Washington’s family still has the original articles given them by the
Comanche.[49]
Iowa peyote[50] was in full swing in 1914, but is said to have died out
since 1922. In this tribe the introduction of peyote
has driven out of existence almost all the other societies
and ancient customs of the tribe; almost all of the Iowa in
Oklahoma are ardent peyote disciples, and only ... a few ...
still follow the older customs.
Peyotism has relaxed the rules of secrecy about the older medicine
ceremonies also, and may perhaps be ultimately responsible for the final
deculturation of the Iowa.
Kansa[51] peyotism came from the Ponca about 1907. It was very strong
among them by 1915, “having apparently superseded all of the old Kansa
beliefs.”
Henry Murdock (Kickapoo) brought the new religion from Quanah Parker
and the Comanche in 1906; but he had personally known of peyote before,
having gone to Mexico in 1864. Quanah had known Murdock before the peyote
religion began spreading and invited his friend by letter to visit him.
He put on a meeting in his honor, taught him the ceremony and presented
him with peyote paraphernalia. The set songs in the Kickapoo rite are
Comanche, and the custom of making the ashes into a bird likewise
indicates a Comanche provenience for the ceremony. The Kickapoo were
originally much against peyote.[52]
Peyote began to have a limited adherence among the Menomini a little
before 1914, owing largely to marital ties with Winnebago and Potawatomi
users.[53] The ritual has the Christian character of the Winnebagos’ and
membership in the peyote society not only precludes any in all the other
societies, but also demands the abandonment of all ancient practices and
destruction of their paraphernalia. Skinner believed that
its success will mean the death-blow to all the ancient customs
of the tribe, already decadent, without the compensation of any
advantageous or progressive substitute.
The spread of the cult has been met with determined opposition among the
Menomini, and some peyote users later sought and received reinstatement
in the older tribal rites.
One Modoc in Oklahoma, Sam Ball, married a Quapaw woman and took up
peyote as a result. At present he is the only one,[54] but such marital
ties have often before been the source of the spread of peyote.
Peyote was introduced to the Omaha[55]
in the winter of 1906-07 by an Omaha returning from the Oto
in Oklahoma. He had been much addicted to alcoholics, and was
told by an Oto that the plant and the religious cult practiced
therewith would be a cure. On his return he sought the advice
and help of the leader of the Mescal Society of the Winnebago,
next door neighbors tribe of the Omaha. He and a few other
Omaha, who also suffered from alcoholism, formed a society
which has since increased in numbers and influence against much
opposition, till it includes about half the tribe.
The medicine-men were particularly opposed to the use of peyote; one
native Omaha, Thomas L. Sloan, prepared a bill against peyote and
presented it to the Nebraska State Legislature, but later suffered a
change of heart.
The Osage are a typical example of the multiple origins for peyotism in
one tribe. Chief Lookout testified[56] that the Osage had peyote about
1896, and in a petition to Congress signed by him and Eves Tailchief,
Edgar McCarthy and Arthur Bonnecastle, it was stated that Chief Black
Dog and Chief Clermont established lodges among them in 1898. The source
was Caddo, and nearly all the 800 full-bloods were ultimately peyote
users; the Quapaw ceremony may also have had an influence upon them.
The Caddo-Delaware messiah, John Wilson, came to the Osage in 1902,
after most of them around Hominy and elsewhere had known of it.[57] The
younger Osage who embraced the new religion could be distinguished from
the conservatives in their wearing of braids decorated with ribbons and
colored yarn, in place of the older reached style of headdress. In the
last year or so an Osage named Morell has invited the Caddos Alfred
Taylor and Ben Carter to bring the “Enoch” (Caddo) moon to his home; he
already had a Wilson moon on his place, but his sons wanted to have the
more basic Caddoan moon.[58]
The Tonkawa first brought peyote to the Oto very long ago; Koshiway
places this as far back as 1876 (which is not implausible in view of the
earliest Kiowa and Comanche contacts with the plant). This must not be
regarded, however, as the date of the vigorous functioning of the cult,
but it is well to recall here the Oto mescal bean cult which may have
facilitated the borrowing of the later narcotic.[59]
We have elaborated in an appendix the origin of the Christian elements in
Oto peyotism, which spread to other Siouan groups (Omaha and Winnebago).
The Church of the First-born embodied Russellite doctrines familiar
to the Oto teacher Koshiway.[60] It was incorporated in 1914, though
its roots may have gone back as far as 1896, apparently with some
consultation with the Shawnee,[61] and the consent of White Horn (Oto)
leader of the older and already established native peyote ceremony. Its
influence on the Native American Church and the Negro Church of the
First-born is elsewhere discussed, as are also the specific Christian
elements in peyotism as a whole. The famous meeting 14 miles east of Red
Rock at which the Kiowa leaders Belo Kozad and Jack Sankadote and an
Apache named Star visited the Oto, was responsible for the amalgamation
of the Church of the First-born and the Native American Church. Dugan
Black, leader of the first Oto meeting attended, is stated to have gotten
his “road” from Little Henry (Kiowa) and uses Kiowa songs; another Oto
leader uses Conklin Hummingbird’s fireplace.
The Ponca are said by Shonle[62] to have gotten peyote from the Southern
Cheyenne in 1902-04, but native information indicates that there were
Comanche sources too (Ponca songs, e.g., are frequently Comanche). The
Cheyenne, White Horse, brought them the cult in September, 1904, but
when they heard that it was recent among this group, they went to Quanah
Parker among the Comanche “to get to the bottom of it.” The late Robert
Buffalo-head was the earliest leader of the Cheyenne rite. A suggestion
of Caddo influence appears again in the rules surrounding the drum; the
typical Ponca peyote drum has a handle made of the twisted rope-end of
the lacing. “The old people are strict, and you’re not allowed to put
your hand on the drum [head],” we were told.
Eagle Flying Above, who later became oil-wealthy, was the first Pawnee
user of peyote, obtaining it from White Eyes, an Arapaho friend, about
1890 or a little later. Several months later Sun Chief, the writer’s
informant, took it up. At the death of Eagle Flying Above, Sun Chief
was the only Pawnee leader, and all the others learned the rite from
him; he has eaten peyote since 1892-94, but only later became a leader.
A still earlier source appears to be the Quapaw,[63] whom two Pawnee
youths visited in 1890, but the cult became vigorous only after further
instruction from the visiting Arapaho. There was some opposition to
peyote among the Pawnee in the early days: “they didn’t understand
it.” The leaders of the opposition were Sky Chief, head of the Kuγau
or “Doctor Dancers,” and Good Buffalo, leader of the Buffalo Dance
ceremonialists; later, however, both joined the peyote-users. The cult
is found chiefly among the Pítahauírata, where the form originated, but
found a later following among the Chauí, then the Kítkaháxki and a few
Skidi.
It is interesting to note that, as with the Shawnee and others, Pawnee
peyote was early involved in the Ghost Dance excitement. The leader
claimed from peyote the same sort of revelations acquired in the Ghost
Dance trance, and taught that while under the influence of peyote one
could learn the rituals belonging to bundles and societies; in this
manner he himself amassed considerable star lore. One unusual Pawnee
feature was the use of a special Ghost Dance form of painted tipi for
peyote meetings; minor changes were made in the type of drum and rattle
also.[64]
The Potawatomi first had peyote sometime between 1908 and 1914, but
little else is known about it there. Quapaw peyotism derives from the
Caddo-Delaware. The Ree[65] [Arikara] were strongly against the cult, and
it apparently died out among them by 1924. Ed Butler brought Sauk[66]
peyote directly from the Tonkawa:
In the early days women were not allowed to be members, and the
manitou who gave the man this medicine made it a rule that it
should be used [only] in war-time.... It is only a war-bundle
among other tribes.
But the Sauk have been tenacious of their older religion and its
fetishes,[67] though peyotism is now strong among them; indeed, about
1923, attempted affiliation with the Native American Church failed
because five rival chiefs ran different meetings.[68]
The Seminole have started the religion only recently, about the same time
as the Cherokee; they have learned it through the Yuchi, Caddo and Kiowa.
George Anderson (Delaware) brought the Wilson moon to the Seneca in 1907,
when eighteen men and women became members. One of the Seneca had a
Quapaw wife, who gave him the idea of obtaining the moon; they were too
poor to pay Anderson’s usual fee, and merely gave him carfare home.[69]
The Shawnee Jim Clark received peyote from the Comanche in the late
1890’s. Informants say the Shawnee have had peyote as a plant for a long
time, using it to keep from getting tired on the march, for moistening
the mouth when dry-camping and to relieve hunger. The first Absentee
Shawnee meeting was held by the Scotts in 1900, under the tutelage of
the Kickapoo. John Wilson was among the Shawnee about 1894, and George
Fourleaf (Delaware) brought peyote to White Oak from Mexico about 1898.
Ernest Spybuck got his moon from the Delaware near Dewey, while the
Panthers are said to use the Yuchi manner. The majority of the Shawnee,
however, use the standard Kiowa-Arapaho moon. Some Shawnee liken the
leader’s staff to the staff in the Green Corn Dance, and there is a
legend of getting power from peyote which some say was not peyote but
another plant which preceded it.[70]
A Sioux introduced peyote to the Uintah and Ouray Agency.[71] The Ute
around Fort Duchesne have used peyote “on the sly” since before 1916; the
cult was vigorous around Randlette, Utah, by the spring of 1916. Mrs.
Cooke attended a Ute meeting in 1937 about ten miles from Whiterocks; an
informant told her that
sometimes they have a half moon instead of a crescent—depending
on the size of the moon in the sky at that time.... They had
twice had a moon which had eyes and a mouth made in it—this is
“God peeping.”
This last suggests a Caddoan “Big Moon” influence, but the motif of
the changing moon must be Ute, as it is not encountered elsewhere. The
Gosiute near the Salt Lake Desert began about 1921, as did the Paiute
west of Salt Lake City. Little is known of these groups, but possibly
Cheyenne teaching is responsible; Southern Ute visited Oklahoma peyote
groups as early as 1910 according to information of Dr. Parsons.[72]
The Wichita, like the Shawnee, claim to have had peyote long before they
learned to eat it in meetings. In one of their rain ceremonies they used
a medicine bundle containing four objects: feathers, a little buckskin
doll, a piece of flint and peyote. The ceremony was called hä·ctiaš,
“fire-people-around,” and they sang all night for four nights to bring
rain. The coming of the peyote ritual, therefore, aroused no hostility:
No Wichita was ever against it [Sly Picard says]; they couldn’t
be, as all our medicine men and women had peyote in their
medicine—the whole tribe.
Yellow Bird (Wichita-Kichai) may have eaten peyote as early as 1889,
before the Washita bridge between Anadarko and Gracemont was built, and
Sly’s father used it in 1892, learning it from the Caddo. But they were
dissatisfied with the Caddo moon, and invited Frank Moitah (Comanche) and
Salo (Kiowa) to teach them. Old Man Horse (Kiowa) is usually credited,
however, with bringing peyote to the Wichita about 1902.
In 1893 and 1894 the Winnebago John Rave visited peyote eaters in
Oklahoma (though he had eaten it as early as 1889,) and again in 1901.
On the return from his second trip he tried to introduce the religion,
but without success save among a few of his own relatives. In 1903 or
1904 Rave went to South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin to preach the
new religion; he had been visiting the Kiowa and Comanche, as well as
the Oto. Somewhat later Jesse Clay was taught the rite at Winnebago
by a visitor called Arapaho Bull, and Dick Griffin learned another
version from the Osage at Pawhuska, at a time when John Wilson was
there. Yellowbank said that the Winnebago of Nebraska got peyote from
the Arapaho, and thence it came to the Winnebago of Wisconsin. Thunder
Cloud was among those opposing it, but by 1914 nearly half the tribe were
adherents.[73]
The Yankton of South Dakota by 1916 had a peyote cult strong enough to
warrant the sending to Congress of a petition to pass an anti-peyote bill
signed with ninety-two names. The Yuchi affiliated with the Creek around
Sapulpa and Kellyville, received peyote from the Cheyenne. Shonle cites
three additional groups we have not yet included. These are the Shoshoni,
who received peyote in 1919, the Sioux (1909-10) and the Crow (1912).
Comparisons of the present list with Shonle’s gives on the whole earlier
dates, yet this need not be considered in any sense a discrepancy.
Shonle’s data were based on government sources, and should stand as
indicating the dates when the various cults became virile enough to
attract official notice. Our own data, based on native sources, give on
the other hand what are probably the earliest contacts and introductions
of the rite, without reference to the number or percentage of adherents
in any tribe. It is evident from them too that tentative starts and
multiple origins are the rule rather than the exception, and Shonle’s
information and our own should be regarded as supplementary rather than
contradictory.[74]
Although peyotism is gone or decadent among the Tarahumari and the
Mescalero, it is still vigorously spreading in the United States and
southern Canada. Conceivably it could spread until it embraced all
Plains, Basin and Woodlands groups whose earlier culture is sufficiently
consonant with its concepts, and it may have some slender chance
of spreading in the southern and eastern Pueblos and Plateau, but
scarcely elsewhere, for both geographical and cultural reasons. The
cult may be expected to spread for some time in the future, but when
its inevitable decadence and probable ultimate disappearance will have
been accomplished, we may have witnessed in it the last of the great
intertribal religious movements of the American Indian.
The present section sums up the external history of the diffusion of
peyotism so far as it can be known from our Mexican sources, and in the
Plains, where it appears that the pre-peyote mescal bean cult prepared
the way somewhat for the use of the narcotic cactus.
The Plains rites are basically derived from the Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo
peyote ceremonies, which in turn derive from the Mescalero Apache (whence
the diffusion traces back to the Lipan and Tonkawa through the Carrizo
perhaps to Tamaulipecan groups). The Kiowa and the Comanche led in the
diffusion of the standard aboriginal ceremony, but the Caddo variant was
powerfully influenced by the individual, John Wilson, and diffused to the
Osage, Quapaw, Delaware and others in a somewhat modified form. This is
the subject of a special appendix.
The Oto are probably the crucial group in the diffusion of the later
Christianized version of peyotism among such Siouan groups as the
Winnebago and Omaha. Here again an individual gave a new turn to the
ceremony by summing up in himself two streams of culture, the aboriginal
and the Christian. Jonathan Koshiway is discussed in an appendix on the
Native American Church, and a special appendix is devoted to the matter
of Christian elements in the cult. The diagram on the opposite page sums
up the external history of peyotism succinctly.
[Illustration: Fig. 5. Chronological outline of the diffusion of
peyotism.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “These beans are often confused with those of a certain species of
_Erythrina_, which are sometimes sold in their place in the markets of
Mexico, but which are not at all narcotic” (Safford, _Narcotic Plants_,
397).
[2] Not to be confused with the “mountain laurel” _Kalmia latifolia_.
[3] Henry, _The Plant Alkaloids_, 395, 398.
[4] Henry, _op. cit._, 397; cf. Safford, _Narcotic Plants_, 397.
[5] Bellanger, in Havard (Bulletin 519:6); Opler, _The Autobiography_;
Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:256; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_,
358. The use of frijolillo in maguey liquor (which equates with mescal)
probably accounts for the usage “mescal bean.” Since the text was written
further Apache material has appeared (Castetter and Opler, _Ethnobiology
of the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache_, 54-55).
[6] Mooney, _Miscellaneous Notes_, 6. Schultes figures a Kiowa necklace
of true mescal beans (_Sophora secundiflora_ Ortega, Lag. ex DC.) strung
on buckskin, with a piece of red ribbon, beaver fur and a child’s
ring enclosing a bundle of dried beaver-testis “medicine” in a lace
handkerchief, as trinkets or amulets.
[7] Skinner, _Ethnology of the Ioway_, 261; Gilmore, _Uses of Plants_, 99.
[8] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 718-19.
[9] Cf. the origin of peyote in deer’s foot-prints or hooves.
[10] “The maⁿkácutzi beans were supposed to be alive. Those I have seen
in the possession of various Iowa were kept in a buckskin wrapper which
was carefully perforated that they might see out.” Cf. the ability of the
father peyote to see.
[11] Cf. the preparation of peyote by grinding on metates like corn.
[12] Cf. the black drink ceremony to the east, and the Plains Sun Dance.
[13] Early peyotism was likewise an agricultural “first-fruits” rite.
[14] The Wichita used mescal beans in horse-racing too. Cf. the use of
peyote in racing and deer-hunting, and the use of datura in deer-hunting.
[15] Cf. the fetishistic use of the father peyote in war.
[16] Cedar and sage are likewise involved in peyotism.
[17] Harrington, quoted by Skinner, _Ethnology of the Ioway_, 245-47.
[18] Compare note 13.
[19] The Delaware, Osage, Quapaw and Oto call the leader’s peyote staff
an “arrow,” the Ponca a “bow.”
[20] Cf. peyotism’s four ritual songs, and the whistling outside at
midnight at the four points of the compass.
[21] But _Erythrina flabelliformis_ contains no toxic alkaloids; see
Appendix 2.
[22] Did that truculent and little-known group, the Caddo, have the
mescal cult?
[23] Has this taboo any reference to the boneless meat of the peyote
ritual breakfast?
[24] Voegelin, _Shawnee Field Notes_.
[25] The Huichol, for whatever such evidence is worth, in the
mythological songs of their shamans, recite how the world began and
how they were taught to hunt deer, to seek hikuli and to raise corn
(Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:8). The route they take in gathering
peyote is from beginning to end full of religious and mythological
associations, and they meet their deities on the way in the shape of
mountains, stones, springs, etc. (_idem_, 2:132). According to their
traditions, they originated in the south, but got lost under the earth
as they wandered northward, reappearing in the country of the hikuli
(_idem_, 2:23). Such deep-rooted symbolisms as theirs argues age.
[26] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 360, 366-67, 379, 383, 386;
Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:357-358, 444 (but see 1:378).
[27] Velasco, _Dictamen Fiscal_, 194; Opler, _The Autobiography_; _Lipan
Field Notes_; _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_; Wagner, _Entwicklung
und Verbreitung_. Opler says that peyote was introduced within the memory
of the oldest living Mescalero; after 1910 it was in decided decline.
[28] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 62-63. The origin legend is Kiowa. Mooney
received a letter dated July 18, 1921 from the Taos Indian, Star Road,
relative to trials of “peyote boys.”
[29] Cozio, _Proceso_.
[30] In 1921 on the orders of the Governor, Manuel Cordova, a peyote
meeting was raided and the blankets and shawls of all participants
somewhat highhandedly confiscated. Prominent medicine-men refused to
doctor “peyote boys” because the new religion was prejudicial to their
vested interests. In 1923 two adherents of the cult were whipped, one
twenty-five lashes, by the Lieutenant-Governor. Three men were fined
$700, $800 and $1000, and the case ultimately reached the American court;
the judge decided that the Governor had no right to impose such heavy
fines, reversed the judgment and ordered the return of the property.
This done, the officers resigned from office, and for a time there
were no secular officers at Taos because no one wanted to take up the
controversy. In 1931 the confiscated property taken ten years before had
still not been returned, the Council refusing even to consider a $10
fine in compensation; $25 was demanded for the return of each shawl and
blanket.
[31] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 80, note 64; 99, note 166; 118; John
Collier, in _Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_.
[32] This widespread origin legend of the Plains is also Mescalero and
Lipan, and from certain indications I suspect that it is Tamaulipecan
also.
[33] Mooney, in _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:701, “Kiowa Apache.”
[34] Mooney, _Peyote Notebook_, 14.
[35] Shonle, Peyote; _The Giver of Visions_, 54. Jack Sankadote, for
example, was carried into a meeting as a baby by his father, and he is in
his fifties.
[36] Several older Kiowa patterns parallel peyote usages (e.g. the
smoking ceremony of the Old Women’s Society: leader west of central fire,
lieutenants on either side of the door, five dishes of food from the fire
eastward; the Buffalo Medicine Men’s Society bundle-repair meeting with
a sage “stage,” etc.), and the Kiowa-Comanche had the all night singing
and beating on a rolled-up hide on the eve of departure on the war-path.
But such parallels from the tribes one knows best lead to often naïve
particularistic explanations and should be guarded against. As a matter
of fact it is the wide distribution of sweat bath doctoring and society
meetings which accounts for the ease with which peyotism made its way
in the Plains. The following two paragraphs are partly based on data
gathered by Donald Collier, a colleague of the Laboratory of Anthropology
Kiowa trip.
[37] In judging the relative importance of the Kiowa and the Comanche
in the diffusion of peyotism, one should recall that Comanche was
historically the lingua Franca of the southern Plains. Quanah took peyote
to the Caddo and Wichita it is said, though he was not the first to do
so; he led meetings among the Cheyenne and the Arapaho in 1884. Petrullo
(_The Diabolic Root_, 129) says he learned peyote about 1868 in Arizona,
New Mexico and Old Mexico.
[38] “It is desirable to eat with the Comanche or the Kiowa because they
are reputed to have learned of Peyote many years before the others.”
(Petrullo _op. cit._, 33.)
[39] _Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:870b; cf. Mooney, in _Peyote
as Used in Religious Worship_, 13-14, 15; Rouhier, _Monographie_, 102.
[40] Jock Bullbear’s and Mooney’s testimonies in _Peyote as Used in
Religious Worship_, 40, 48, 57.
[41] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 410. The practice apparently is also Kiowa
and Oto.
[42] Wissler, _Societies and Dance Associations_, 436; the statement was
made in conversation.
[43] Newberne and Burke, _Peyote: An Abridged Compilation_, table.
[44] Wagner, _Entwicklung und Verbreitung_, 84, footnote.
[45] Newberne and Burke, _op. cit._, 33 ff.
[46] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 71-72.
[47] Wilson said that one Smith had been in Oklahoma from a group on
the Yukon River in southern Alaska; they were said to have used it for
fifteen years. Jenness (letter to Schultes) reported a rumor that a
little peyote had filtered into Salishan groups of British Columbia but
Gunther (letter to Schultes) reported its absence among the Flathead and
Kutenai.
[48] Hoebel, _Northern Cheyenne Field Notes_.
[49] Letter from Fred Washington to Dr. F. G. Speck, April 21, 1932.
Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 165) says the Delaware got peyote from the
Kiowa; there is obvious Caddo influence too, via John Wilson.
[50] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 693-94, 724; _Medicine Ceremony of
the Menomini_; _Ethnology of the Ioway_, 190, 217, 248-49.
[51] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 758.
[52] “We the undersigned members of the Kickapoo Tribe of Indians in
Kansas most earnestly petition you to help us keep out the pellote, or
mescal, from our people. We realize that it is bad for us Indians to
indulge in that stuff. It makes them indolent, keeps them from working
on their farms, and taking care of their stock. It makes men and women
neglect their families. We think it will be a great calamity for our
people to begin to use the stuff.... We most urgently petition you that
immediate action must be taken before the stuff gets hold of our people”
(Seymour, _Peyote Worship_, 183).
[53] Skinner, _Medicine Ceremony of the Menomini_, 24, 42-43, 97.
[54] Speck, _Delaware Peyote Symbolism_.
[55] Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 163-67; _The Uses of Plants_,
104-106; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_; Speck, _Delaware Peyote
Symbolism_; testimony of Sloan in _Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_,
35. Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 637.
[56] _Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_, 10-11, 30-31, 43, 44-45.
This booklet was compiled after 1911, giving for “twenty years [ago]” a
maximally early date of 1891; but other internal evidence indicates a
publication date of 1916, giving the date 1896 as quoted.
[57] Speck, _Notes on the Ethnology_, 171.
[58] No doubt with the memory of the fate of Albert Stamp’s attempted
“moon” among the Caddo, Taylor exhibited considerable modesty when this
flattering offer was made. “I appreciate that offer,” he said, “but I’m
just Alfred Taylor, that’s all I am, and I never did run a meeting, and
I would rather you’d get somebody else from down home who runs meetings
to do it for you.” Several weeks later my informant said he didn’t think
Taylor would accept, though he might drum or build the fire “like a
servant”—“He’s afraid the Caddos will think he is pushing himself ahead
too much, but he has even drummed for Enoch Hoag; he just don’t like to
jump ahead of everybody too much away from home.” This abnegation is all
the greater when it is understood that the Osage are accustomed to make
handsome money gifts on such occasions.
[59] Koshiway compared the smoke-meeting before the war path to peyote:
“They have a meeting and smoke the pipe together and leave the next day.
This clears up the enemies, and you can prophesy then. Peyote is similar
to this—all night.” Another older pattern interestingly survives among
the Oto: in the informal morning period in the tipi, joking relationship
seems to function.
[60] One wonders if the Russellite eschatology was not made more
acceptable historically among the Oto because of an approximation to
certain Ghost Dance notions. In any case, the curious prohibition on
smoking may have symbolized, on the one hand, the rejection of older
patterns of religious smoking, reinforced by the prohibition of secular
smoking too.
[61] Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_, 38.
[62] Shonle, _Peyote: The Giver of Visions_, 55.
[63] Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 636-37. Wagner (_Entwicklung und
Verbreitung_, 75) disputes Shonle’s statement that they got it from the
Quapaw, on the ground of the greater complexity of the Quapaw rite. His
argument is unimpressive and a priori: John Wilson was the source of that
complexity. Cf. Opler, _The Autobiography_.
[64] There may be Doctor Dance parallels in peyotism (e.g., an earthen
altar, a fire in a round hole in the center of the tipi, doctoring at
night with coals, fan or sucking horn, presence of the relatives of the
patient in the meeting, etc.); another older Pawnee pattern in peyote may
be the special morning prayer-maker south of the door.
[65] “PEYOTE FAILS. It is a good thing that peyote is stopped for it
was doing more harm than good. Our young men of the reservation were
just beginning to start in eating the devil’s root.... Peyote fails
because it has no mouth so can not speak to its followers of their origin
and destiny, nor as to sin, repentance, forgiveness, salvation nor of
anything else. It has no ears, so can not hear prayer; it has no eyes,
so it can not see a person’s needs; no hands so can not help; no mind,
so can not think. It is therefore unable to ask God for the thing which
its worshipers need, and which they plead with it to implore God for. Our
boys tried to make others believe that peyote is a God and a religion,
but if one wants to believe in mysterious things it must be Christ or
peyote.” (Sam Newman, Ree [Arikara], in _The Indian Leader_.)
[66] Michelson, _Sauk and Fox Myths_.
[67] Skinner, _Observations on the Ethnology_, 10, 85.
[68] Native American Church, President’s Report, 1925.
[69] Speck, _Delaware Peyote Symbolism_.
[70] Voegelin, _Shawnee Field Notes_.
[71] _Peyote, An Insidious Evil_, 3-4; Office of Indian Affairs,
_Discussion Concerning Peyote_, 13.
[72] Much of this information is from Alfred Wilson, a Southern Cheyenne.
His presidential report for 1925 (Sixth Annual Convention of the Native
American Church) cites “locals” for the Caddo, Wichita, Pawnee, Arapaho,
Yuchi, Kiowa, Oto, Shawnee, Ponca, Sauk and Fox, Cheyenne, and Omaha.
Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 62; Willard Park informed me in 1936 that the
Paviotso lacked peyote.
[73] Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 4-5, 7; _The Winnebago Tribe_,
394, 400, 415, 423; _Crashing Thunder_, 169-70, 179, 185; Lowie, _Notes
Concerning New Collections_, 289; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult; Winnebago
Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_; Speck, _Delaware Peyote Symbolism_.
[74] Seymour, _Peyote Worship_, 184; Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_,
71-72; Shonle, _Peyote; The Giver of Visions_, 55.
APPENDIX 1: PEYOTE IN MEXICO
The connotative etymological implications of the term “peyotl” become
valuable when an understanding of its wider denotative applications is
sought. In Hernandez’ original description, _Lophophora williamsii_ is
called “Peyotl Zacatensi, seu radice molli et lanuginosa”[1]—that is to
say, the whitish flocculence which gains the plant both its Aztec and
modern botanical names, is again pointed out in Hernandez’ Latin synonym,
“soft and lanuginous root.”
But Hernandez distinguished two peyotes, “Peyotl Zacatensi” and “Peyotl
Xochimilcensi,”[2] the latter not even one of the Cactaceae, and one
wonders at the classification until the plant is botanically described:
This peyote, a rather excellent medicine, has a heavy round
root covered with woolly rootlets, in addition to other roots
which resemble acorns, because of their form and size, growing
out in every direction.... It has few stems ... with yellow
flowers at their extremities.
From even this brief characterization it is clear that the term
“peyotl” was extended to this non-cactus (later identified as _Cacalia
diversifolia_ or _C. cordifolia_)[3] because of its balanoid lanuginous
roots. The latter species is sold in the drug markets around Guadalajara,
Jalisco, as “peyote”; specimens from Alvarez, San Luis Potosí, locally
known as “cachan,” are valued as an aphrodisiac and remedy for sterility,
the rhizic-orchic pubescence of the plant being evidently viewed in terms
of sympathetic magic.
Dr. Alfonso[4] applies the term peyote or piote further to _Cacalia
sinuata_, La Llave, and _Etchevarria coespitosa_ Dec., the former
Compositae, the latter one of the Crassulaceae. One of the Compositae,
_Senecio_ spp., ranging from Cerro del Pino to the Valley of Mexico is
thus described:
The tap-root is tuberous-ovoid, size of a small hen’s egg, a
little curved above, carrying almost all [its bulk] in the
heavy extremity.... All the surface is covered with a nap
formed of long matted hairs of the color of cannel, and a
number of long roots.
The “Peyote of Tepic”[5] (_Senecio hartwegii_) is smaller and more
globular than the above, and contains no alkaloid, the gluey, sticky
sap having no effect on the dove or the rat. The “Peyote of Querétaro”
(_Echinocactus turbinatus_ Henning), said to be distinguished from
_Anhalonium_ only by the spiral disposition of the hair-pencils, is a
common form of _Lophophora williamsii_.
In the case of all these non-cacti to which the term peyote has been
applied, the plants have exhibited descriptively either a lanuginous or
pubescent surface-nap, or balanoid, orchitic, or nut-like root-nodules,
and in some cases both; in one case there was a cocoon-shaped pod in
addition. But Schultes[6] lists other “peyotes” which may not fit this
explanation: Compositae: _Senecio calophyllus_ Hemsl., _S. Hartwegii_
Benth., _S. ovatiformis_ Sch. Bip., _S. Petasitus_ DC and _Cacalia_ spp.
(e.g., _C. cordifolia_ HBK); Leguminosae: _Rhynchosia longeracemosa_
Mart. & Gal.; and even one of the Solanaceae, _Datura meteloides_ DC.
All the above are non-cacti, but many Cactaceae have also been called
“peyote.” These include: _Anhalonium Englemannii_ Lem., _A. prismaticum_
Lem., _A. furfuraceum_ Wats., _A. pulvilligerum_ Lem., _A. areolosum_
Lem., _Lophophora williamsii_ Lem., _Ariocarpus fissuratus_ (Englm.)
K. Schum., _Astrophytum myriostigma_ Lem., _A. asterias_ (Zucc.) Lem.,
_Pelecyphora aselliformis_ Ehrenb., and _Strombocactus disciformis_ DC.
The diminutive “peyotillo” has been applied to _Dolichothele longimamma_
Britton and Rose, and _Solisia pectinata_ Britton and Rose.[7]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Hernandez, in Safford, _Aztec Narcotic_, 295; _Peyotes, Datos para
Estudia_, 204.
[2] In simpler Mexican cultures, peyote was in the hands of shamans;
this other peyote appears to derive its name from the priests of
a certain class in the higher Aztec culture: “According to some
authorities, the highest grade of these native hierophants bore among
the Nahuas the symbolic name of ‘flower weavers,’ Xochimilca, probably
from the skill they had to deceive the senses by strange and pleasant
visions (Xochimilca, que asi llamavan á los mui sabios encantadores)”
(Torquemada, in Brinton, _Nagualism_, 298).
[3] A specimen in Mooney, Peyote Notebook, 56, was so identified.
Schultes viewed this and identified it as _C. cordifolia_ which in
addition has cocoon-shaped pods. Cf. the use of _Lophophora_ as an
aphrodisiac.
[4] Alfonso, in Rouhier, _Monographie_, 3; Santoscoy, _Nayarit_, 32.
Schultes (_Peyote and Plants Used_, 135) lists _Cotyledon caespitosa_
Haw. as a Crassulaceous “peyote.”
[5] _Peyotes, Datos para Estudia_, 111, 206, 208. This non-cactus
“peyote” of Tepic may have been the false clue leading Rouhier to believe
an earlier range of peyote into Tepic.
[6] Schultes, _Peyotes and Plants Used_, 135. The Reko etymology
preferred by Schultes (p. 136) so far as botanical evidence goes
derives peyotl from Aztec pi- (small) and -yautli or -yolli (herb with
narcotic odor or action), making “peyotillo” a double diminutive.
Schultes has accepted, at the instance of the present writer, the thesis
that _Cacalia_ spp. might well enough fit the “velvety, cocoon-like”
etymology, but argues nevertheless that “this etymology does not seem to
explain the application of the same name to the great array of plants
which possess no soft or silky parts whatsoever.” Schultes is undoubtedly
right on this point in terms of descriptive botany; yet may not some
items be included in our lists illegitimately? _Anhalonium prismaticum_
Lem., for example, is called hikuli, not peyote, and is only partly its
terminological equivalent. And does the “little narcotic” etymology
explain all these instances?
[7] Urbina, in Harms, _Über das Narkotikum_, 31; Schultes, _op. cit._,
135.
APPENDIX 2: PEYOTE AND THE MESCAL BEAN
Far the commonest designation for peyote in the older literature is
“mescal bean,” a curiously persistent misusage, since either in the dried
or the green state _Lophophora williamsii_ resembles a bean even less
than a mushroom, Safford’s teo-nanacatl. On probing more deeply into this
confusion, a widespread pre-peyote narcotic cult of the southern Plains
was discovered. The ethnographic results of this study are presented in
the text, but a brief characterization of the “mescal bean” proper is
essential as well.
Collected specimens of the old Plains “red bean” (= mescal bean proper)
have been identified by authorities at the Harvard Botanical Museum
as _Sophora secundiflora_ (Ortega) Lag. ex DC.[1] Variously known as
“mescal bean” (southern Plains), “colorín” (Coahuila, Nuevo León, Texas),
“frijolillo” (Nuevo León, Texas), “frijolito” (Texas), “evergreen
coral-bean,” “coral-bean” and “mountain laurel” (southern New Mexico),
this plant grows from Coahuila to San Luis Potosí, western Texas and
southern New Mexico, being specially characteristic of the dry limestone
hills. It is not, however, the “mountain laurel” _Kalmia latifolia_,
being a true member of the Fabaceae or Bean Family; the term “coral-bean”
is likewise applied to two other legumes of Texas, both, however,
_Erythrina_ spp., not _Sophora_.[2]
_Sophora secundiflora_ contains the highly toxic narcotic alkaloid
sophorine, C₁₁H₁₄ON₂, which is identical with cytisine (= ulexine, =
baptitoxine). Resembling nicotine closely in physiological action, the
contents of one bean are said to be able to produce nausea, convulsions
and even death by asphyxiation in man.[3] _Sophora secundiflora_ (=
_Broussonetia secundiflora_) itself is a handsome evergreen shrub or
small tree, eight to thirty-five feet high, bearing thick, leathery,
dark glossy green leaves. The violet-blue bunches of flowers appearing
in the spring give off a strong rank fragrance, and from these develop,
in the summer, woody pods, satiny outside, two to four inches long, and
containing one to four hard-shelled bright red beans.[4]
Safford[5] states that “these beans are often confused with those of
certain species of _Erythrina_, which are sometimes sold in their place
in the markets of Mexico, but which are not at all narcotic.” It is
therefore possible, and indeed probable, that the beans used as necklaces
and bandoliers in the Plains were both _Sophora_ spp. and _Erythrina_
spp.; Mooney[6] for example had specimens of red bean necklaces
identified as _S. secundiflora_ and _E. fruticisa_. The confusion of
the two closely related groups is understandable when the beans alone
are available for diagnosis; the bean of _Sophora secundiflora_ differs
from that of _Erythrina flabelliformis_, for example, in little more
than the shape of the hilum, or scar of attachment, that of the former
being rounded and of the latter more linear, while the beans of _E.
corraloides_ are more elongate than those of _Sophora_. Gilmore’s[7]
identification of the Omaha “red-medicine” with _Erythrina_ spp. may
possibly be wholly correct since he mentions only decorative and
magic uses for the beans; but in view of the chemical composition of
the two, any ritual narcotic use must _a fortiori_ refer to _Sophora
secundiflora_, the “mescal bean” proper.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] There is no problem of identifying the old Plains “red bean” with the
“mescal bean”; both Schultes and I obtained Kiowa specimens in the field.
The problem is the correct botanical classification of the specimens, and
the widespread misusage of their name for peyote.
[2] Standley, _Trees and Shrubs_, 435; Dayton, _Important Western Browse
Plants_, 87; Boughton and Hardy, _Mescalbean_, 5; Opler, _Autobiography_.
The Chiricahua “Mountain laurel” is _S. secundiflora_.
[3] Henry (T. A.), _The Plant Alkaloids_, 395; Dayton, op. cit.,
89. Havard (_Report on the Flora_, 500) says the alkaloid sophoria
[sic] was isolated by Dr. H. C. Wood in 1877 as a whitish, amorphous
substance producing convulsions, temporary loss of voluntary movement,
and distressing vomiting; again (_Drink Plants_, 39) he says sophorine
[sic] is an irritant-narcotic. Another alkaloid, matrine, is found in
_Sophora_ spp. (Nagai, Plugge, Kondo et al. in Henry (T. A.), _The Plant
Alkaloids_, 398). Havard, citing one Bellanger, says the Indians near San
Antonio formerly used the seed as an intoxicant, half of one producing
a delirious exhilaration followed by a deep sleep lasting two or three
days; a whole bean, according to Dr. Rothrock’s informant, would kill a
man. Dayton, 89, says children have been known to die from the effects
of eating seeds of _S. secundiflora_; in any case, a rupture of the
hard, leathery coat of the bean would be required for the release of the
alkaloid in the bean-flesh.
Cattle and sheep appear to be more affected by the leaves of the plant,
which also contain the alkaloid, than by the beans. The effect on them
is marked: sheep fed about one percent body weight of the leaves were
paralyzed in the legs for days and calves fed as little as .25% of body
weight of fresh leaves died in 45 hours; one fed 1.0% died in 1¾ hours.
Recovery in sheep sometimes required 12 days, in calves up to 16 days
(Boughton and Hardy).
[4] Condensed and synthesized from Boughton and Hardy; Havard, _Report on
the Flora_, 458, 500; _Drink Plants_, 39-40; Standley, 435; Dayton, 87-89.
[5] Safford, _Narcotic Plants_, 398.
[6] Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_ (quoting Safford?).
[7] Gilmore, _Uses of Plants_, 99 writes: “The Omaha traveling into
Oklahoma have found them [chinaberry] there, and have taken up their use.
They already had employed for beads as well as for a good-luck charm the
bright red seed of a species of _Erythrina_. They say it grows somewhere
to the southwest, toward or in Mexico. They call it ‘red medicine,’ makaⁿ
zhide (makaⁿ, medicine; zhide, red). When the seeds of Melia (azerdache
L.) [chinaberry] were adopted for use as beads, they likened them to
makaⁿ zhide, and so call them makaⁿ-zhide sabe, ‘black red-medicine’.”
APPENDIX 3: PEYOTE AND TEO-NANACATL
The already sufficiently intricate ethnobotanical problem of peyote has
been further complicated by an erroneous identification of a narcotic
mushroom used by the Aztecs with the cactus peyotl. Safford[1] identifies
the two by a somewhat casual use of his evidence, and mystifies himself
with the consistent contradiction offered by all the early Spanish
writers to his assumption. He composes the contradiction by assuming
that the Aztecs did not recognize the dried discoidal button as the same
plant as the green cactus; despite overwhelming etymological evidence he
supposes they called the former teo-nanacatl and the latter peyotl. Only
a complete review of the evidence can clear up this misapprehension.
The Spanish writers consistently describe the two separately,
with detailed circumstantial distinctions which leave no room for
misunderstanding. Sahagún,[2] says
[The Chichimeca] had a great knowledge of herbs and roots
and knew their qualities and their virtues. They themselves
discovered and first used the root that they call peiotl and
those that used to gather and eat them used them in place of
wine, and they did the same with those that they call nanacatl,
which are toadstools [hongos malos] that also make one drunk
like wine.
Again, in a special chapter on intoxicating plants, Sahagún distinguishes
the two:
There is another herb like tunas of the earth [the Spanish name
for the fruit of the prickly pear, _Opuntia opuntia_] which
is called peiotl. It is white. It grows in the northern part.
Those that eat it see frightening and laughable visions. This
intoxication lasts two or three days and then stops....[3]
There are some little mushrooms in their land that they call
teo-nanacatl. They grow under the grass of the fields or
pastures. They are round. They have a sort of high stem [pie],
thin and round. They are eaten with great relish, but they harm
the throat and make one drunk.[4]
Still further to emphasize the point, Sahagún in the next section of
this chapter[5] goes on to speak of edible mushrooms:
The cone-shaped mushrooms (mushrooms or nanacatl) _genus campos
agrorum_ in the mountains are good to eat. They are cooked
because of this, and if they are raw or badly cooked, they
produce vomiting or diarrhea, and they kill one,
and he continues to list and describe a number of other edibles.
The naturalist Hernandez[6] is even more explicit. He describes
teo-nanacatl under the heading “De nanacatl seu Fungorum genere”; and
from the harmless white mushrooms, iztacnanacame, the red mushrooms,
tlapalnanacame, and the yellow-orbicular mushrooms, chimalnanacame, he
distinguishes teo-nanacatl as “teyhuinti,” that is, “intoxicating.”
Siméon’s Nahuatl dictionary even uses nanacatl as an illustration:[7]
Teo-nanacatl, espece de petit champignon qui a mauvais gout,
enivre et cause des hallucinations; il est medicinal contre
les fievres et la goutte.... Teyuinti, qui enivre quelqu’un,
enivrant; teyhuinti nanacatl, champignon enivrant.
Safford quotes this evidence himself!
Padre Jacinto de la Serna[8] records for us another compound of the
Nahuatl word for mushroom, and describes the fungus while likewise
specifically distinguishing it from peyote and ololiuhqui:
To this meeting had come an Indian ... who had brought some of
the mushrooms that are gathered in the monte, and with these
he had performed a great idolatry. But before proceeding with
my story I wish to explain the nature of the said mushrooms,
which in the Mexican language are called Quahtlananacatl, “wild
mushrooms.” ... These mushrooms were small and yellow and ...
were collected by priests and old men, appointed as ministers
for these impostures, who would proceed to the place where
they grow and remain almost the whole night in prayer and in
superstitious conjuring; and at dawn, when a certain little
breeze known to them would begin to blow, then they would
gather the narcotic,[9] attributing to it deity, with the same
properties as ololiuhqui or peyote, since when eaten or drunk,
they intoxicate those who partake of them, depriving them of
their senses, and making them believe a thousand absurdities.
In Safford it appears that de la Serna distinguished these from Picietl,
tobacco, also. There is an implied confusion, to be sure, in Alarcón,
but he supplies confirmation of this last point, along with interesting
ethnographic details:[10]
One should notice that in almost every case that they are moved
to offer a sacrifice to their imagined gods, there comes to
take charge of it and preside over it some quack, medicine-man,
seer or diviner from among other Indians, the majority of them
falling back on their crazy ceremonies, or on whatever whim
arises when they are deranged from the drinking of what they
call ololiuhqui or pezote [sic] or tobacco, whatever it might
be called in particular localities.
The Franciscan Fray Toribio de Benvento mentions teo-nanacatl, to which
he gives an erroneous etymology:[11]
They had another kind of drunkenness ... which was with small
fungi or mushrooms [hongos ó setas pequeñas] ... which are
eaten raw, and, on account of being bitter, they drink after
them or eat with them a little honey of bees, and shortly after
that they see a thousand visions, especially snakes. They went
raving mad, running about the streets in a wild state [bestial
embriaguez]. They called these fungi “teo-na-m-catl,” a word
meaning “bread of the gods.”
Tezozomoc,[12] again, related that at the coronation of Montezuma the
Mexicans gave wild mushrooms [hongos montesinos] to the strangers to eat;
that the strangers became drunk, and thereupon began to dance. Diego
Durán[13] gives further particulars of the coronation of Montezuma II;
he says that after the usual human sacrifices had been offered, all went
to eat raw mushrooms (hongos crudos), which caused them to lose their
senses, more than if they had drunk much wine. In their ecstasy many
of them killed themselves with their own hands, and by virtue of the
mushrooms had visions and revelations of the future.
The conclusion from all this evidence is obvious: the peyote of the
Plains, _Lophophora williamsii_, is identical with the peiotl, peyotl,
pellote, peyote, pejori, peyori or bejo of the Aztec and other Mexican
tribes, but this cactus is wholly distinct from the little yellow
thin-stemmed fungus teo-nanacatl, and Safford’s identification of the two
is erroneous.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_ 294; _Identification of Teo-nanacatl,
Narcotic Plants; Peyote_, 1278-79.
[2] Sahagún, _Historia general_, Lib. 10, cap. xxix: “... ellos mismos
discubrieron, y usaron primero la raíz que llaman peiotl, y los que
comian y tomaban la usaban en lugar de vino, y lo mismo hacian de los
que llaman nanacatl que son los bongos malos que emborrachan tambien
como el vino.” The authoritative edition of Jourdanet and Siméon, 661-62
translates nanacatl as “champignon vénéneux.”
[3] Sahagún, _Historia general_, 3:241-42: “Hay otra yerba como tunas
de tierra, se llama peiotl, es blanca, hacese ácia la parte del norte,
los que la comen ó beben vén visiones espantosas ó irrisibles.” (Lib.
11, cap. vii, pt. i, “De ciertas yerbas que emborrachen.”) Jourdanet and
Siméon, 737, unfortunately describe tunas as “une ... plante qui rapelle
la truffe,” which is a mushroom. Sahagún’s work is virtual dictation from
Aztec informants, later translated with painstaking care into Spanish. It
is difficult to assume, as did Safford, that such able herbalists did not
know the difference between a cactus and a fungus.
[4] “Hay unos honguillos en esta tierra que se llaman teo-nanacatl,
críanse debajo del heno en los campos ó páramos; son redondos, tienen
el pie altillo, delgado y redondo, comidos son de mal sabor, dañan
la garganta y emborrachan.” (_Idem_, 3:241-42.) To be sure our own
best scientific knowledge must always be the touchstone for the data
of the various folk-sciences; yet one is not entitled to a lofty and
comprehensive _á priori_ distrust of native knowledge, particularly when
detailed with such clarity as this.
[5] “Las setas (hongos ó nanacatl) hacen genus campos agrorum en los
montes, son buenas de comer....” (Sahagún, _Historia general_, 3:243).
[6] Hernandez, in Safford, _Aztec Narcotic_, 293. The very word
itself means “mushroom!” Reko’s etymology for teo-nanacatl, “divine
nourishment,” is unsound according to Whorf; and indeed, there is nothing
of the edible _par excellence_ about fungi (see Schultes, _Peyote and
Plants Used_, 136-37).
[7] Siméon, in Safford, _Identification of Teo-nanacatl_, 400, 412.
[8] de la Serna, _Manual de Ministros_, 261.
[9] Cf. the Huichol peyote-gathering ritual and the wind which arises.
[10] Safford, _Aztec Narcotic_, 291. Indeed in this short sub-chapter,
Sahagún distinguishes and describes coatlxoxouhqui = ololiuhqui
[its seeds] peyotl, tlapatl, tzintzintlapatl, mixitl, teo-nanacatl,
tochtetepo, atlepatli, aquiztli, tenxoxoli and quimichpatli! Alarcón,
_Tratado_, 131; also in Urbina, _El Peyote y el Ololhiuqui_, 27.
[11] _Ritos Antiquos_; in Kingsborough, 9:17. Jourdenet and Siméon,
translators of Sahagún, _Histoire général_, 738, have: “[Teo-nanacatl]
c’est-à-dire: champignon dangereux. Le terme générique est nanacatl qui
se met en composition avec d’autres mots pour désigner les diverses
espèces de champignons.”
[12] _Crónica Mexicana_; in Kingsborough, 9:153. The fact that _raw_
mushrooms are mentioned disposes of Safford’s supposition that _dried_
peyote buttons are meant.
[13] Durán, _Historia de las Indias_, 564, quoted from Kingsborough’s
_Mexican Antiquities_ by Bourke, _Scatological Rites_, 90.
APPENDIX 4: “PLANT WORSHIP” IN MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES
Peyote is only one of several narcotics in the southern United States
and Mexico which because of their physiological action find ritual and
other uses. Since, in many of these, uses are related, there arises the
problem of their possible historical relationship. In any case, it is
illuminating to study the general background of attitudes out of which
peyotism grew.
CACTI
The Tarahumari of northwestern Mexico, though their hikuli cult is less
elaborate than that of the Huichol, have a complex of “worship” and
use of several varieties of cacti. Besides hikuli wanamé (_Lophophora
williamsii_) Lumholtz[1] lists the following:
Mulato (a _Mammilaria_), believed to make the eyes large and
clear to see sorcerers, to prolong life, and to give speed to
runners who eat it.[2]
Rosapara (a more advanced vegetative form of the same, but
with many spines) which has very keen eyes for Tarahumari
wrong-doing; it punishes by driving the offender mad, or
throwing him down a precipice; “it is therefore very effective
in frightening off bad people, especially robbers and
Apaches.”[3]
Sunami (_Mammilaria fissurata_),[4] rare, but even more
powerful than wanamé, for it calls soldiers to its aid. The
drink produced from it is strongly intoxicating. Deer cannot
run away from you, nor bears harm you when carrying this
cactus.[5]
Hikuli walúla sälíami, “hikuli great authority,” is the
greatest of all; it is extremely rare, and Lumholtz never saw
a specimen, though it was described to him as “growing in
clusters of from eight to twelve inches in diameter, resembling
wanamé with many young ones around it.”[6]
Ocoyome, unlike the preceding hikuli which are good, is used
only for evil purposes. It has long white spines or “claws,”
and comes from the Devil. If accidentally touched with the
foot, it would break one’s leg; it also throws offenders
over precipices.[7] Lumholtz says it was very rarely used,
and Mooney says the Tarahumari used it not at all—though the
“Apaches” did—since it was “poison.” Mooney describes the plant
as having a reddish down, root and surface, which may account
for the Apaches’ tying it around their waists to make them
brave, in their battles.[8]
Bennett and Zingg are perhaps referring to the same plant under the name
“peyote cimarrón,” which is “small, red, and ineffective; it is not used
or even touched, since the abuser might die.” “Peyote christiano” (hikuli
dewéame), a larger, green variety, apparently Lophophora, is considered
the “most efficacious.”[9]
Bennett and Zingg give two other kinds of cactus used by the
Tarahumari:[10]
Witculíki (Mex. _biznaga_, _Mammillaria hyderi_), a ball cactus
of the gorges, is roasted about four minutes in ashes, after
being split and divested of its spines; the soft center is
squeezed into the ear in case of earache or deafness. (This
curiously echoes of the talking peyote stories.)
Bakánawa or bakánori, a small ball cactus, is used by the
Indians of the barrancas. Shamans, not peyoteros, carry small
bits of the root in their bags; it can be kept only three
years, after which it must be sold or hidden, lest the owner
go crazy. The shaman chews and anoints the patient with it. So
powerful is it that runners use it three days before racing;
one man died of fear after having offended this plant.
NON-CACTI
Of the ritually used narcotics of this area we have already discussed
the “mescal bean,” or _Sophora secundiflora_, and teo-nanacatl, the
sacred mushroom of the Aztec and Chichimeca.[11] The use of marihuana
(_Cannabis_ spp.) in counteracting sorcery, and other beliefs surrounding
its employment are also elsewhere discussed.[12] The use of the
mescal-bean of the southern Plains and the various alcoholic drinks[13]
of Mexico and the Southwest are perhaps related to the “black drink” made
of the leaves and twigs of the “beloved tree” (_Ilex cassine_), which
is distributed continuously from the Carolinas to the Rio Grande, with
a continuation of the trait across the Antilles into northeastern and
central South America.[14]
But the narcotic exhibiting perhaps the most numerous parallels in
usage with peyote is datura.[15] Gayton lists as datura-users in the
Southwest[16] the Pima, Zuñi, Navaho, Hopi, Havasupai, Walapai, Mohave,
Yuma and Cocopa, and in California the Akwa’ala, Southern Diegueño, Pass
Cahuilla, Gabrielino, Luiseño, Serrano, Chumash, Salinan, Miwok, Eastern
and Western Mono, and the Foothill and Southern Valley Yokuts. This
distribution is continuous with that in northwestern Mexico among the
Opata, Tepehuane, Cora, Tepecano and Aztec.[17]
The parallel uses of peyote, cohoba snuff and datura in prophecy and
divination have been summarized elsewhere,[18] but there are further
interesting uses of datura. The Aztec of Mexico[19] had special officials
who took ololiuhqui (the seeds of datura) to discover cures for
illnesses, to find lost or stolen property, to ascertain the origin of
long sickness due to witchcraft, etc., receiving pay for their services.
Sometimes they prescribed the drug for their patients; datura was also
used empirically as an anodyne in setting fractures, and it may have
been one of the drugs employed to stupefy sacrificial victims, though
peyote is the only one identified. Ololiuhqui was also mixed with tobacco
and the ashes of venomous insects to make the sacred ointment of the
priesthood; set on altars it was called Divine Meat.[20] The Cora[21]
refer to daturas in their songs and myths, but their use of it is not
known.
In northern Mexico, the Tepehuane used toloache [datura] in place of
peyote.[22] Tepecano prayers refer to datura as the husband of Corn
Daughter and the son-in-law of Father Sun; having taken two mistresses,
he was punished for this by being stuck head downward in the ground and
commanded to give mortals whatever they begged of him. They believe him
to have great riches, which they pray for and “borrow.” Datura is one of
the five narcotics whose flowers decorate a love charm.[23]
In the Southwest, the Pima had a jimsonweed song which brought success
in deer-hunting[24] and cured vomiting and dizziness. The White Mountain
Apache[25] mixed the root of _D. meteloides_ with their corn beer to
make it more intoxicating. The Apache of Bourke[26] credited datura
with the power of making men crazy, but denied using it medicinally or
ceremonially. The Havasupai[27] eat datura leaves occasionally apparently
for purely secular pleasure, and also use the drug in their arrow poison.
At Zuñi[28] datura was one of the medicines formerly belonging to the
gods, and only the rain priests and directors of the Little Fire and
Cimex fraternities could use it; the rain priests propitiated birds with
the powdered root, or a man ate it to bring rain. They also administered
it to clients who had been robbed, to discover the thief, and to patients
with broken bones; the pulverized root and flower were also used with
corn meal for all types of wounds. In myth the daturas were once brother
and sister who walked the earth and saw who committed thefts, but the
Divine Ones said they knew too much and caused them to disappear into the
earth forever; perhaps for this reason it is also used to communicate
with the dead. The Navaho[29] eat the root of _D. meteloides_, and
sometimes “the Indians under its influence, like the Malays run amuck and
try to kill everybody they meet.” There is a record of Hopi doctoring
with datura.[30]
Nearly all the tribes of southern California used datura. The Akwa’ala,
Yuma, Mohave and Eastern Mono took it to acquire gambling luck; the
Central Miwok did not eat it, but considered that a dream about datura
aided one’s gambling fortune.[31] Of the remaining tribes of the region
who used it ceremonially, some features were held in common: (1) it
was not taken before puberty,[32] (2) it was usually administered to
a group,[33] and (3) a supernatural helper, sometimes an animal, was
sought.[34]
In southwestern California the use of datura is strongly ritualized in
the Chungichnich cult of the Luiseño, and Northern and Southern Diegueño.
According to Kroeber the ritual is comparatively recent and overlies an
older, simpler use of the plant over a wider area. In the Chungichnich
ceremony datura is given to boys as a preliminary ritual in puberty
observance; its use is not seasonal, nor do women ever partake of it.[35]
The Mountain Cahuilla[36] are typical of groups who had the simpler
datura rite in puberty ceremonials before the addition of Chungichnich
ritualism.
Manet (datura) was given to boys of 18-20 in a ceremony lasting
3 to 6 days in which other younger boys of 6-10 years were
taught clan and “enemy” songs by their fathers. The paha or
leader prepared strings of reed, eagle and flicker feathers
which were worn by the dancers, who practiced away from the
village. The drinking ceremony or kiksawel took place inside
the ceremonial dance house, and women and children were warned
away by the manet-dancer’s bull-roarer.[37] Each boy was
given a drink of a decoction of datura pounded in a mortar
by the clan chief. The men in the enclosure took each boy by
the waist, and they all danced around the fire, led by the
manet-dancer. The boys remained unconscious in the house all
night when the effect of the drug became manifest, and were
removed the following afternoon to a secluded cañon where for
a week they were taught songs and dances nightly. The last
afternoon a sand-painting was made and its symbolism explained.
After an ant-ordeal and a fire-dance they were regarded as men
and full-fledged members of the clan.
A second group of tribes in the San Joaquin basin and Sierra Nevada
foothills had a datura-drinking ceremonial every spring for both sexes
shortly after the age of puberty.[38]
The participant’s social status was not changed and the
rite alone constituted a ceremonial unit, the tananhibina
or tanabi-drinking of the Western Mono. Dancing to clappers
took place until the children fell unconscious, whereupon
they were carried away to special camps by relatives. If
a person appeared to be covered with blood or maggots and
vermin (the causes of sickness), they were brushed off with
an eagle-feather brush.[39] In discovering the sickness the
seer used an eagle-bone whistle which enabled him to “hear”
the sickness; if a man had poison, one could see where it was.
One could also see things at very great distances, as well as
discover what medicine-man had caused the death of people by
witchcraft. The seer could likewise find lost articles and
discover wealth by means of datura. The drinkers were guarded
during this time lest they harm themselves or be harmed.
Some men did not have any datura-visions; this was because
some medicine-man feared his bad deeds would be discovered,
and hence rendered the drink harmless by magic and “covered
up” those persons. If a medicine-man wanted to become very
powerful, he took tanabi on ten successive seasons. Datura
leaves were placed on the forehead of a dead person to drive
out the spirit,[40] and people boiled tanabi leaves so the
steam filled their house that the spirit of the dead man would
not return to them in dreams.
In view of these repeated parallels in the attitudes and usages
surrounding both peyote and datura, it is certainly not without
significance that their distribution, while contiguous, is mutually
exclusive in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States: peyote
is generally central and northeastern in Mexico, whence it spread
northward and eastward into the Plains, while datura is northwestern in
Mexico and extends through the Pueblo and nomadic Southwest to southern
California. And if the “black drink,” native American beers in Mexico and
the Southwest, and the mescal bean be all counted with peyote and datura
as part of one general distribution, we have a large continuous area or
“narcotic complex” across the whole southern United States and northern
Mexico. Such large general distributions are not unknown (e.g., bear
ceremonialism), and datura (via Central America), ilex drinks (via the
Antilles) and aboriginal alcoholic liquors (continuous from the Southwest
through Mexico and Central America to include the entire northern
three-quarters of South America) are surely connected ultimately with the
same traits in South America—more particularly since not alone are the
plants involved the same, but also detailed “superorganic” attitudes and
ritual manifestations.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:372-74. These short paragraphs are
summaries, not direct quotations.
[2] Cf. the physiological action of peyote-alkaloids, discussed
elsewhere (dilation of the pupil, increased reflex excitability). The
use of narcotics in this area in connection with racing appears again
with peyote in northern Mexico, and with the “mescal bean” (_Sophora
secundiflora_) among the Wichita. The Acaxee used peyote in their
ball play, much as the “black drink” (_Ilex cassine_) was used in the
Southeast. Cf. Mooney’s (_Tarumari-Guayachic_) “Muräto,” apparently
identical with Lumholtz’ Mulato, that “is used mostly in races, not
ground up, but tied whole around waist, at back.”
[3] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:373. In this region narcotics in
general are much employed in connection with war, and the magical
“witching” of the enemy—whose power is not merely physical but
magically malevolent too. “Mescal beans” were part of the war-bundle
in some southern Plains tribes, and both peyote and datura were used
clairvoyantly and prophetically in war connections. The attitude that
the enemy is a witch, Dr. Spier informs me, is widespread among both the
Yumans and Athapascans of the Southwest. Cf. also peyote and captured
scalps (e.g., Maricopa) talking, and being danger-ridden.
[4] This is an instance where it is rewarding conscientiously to
respect native categories and ethnobotanical statements for hordenine
(= anhaline, one of the alkaloids of Lophophora) was discovered in
_Anhalonium fissuratum_ in 1894 by Heffter (see Appendix 5, fn. 5).
[5] Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_, says sunami is very much respected, and
is used only by doctors. Women doctors grind them on metates, placing
the plant upright and crushing it with one blow (cf. the “killing” of
mescal beans in the Plains). Doctors assemble for this feast, which
requires the sacrifice of a beef. Special rites attend its gathering,
and it must be gathered in a black blanket and bleeds red blood. It
must be kept in a double basket in a cave, lest it hear quarreling in
the house. It dislikes fire, and after ten or twenty years it loses its
virtue and must be replanted with copal incensing where originally found.
Doctors rub tizwin-and-sunami over the heart and rest of the body, for it
makes one win races. _Anhalonium fissuratum_ has a striking resemblance
to deer-hooves; it is likely the hikuli referred to in this and other
Tarahumari-Huichol tales—but it should be recalled that peyotism in
Mexico is also connected with deer-hunting.
[6] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:373-74; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_,
says this variety is as big as a man’s hat. The description probably
refers to an occasional polycephalous specimen of _Lophophora williamsii_
(hikuli wanamé).
[7] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_ 1:374; _Tarahumari Dances_, 253, 452-54;
cf. Mooney’s (_Tarumari-Guayachic_) kókoyómi. Mooney thought Lumholtz’
“walulasahane” was Tepecano, not Tarahumari.
[8] The resemblance of some _Mammillaria_ spp. to a head or scalp of hair
is quite striking; Higgins, in fact, figures an “Old Man Cactus” with
long flowing white “hair.”
[9] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 290.
[10] Bennett and Zingg, _op. cit._, 137, 295. The users of bakánawa
believe it to be even more powerful than peyote. One can more easily
believe that the ataxic gait of a peyote-intoxicated person would “throw”
him over a cliff or break a leg, than that it would result in any
conspicuously superior racing ability.
[11] Dorman, in Bourke, _Scatalogical Rites_, 91, says mushrooms
were “worshipped” in the Antilles, in Virginia, and possibly also in
California. The Siberian use of _Amanita_ spp. is well-known, but no
doubt these sporadic uses are all independent of each other.
[12] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:354; see also notes 41, 45, 48 in
Appendix 6.
[13] The writer has published elsewhere on the subject of the numerous
native American beers (see _Native American Beers_). So far as a
cactus-source of these is concerned, the following groups make use of
_Cereus giganteus_ Englm. and _C. Thurberi_ Englm. for their sahuaro
drink: Huichol (?), Pima, Maricopa, Yuma, Papago, Halchidoma (?), and San
Carlos Apache.
[14] The ilex “black drink” is Catawba (_Handbook of the American
Indians_, 1:150a, 2:1000-1001); Alibamu (Forster, _Bossu_, 254, 261,
294, 354-55); Creek (Swanton, _Social Organization and Social Usages_,
307, 445; Adair, in Swanton, _Social and Religious Beliefs_, 265; Speck,
_The Creek Indians_, 110, 117-18, 134; Bartram, _Travels_, 449, 507),
both Taskigi and Mikasuki; Cherokee (Bartram, _Travels_, 357); Chickasaw
(Swanton, _Social and Religious Beliefs_, 240); Koasati (Paz, _Koasati
Field Notes_); Yuchi (Speck, _Ethnology of the Yuchi_, 122-24, 135);
Natchez (Charlevoix, _Histoire de l’Isle_, 166; du Pratz, _Histoire_,
2:46, 3:13); Atakapa (Forster, _Bossu_, 1:354-55), Chitamacha (Gatschet,
in Swadesh, _Chitamacha Texts_) and Karankawa (Oliver, in Gatschet, _The
Karankawa Indians_, 18-19). Also in Florida (de Laudoniére, in Lewin,
_Phantastica_, 279; Safford, _Narcotic Plants_, 417; Romans, _A Concise
Natural History_, 94), and also possibly in Virginia (Beverly, _History
of Virginia_, 175-80; Ribault [1666], Dominique de Gourages [1567],
McCullough, Le Moyne—all in Havard, _Drink Plants_, 41-42; Lawson,
_History of Carolina_, 380-82 [1860 ed.]; Adair, _The History of the
American Indian_, 108). A similar emetic rite is also found among the
“Cutalchich” of Texas (Cabeza de Vaca, in Safford, _Narcotic Plants_,
416-17), the Tainan or Greater Antilles Arawak (Gower, _The Northern and
Southern Affiliations_, 39-40), the Lesser Antilles Carib and Guiana
(Dixon [R. B.], _Some Aspects_, 1-12), the Amazon Basin (Wissler, _The
American Indian_, 213), Jivaro and Canelo of Ecuado (Karsten, in Lewin,
_Phantastica_, 279-81; Safford, _Narcotic Plants_, 413, 416); Guarani of
Northern Bolivia (Safford, op. cit., 413; Spruce, _Notes of a Botanist_,
2:419-20). See also Thurnwald, _Economics_, 65; Harrington, _Cuba
Before Columbus_, 295, 388-89; Spier, _Yuman Tribes_, 181; _Handbook
of the American Indians_, 2:32a, 145-46; Sapir, _Kaibab-Paiute_.
An interestingly parallel distribution (which may have historical
relevance) is that of fish and arrow poisons. Fish poisons are reported
for northeastern South America, the Orinoco valley, the upper Amazon,
the Antillean Carib; the Tarahumari, Acaxee, Opata and in California;
the Catawba, Taskigi Creek, Cherokee, Koasati, Yuchi and Iroquois (cf.
the blow-gun of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Iroquois, Yuchi, central
Carib, Florida Key-dwellers, natives of Hispaniola and of northeastern
South America). Arrow poisons are found in Sonora, Central America,
the Guianas, the Antilles (Carib), Florida Arawak (?) and, in historic
times, the Tarahumari, as well as in South America. The Opata, curiously,
used yerba de fleche to poison deer at water-holes. Beals (_Comparative
Ethnology_, 115, 193) also lists poison arrows for the Southern Diegueño,
Chumash, Cahuilla, Yavapai, Havasupai, Navaho, Western Apache, Lipan,
Natchez (?), Seri, Mixtec and in Sinaloa and Culiacan. Spier adds the
Blackfoot and perhaps other Plains groups to this list. The group with
poison arrows south of the Great Lakes (_Jesuit Relations_, 8:302, in
Gower, 21) one would guess is Iroquois.
[15] We ignore for our purposes the South American area of the use
of datura, though it is surely connected with the Mexican culturally
and historically, as well as the South American use of coca, tobacco,
cohoba snuff (_Piptadenia peregrina_), guarana (_Paullinia cupana_ or
_P. sorbilis_), chocolatl (_Theobroma cacao_), aya-huasca (_Banisteria
caapi_) and yajé (_Haemadictyon Amazonicum_ Spruce). Many of the uses of
these plants in war, prophesying, divination, ordeals, and doctoring are
strikingly similar to the Mexican uses of marihuana, datura, teo-nanacatl
and peyote.
[16] The sources for these are cited in Gayton, _The Narcotic Plant
Datura_, a manuscript to which I am much indebted.
[17] Note the parallel uses of datura in South America found among the
Inca, Matacuna, Chancay, Sipibo, Cocoma, Omagua, Jivaro, Canelo, Quijo,
Zaparo, Guanes (Guanuco?), Chibcha and in Darien (after Gayton). The
“wysoccan” used by the Pamunky (Beverly, _History of Virginia_, 2:24) is
said to be a datura (Safford, _Daturas_, 557-58); the sporadic use as a
medicament in Jamaica (Beckwith, _Notes on Jamaica_, 9, note 5, 28) may
not be aboriginal.
[18] The writer hopes in due time to publish further data on New World
narcotics.
[19] De la Serna, in Safford, _Daturas_, 551, Arlegui, _Crónica_, 144;
Rouhier, _Monographie_, 331.
[20] Gerste, _Notes sur la médicine_, 51. This may be the source of
Reko’s erroneous teo-nanacatl etymology.
[21] Preuss, _Nayarit-Expedition_, 1:231.
[22] Diguet, _Le Peyote et son Usage_, 21, note 1.
[23] Mason, _Tepecano Prayers_, 138, 139, 142, 143. Cf. the supposed
aphrodisiac effects of peyote, teo-nanacatl, and marihuana.
[24] Russell, _The Pima_, 299-300. Cf. sunami of the Tarahumari for deer
hunting, and the mescal bean for buffalo hunting.
[25] Hrdlička, _Physiological and Medical Observations_, 28; cf.
_Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:837b.
[26] Bourke, _The Medicine-Men_, 455.
[27] Spier, _Havasupai_, 249, 269.
[28] Stevenson, _Ethnobotany of the Zuñi_, 46, 47, 88; _The Zuñi
Indians_, 385; Parsons, _A Zuñi Detective_, 168-70. Every single instance
in this paragraph finds parallels in the uses of peyote: the powdering of
the root, rain-getting, discovery of robbers, as an anodyne, for wounds,
etc., differentiation in sex and communication with the dead. Note also
in connection with rain-making the “water-bird” of peyotism.
[29] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:4; _The American Cave-Dwellers_, 389;
cf. the running amuck with peyote.
[30] Robbins _et alii_, _Ethnobotany of the Tewa_, 55, note 1.
[31] References from Gayton, _The Narcotic Plant Datura_.
[32] Cf. the use of peyote formerly only by adult warriors.
[33] Cf. the group use of marihuana, teo-nanacatl and peyote in Mexico.
[34] Again compare peyote, particularly in the Plains.
[35] Kroeber (_Handbook_ 462, 589, 593, 609, 613-14) lists tribes who may
lack it. See also Kroeber, _Anthropology_, 309-311.
[36] Summarized from Gayton, citing W. D. Strong, _Aboriginal Society_.
[37] Cf. the preparation of peyote in Mexico.
[38] Summarized from Gayton.
[39] Cf. this and the following elements with peyote usages.
[40] Cf. the Mexican use of peyote.
APPENDIX 5: CHEMISTRY OF PEYOTE
Alkaloids are found in a number of cacti: _Cereus peruvianus_, _C. pecten
aboriginum_, _Pilocereus sargentianus_ Orcutt, _Phyllocactus ackermanii_,
_P. russelianus_, _Echinocereus mamillosus_, _Mammillaria cirrhifera_,
_M. uberiformis_, _M. centricirrha_, _Anhalonium prismaticum_, _A.
fissuratum_,[1] and _Lophophora williamsii_. _Lophophora_ in its mature
state, however, is notable for the number of alkaloids which it contains,
nine being known at present.
The long and hotly-disputed botanical question of _Anhalonium williamsii_
versus _A. lewinii_, beyond its ethnographic significance in accounting
the plants “male” and “female,” has a chemical aspect for a time
obscuring their botanical identity. _A. williamsii_ (young specimens of
_Lophophora_) contains only the alkaloid Pellotine,[2] while _A. lewinii_
(the mature _Lophophora_) contains at least nine, as follows:[3] Anhaline
(C₁₀H₁₅ON), Anhalamine (C₁₁H₁₅O₃N), Mescaline (C₁₁H₁₇O₃N), Anhalonidine
(C₁₂H₁₇O₃N), Anhalonine (C₁₂H₁₅O₃N), Lophophorine (C₁₃H₁₇O₃N), Pellotine
(C₁₃H₁₉O₃N), Anhalinine and Anhalidine. Lophophorine is an oily colorless
liquid; mescaline crystallizes only in the presence of atmospheric CO₂;
and anhalonidine crystallizes imperfectly; the rest are crystalline.
Their physiological activity appears to increase with their chemical
complexity.[4]
Hordenine was first isolated from _A. fissuratum_ by Heffter in 1894 and
shown to be identical with Späth’s anhaline from _Lophophora_ in 1920;
Heffter isolated pellotine in 1894, mescaline, anhalonidine, anhalonine
and lophophorine in 1896, Kauder adding anhalamine in 1899. Capellman
collaborated with Heffter on mescaline in 1905. If Heffter first isolated
the _Lophophora_ alkaloids, Späth is to be largely credited with
establishing their chemical constitution and synthesizing them: mescaline
in 1920, anhalamine in 1921, and anhalonidine and pellotine in 1922.
Röder in 1922 and Gangl in 1923 collaborated in establishing the chemical
constitution of others of the alkaloids.[5]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Tschirsch, _Handbuch_, 680.
[2] Henry (T. A.), _The Plant Alkaloids_, 194; Moureu, _Review_, 519;
Heffter, _Ueber zwei Cacteenalkaloïde_, 2977; _Ueber Pellote_, 309 ff.;
Späth, _Über die Anhalonium_; I, _Anhalin und Mezcalin_, 129; Kunkel,
_Handbuch_, 836; Schumann, _Über giftige Kakteen_, 106.
[3] Henry (T. A.), _loc. cit._ The more recently discovered anhalinine
and anhalidine are cited from Schultes, _Peyote and Plants Used_, 134.
[4] Rouhier, _Monographie_, 196, 201, 205, 212.
[5] Henry (T. A.), _The Plant Alkaloids_, 194-95; Moureu, _Review_,
520; Heffter, _Ueber zwei Cacteenalkaloïde_, 2976; _Ueber Pellote_,
69-73; Späth, _Ueber die Anhalonium_; I, _Anhalin und Mezcalin_, 129,
138-39; II, _Die Konstitution_, 97, 263. Anhalonine has been found in
_A. jourdanianum_ (Henry, _op. cit._, 194; Heffter, _Ueber Pellote_,
427) which is identical with _Lophophora_. See Heffter, _Ueber zwei
Cacteenalkaloïde_, 2976-77, also vols. 29:216, 223-25, 227; 34:3005,
3008, 3013; Heffter and Capellman, _Versuch zur Synthese_, 38:3634-40;
Kauder, _Über Alkaloide_, 190-98. Späth, with Gangl and Röder, _Über de
Anhalonium_, IV, VI; Kunkel, _Handbuch_, 836.
APPENDIX 6: PHYSIOLOGY OF PEYOTE
ACTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL ALKALOIDS OF LOPHOPHORA WILLIAMSII
Since the alkaloids of peyote fall into two classes with regard to
physiological action, the strychnine-like (increased reflex-irritability
to the point of tetanus) and the morphine-like (sedative-soporific) and
since there are important ethnographic considerations concerning the
supposed “sex” of peyote, we discuss the action of each alkaloid before
characterizing pan-peyotl physiologically. The two groups are somewhat
antagonistic in action; ethnographic indications seem to point to the
earlier action of the strychnine-like alkaloids, and a delayed reaction
of the morphine-like. However, the size of the dose and the continued
ingestion of buttons during the night cause variations in the length of
the different periods of intoxication.
The peyote-alkaloids might be arranged in a scale, with mescaline at the
morphine-like extreme and lophophorine at the other: (morphine-like)
mescaline, peyotline, anhaline, anhalamine, anhalonidine, anhalonine,
lophophorine (strychnine-like). Peyotline, however, has a variable effect
on different individuals, while anhalonine has been accounted of the
morphine-like group by Rouhier.[1] The color-visions so conspicuous in
peyote-intoxication are chiefly produced by mescaline.[2] Lophophorine
is the most toxic.[3] Physiologically the effects of the individual
alkaloids are:[4]
_Mescaline_: slowing of pulse, slight headache, sensation of
heaviness in the limbs lasting one to several hours; heavier
doses, feeling of discomfort and fullness of stomach (even when
injected intravenously) in addition to the above symptoms;
still heavier doses, accentuation of symptoms and appearance of
color-visions.
_Peyotline_: in about an hour reduces the pulse approximately
one-quarter the normal number of beats; two hours after
ingestion, heaviness of eyelids, sensation of fatigue, aversion
to all physical or mental effort; has no marked analgesic
action but is a fairly good sedative and has a very appreciable
hypnotic and anodyne action.
_Anhaline_ [= hordenine]:[5] exercises a paralyzing effect on
the central nervous system.
_Anhalamine_: this has not been adequately studied
physiologically. Nor have _Anhalinine_ and _Anhalidine_.
_Anhalonidine_: only slight sleepiness and dull sensation in
head; pulse not affected.
_Anhalonine_: produces no sensible effect, except perhaps a
slight sleepiness.
_Lophophorine_: the most toxic, has no narcotic action; a
quarter-hour after ingestion an accentuated sickening feeling
in the back of the head, with hotness and blushing of face,
slight pulse diminution; symptoms disappear after 40 minutes.
“In short,” says Rouhier,[6] “save for anhalonidine which,
in strong doses, provokes in the frog paralysis of the
motor nerve-ends (which is not observed otherwise in
mammals), the alkaloids of peyote act on the central nervous
system.... [Mescaline] acts on the brain, which it paralyzes.
[Lophophorine] is antagonistic in action to this, augmenting
the irritability of the spinal cord and its elongations....
Peyotline, anhalonine and anhalonidine hold a middle place
between the two preceding. They produce in the frog a soporific
effect (due to the paralysis of the brain or central nervous
system), followed by an effect of tetanus. Anhalonidine and
anhalonine have identical physiological effects. The paralyzing
effect of the former is of long duration. That of the second is
much reduced and is lacking in warm-blooded animals.”
ACTION OF PAN-PEYOTL
The native use of peyote, however, involves of course the whole series
of alkaloids, and we must discuss the physiological effect of pan-peyotl
preparations. Since antagonistic alkaloids are at work, it is not
surprising to find several stages of physiological action with the whole
plant. Dixon writes:[7]
The action may be divided into a preliminary stage and a stage
of intoxication. In the former there is excitement, a feeling
of exhilaration, and diminished kinaesthetic sensations,
performances involving effort being hardly noticed; the face
is flushed, and the pupils dilated; there is a tendency to
talkativeness, which may become wandering later, when the
patient begins to feel “lightheaded.”
This stage quickly passes away, and is followed by one of
intoxication, in which there is a great inclination to lie
down, although there is never any tendency to sleep. The
pupils are now widely dilated, but act sluggishly to light.
On attempting to walk, the gait closely resembles that in
alcoholic intoxication, and in all bodily movements requiring
precision, the incoördination is evident. The body is generally
in a tremulous condition, the tremors showing well when the
attention is fixed on anything held in the hand. Reflexes over
the whole body are much increased, including the skin reflexes,
although there is considerable blunting of painful and tactile
sensation. Twitching of muscles occurs in various parts of the
body, especially noticeable in the face, and there is a curious
feeling as if the face, lips, tongue, etc., were much swollen.
As in _cannabis indica_, time is over-estimated, possibly as a
result of the rapid flow of ideas[8] and the inability to fix
the attention. Perception of space is also modified,[9] on one
occasion giving the impression that the ground sloped away in
all directions.
Perception may be considerably delayed; for example, one
may look at a person one knows well, and it is only after
scanning his features for what appears to the experimenter
a considerable time, that recognition occurs;[10] it is
possible, however, that this may be explained by the increased
time-relation. The attention cannot be fixed, as the least
stimulus is sufficient to alter the train of thought; thus it
was found impossible to fix the attention on a book, and a
subsequent examination of notes attempted during intoxication
showed incoördination both as regards language and writing.
On two occasions when deeply under the influence of the drug,
there was an indescribable feeling of dual existence; thus
after sitting with closed eyes subjectively examining the color
visions, on suddenly opening them for a brief space one seems
to be a different self, as on waking from a dream we pass into
a different world from that in which we have been. This may be
to some extent comparable to the rhythmical rise and fall of
the “physical waves” in Indian hemp intoxication.[11]
But by far the most remarkable of these subjective phenomena
are the sensory hallucinations,[12] especially visual. These
arise gradually, and are at first only seen with closed
eyes.... The visions rapidly become more marked, until on
closing the eyes a regular kaleidoscopic play of colours can be
seen with either eye, precisely the same; hence the condition
must be central.
These colours may assume all kinds of fantastic shapes; they
are never still, but constantly in motion, sometimes in a
circular or to-and-fro manner, but more generally there
is a kind of pulsation somewhat similar to that in the
cinematograph.[13]
Both native visions and white observations testify abundantly to the
phenomena of synaesthesis, or the perception of the data of one sense in
terms of another. Rouhier figures a painting made by an experimenter in
which the sound of a bell is seen as a surréaliste aggregate of flowing,
pulsating lines; and a subject of Havelock Ellis had a “curious sensation
of tasting colors.” Crichtly mentions a color-taste synaesthesia
also.[14] All these phenomena are physiological constants, as indicated
by comparison of native visions with white experimenters’ observations.
After visual hallucinations far the commonest are auditory ones. The
writer, with a number of other observers, has noted the preternatural
resonance, hollowness, discreteness and far-away quality of one’s own
voice; if vocal disfunction were involved one would expect a raising of
pitch here, hence it is probably auditory. On this point Dixon bears
critical evidence:[15]
The whole effect of the sound of the piano was most curious
and delightful, the whole air being filled with music, each
note of which seemed to arrange itself around a medley of
other notes which appeared to me to be surrounded by a halo of
colour pulsating to the music. Nasal hyperaesthesia was also
present, though less evident than either the visual or auditory
phenomena.
The more strictly physiological effects may be summed up as follows:[16]
_Skin_: no local irritation on injection of pan-peyotl; one
observer reports partial skin anaesthesia, but this does not
affect cutaneous reflex-excitability, which is much increased.
_Respiration_: moderate amounts in Rana esculens produce no
effect, but in toxic doses respiration becomes quicker and
shallower, death ultimately occurring from paralysis of the
respiratory center. In man respiration is ordinarily not
affected, but some observers report shallower and more rapid
breathing with “occasional long-drawn and deep sighs, and a
painful feeling of suffocation.” Still another observer states
that “respiration slows immediately after injection but is not
influenced in a durable manner.”[17]
_Circulation_: in the frog a marked effect on heart-beat:
diminished rapidity, but increased duration; in the dog a
small dose causes a slight rise in pressure, stronger doses
considerable depression on the heart and vasodilation; in the
cat mescaline causes initial lower pressure, slowly rising, and
with a larger dose a greater initial fall, more marked slowing
in beat, with variable promptness in recovery. In man .05 gr.
of lophophorine causes marked slowing of beat but a rise in
pressure and force. An ordinary dose of four “buttons” produces
a 15-25% fall in the number of beats, with a slow recovery from
a sharp drop unless more are eaten. But death in guinea pigs
and frogs comes through paralysis of respiration, not of the
heart, since in Wiley’s experiments it would beat 15-20 minutes
after the death of the animal. “All this evidence points to the
conclusion that the main effect of these alkaloids is a direct
one on cardiac muscle ... [since] very large doses, quite
non-therapeutic in amount, are ... required before the colour
visions ... are observed.”
_Salivation_: increased in the cat, whether administered by
mouth or subcutaneously; the alkaloids are secreted in the
saliva (one cc. of cat saliva produces the same symptoms in a
frog); in man salivation is somewhat increased.
_Digestive system_: in small doses pan-peyotl is constipating,
according to some. In the cat large doses produce diarrhea and
blood in the feces. In man and the quadrupeds all sensations
of hunger are suppressed or absent during the period of
intoxication, but the appetite returns somewhat increased after
recovery; on first injection or ingestion there is a marked
nausea and feeling of fullness in the stomach which passes off,
without, however, hunger arising.
_Blood, secretions, etc._: no increase in the coagulability of
the blood; pancreatic and biliary secretions unaffected.
_Kidneys_: peyote alkaloids chiefly excreted by the kidneys;
experiments show increased renal blood supply, and pan-peyotl
is markedly diuretic.
_Eyes_: in the later stages of intoxication the pupils are
widely dilated, accompanied by lack of accommodation and
consequent photophobia.
_Nervous system_: sizeable doses produce their most marked
effect on the nervous system: wakefulness (despite cardiac
and muscular depression), exaggeration of all reflexes (due
to selective action on the spinal cord). A frog injected with
pan-peyotl became “exceedingly susceptible to stimuli, until
even the slightest touch or even a breath of cold air is
sufficient to give rise to a little nervous explosion, with
the resulting contraction of several muscles”; the frog became
rigid in tetanus as the reflexes degenerated. Convulsions are
produced in the dog with ⅕ cc. of pan-peyotl, sometimes
light, sometimes as violent as those of strychnine; death in
convulsions with 1 cc. per kilogram of body weight. Pan-peyotl
immediately kills a rabbit with a dose of 2 cc. per kilogram
of body weight, injected intravenously; 2 cc. injected in the
lymphatic sac paralyzes a frog. An injected cat shows “ataxic
gait, with jerky and stiff movements”—a staccato effect in an
animal notable for the legato quality of its movements—with
“irregular twitchings of muscles over the whole body.” The
same effects, less marked because of relatively smaller doses,
appear in man as in other mammals. Extraordinary doses cause
qualitatively and quantitatively the same reactions: the writer
has seen a child, quite ill and suffering from malnutrition,
brought very fretful into a peyote meeting and fed peyote “tea”
until rigid in strychnine-like tetanic opisthotonos.
_Psychic state_: exceedingly variable, varying culturally,
with the stages of intoxication, and in the individual
himself at different times. Mexican visions sometimes have
a frightening tone, sometimes one of hilarity. The writer
had marked confirmation of this while still ignorant of this
ethnographic fact: in an Oto meeting in 1936 visions were
of monstrous animals so ridiculous and hilariously funny
that proper self-restraint in meeting was difficult; yet, in
a control experiment comfortably conducted in New Haven,
the psychic state developed into one of stark, galloping,
psychotic terror, quite inexplicable on realistic grounds
(later, parallels were found in Winnebago material and in
white observations). Curiously enough Dixon noted in a cat
photophobia, dilated pupils and a fixed “stare ... [and] most
of the physical elements of ‘terror.’ ... The ears were drawn
back, the hair over the body, especially the tail, becomes
erected, there is twitching of the superficial muscles, the
respiration being shallow and hurried, and the heart weak and
irregular.” One experimenter’s subject became possessed of the
fixed idea that he was being poisoned, when the intoxication
had thoroughly developed. This experience, once felt, is so
strikingly physiological that one is tempted to wonder if there
is any hypersecretion of adrenalin, perhaps in adjustmental
reaction to the effect of the alkaloids on the heart. Dixon
thought _Lophophora_ differed from _Cannabis indica_ in never
provoking merriment; yet Wertham and Bleuler had one subject
who achieved a state of to him quite meaningless hilarity. Fear
states are present among native users also, to judge from the
content of some visions recorded; conceivably these might be
the psychic end-results of the intensified reflex-excitability
induced by the strychnine-like alkaloids. However, one should
bear in mind throughout the antagonistic effect of the
alkaloids, which together with individual, cultural and other
differences (physiological state, amount eaten, the form in
which the drug is taken—infusion or solid, dry or green—the
continued eating of it in late stages of intoxication, etc.)
contribute to widely variable reactions. The experiments of
Wertham and Bleuler are impressive in this connection.[18] This
variability for the same subject at different times, Indians
explain, is conditioned by what one starts thinking about when
the intoxication begins.[19]
PEYOTE AS APHRODISIAC AND ANAPHRODISIAC
We have previously noted the use in Mexico of teo-nanacatl, _Cacalia_
spp. and _Cannabis_ spp. for their supposed aphrodisiac virtues.
Peyote too has become involved in this use, but it has been as warmly
defended as attacked, some indeed maintaining that it is a specific
anaphrodisiac. It can hardly be both. The present writer, as a matter
of fact, considers this less a problem of physiology than one of
ethnology, psychology or even psychiatry, and is persuaded that in the
pharmacological-physiological sense there exist neither aphrodisiacs nor
their opposite, anaphrodisiacs.
The matter is not to be settled off-handedly by resort to experiments
on white subjects; it is a more intricate question of culture and
personality. If white subjects argue heatedly for peyote’s aphrodisiac
and anaphrodisiac virtues, this proves nothing physiological. It merely
indicates the long notorious fact that given the somewhat anti-sexual
tradition of west European culture, the typical anxiety of its
culture-bearers is sexual. This is scarcely the case with the Plains
Indians I have observed. As expressed in ritual, symbolism and prayer,
the typical anxiety of these natives is that about life itself—and the
culture-historical background out of which this has grown will be readily
recalled by students of Plains ethnography (constant warfare, prestige
symbolisms, the coming of the Whites with new diseases, superior weapons,
etc.).
We shall merely cite here, therefore, instances showing up the order of
“proof” so far adduced to support these contrary stands about peyote.
Lumholtz leads the anaphrodisiac school:
Another marked effect of the plant is to take away temporarily
all sexual desire. This fact, no doubt, is the reason why the
Indians, by a curious aboriginal mode of reasoning, impose
abstinence from sexual intercourse as a necessary part of the
hikuli cult.[20]
Wertham and Bleuler also write of subjects that[21] “efforts to conjure
up an erotic scene were unsuccessful.” Fernberger,[22] however, exhibits
a still more naïve sense of evidence:
[An ethnographer] reports that in the Peyote Cults investigated
there is no actual, implied or even symbolic eroticism[23]
which marks these ceremonies off from practically every other
known American Indian ceremony of any tribe or group [!]. In
order to test the validity of some of these reports, nine
mature members of the faculty ... submitted together to extreme
peyote intoxication.[24] [The experiment was performed in a
group _because_ it] gave the opportunity for suggestion of
one observer upon another [and permitted a ceremony complete
with rattles and drum. Consequently[25]] one unexpected and
unforeseen result of this investigation is the evident strongly
anti-aphrodisiac[26] effect of the drug. This would again
explain, for social psychology and for anthropology, the
purely and totally unerotic character[27] of the ceremonies of
the Peyote Cults so unusual to American Indian ceremonies.[28]
It seems alike profitless to enter into a discussion of those who argue
the aphrodisiac properties of peyote.[29] These have often enough
been missionaries and administrators whose use of the argument in
bitter attacks on the Native American Church shows them to be scarcely
disinterested. Certainly from the evidence so far at hand we can only
heartily endorse the opinion of Klüver[30] that “the drug apparently does
not influence the sexual sphere in any specific way.”
THERAPEUTIC USES OF PEYOTE
From the physiological relation of the peyote alkaloids to strychnine
and morphine, considerable enthusiasm was early shown about their
pharmacodynamics and possible therapeutic uses. Jolly[31] in 1896
experimented on pellotine [= peyotline] as a hypnotic and soporific,
for when used in small doses in man the fall of the pulse initially
is accompanied by sleepiness. Heffter[32] likewise reports a marked
heaviness of limbs and eyelids. Loaeza,[33] apparently using pan-peyotl
preparations, maintained that peyote and _Cereus serpentinus_ (organillo)
had value as tonics or cardiac regulators, but variable action and
individual idiosyncrasy is marked. Henry[34] says the therapeutic dose
of pellotine is one-third to two-thirds of a grain, but that it is only
“slightly narcotic.” The high toxicity of lophophorine discourages its
therapeutic use. Rouhier[35] wrote in 1926 that “properly speaking,
therapeusis by peyote does not yet exist. Although the drug was
introduced in the American pharmaceutical market[36] for twenty years,
from which it has since disappeared, it is still unknown to the great
medical public.” On the whole, however, the therapeutic possibilities of
_Lophophora_ seem unimpressive.[37]
USES IN PSYCHIATRY
Because peyote produces what has been described as a “mescal psychosis,”
it has been suggested that it might be a useful approach for the
psychiatrist in the study of schizophrenia. The production of “horrible
depressions” in a subject of Prentiss and Morgan and “fear that his life
was leaving him,” as well as the unaccountable hilarity of Wertham and
Bleuler’s subject, suggests a similar value, if any, in the study of
manic-depressive psychoses too. No doubt psychoses may be exteriorized
with increased facility in peyote intoxication, but this strikes one as a
crude method and subject to the introduction of extraneous factors over
which there is no control.[38]
Hutchings used pellotine as a hypnotic on psychotic patients in the St.
Lawrence State Hospital. Pilcz likewise reports this use of peyote as
a sedative for the insane, but Warburg states that these experiments
have met with little success, on account of the by-effects of the
alkaloids. Dr. Goodall of the Carmarthen Asylum, according to Havelock
Ellis, tried peyote on melancholic and stuporous patients, but “beyond
dilation of pupils and rapidity [!] of heart action, the results were
nil.” Martindale and Westcott report that formerly peyote was used in
neurasthenia, hysteria and asthma; it is hard to see in some cases where
the cure is any superior to the disease, however. Briau employed peyote
in “anxiety states,” but the extremely variable emotional states under
peyote intoxication make even tentative conclusions precarious.[39]
Indeed, peyote would be calculated to aggravate asthma and anxiety states
under some circumstances!
Bensheim found different mescal reactions in cycloids and schizoids, but
Wertham and Bleuler somewhat surprisingly discovered both reactions in a
single person, and argued for the inconstancy of the formal structure of
the “personality.” Probably, however, peyote had no definitive importance
in either case though the former used only mescaline and the latter
pan-peyotl. Zucker induced mescaline intoxication in the hallucinated
insane, but far too many variables appear to be involved here. Zador
conducted experiments on the blind and patients with disordered vision,
using mescaline, the chief hallucination-producing alkaloid of peyote.
Klüver discussed color predominance in reported visions (red-green in the
initial phases, blue-yellow later). This suggests selective action of
the alkaloids on various regions of the retina, evidence bearing on the
Ladd-Franklin phylogenetic theory of color vision. Possibly, too, colors
predominant in peyote-symbolisms of natives may have a physiological
meaning. Klüver’s “form-constants” in peyote-intoxication may have
similar significance, but he dealt largely with White visions only.[40]
PEYOTE AS A DRUG
Of more concern, however, to those who interest themselves in the welfare
of Indians is the possible ill effect or habit-forming nature of the
drug. On this point we quote the opinions of those better qualified than
the writer to speak.
Briau,[41] in his psychiatric study, emphasized
the innocuousness of peyote.... No signs of grave intolerance
were ever exhibited, nor any accident more disagreeable than
vomiting, all too frequent at the beginning of a treatment
with opiates. There was no notable organic upsetment produced
during the time of action of the medicament. The effects on
the circulation, respiration, digestive system and excretory
functions have not appeared noxious. We have frequently
examined urine for the existence of abnormal constituents
revealing some derangement of the liver or the kidneys. In
short, never during our researches have distressing secondary
phenomena been manifested (headache, obnubilation, confusion,
psychic and physical depression, or gastro-intestinal
disturbances).... No brutality in the action [of pan-peyotl]
can be remarked.
Briau believes the drug non-habit forming. Rouhier expresses himself more
guardedly:
That peyote-mania can sometimes exist, we will not dispute.
We merely remark, to explain our optimism on the subject,
that the drug does not seem to provoke that irresistible
physiological appetite, nor that “state of need,” purveyors of
the great toxicomanias which opium, cocaine, heroine or alcohol
create.
Havelock Ellis expresses himself as follows:
The few observations recorded in America and my own experiments
in England do not enable us to say anything regarding the
habitual consumption of mescal in large amounts. That such
consumption would be gravely injurious I cannot doubt. Its
safeguard seems to lie in the fact that a certain degree of
robust health is required to obtain any real enjoyment from its
visionary gifts.
The last statement is somewhat gratuitous, if not erroneous.[42]
Hrdlička[43] writes as follows:
My views ... are that any substance which is capable of
producing such effects on the brain and nervous system if
abused is bound to produce harm. Fortunately peyotl is rather
scarce, is used on special occasions only—in a large majority
of cases—and thus it is probably quite free from any permanent
injury.[44] The drug can perhaps be likened to nicotine,
and like the latter will doubtless not affect different
individuals to the same degree. Also, as with nicotine, it
may be quite impossible with our present means to detect the
harm it has done. Besides which it is quite possible that the
system may build up some resistance or safeguard against it and
thus prevent any substantial injury. I should by no means join
myself to those who see in it any _great_ danger.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Rouhier, _Monographie_, 231.
[2] Kobert, _Lehrbuch_, 1008-1009; Rouhier, _op. cit._, 227; Henry (T.
A.), _The Plant Alkaloids_, 199: Dixon (W. E.), _The Physiological
Action_, 71. Rouhier (_op. cit._, 228, 231) places peyotline in the
strychnine group; it has a narcotic and tetanic effect on animals, to be
sure, but in man, according to Jolly, it causes slight hypnosis, but no
anaesthesia. Schmiedeberg puts it in the morphine group, which we have
followed (cf. Kobert, _Lehrbuch_, 1009).
[3] Henry (T. A.), _The Plant Alkaloids_, 199; Rouhier, _op. cit._, 238;
Dixon (W. E.), _The Physiological Action_, 71.
[4] Condensed from Rouhier, _op. cit._, 227-32. Note “pellotine” is the
same as “peyotline.”
[5] Henry, _loc. cit._ Staub and Grassmann (_Über die Wirkungsgrenze_,
336) state, in dogs, increased heart-beat and pressure.
[6] Rouhier, _op. cit._, 231. I have modified and added to Rouhier’s
classifications. Ellis (_Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise_) describes
the effects on the central nervous system as “acute cerebrasthenia.” The
lethal dose of anhalonine hydrochloride for rabbits is 0.16 to 0.2 grams
per kilogram of body weight; lophophorine kills frogs by a dose of only
0.011 grams per kilogram of body weight. (Henry, _op. cit._, 199).
[7] Dixon (W. E.), _The Physiological Action_, 79-81. Rouhier (_op.
cit._, 268-69): “Intoxication by peyote in man comprises two very
distinct phases, one, general superexcitement, contentment; euphoria,
the other of nervous sedation, of more or less accentuated physical
indolence, and of hypocerebrality; this last phase is almost entirely
filled with the production of color-visions.” Henry (_op. cit._, 199)
likens this preliminary stage to alcoholic intoxication.
[8] Fernberger (_Observations_, 270) mentions “a very clear but rapidly
changing focus of attention”; see also his _Further Observations_, 367.
Crichtly (_Some Forms_, 102) notes the “rapidity of change,” though
visions “lasted many hours.” It is in this that the “indescribability” of
the visions lies (Ellis, _Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise_).
[9] Fernberger (_Observations_, 269) notes “distortion of time and
space”; and (_Further Observations_, 367) a “grave upsetting of
space and time ... space was extremely extended and time extremely
slowed.” Maggendorfer (_Intoxikationspsychosen_, 355-56) notes for
mescaline a time and space derangement, similar to those in other
“intoxikationpsychosen.” Crichtly (_op. cit._, 105) describes micropsia
and megalopsia, or gravely deranged perception of size.
[10] In these careful statements by Dixon (on a subject not notable for
the accuracy of all observers) many physiological bases for ethnographic
observations I have made may be found, e.g., the mistaking in a Kiowa
meeting of the medicine-man Tonakat by an informant for a hideous
alligator-like monster; he believed then he had seen this witch “for what
he was.”
[11] The writer testifies to the accuracy of Dixon’s somewhat amazing
statement. So marked have been the physical effects of the first stage
of intoxication, that when these pass off to give rise to the feeling of
physiological normality (introspectively), one almost has a distrust of
the existence of these spectacular mental displays particularly if the
observer is of a markedly non-“psychic” or skeptical cast of mind. The
visions arise in the midst of a psychological state I can only describe
as one of perfectly plausible “epistemological orientation,” sometimes
acutely felt in alcoholic intoxication. The feeling of dissociation
with this unfamiliar and spectacular side of one’s peyote-intoxication
experience has suggested to some observers incipient schizoid psychoses.
Small wonder natives often exhibit curiously ambivalent attitudes toward
their visions, and sometimes explicitly reject and disclaim them as
“bad,” the result of trickery by the peyote power (“he’s testing me”) or
by some human witch present. Hoebel in conversation has insisted on the
Northern Cheyenne attitude of suspicion of peyote’s “trickiness.” But I
wholly disagree with Havelock Ellis and others who have argued for the
“ineffability” of visions, and even less do I see in peyote-intoxication
any approach to the mystical state of the epistemological
_convincingness_ of the _visions_. It is this _concomitant_ state of
seeming objectiveness and reality-orientation which accounts for the
marked feeling of duality. On this point, cf. Drs. Monakow and Morgue:
“[Peyote produces] a particular state of dreaming, without losing,
relatively, the idea of orientation, accompanied by pseudo-hallucinatory
phenomena.”
[12] Ellis (_Mescal: A Study of a Divine Plant_, 60) reports a “vague
olfactory hallucination”; Fernberger (_Observations_, 269) and the
writer have noticed kinaesthetic derangements which have parallels in
native visions. Hearing is very acute (Fernberger, _ibid._; _Further
Observations_, 371), but subject to hallucination and synaesthetic
derangement.
[13] Some fifty native peyote “visions” were collected in the original
dissertation from which this paper is derived.
[14] Rouhier, _op. cit._, 315, fig. 44; Ellis, _Mescal; A Study_, 68;
Crichtly, _Some Forms_, 106.
[15] Dixon (W. E.), _The Physiological Action_, 81.
[16] Based largely on Dixon and Rouhier, with additional data from
Jaensch, Wiley, Crichtly, Prentiss and Morgan, Ellis, Fernberger, Wertham
and Bleuler, Lewin, Maggendorfer, Staub and Grassmann.
[17] Rouhier, _op. cit._, 232. But Dixon writes, “In man the nervous
effects are extremely interesting, but on account of the respiratory
depression which is liable to occur it is not desirable to experiment
too freely; it is necessary to remember that this substance, like Indian
hemp, varies considerably in its effects on different individuals, and
that the element of idiosyncrasy is marked.”
[18] Wertham and Bleuler, _Inconstancy of the Formal Structure of
the Personality_. The general thesis of these experimenters was that
personality types might be studied as they were exteriorized in mescaline
intoxication via the Rorschach test. One of the observers described two
personalities in a normal subject in two periods of intoxication, not
knowing that it was the same person. They conclude, interestingly: “It is
suggested that these observations indicate that the form of a personality
is not a constant, but that it may be influenced by outer circumstances,
and that the usual psychologic ‘type’ of a person does not necessarily
exhaust the description of the formal structure of his personality.”
[19] “What an excellent use for a medical congress,” Sir Francis Galton
dryly wrote Havelock Ellis (_Mescal: A Study_, 71, note), “to put one
half of their members under mescal, and to make the other half observe
them.”
[20] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1: 359; cf. _Explorations in Mexique_,
181-82. It is a curious west-European mode of reasoning that leads one to
expect in all psychic upsetments such as this the emergence of the sexual
anxiety—more particularly in the case of peyote intoxication, which
provokes marked fall of heart-beat, physical and mental depression at one
stage, uncomfortable “stomach fullness” and acute nausea!
[21] Wertham and Bleuler, 60. The presence of prior suggestion is
blatantly obvious. Cf. Karwoski, 212: “To the sexologist an easy way of
obliterating temporarily the genital response is offered since mescal is
a powerful anaphrodisiac.... My own experience confirms the anaphrodisiac
properties of mescal, but the fact that under its influence I found my
imagination turning to erotic situations, although temporarily impotent,
is an illustration of the persistence of conditioning that offers an
interesting suggestion with reference to the extirpation experiments
reported in the controversy over the James-Lange theory of emotions.”
Unfortunately, _culture_ cannot be extirpated.
[22] Fernberger, _Further Observations_, 368. But Fernberger
misunderstood his informant, Petrullo, who (_The Diabolic Root_, 8, note)
of course disclaims this statement from “which” on.
[23] Field workers protest privately, but not often enough explicitly,
against the projection of these culturally- and personally-subjective
values into other cultures. The envisaging of primitive cultures as
unspoiled Arcadias where one’s frustrated dreams for one’s own culture
come true, is at least as old as Tacitus’ “Germania,” and is still going
on, not alone among laymen.
[24] We repeat that results _either positive or negative_ for white
observers have no bearing on the problem as regards natives, as this
problem is cultural.
[25] Fernberger, _Further Observations_, 377.
[26] All but one vomited.
[27] It is scarcely surprising that one does not find in Indian
ceremonies what is not there.
[28] Had Fernberger investigated such of his predecessors as Lumholtz,
the novelty of his results would have impressed him less. And had his
experiments been more critical he would not be superfluously supplied
with an “explanation” to a problem where no data to be explained exist
(compare the a-priorism of the “parapsychologists”). But Fernberger
continues: “For every one of the observers the anti-aphrodisiac effect of
the drug was marked and continued, in most cases, for at least 24 hours
after the period of intoxication. Efforts at erotic stimulation proved
ineffective. In several cases physical automanipulation of the genitals
failed to produce the usual physiological effect. The calling up of
erotic images—visual and verbal—were equally ineffective.”
[29] An able and sincere field worker has told the writer of an
experience at a meeting which ended for him in orgasm. But he would agree
that detailing of similar White “aphrodisiac” experiences is edifying
more as regards individuals than the drug. This paper aims to deal with
the _native_ peyote cult.
[30] Klüver, _Mescal, the Divine Plant_, 101; but peyote is a complex of
physiologically antagonistic drugs of quite variable reaction.
[31] Jolly, _Über die schlafmachende; Über Pellotine_, 375-76. This
effect is all the more remarkable since Heffter in similar experiments
noted that pellotine produced in the frog excitability and reflex tetanus.
[32] Heffter, _Über Pellotin_, 327-28.
[33] Loaeza, in del Campo, _Peyote_, 145. Koang-Hobschette (_Les
Cactacées_, 41) says cactine, the active element of _Cereus grandiflorus_
Mill. is used like digitalis as a cardio-tonic, strengthening the systole
and diminishing the diastole like strychnine.
[34] Henry (T. A.), _The Plant Alkaloids_, 199.
[35] Rouhier, _Monographie_, 340.
[36] Parke Davis and Co. formerly manufactured the drug. See their _Newer
Pharmacology_.
[37] But not to all persons! The typical over-enthusiasm with which
new materia medica are received is itself an interesting ethnographic
commentary. Prentiss and Morgan (_Therapeutic Uses_, 4-5) prescribed it
variously for “cramps, griping and colic ... [and] nervous headache”
as well as “tickling in the throat.” They also report (_The Alkaloids
of Anhalonium_, 123-37) uses by other doctors. Two brothers, doctors,
prescribed peyote for their brother who was suffering from “softening
of the brain.” He died a few months later, uncured. Nevertheless, they
prescribed peyote for their sister, who was “very low and out of her
head;” she later recovered. Richardson (D. A.), (_A Report_, 194-95)
reports still more spectacular sequelae. He administered peyote to a man
with “frontal cephalalgia.” “Especially would I remark,” he says, “on the
clearing of the skin of pimples over the chest and back, and a marked
softening of the hair, which before the exhibition of the anhalonium was
dry, with a tendency to break easily.” It nevertheless also decreased
the abnormal oiliness of the skin. Further, he thought it was a solvent
for uric acid, likely to be of value for stones in the bladder. Lastly,
“In my opinion, anhalonium is a superior cardiac tonic, and, like
nitroglycerine, its effects are prolonged after the administration of the
drug is withdrawn.”
The efficacy of peyote in native doctoring seems as little established
also. Reasons of ethnographic nature have already been cited for doubting
the anti-alcoholic virtue of peyote. Indeed, the leader of one meeting I
attended I visited in jail later in the week; he had been arrested for
drunken street-fighting. I could uncharitably cite half-a-dozen similar
cases, but it seems amply enough demonstrated that there is no relation
of exclusiveness between peyotism and alcoholism.
[38] Klüver, _Mescal, The “Divine” Plant_, 97, 108. Prentiss and Morgan,
_Anhalonium Lewinii_, 581; Wertham and Bleuler, _Inconstancy in the
Formal Structure_, 52, 60.
[39] Hutchings, in Heffter, _Ueber Pellote_, 409; Pilcz, _Ueber
Pellotin_, 1121-22; Warburg, in Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_,
136; Ellis, _Mescal: A Study_, 71; Martindale and Westcott, _The Extra
Pharmacopoeia_, 1:836; Briau, in Koang-Hobschette, _Les Cactacées_.
Karwoski (_Psychophysics_, 212) suggests that peyote might heighten
rapport in psychoanalysis; cf. Deschamps.
[40] Bensheim, _Typenunterschiede_, 121; Wertham and Bleuler,
_Inconstancy in the Formal Structure_, 70; Zucker, _Versuche_, 107;
Zador, _Meskalinwirkung bei Störung_, 30; _Meskalinwirkung_; Klüver,
_Mescal, The “Divine” Plant_, 36-39, 41; Ladd-Franklin, _Colour and
Colour-Theories_, _passim_.
[41] Briau, in Koang-Hobschette, _Les Cactacées_, 73-74; Rouhier, _Le
Peyotl_, 337; Ellis, _Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise_, 141.
[42] An editorial _Paradise or Inferno?_ (Editorial, 390) sharply
rebuked Ellis for the attractiveness which he had ascribed to mescal
intoxication, basing the criticism on grounds of medical ethics.
[43] Letter to Schultes, Feb. 21, 1936. My own experience leads me fully
to endorse Hrdlička’s careful statement. Elsewhere in the text are cited
numerous cases of natives who, in good faith I believe, gave up the
use of peyote entirely upon the rising of special or acute anxieties.
My informants, on the other hand, quite as frankly admitted that there
were some individuals who showed signs of addiction, in the sense that
they consumed the plant often and abundantly, but these are not clear
uncomplicated instances of drug-addiction; I trust such native candor
implicitly. Besides, peyote is not wholly pleasant (“You must suffer to
peyote”).
[44] The issue of the native religious use of the drug is indeed a
complex one. But whatever else may be said, it is only fair to the
Indians to state that the bitterest and most unmeasured condemnations
of the drug have issued from quarters which are scarcely disinterested.
Whatever the merits of the case, those persons are concerned with the
deculturation of the Indian, and see in the peyote religion a formidable
obstacle to their progress in inducting the native into modern life. The
doubtless good intentions of such persons have on occasion, however,
led them into errors of judgment when, for instance, they would argue
that peyotism is merely out-and-out drug addiction in religious guise
(e.g. Daiker, Hughes, Newberne and Burke, Seymour, Watermulder, and the
writers in the Indian Rights Association and Literary Digest articles;)
Lindquist, for example, feels free to commit numerous errors of fact
yet still pontificate on the “false gods” of “the cult of Death” which
is “nothing but an evil” (_The Red Man_, 72, 73, 75). For, given the
Plains religious and ideological background, the peyote cult is entirely
plausible as a religion, and the issue is properly one of religious
freedom.
The intellectual “authority” in west European culture is, of course,
the empirical and pragmatic (or putatively), while that of the Indian
in this religion, as elsewhere, can correctly be termed mystical, if
we understand by this a super-normal knowledge-technique transcending
ordinary epistemological considerations. For there can be no shadow of
a doubt concerning the deep and humble sincerity of the worship and
belief—and sincerity perhaps, even in the absence of other ingredients,
is the chief component of a living religion. And if the chief function
of a religion is the liquidation of the anxieties and the solution of
the fears and troubles of its adherents, then surely the peyote religion
eminently qualifies as such.
The issue then balances somewhat delicately on the point of “authority,”
which is really at bottom a matter of comparative ethnography. If, as
we believe, the scientific is truly the most mature knowledge-technique
man has yet perfected, then facile and off-hand condemnation of peyotism
on its basis is even less possible. Aside from the probable ultimate
disappearance of the Native American Church, a generous and libertarian
philosophy would condemn present attacks on it as often misguided and
even oftener uninformed. The chief human difficulty in the world today is
the adjustment of one culture to another, of one absolutistic ideology
and Weltanschauung to another. But the scientific spirit itself would
protest against the dictatorship of any one ideology, of whatever sort;
there is too much chance that any self-contained scheme be dangerously
wrong, when unchecked by modifying differing beliefs. Science, indeed,
has been lifted above the level of folklore precisely because the
spectacle of variously conditioned culture-historical outlooks has
necessitated self-criticism and an objective comparative survey of
beliefs. A fetishistic attitude toward science and its tentative
pronouncements, therefore, is itself folkloristic in tone. This however,
is not to suggest any distrust in the ability of the scientific method
to obtain such sound results as have been so far achieved; but it is
intended to point out the real limitations in our information.
Although the best modern scientific knowledge would indicate that the
alkaloids in peyote do not perform the manifold therapeutic miracles
which natives ascribe to it, one might still well wonder whether harsh
sumptuary laws would not work more positive hardship and harm than the
drug itself. If not the injustice then certainly the inexpedience of such
exercise of civil authority has been amply demonstrated in the Eighteenth
Amendment and its sorry consequences. We may not presume therefore to
judge what should be the administrative fate of the peyote cult. The
emotional and ideological side of the religion is not open to judgement;
and on the properly scientific and physiological side of the question the
simple fact is that we actually don’t know enough about it.
APPENDIX 7: JOHN WILSON, THE REVEALER OF PEYOTE
The life and career of a remarkable individual were successively involved
in the several traditions of the Ghost Dance, mescalism, old Algonquian
shamanistic “shooting” ceremonies and finally peyotism. Both for its
intrinsic interest and its historical significance we give here in some
detail the life of this man. Wilson appears first as a leader in the
Ghost Dance movement of the 1890’s. Mooney[1] writes:
The principal leader of the Ghost dance among the Caddo
is Nĭshkûntŭ, “Moon Head,” known to the whites as John
Wilson. Although considered a Caddo, and speaking only
that language,[2] he is very much of a mixture, being half
Delaware, one-fourth Caddo, and one-fourth French. One of his
grandfathers was a Frenchman. As the Caddo lived originally
in Louisiana, there is a considerable mixture of French blood
among them, which manifests itself in his case in a fairly
heavy beard. He is about 50 years of age [in 1892-93], rather
tall and well built, and wears his hair at full length flowing
loosely over his shoulders. With a good head and strong,
intelligent features, he presents the appearance of a natural
leader.... He was one of the first Caddo to go into a trance,
the occasion being the great Ghost dance held by the Arapaho
and Cheyenne near Darlington agency, at which Sitting Bull
presided, in the fall of 1890. On his return to consciousness
he had wonderful things to tell of his experiences in the
spirit world, composed a new song, and from that time became
the high priest of the Caddo dance. Since then his trances
have been frequent, both in and out of the Ghost dance, and in
addition to his leadership in this connection he assumes the
occult powers and authority of a great medicine-man, all the
powers claimed by him being freely conceded by his people.
Captain Scott, who visited the Caddo in 1890-91 during the period of
their greatest excitement about the Ghost Dance, also met Wilson, of whom
he writes:[3]
John Wilson, a Caddo man of much prominence, was especially
affected [by the Ghost Dance], performing a series of gyrations
that were most remarkable. At all hours of the day and night
his cry could be heard all over camp, and when found he would
be dancing in the ring, possibly upon one foot, with his eyes
closed and the forefinger of his right hand pointed upward, or
in some other ridiculous posture. Upon being asked his reasons
for assuming these attitudes he replied that he could not help
it; that it came over him just like cramps.
Wilson soon became a well-known doctor in this connection. Scott
continues:
John Wilson had progressed finely, and was now a full-fledged
doctor, a healer of diseases, and a finder of stolen property
through supernatural means. One day, while we were in the tent,
a Wichita woman entered, led by the spirit. It was explained
to us that she did not even know who lived there, but some
force she could not account for brought her. Having stated
her case to John, he went off into a fit of the jerks, in
which his spirit went up and saw “his father” (i.e., God), and
who directed him how to cure this woman. When he came to, he
explained the cure to her, and sent her away rejoicing. Soon
afterwards a Keechei man came in, who was blind of one eye, and
who desired to have the vision restored. John again consulted
his father, who informed him that nothing could be done for
that eye because that man held aloof from the dance.
When Mooney visited the Caddo on Sugar Creek late in 1895,
John Wilson came down from his own camp to explain his part
in the Ghost dance. He wore a wide-brim hat, with his hair
flowing down to his shoulders, and on his breast, suspended
from a cord, about his neck, was a curious amulet consisting
of the polished end of a buffalo horn, surrounded by a circlet
of downy red feathers, within another circle of badger and owl
claws. He explained that this was the source of his prophetic
and clairvoyant inspiration. The buffalo horn was “God’s
heart,” the red feathers contained his own heart,[4] and the
circle of claws represented the world. When he prayed for help,
his heart communed with “God’s heart,” and he learned what he
wished to know. He had much to say also of the moon. Sometimes
in his trances he went to the moon and the moon taught him
secrets.... He claimed an intimate acquaintance with the other
world and asserted positively that he could tell me “just what
heaven is like.” Another man who accompanied him had a yellow
sun with green rays painted on his forehead, with an elaborate
rayed crescent in green, red, and yellow on his chin, and
wore a necklace from which depended a crucifix and a brass
clockwheel, the latter, as he stated, representing the sun.
On entering the room where I sat awaiting him, Nĭshkûntŭ
approached and performed mystic passes in front of my face
with his hands, after the manner of the hypnotist priests in
the Ghost dance, blowing upon me the while, as he afterward
explained to blow evil things away from me before beginning to
talk on religious subjects....[5] Laying one hand on my head,
and grasping my own hand with the other, he prayed silently
for some time with bowed head, and then lifting his hand from
my head, he passed it over my face, down my shoulder and arm
to the hand, which he grasped and pressed slightly, and then
released the fingers with a graceful upward sweep.[6]
A curious mixture of Caddoan (?) mescalism, Ghost Dance, Delaware
“shooting” ceremonies and early peyotism occurred among the Shawnee when
Wilson came to them about 1889. The Quapaw were being taught the Ghost
Dance, in which a small water drum was used to accompany the circling of
the dancers, alternately men and women. Wilson showed them how to swallow
mescal beans, and also how to “shoot” them into a person so that he or
she would fall down. Then he doctored the person with peyote to bring him
back to consciousness. A number of tribes were involved in these doings,
according to Mrs. Voegelin, the Shawnee, Delaware, Mohawk, Peoria, Caddo
(?), Quapaw, Iowa and Oto. Gradually, however, Wilson turned from the
Ghost Dance to peyote. Already in Mooney’s time he was “prominent in the
mescal [i.e., peyote] rite, which has recently come to his tribe [the
Caddo] from the Kiowa and Comanche.”[7]
Both mescalism and the Ghost Dance, in his person, have traceable
influence upon peyotism. This syncretism of cultures in one personality
is of considerable interest.
Before Wilson had quite reached the age of forty, he had lived
the life of an ordinary Indian of Oklahoma. He was addicted to
moderate drinking. He frequented the social dances and gambling
gatherings usual among reservation groups of his type. He had
participated likewise in the contemporary religious ceremonies
performed by the Delaware.... As a vagrant, not however in
the condemning sense of the term, he had wandered as most
Oklahoma Indians do, from tribe to tribe and inevitably also
among the whites experiencing the wide range of personal and
social contacts which might be inferred from the statement.
Anderson states, in short, that his uncle had lived a sinful
life but adds in effect that he had not been guilty of any
major offences. He was married to a woman of Delaware and Caddo
descent and had an adopted son, Black Wolf, reputed to be also
part Delaware part Caddo, and who is still living (1932) and
carrying out Wilson’s teachings and ministrations.
About this time he attended a Comanche dance, where a Comanche man
presented him with a peyote button and told him to give it a trial—which
he did in an unusually thorough manner. Speck continues:
Before long he concluded to adopt the advice given and to
retire from worldly companionship, to make the trial and to
study its outcome. With this objective in mind he informed
his wife, secured provisions for a few weeks stay in camp and
together they drove away in a wagon to a little creek where
an abundant supply of fresh drinkable water might be had.
The place he selected was a secluded “clean and open place”
where they would be alone free from intrusion and worldly
distractions. Anderson thinks that Wilson remained there about
two or three weeks but he does not remember hearing him say
how long. When all was ready he began his innovation to the
mysteries of Peyote the first night by eating 8 or 9 “buttons.”
We learn that during the period of self exposure to the power
of Peyote he took the medicine at frequent intervals during the
day or night as the impulse prompted him using about the same
quantity each time it was taken. As soon as he began, using the
words of the informant, “_Peyote took pity on him_” for his
humble mien and sincere desire to learn its power. During the
whole period he allowed nothing to distract him, giving his
entire thought and wish to learn what Peyote might teach him.
The outcome was the revelation that motivated him for the rest
of his life and made him a teacher of the Peyote doctrines,
which he himself exclusively evolved through the revelations
given him at this time.
During the time of his sojourn, Wilson did not fast or undergo
other abnegations but lived normally.... Each time Wilson
took peyote during those days and nights of seclusion he ate
about fifteen peyote “buttons.” ... During the two weeks or
so of his experimental seclusion, Wilson was continually
translated in spirit to the sky realm where he was conducted
by Peyote. In this estate he was shown the figures in the sky
and the celestial landmarks which represented the events in
the life of Christ, and also the relative positions of the
Spiritual Forces, the Moon, Sun, Fire, which had long been
known to the Delawares, through native traditional teachings,
as Grandfather and Elder Brothers. Here, too, he was shown the
grave of Christ, now empty, “where Christ had rolled away the
rocks at the door of the grave and risen to the sky.” He was
shown, always under the guidance of Peyote, the “Road” which
led from the grave of Christ to the Moon in the Sky which
Christ had taken in his ascent. He was told by Peyote to walk
in this path or “Road” for the rest of his life, advancing
step by step as his knowledge would increase through the use
of peyote, remaining faithful to its teachings ... [and if he
did] he would finally, just before his death, bring him into
the actual presence of Christ and of Peyote.... The details of
construction of the earth works to form the “Moon” which he was
to construct in the Peyote tent were all revealed to him with
their meanings as Peyote continued his instructions to Wilson
during his visits to the sky.... Also came revelations as to
how the face should be painted, the hair dressed. Of major
importance, however, was the complete course of instruction
given to Wilson by Peyote in the singing and syllabization of
the numerous Peyote songs which were to form the principal
parts of the ceremony of worship. Anderson felt certain that
Wilson possessed and used no less than two hundred of these
songs.[8]
[Illustration: Fig. 6. An Osage altar of the John Wilson Big Moon type.
A, “Peyote path,” or Moon-Head (Wilson’s name); B, hole for “arrow”
when not in use; C, “Heart of Goodness” where father peyote is placed;
D, Heart of the World above which the ritual fire is built; E, the Sun,
giver of life. The east-west line is the “straight road” the way to
heaven, or “thinking straight”; the north-south line represents “the
road across the world”; together they form a cross symbolic of the
crucifixion.]
[Illustration: Fig. 7. A variant Osage moon of somewhat esoteric
symbolism. This and the Osage moon in Figure 6 are reproduced through the
courtesy of Mr. D. F. Murphy.]
Wilson’s original moon, however, passed through an evolution, for
Anderson’s drawing in Speck is considerably simpler in design than those
depicted for the Osage by Murphy, or photographed by the author for the
Quapaw. An early version, apparently, is one collected from Henry Hunt
(Wichita) near Anadarko. In this the crescent or “moon” is elongated to
imitate the parted hair of an Indian, whose eyes are the two mounds of
ashes between its horns; a line runs from the father-peyote to the east,
terminating in a mound with five circles concentrically zoning it like
a globe-map, with another line at right angles to this drawn from tip
to tip of the crescent, making a cross, at the intersection of which
is drawn a heart resembling a man’s nose. There is also a heart at the
“parting” of the hair, on which the fetish peyote rests, and a third
one on the top of the zoned mound at the east. This altar is said to
symbolize Moonhead’s face, and indeed it much resembles one when seen
from the eastern door. Speck says in confirmation of our conjecture that
at first, he said, he made a small “Moon,” increasing its size
day by day symbolical of his progress in spiritual knowledge.
By the end of his sojourn amid spiritual environment, he came
to make the so-called large “Moon,” the Wilson “Moon” which has
become typical of his followers.[9]
But Wilson, no doubt, made still later additions, for these early moons
entirely lack the elaborate apron symbolism of the Osage and Quapaw
altars.
A Delaware informant said Wilson’s moon was first used north of Lookeba,
Oklahoma. Black Wolf and George Caddo were early converts to his
version—which, indeed may initially have been not so different from
the older Caddo moon with a cross and mound east of the crescent (the
Wilson division of the tipi into north and south side, for example, is
an old one in Caddoan ceremonial organization).[10] The symbolism of the
Wilson “Big Moon” receives varied interpretations nowadays. The Osage
call the three hearts of the altar the “Heart of Goodness,” the “Heart
of the World,” and the “Heart of Jesus;” others interpret the “world”
as the “sun.” The ashes are the graves of Christ and Wilson for some,
the dividing of the Red Sea for others. Some say the whole fire-pit is
the grave of Christ, and the ash mounds his lungs, as the figure under
the fire is his heart. The twelve lines of the altar apron are variously
the twelve steps to heaven, the twelve heavens of Delaware mythology,
the twelve months of the year, the twelve feathers of the eagle’s tail,
etc. The symbolism of seven for the “days of the week” is possibly
Southwestern in origin (cf. the seven bosses of the drum). Diamond-shaped
figures close to the sun-mound represent Christ’s foot-prints, according
to Petrullo,[11] while the “WW” or “MM” at the west of the altar are said
to mean this for the Quapaw (“Moonhead” or “Wilson” depending on one’s
position while reading the initials). The cross of the altar, of course,
is symbolical of the Crucifixion. The cigarette of corn husk is known as
the “Pipe of Jesus” among the Delaware.[12]
Peyote taught Wilson many variations in the ceremony as well. He used
a crock instead of a kettle for the peyote drum. At one period in the
development of the ritual only the firemen did the drumming besides the
leader and his assistant (i.e., four men, three firemen and the leader’s
assistant, proceeded clockwise around the tipi with the drum, drumming
for each singer in turn, instead of the standard method of passing the
drum for all to use); Wilson did not require the drum to make four
rounds, for this might occasionally have interfered with the morning
rite of filing out of the tipi “to meet the sun” with raised arms and
prayer. In his rite only the leader made the initial prayer-smoke, though
older men might ask for smokes later in the night if they so desired.
Cigarettes could be made only at one of four places, one informant
stated: at the leader’s place, at the north or south at the ends of the
cross, and at the fireman’s place, and the leader had to smoke all of
them first. Upon reentering after a recess, each person was incensed and
fanned by the firemen and others to blow away whatever evil influences
might cling to him from the outside night. In time Wilson added special
functionaries at the cross-bars of the crucifix to perform this fanning,
making eight officials: two fanners, three firemen-drummers and three
leaders (road man, drummer and cedar man) symbolizing the Father, Son
and Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity. In the Wilson rite there was
much touching of the father peyote as communicants made their circuit
of the altar on reentering. It is said that water could be asked for at
any time, and permission to leave was not necessary if the rules about
passing in front of an eater or smoker were observed.
Wilson himself took his “moon” to the tribes of northeastern Oklahoma.
The Shawnee were influenced impermanently, and today only Ernest Spybuck
has a modified Big Moon. The Seneca were influenced through the Quapaw,
whom Wilson first succeeded in deeply influencing. The Quapaw leader,
Victor Griffin, made a moon at Devil’s Promenade which was modified
around 1906 or 1907 from Wilson’s moon.[13] The Delaware around Dewey
were much influenced by Wilson from 1890-92 on.[14] But the Osage were
the most important converts. By 1902 “most of the Indians at the Hominy
camp and elsewhere in the Nation [had] taken it up and become devoted to
it.”[15] Black Dog, one of the first Osage converts, introduced the “West
Moon” in which the door is at the west and the altar similarly reversed;
most of the Osage moons today, however, are the standard Clermont east
moons. The Potawatomi may have been influenced by the teachings of Wilson
somewhat also.[16] Wilson’s nephew, Anderson, brought the Seneca peyote
in 1907 on the request of a Seneca married to a Quapaw woman.[17]
The economic motive seems evident in much of Wilson’s behavior. Speck
tells of the introduction of peyote among the Osage as follows:[18]
[About 1891] John Wilson was on his way from Anadarko to
conduct meetings among the Delawares around Copan. While
passing through the Osage nation he visited Tall Chief, a
Quapaw married to an Osage woman. While here Wilson was stopped
by an Osage who had previously attended Peyote meetings among
the Delawares and requested to meet a group of Osage and tell
them about his revelations and his convictions and instruct
them in its rules. He consented and complied with their
wishes. The Osage in attendance at his meeting were convinced
and converted. He accordingly stayed on with them about
three weeks. Black Dog was at the time Chief of the Osage.
His tribe was won over in force to the Wilson sect of Peyote
worshippers.... J. Wilson then returned to Anadarko, leaving
behind him among the Osage two young Delawares who stayed back
attracted by the prospects of fortune offered by the wealthy
Osage. Wilson had received presents from the tribe of new
converts amounting to considerable value, a wagon, a carriage,
a buggy and teams of good horses and harness for each and other
horses, fourteen in all, not to mention blankets, goods and
money.
His death occurred after a similar mission to the Quapaw. He had been
among them to conduct a meeting and was returning to Anadarko in a buggy
with a Quapaw woman and another woman. Wilson’s wife was still living
at the time, and he was either offered the Quapaw woman or demanded her
while among the tribe. Speck quotes his nephew:[19]
Anderson said he did not like to think this but that the Quapaw
were not all good people and had possibly been actuated by a
desire to establish a home for Wilson in order to keep him and
his ministry in their midst.
In any event, Wilson had been given a number of horses, which were tied
to the back of his buggy. While crossing a railroad track, these horses
pulled back and prevented their crossing just as a locomotive bore down
upon them. Wilson was instantly killed. His detractors maintain that this
was just punishment for his failure to live up to his own teachings.
Since this period many communicants have fallen away from his “moon,” for
his own[20]
moral instructions ... referred to abstinence from liquor, to
restraint [in] sexual matters and fidelity to matrimony.
Though influenced by Catholic teachings, Wilson had a peculiar and
specific attitude toward the Bible.[21] According to Speck,[22] he
instructed the Indians to seek knowledge by direct communion
and to avoid consulting the Bible or the Gospels for the
purpose of moral instructions. He insisted that the Bible
was intended for the white man who had been guilty of the
crucifixion of Christ and that the Indian who had not been a
party to the deed was exempt from guilt on this score and that
therefore, the Indian was to receive his religious influences
directly and in person from God through the Peyote Spirit,
whereas Christ was sent for this mission to the white man.
He nevertheless embodied in his person many of the messianic
characteristics of his several native prophet predecessors; a Delaware
informant said “John Wilson used to perform miracles” in meetings, such
as divining what was in a man’s mind, and telling him who the persons
were that he saw in a vision. The Osage, at least formerly, had a marked
reverence for Wilson. Speck wrote in 1907 that[23]
pictures of Wilson are in demand among the devotees, who kiss
them on sight. The man has been deified since his death.
There is much variation of opinion about Wilson among Indians of various
tribes, but perhaps the statements of his nephew, George Anderson, are
authoritative if not entirely disinterested. Speck says:[24]
An idea seems to have become current, either through the rumors
of designing persons who opposed him or through exaggeration
among his followers, that Wilson is responsible for having
told his associates that he would return to life again after
death and also that they should pray to him in the Peyote
meetings.... Anderson denies that Wilson made either assertion.
He had heard Wilson tell in his meetings that at times the
worshippers when taking peyote might see him, as some are said
since to have done, his face appearing to their vision over the
fire. [With reference to the second statement Wilson on the
contrary warned them not to pray to him, but through peyote to
God.] ... This warning has not, however, prevented the practice
of praying directly to and through John Wilson from becoming
frequent among some of the Osages ... and probably among the
Quapaw.
In both the latter groups [Anderson] has seen Wilson’s portrait
placed on the “moon” in the Peyote lodge near the peyote
“button” and the crucifix. Some who do this, he is convinced,
actually concentrate thought upon Wilson instead of Peyote. And
Anderson regards both practices as contrary to the teachings
of Wilson. A custom has also spread among the Osage to wear a
portrait button of John Wilson on the coat or, when in native
dress, upon one of the fur or feather ornaments.... Anderson’s
testimony [was] that John Wilson told his followers that _he
was not sent by God to fulfill a mission_, but that he was
_shown_ by Peyote how to conduct religious worship in the
Peyote meetings in order to cure disease, heal injury, purge
the body from the effects of sin[25] and to lead the Indians to
reach the regions “above” _hukweyun_ in Delaware, or heaven,
where they would _see Peyote and the Creator_.
The Caddo and Delaware, nevertheless, display considerable “touchiness”
on the subject of John Wilson even today, since other tribes have
ridiculed his real or supposed claims to divinity. Native criticism is
not lacking either on the score of his economic exploitation of peyote
leadership.[26] Petrullo[27] writes that
his enemies claim that in the course of his life he professed
to have had fresh visions which always were interpreted to his
personal gain....
However, his followers staunchly deny these allegations. Perhaps in
answer to the accusation of being mercenary, Wilson, with one of his
followers named Wolf, themselves set up a meeting once, at which they
showed their generosity by giving away all their clothes with other gifts
until they were clad only in breechclouts.[28] Yet even so the belief is
widespread that his death was due to his exploitation of the gift-giving
pattern to the extreme of demanding a Quapaw woman for his wife.[29]
The Wilson sect is still strong among the Osage and the Quapaw, but
elsewhere, even among the Delaware and Caddo, it is waning considerably.
The Caddo show a disposition to return to the Enoch Hoag “moon,” which
is considered more “pure” and aboriginal.[30] But antagonisms to new
elements Wilson sought to introduce date as far back as 1885. About this
time Elk Hair was hunting in Comanche territory and learned a ritual he
has since kept without change:[31]
Elk Hair preferred the Comanche way because it was the pure
Indian way.... We brought back to our people the pure Peyote
rite and we have used Peyote in the right way ever since.
Elk Hair, according to Petrullo,[32] “has barely managed to keep
a following among the Delawares of Dewey,” but this region is the
stronghold of the Anderson family and if defection of the Anadarko groups
to the Hoag moon is any indication, we may expect a reinvigoration of the
Elk Hair rite. Indeed, War Eagle wrote from Dewey in 1932 that[33]
Bacon Rind [whose recent death is mentioned in the letter]
was one of the last of the old people who beli[e]ved in [the]
Wilson cult; these first followers of peyote are about all
gone. [The] small moon now prevales in the Osage. It will be
a blessing to the world when all the Quapaws and what few
Delawares [are left practicing it] will change [to the standard
peyote rite].
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mooney, _The Ghost Dance_, 903-905.
[2] Capt. Hugh L. Scott, in Mooney, _The Ghost Dance_, 904.
[3] We have elsewhere expressed the opinion that the Caddo had an
historical significance in the spread of peyotism second only to that of
the Kiowa-Comanche, and that Wilson represents this Caddoan influence
predominantly. Though he had Delaware blood, this numerically small group
could scarcely have wielded the influence or exercised the prestige
necessary to account for the spread of his “moon;” the Caddo, on the
other hand, who early had peyote, did have this prestige. We therefore
believe Petrullo in error in claiming Wilson as a Delaware. Speck (_Notes
on the Life_, 540) writes that “His associations with the Comanche and
Caddo, to whom he was related by blood, were close.” Petrullo himself,
indeed (_The Diabolic Root_, 44) indicates Caddoan influences on Wilson:
“John Wilson, the originator of the Big Moon, was living among the Caddo.
He was one of the first Delaware to eat peyote. He belonged to the
Black Beaver band ... held by the Government at the Wichita and Caddo
reservations. It was there that Wilson was born and raised.” Petrullo
also says Wilson made visits to Arizona and New Mexico before returning
to make his moon on the Caddo reservation.
[4] Note the prominence of hearts in the altar elaborated by Wilson.
According to Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 45) “John Wilson ... had
received some Catholic instruction.” These probably derive, therefore,
from the Catholic “Sacred Heart.” (The heart is present in Huichol
religion, but even if not wholly aboriginal [Aztecan influence?] and
Catholic-influenced there too, it is quite independent of the Wilson
heart motifs.)
[5] Cf. the prominence in Wilson’s moon of brushing each person entering
with feathers.
[6] Cf. the Winnebago leader’s similar praying with confessants in peyote
meetings.
[7] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 540-42; cf. also Petrullo, _The Diabolic
Root_, 80.
[8] “In response to the question as to whether Wilson ever spoke of the
Peyote songs as symbolizing the singing of birds, Anderson asserted that
he had heard of this among other Peyote sects but had never heard Wilson
express it.” (Speck, _op. cit._, 542 note.)
[9] Some of Wilson’s Caddoan teachings were sufficiently unlike those of
the Delaware to antagonize them. A Delaware informant of Petrullo (_The
Diabolic Root_, 66) said, “It [peyote] should be eaten in order to get
well, not to have visions.” (Benedict’s study indicated, one recalls,
that in the Woodlands only puberty-visions occurred, while in the Plains
adults too may obtain them.) Again (p. 68) “Wilson was wrong. Peyote is
good, but it is good and powerful medicine, not a religion like the Big
House. [For instance] four boiled Peyote placed on top of the head will
help in cases of insanity.”
[10] Cf. the Pawnee (Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 642).
[11] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 172.
[12] Petrullo, _op. cit._, 56-59, 67, 96, note 29.
[13] Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 103). He claims to be Wilson’s
authorized successor and has revised his moon. Petrullo (_op. cit._, 4)
says John Quapaw is Wilson’s real successor.
[14] Harrington (_Religion and Ceremonies_, 156) says Wilson brought the
Lenape peyote from the Washita River Caddo as well as the Ghost Dance in
1890-92, which died out with him among the Delaware (_idem_, 190-91).
[15] Speck, _Notes on the Ethnology_, 171.
[16] On the mere score of Christian elements we do not agree, however,
that Wilson’s influence necessarily extended to the Wichita, Winnebago,
Kickapoo, and Omaha (Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 79). See following
appendices.
[17] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 554.
[18] _Idem_, 553.
[19] _Idem_, 544.
[20] _Idem_, 546.
[21] For this reason we doubt the soundness of Petrullo’s inference that
the Omaha, Winnebago, etc., were influenced by Wilson. These groups
actually used the Bible in meetings and read from it. This influence, we
believe, traces to another teacher, the Oto Jonathan Koshiway.
[22] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 547.
[23] Speck, _Notes on the Ethnology_, 171.
[24] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 549.
[25] Wilson taught that the number of peyote required to be eaten varies
according to the amount of impurity in the “heart” and stomach of the
individual, “which impurity resulting from sins committed he likened
to ‘dirt’” (Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 545). The more frequently the
communicant attended peyote meetings, the less dirt, obviously, there
could accumulate. The degree of nausea, Wilson taught, is the punishment
meted out for sin (cf. John Rave’s teaching).
[26] To be sure the pattern of gift-giving is deep-rooted in the Plains,
yet it is a curious coincidence at least that Wilson should have taken
peyote to the Quapaw, who own the largest lead and zinc mining fields in
the world, and the Osage, made notoriously wealthy through oil. Anderson
told Speck that the Osage had given Wilson $200 for building them a moon,
and Charles Tyner (Quapaw) told me that he and Victor Griffin (Quapaw)
had received $500 for an altar in one sum and some hundreds of dollars
in money gifts later. The Osage once gave Anderson $20 and his wife $10
because his uncle, John Wilson, had built their moon (Speck, _op. cit._,
551). Wilson even used to charge $1 per person for the sweatbaths he gave
before meetings.
[27] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 82; cf. 45, 95.
[28] Petrullo, _op. cit._, 45; cf. 104.
[29] His followers, in any case, betray their expectancy of financial
reward. It was remarked, for example, that the impecunious Seneca gave
Anderson only his trainfare when he brought peyote to them. Griffin, more
business-like, always arranges beforehand the amount of compensation he
is to receive.
[30] Cf. the case of the Caddo Alfred Taylor whom the Osage invited to
introduce the basic Caddo moon—even the Osage are turning from the Wilson
rite.
[31] Petrullo, _op. cit._, 43.
[32] _Idem_, 31-32.
[33] War Eagle, letter to Speck from Dewey, Oklahoma April 1, 1932.
We believe Petrullo, as shown by this letter, has over-emphasized the
decadence of the basic rite at Dewey. The Wilson-Elk Hair antagonism is
shown in even trivial ways. The latter use the feathers of swift-flying
birds to “hurry up” the medicine cure, the faster the singing of songs,
the quicker the cure. The Wilson cultists, who sing slowly, accuse the
little moon followers of “putting too much vigor and speed into their
healing and praying meetings as is typified by their inclination to
decorate their Peyote paraphernalia with Hummingbird feathers, symbolical
of the acme of speed.” (Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 551; thanks are due
to the University of Pennsylvania Committee of Faculty Research, for
Grant No. 93 on which his work was done.)
APPENDIX 8: CHRISTIAN ELEMENTS IN THE PEYOTE CULT
Very few ascertainably Christian elements are discoverable in Mexican
peyotism. Some such as “curing” with rosaries of Job’s-tears beads dipped
in tesvino, eating bits of the idol’s body and the like, may be largely
aboriginal.[1] “El Santo Niño de Peyote” of Santa Rosalia is apparently
a local variation of El Santo Niño de Atoche; the mission of El Santo
Nombre de Jesus Peyotes is so-called merely from the abundance of the
plant thereabouts. The overlay of Mexican Catholicism is elsewhere thin
and localized also. The Huichol[2] see the saints in their color visions
as pictures or giant men and women walking about; sometimes they press
the saints into service in their rain-making ceremonies. The cross[3] in
tesvino-curing and those on the Huichol peyote patio may really derive
from an old native four-point symbolism. The Tarahumari[4] call the
large green hikuli “peyote christiano,” in contrast to a small, red,
ineffective one called “peyote cimarrón,” and Christian Tarahumari lift
their hats to the plant and make the sign of the cross, but the essential
ritual was unmodified by Christian ideas. None of these Christian
features is common to Mexican peyotism.
The rite as it came to the United States, then, was aboriginal in
character, as far as we can ascertain. Opler writes that[5]
there is no hint of the influence of Christianity in the
Mescalero use of peyote. The growth of the cult among these
people has been maintained entirely within the traditional
bounds of Apache ceremonialism. Indeed, far from becoming a
weakened and Christianized version of native beliefs, the
Mescalero Apache acceptance of peyote resulted instead in an
intensification of the aboriginal religious values and concepts
at many points.
This characterization would equally well fit the basic Kiowa-Comanche
rite of the Plains, in which Christian elements are quite absent. These
elements in the Plains are distinctly a secondary development, stemming
from the Oto Koshiway and such Oto-influenced groups as the Omaha,
Iowa and Winnebago[6] and the groups taught by John Wilson, such as the
Delaware, Quapaw and Osage.
Arapaho-Winnebago officials and ritual food are given Christian
symbolism:[7]
During the evening the leader represents the first created man,
the woman dressed up is the New Jerusalem, the bride waiting
for the bridegroom. The cup used by the leader and the woman
is supposed to symbolize the fact that they are to become one;
the water represents the God’s gift, His Holiness. The corn
represents the feast to be partaken of on the Day of Judgment
and the fruit represents the fruit of the tree of life. The
meat represents the message of Christ and those who accept it
will be saved.
The Winnebago, Quapaw and Osage peyote officials represent the Father
(the leader), the Son (the drummer) and the Holy Ghost (the cedar-man);
the trinity of hearts in the Big Moon may represent much the same idea in
the Osage-Quapaw rite.
Koshiway said that the bird into which the Oto ashes are shaped is
the Spirit descending when Jesus was baptized: the Holy Spirit,
like an eagle, with good eyes; you can’t fool it. [The ashes
themselves represent] a prayer for the white hair of old age,
and the fire is like the fire through which God spoke to Moses.
Peyote is like a “telescope” through which you can see God.
The Delaware twin piles of ashes symbolize Christ’s lungs; Mary Buffalo
says one pile is the grave of Christ, the other of John Wilson, among the
Osage; the Quapaw say the whole coffin-shaped fire-pit is Christ’s grave.
The Ponca, according to Brabant, believed the body of the Saviour would
emerge from the altar and become visible to those who had eaten enough of
the sacred plant. Among the Caddo,
the first stick in the fire represents the heart. There are
twelve other sticks which represent the ribs [of Christ, as the
ashes his lungs].[8]
The paraphernalia of the ceremony are also given Christian
interpretations. The Delaware followers of Wilson call the corn husk
cigarette the “pipe of Jesus.” And of an unspecified group Mooney writes
that
many of the mescal eaters wear crucifixes, which they regard as
sacred emblems of the rite, the cross representing the cross of
scented leaves upon which the consecrated mescal rests during
the ceremony, while the Christ is the mescal goddess.
Some Kiowa leaders make a cross under the water bucket, and cross the
feathers in the water before drinking[9] and the peyote staff, like that
of the Delaware, often has an inconspicuous cross near the top. The
twelve feathers of the Omaha leader’s fan represent the twelve apostles
of Christ. The Winnebago fans differ for the John Rave and the Jesse Clay
rites, but both sects use eagle feathers which represent the wings of
the birds mentioned in Revelations. John Rave’s staff is symbolic of the
“shepherd’s crook,” and the mound of earth in the altar is “Mt. Sinai.”
White Buffalo said that gourd rattles among the Nebraska Winnebago
commonly bore drawings of Christ, his cross and crown, etc., and Radin
says they often bear drawings of scenes from the Bible as well as peyote
visions. A Cheyenne gourd seen at Apache and made by Spotted Crow had the
following “Jesus talk” on it:
Help me O Lord My God O save me According to thy Mercy O God my
heart is fixed. I will sing And give praise Even with my Glory.
The Winnebago explain that the exchange of gourd and drum between the
leader and his assistant when singing the set songs means that “God gives
power to Christ, in Heaven and earth,” just as the leader delegates his
authority. The blowing of the leader’s “flute” at the four points of the
compass is to announce the birth of Christ to the world, and later it
symbolizes the trumpet of the Day of Judgment, when Christ will appear
wearing the crown of glory (symbolized by the leader’s otter skin hat,
worn at this time).[10]
The Bible as an additional piece of peyote paraphernalia probably stems
from the Christianism of the Oto, who used it in their meetings, being
mentioned also for the Iowa, Omaha and Winnebago. The New Testament, and
particularly Revelations, is a favorite among the Rave cultists (Jesse
Clay’s followers do not use the Bible)—Crashing Thunder finding in it
authority for a hair-cut, and others discovering reasons after the fact
for holding their meetings at night. Three Old Testament texts are widely
known also:
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire,
and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
(Exodus 12.8.)
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall
keep it as a feast by an ordinance forever. (Exodus 12.14.)
For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if
the root be holy, so are the branches.... Boast not against the
branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the
root thee. (Romans 11.16 and 18.)
Various other Biblical references appear in the ceremony. Among the Iowa
the leader carries the water himself in the morning to show his humility,
and because of Christ’s washing of feet mentioned in the Gospels. The
Winnebago equate the physiological action of peyote with Christ’s casting
out devils. A Comanche said suffering is caused by one’s sins and lack
of faith in peyote, and that point in the night when nausea is commonly
severest is called the “Dark Hour, the hour of the Crucifixion.” A
Kickapoo leader often cast his prophecies in Biblical language. A Kiowa,
again, appeared to have a belief about the first peyote found which
parallels the miraculous proliferation of the loaves and the fishes in
the Bible. Koshiway compared the Indians to the fishermen on the Sea of
Galilee, when Christ said “Peace, be still!” to the angry waves, just as
peyote says it to the storm-tossed Indians in this latter-day world. And
for the man who lives a good life, the ashes of the fire will open up
like the waters of the Red Sea, and he can pass through the fire to the
father peyote along the “Peyote Road” on the moon.[11]
Some two dozen songs, previously reported in the text, show Christian
influence. The closing song of the Negro Church of the First-born was
the Christian hymn, “Till We Meet Again,” but the majority of peyote
songs have native words. The Rave rite, derived from the Oto and the
Quapaw (influenced by the Christianity of Jonathan Koshiway and John
Wilson, respectively), contained more Christian elements in symbolism
and song than the Jesse Clay cult. This was the more aboriginal, yet
he back-handedly quoted the Scriptures to justify the plain staff
(“like Moses’”) of his ceremony as against the decorated staff of Rave.
Occasional peyote visions show Christian influence: some of Crashing
Thunder’s were of this sort, and a Kiowa had visions of a mitred priest
who nodded smilingly and approvingly at the father peyote on the altar,
but in the visions collected Christian elements are uncommon.[12]
Mexican peyotism and the Wilson rite were influenced by Catholicism,
but the Church of the First-born and the Native American Church by
Protestantism (the Russellites, the Mormons, etc.). At the first Oto
meeting attended a vessel was passed around in the morning for a
“free-will offering,” as in Protestant churches, and the Pawnee, Kiowa
and others have “Ladies’ Auxiliaries” to the local Native American
Church. These women have quilting parties, can fruit, make up box
lunches to raise church money and visit the sick, much as their White
sisters do. Other White elements appear in the meetings themselves. The
Iowa leader and fireman, for instance, shake hands with everyone in the
tipi after the ritual feast, in token of friendship and good will. The
Osage and Quapaw “round-houses,” too, are in obvious imitation of White
peoples’ churches, but the Osage are criticized for ostentation along
White “leisure class” lines. More conservative groups make disparaging
remarks about the “beds” in their meetings, their electric lights in the
round house, and their cigars—some Osage churches are even provided with
spittoons!
Yet when all these features have been summed up, it is still clear that
the layer of Christianity on peyotism is very thin and superficial
indeed. Furthermore, the Christianized Wilson and Rave rites among
the Caddo and Winnebago are currently losing followers to the more
conservative Hoag and Jesse Clay moons—and there are frequent
expostulations against the mixing of the native religion with the
White.[13] Some groups feel no inconsistency in belonging to both
the peyote church and some White Protestant sect as well, but the
unfriendliness of the functionaries of the latter groups toward peyotism
and their lack of reciprocal tolerance has driven many borderline cases
openly into the peyote church. The Indians feel, perhaps rightly, that
peyotism is their last strong link with the aboriginal past, which others
are trying to destroy. Hence it has contributed greatly to the sense of
community and morale of the Indian groups in Oklahoma.
Of course apologists sometimes use Christian arguments to confound the
enemies of the cult, as when peyote and the water are equated to the
Catholic use of bread and wine in Communion,[14] or when Old Man Green
(Oto) told a minister that he was condemning God’s work in attacking
peyote. But these do not proceed from any profound faith in Christianity.
A Shawnee comment is most typical:
Christ was born only several hundred years ago, not when the
world was created, like peyote.
Prayers are still addressed to the older tribal deities in peyote
meetings: the Winnebago to Earthmaker, the Oto to Wakan, the Cheyenne to
Mayan, etc. A Kickapoo summed up the religious history of his tribe as
follows:
We had medicine bags before Jesus was born over in Bethlehem,
in the old country. The old generation worshipped idols. When
God’s son was going to be born, they were trying to make the
people believe God. And after Jesus was born, they commenced
this [peyote].
Nevertheless, it should be reiterated that on the whole, despite the
apparent and superficial syncretism with Christianity, peyotism is
an essentially aboriginal American religion, operating in terms of
fundamental Indian concepts about powers, visions and native modes of
doctoring. The Christianity of many native Christians is precarious at
best—as we have seen from various case histories—when it comes into any
very serious conflict with native culture. Perhaps most peyote-users
would echo the words of the famous Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, with
reference to the superiority of peyotism over Christianity:
The white man [he said] goes into his church house and talks
_about_ Jesus, but the Indian goes into his tipi and talks _to_
Jesus.[15]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “[De la Serna] adds that ... they delighted in caricaturing the
Eucharist, dividing among their congregation a narcotic yellow mushroom
for the bread, and the inebriating pulque for the wine. Sometimes they
adroitly concealed in the pyx, alongside the holy water, some little
idol of their own, so that they really followed their own superstitions
while seemingly adoring the Host. They assigned a purely pagan sense to
the sacred formula, ‘Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’ understanding it to
be, ‘Fire, Earth, and Water,’ or the like” (Brinton, _Nagualism_, 28);
Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 369, 385. _Coix Lachryma Jobi_ was
an early Spanish introduction, but may have replaced some native seed
(e.g., mescal) used as beads. Serna’s mushroom is probably teo-nanacatl.
[2] Klineberg, _Notes on the Huichol_, 449; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_,
1:314; 2:170, 189.
[3] Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 2:171-72, 272; Bennett and Zingg, _The
Tarahumara_, 294.
[4] Bennett and Zingg, _op. cit._, 290; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_,
1:360-61. On Tarahumari Christianity see _Handbook of the American
Indians_, 2:692b; the ease of acceptance suggests congruence with
aboriginal forms.
[5] Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_.
[6] The Winnebago did not introduce the first Christian elements, as
Radin believed. A Taos Indian (Plains-influenced?) once visioned Christ
(Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 66).
[7] Radin, _The Winnebago Tribe_, 418; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_.
[8] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 101, 113; Brabant, in Seymour, _Peyote
Worship_, 182. Cf. Gilmore’s Omaha (_The Mescal Society_, 165-66) whose
fireplace is the heart of Jesus.
[9] But there seemed to be a certain quality of propaganda for the
ethnographer’s benefit in one Kiowa doctoring meeting, when the name of
Jesus was mentioned in prayers with unwonted frequency.
[10] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 96, cf. 56-59, 67, 96, note
9; Mooney, _A Kiowa Mescal Rattle_, 65; Harrington, _Religion and
Ceremonies_, 186-88; Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 165-66; _Uses of
Plants_, 106; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote
Cult_, 4, 12; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 416-17; White Buffalo in Blair, _The
Indian Tribes_, 282 (letter of April 15, 1909).
[11] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 724, 727; Gilmore, _The Mescal
Society_, 165-66; _The Uses of Plants_; Densmore, _Winnebago Songs of
the Peyote Ceremony_; _The Peyote Cult_; Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote
Cult_, 5-6; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 394-95; _Crashing Thunder_, 186-87,
200; Simmons, in Mooney, _Miscellaneous Notes_.
[12] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 727-28; Murie, _Pawnee Indian
Societies_, 637; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; _Winnebago Songs of the
Peyote Ceremony_; Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 5; _The Winnebago
Tribe_, 395; _Crashing Thunder_, 193-94; Smith [Mrs. M. G.], _A Negro
Peyote Cult_.
[13] The turmoil among the Caddo seems to grow out of the attempt to mix
Christian with native motives and John Wilson is nowadays by no means
universally revered. “There have been some Delawares living with the
Caddo who have from time to time tried to introduce the Catholic faith
in the Peyote meeting. Often they used the crucifix on the Peyote on
the moon. All these attempts have met with opposition from most of the
Delawares” (Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 77).
[14] Petition of 62 Osage to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, in
_Peyote, as Used in Religious Worship_, 64-67.
[15] Simmons, _The Peyote Road_.
APPENDIX 9: THE NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH AND OTHER PEYOTE CHURCHES
The many attempted anti-peyote legal measures, and the frank hostility
of some persons[1] to peyotism early stimulated the cultists to seek
some sort of legally-guaranteed security for their worship. The first of
several incorporated peyote churches, the Oto Church of the First-born,
has heretofore been little known. Peyote came to the Oto under the late
White Horn’s leadership from the Tonkawa some time before 1896. The
original rite is said to have been “just like the Apache,” which is to
say, the standard pre-John Wilson Plains type. But the Oto, like other
tribes, began to have “government trouble” about their worship shortly
before the World War. A group of younger men, Frank Eagle, George
Pipestem, Charles MacDonald and Charles W. Dailey, who had been away to
school and were considerably influenced by White Protestantism, sought,
at this juncture, to use the White man’s weapons in their own defence.
But by far the most important figure in this movement was Jonathan
Koshiway.
Although enrolled as a Sauk-and-Fox, Koshiway’s mother was an Oto. He had
formerly lived in northeastern Kansas, and had been an Indian evangelist
for the Church of Latter-Day Saints.[2] As an individual Koshiway was
considerably influenced by Middle Western Protestantism, and solved for
himself the adjustmental problem of double culture-bearers by discovering
that the old native religion of his childhood was the _same_ as the
White Christianity of his maturity, with merely different phrasing and
vocabulary. Did not God speak to Moses through a burning bush, like the
Indians’ peyote fire? When God viewed his creation, does not the Bible
say that “God saw that it was good,” and was not the little peyote plant
one of the herbs of the field thus created? Did not Christians also make
use of wafers and sacramental wine just as the Indians used the flat
buttons of the sacred herb and peyote “tea”? Did not Christianity even
embody the Plains ritual number in the “Four Foundations” of Love, Faith,
Hope, and Charity?
Jack was a “Bible student” in Kansas City at one time, and is notably
fluent in these syncretic interpretations, being called upon frequently
to speak in peyote meetings, especially when visitors are present to whom
explanations are in order. Another important influence upon Koshiway—as
well as upon George Deroin (Iowa) of Perkins, who may once have been his
associate—was that of the Russellites, a somewhat desiccated Protestant
cult of the Middle West, who did not believe in any “earthly” government.
This dogma naturally suited a group in difficulties with temporal
government. Koshiway explained to me that the name finally chosen for
the organization is a “heavenly name” and that the church proper is “up
there”; yet practical peace must be made with Caesar on earth, and this
Koshiway set about with care to do.
First of all he consulted White Horn, leader of the native peyote rite,
and gained his support. Koshiway generously states that White Horn was
the co-founder of the Church of the First-born, but the fact appears
to be that the latter’s role consisted in giving the official approval
of the older established peyote cult. Koshiway also visited many white
ministers to get their advice on organization. There appears to have been
some friction about this, and even Koshiway ended up by insisting that
the peyote church should not be “under” any white Protestant church,
but independent. Then, despite the fact that the Russellites preach
non-cooperation with the Government and the ultimate break-up of all
temporal governments, Koshiway went to a lawyer in Perry, Oklahoma, H. F.
Johnson, and sought legal advice. On December 8, 1914, the “First-born
Church of Christ” was incorporated under the laws of Oklahoma and
received a charter for an organization located at Red Rock, Oklahoma,
signed by Benjamin F. Harrison, the Secretary of State.[3] The articles
of incorporation were signed by Jonathan Koshiway and four hundred and
ten other names.
Koshiway wanted an “authorized” preacher to come and baptize the newly
constituted church’s adherents, but this never became a regular practice,
if, indeed, it ever actually occurred at all. A reluctance to come
half-way was manifested by the Protestant groups concerned, and in time
Jack himself took up all the usual functions of a minister, marrying,
conducting funerals and in addition doctoring in meetings and “hollering”
the way his source of medicine power does. Secondary Shawnee influences
occurred in this later period, but the chief ritual difference between
the usual peyote rite of the Plains and that of the Oto Church of the
First-born is directly traceable to the influence of the Russellites.
This difference was over the question of smoking in meetings. As
Koshiway reconstituted the Church, the preliminary smoking of corn shuck
cigarettes was abolished—a remarkable innovation when one recalls the
deeply entrenched ceremonial use of tobacco in the Plains, but when a
narcotic was sacrificed in the ritual, tobacco went, not peyote. Koshiway
took peyote to a group of Oto in Kansas under Charley Rubido, and by this
time the work of syncretism which had been accomplished became evident,
for,
when we examined the literature [says Koshiway] we found
that [the native Russellites under Rubido and the Koshiway
peyotists] were just alike.
In both groups smoking was omitted, and cedar leaves were burned in place
of this at intervals of prayer. When the leader called upon an individual
to pray, he was given cedar to burn to produce smoke and bear away the
prayer. The Bible was a conspicuous part of the meeting also.[4]
The later history of the Church of the First-born was influenced by the
interaction of Koshiway and the later-founded Native American Church. At
Cheyenne, a little town northwest of Calumet, Oklahoma, a group of Oto,
Kiowa and Arapaho had an intertribal conference to decide upon measures
of defence for peyotism. Jack took the Oto charter to this conference
and explained his solution of the problem. James Mooney at this, or a
later conference, was influential in persuading the assembly to adopt
this method of organization, but many of the group apparently objected
to the element of White religion implied in the title “First-born Church
of Christ” and rejected the name. The title ultimately chosen was the
“Native American Church,” which emphasized the intertribal solidarity of
the cult, as well as its aboriginality.
Koshiway’s behavior at this point is interesting. He had not succeeded
in making himself the head of the church of his naming as extended in a
state-wide organization. As he himself puts it he “began to deny” the
First-born Church of Christ, and “joined” the Native American Church,
where, though he was less important as an individual, he nevertheless was
a member of a larger and more official in-group. He is much amused in his
attitude toward the remnants of the Oto church; says he,
They were so religious [about smoking]—I converted them, and
then they turned around and said I wasn’t right; that’s how
peculiar us Indians are!
As a matter of fact, however, Koshiway seems to have believed that the
true belief about peyote was _a fortiori_ what he, the founder of the
church, successively believed. When later he re-introduced the smoking
of tobacco into the ceremony, he actually was himself backsliding into
the older native custom and retreating from the Russellite-influenced
no-smoking rule. The real Puritans, obviously, were the Kansas group who
retained the rule. A curious and amusing compensation is evident in the
most modern reconstitution of the Oto smoking ceremony: the “shucks” in
meetings attended were fully twice as long as those normally used in the
Plains rite!
The present Oto church in Oklahoma, under the presidency of James Pettit,
considers itself a local branch of the Native American Church, but the
Kansas group still carries on the Russellite no-smoking rule. The return
to the older standard pattern came about in this way.[5] The well-known
Kiowa leader, Belo Kozad, came to the Oto with Jack Sankadote (one of
the two original Kiowa users) and an Apache named Star. The meeting was
held fourteen miles east of Red Rock, and Koshiway’s attendance at this
was a turning-point. Belo prayed to peyote—a practice itself rejected by
Koshiway—that Jack take up his “road.” Jack maintained his disapproval
of smoking, but for some time had apparently come to prefer being an
accepted member of the larger group to being an important outsider.
Somewhat later, he revisited the Kiowa and his friend Albert Cat,
attending several meetings there. At one of these Belo offered Koshiway a
prayer-smoke, and finally after some hesitation he took it—a very small
act objectively, to be sure, but symbolizing the healing of a schism in
the native peyote religion. On this trip south Koshiway had been given
money gifts, and a sick woman the Oto had brought with them had been
doctored by Old Man Horse (Kiowa); these factors perhaps weighed somewhat
in favor of his embracing the state-wide cult. In the ideology of Belo
(and most Kiowa as well) there was no theoretical objection to Christian
churches, but the usual attitude was that peyotism and Christianity
were mutually exclusive _alternatives_.[6] Still later Belo Kozad again
visited the Oto and led a meeting, and this time Koshiway was his
assistant or drummer, and Koshiway now had his place in the classic rite.
His adaptability and good humor have given him a position of considerable
importance in Oto peyotism, though he is by no means the oldest user—more
important perhaps even than that of Sam Bassett, the “tribal priest.”
Several other fore-runners of the Native American Church should be
mentioned. In 1897 the Oto brought the new religion to the Omaha and
Winnebago of Nebraska and by 1909 there was an organization called the
Union Church of mescal-eaters at Winnebago, Nebraska, which made use of
the Bible.[7] The Omaha formed a similar organization called the American
Indian Church Brother Association, whose elaborate symbolic crest is
figured in Wagner. The Kiowa United American Church mentioned by Mrs.
Voegelin may also have been a forerunner of the Native American Church.
This organization was formed by an intertribal group which met at El
Reno and included Mack Haag (Cheyenne) of Calumet, Sidney White Crane of
Kingfisher, Charles W. Dailey (Oto), George Pipestem (Oto), and Charles
E. Moore (Oto), all of Red Rock, Frank Eagle (Ponca) of Ponca City,
Wilbur Peawa (Comanche) of Fletcher, Mam Sookwat (Comanche) of Baird,
and Apache Ben of Apache, Oklahoma.[8] A certificate of incorporation
was granted to “The Native American Church” at Oklahoma City under the
Great Seal and the signature of the Secretary of State, dated October 10,
1918, and signed by Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne), Louis McDonald (Ponca),
Delos Lonewolf (Kiowa), Herman McCarthy (Osage) and Tennequah (Comanche).
The strongly intertribal nature[9] of the organization is indicated by
the various tribal affiliations of the men elected to the offices of the
Native American Church. The constitution under which the charter was
obtained was changed at Washington in the administration of Ned Brace,
and several amendments were made in 1935. Frank Cayou (Omaha) of Hominy
has for some time been seeking a national charter from Congress, through
Secretary Ickes and Commissioner Collier, so far with no success.
Formerly there was an annual tax of two dollars for each individual
member of the state organization, one half kept by the local group
and the other half sent to the state headquarters, but later this was
changed to a ten dollar tax per tribe. In Oklahoma there are now (1936)
twenty-four tribes organized in the church, and these send two delegates
from each local church (if there are several locals there may be as many
as six delegates from one tribe). The yearly convention is held the
last Friday in November, formerly always in El Reno, though in 1936 it
was held in Hominy. El Reno is the site of “The Wigwam,” a young Indian
men’s fraternal organization which once maintained a museum-meeting
room convenient for these conventions, hence the Native American
Church was incorporated as of this place. Because of the many native
languages represented, English is the lingua Franca of negotiations at
conventions. The chief function of the state organization so far has
been the mobilizing of political power and application of pressure on
legislative groups, in the preservation of what the Indians regard as
their constitutionally guaranteed right of religious freedom.
The Winnebago and Omaha of Nebraska, and also the Indians of South
Dakota, Wisconsin and Kansas have patterned their constitutions after
that of the original Oklahoma Native American Church. The Native American
Church is now also incorporated in Montana and Nebraska;[10] in the
latter state Jesse Clay was the first president[11] of an actively
evangelistic group which sends “missionaries” into new regions, ambitious
of making peyote the universal Indian religion. In Oklahoma there are
local tribal organizations within the Native American Church. For
example, among the Kickapoo there is a “men’s club” which meets after
every peyote meeting and a “women’s club” which meets on the second
Thursday of every month. The Ponca also have a “Ladies’ Auxiliary,” as do
also the Pawnee. These data are of course incomplete, but it is believed
that they are representative.
Of particular interest, however, is the Negro Church of the First-born,
formerly existing near Tulsa, Oklahoma.[12] The founder was John Jamison
who was born in Lincoln Co., Oklahoma. His parents for some reason were
given allotments, and he grew up among the Iowa, speaking Iowa, Pawnee
and Comanche. When he sought to take up the peyote cult, the younger men
were less friendly than the older ones; they resented a Negro’s taking
the “old Indian religion.” The rite which he conducted was the typical
Indian one, but involved more use of the Bible than was general; the
elements of the drum, gourd dishes for sacred food, medicine feathers,
cane, sage, cedar, canvas tipi and chief peyote button were all present.
Jamison sometimes dressed in a chief’s bonnet, blanket and moccasins. He
conducted meetings as far back as 1920 which Indians sometimes attended,
and occasionally he was sent for to conduct Indian meetings. In 1926
Jamison died of a brain concussion after he had been attacked by a
half-crazed Negro. The cult did not survive his death; it had never been
popular outside a small group, though some persons were attracted by the
healing he attempted to do. But even the devoted became suspicious when
they learned of Government hostility to their practices. As Mrs. Smith
writes,
This attitude on the part of the negroes is doubly interesting
in view of the rebellious attitude which the Indians displayed
under the same circumstances.
Jamison’s rite differed in a number of respects from the standard Plains
ceremony: the peyote on the moon was eaten by the leader at midnight;
the leader sat at the west with four “sisters” to his right and four
“brothers” to his left (including his drum and cedar man); the fireman
north of the door was usually the same man in every meeting. Participants
sat “goat fashion,” i.e., kneeled and sat on their heels, when singing
or eating peyote. The leader sang Indian songs or hymns indifferently.
After an opening prayer the leader, or a male assistant, read a passage
from Scripture, and toward morning a member talked on the passage. During
the midnight song, the ashes of the ritual fire were made “heart-shaped,”
then this was deliberately destroyed by the leader[13] and the ashes
swept to the side. This “burning the heart of the fire” signified the
“end of the day.” There was a recess at midnight and the drummer beat to
signify the close of this period, after which the communicants reentered
and ate peyote and sang until daylight.
As the sun rose, they threw open the door and, all standing, sang the
closing song, “Till We Meet Again.” The sun is supposed to hit the center
of the fire “heart.” Then the “sisters” leave and serve a sweetened
meal which must contain no salt. There is no ceremonial smoking[14] as
in the Indian ceremony, and cedar smoking is used only once toward the
beginning. The food served is parched corn soaked and sweetened, beef
prepared the “Indian way” (roasted, ground and sweetened; or dried,
soaked, stewed, ground and sweetened), fruit, cereal or mush and finally
water. The presence of parched corn is an interesting object lesson in
the stability of a culture trait; centuries later and hundreds of miles
away from the Mexican corn-harvesting ritual we find members of another
race still practising the now meaningless pattern. The mere accident of
historical association of parched corn and peyote has imposed a cultural
compulsion!
Jamison always took Epsom salts[15] Friday night before the meeting,
usually held on Saturday nights, and a hot bath before going to the
meeting. If he ate salt or otherwise failed to follow these rules, he
would see “spooks” and “crazy things.” Further syncretism with Christian
elements is evidenced in the following confession of faith, a copy of
which was possessed by all the faithful and framed:
David Walker
Director
Our Motto: “The World for Christ”
Christ, the Good Shepherd
[picture of group sitting goat fashion, paraphernalia]
Church Covenant
of the Church of the First-born
“Hebrews 12th Chapter, 23rd verse”
We, the undersigned believers in Jesus Christ, do by virtue of
Scriptural Faith submit ourselves to the cause of Christ and
the Gospel; to live therein; to walk therein; to teach therein;
to sing therein; to pray therein; to preach therein; to baptize
therein; to observe all the ordinances of Him who has called us
to peace, that God may have all the glory thereof. In testimony
whereof we the undersigned hereunto set our hands, by virtue of
our own free will.
John C. Jamison
Conductor in Charge
Mrs. Lucinda Walker
Mother of the Household of the Faith
Katie Hoggins
Secretary of the Household of the Faith
Mrs. J. L. Ramsey
Assistant
Mrs. Polly Marshall
Assistant.
The quotation from Hebrews 12.23 the source of the name of the church:
[But ye are come] to the general assembly and church of the
firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.
Unlike the Oto group, Jamison never succeeded in getting his “moon”
incorporated, although there are suggestions[16] that Negro groups in
South Dakota may have been influenced by peyotism.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The cult use of peyote has been persecuted not alone by legislatures
and religious groups. The following broadside, obtained from Alfred
Wilson (Cheyenne) through Enoch Smokey (Kiowa) was posted at Harry
Ehoda’s home in Mountain View, Oklahoma: “To all Indians addicted to the
use of peyota and other forms of heathen or pagan forms of worship. You
are hereby warned to sease form such degrading practices. Our Government
has spent and is spending thousands of dollars each month to educate and
life up the Indians and the Ku Kluck Klan of this state have determined
that no Indian who has been educated by the Government shall come back
home and debouch his people. Take Due Warning. The Clan in Your Community
Will Look After You and Other Ku Kluck Klan of Okla.”
[2] Cf. Harry Rave (brother of John), quoting another Indian, in Seymour,
_Peyote Worship_, 182: “‘My friend we must organize a church and have
it run like the Mormon Church’.” Could this have been Koshiway? Mormon
interest in peyotism is indicated in letters to C. Warden (Arapaho) of
Gary, Oklahoma, from the Latter Day Saints, which I have seen. See the
_Book of Mormon_, I Nephig:2-28.
[3] Data on this charter from a note in Mooney, _Peyote Notebook_, 38.
[4] This element introduced by Albert Hensley into Winnebago peyotism,
was probably influenced by the Oto church, when Hensley made his visits
in Oklahoma.
[5] With this native “Oxford Movement” cf. the parallel cases of the
Caddo defection from the Wilson rite to the Enoch Hoag “moon” and the
Hensley separatists to the Rave and Jesse Clay groups, the latter in each
case representing a more aboriginal phrasing of the ceremony.
[6] Which is of course mere theory; actually there is considerable
unconscious syncretism, and Belo himself frequently refers to Jesus in
his prayers.
[7] _Report on the case_, in Safford, _Aztec Narcotic_, 306. “Twelve
years ago the Otoes brought the new religion to the Winnebagoes and
Omahas of Nebraska.... In talking with Albert Hensley, one of the
prominent leaders, he said, ‘The mescal was formerly used improperly, but
since it has been used in connection with the Bible it is proving a great
benefit to the Indians. Now we call our church the Union Church instead
of Mescal-eaters’” (Letter, April 15, 1909 in Blair, _The Indian Tribes_,
282.)
[8] From articles of incorporation kindly lent me by James Waldo (Kiowa).
The original paper was lost by Mooney in Washington; Kiowa Charley’s copy
gives the date Oct. 29, 1919—probably a duplicate reissue. Other data
from Murdock and Wilson.
[9] From 1918 to 1936 the officials have been (president, vice-president
and treasurer, respectively): Frank Eagle (Ponca), Mack Haag (Cheyenne),
Calumet, Louis MacDonald (Ponca), Ponca City; Mack Haag, Delos Lonewolf
(Kiowa), Carnegie, James Waldo (Kiowa), Verden; Delos Lonewolf, Alfred
Wilson (Cheyenne), Thomas, James Waldo; Alfred Wilson, Ned Brace (Kiowa),
Mountain View, Oscar Whyel (Kickapoo); Alfred Wilson, Ned Brace, Louis
Toyebo (Kiowa); Ned Brace, Frank Cayou (Omaha), Edgar McCarthy (Osage);
Frank Cayou, Alfred Wilson, Edgar McCarthy. George Pipestem (Oto) of Red
Rock was the secretary of the Native American Church from its founding
until his death in 1936.
[10] Letter of C. C. Guinn of Guinn & Maddox, Attorneys, to Mack Haag,
President of the Native American Church, dated Hardin, Montana, Feb. 16,
1916; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_.
[11] Elections of officials are held yearly in Nebraska instead of every
two years as in Oklahoma.
[12] Condensed from Mrs. M. G. Smith’s article, _A Negro Peyote Cult_.
Mrs. Smith does not mention any possible Oto influence, which, in view of
the near-identity of the name appears probable.
[13] This occurs in no Indian peyote ceremony known to the writer. This
deliberate destructive act suggests a symbolic aggression. The psychic
mechanisms underlying this behavior have been shown with fine perception
in John Dollard’s penetrating book _Caste and Class in a Southern Town_.
[14] This again suggests Oto influence.
[15] Cf. the related emetic rites!
[16] Reko, _Ein Kultus die Gespenster_, 431: “Die Christian Peyotl Church
in South Dakota benutzt diese Dinger an Stelle der Hostie und verabreicht
sie bei der Kommunion and die Glaübigen. Daneber haben sie jenseits der
Grenze noch eine nicht unbedeutende Kunschaft in der nordamerikanischen
Indianer und den Schwarzen die die Mescalbottons [sic] freilich
keineswegs zum Kommunizieren benützen.”
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EXPLANATION OF PLATES
Plate 1. Peyote leaders. _Upper left_, Charley Apekaum (Kiowa) and
Jonathan Koshiway (Oto); _upper right_, Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne) twice
president of the Native American Church; _lower left and right_,
Packing-Stone (Kiowa) a “Ten-Medicine” keeper and peyote leader in
typical leaders’ costume of blanket and buckskin clothes; the headdress
is old Kiowa.
Plate 2. Altar and ash-birds. _Upper left_, Quapaw permanent cement altar
of the John Wilson Big Moon rite. The ash mounds are the “graves” of
John Wilson and Jesus Christ; the W’s or M’s on each side of the heart
signify “Moon-Head” or “Wilson.” The nearest heart of the mound is the
Heart of the World, that under the fire the Sacred Heart of Christ, that
on the moon the Heart of Goodness on which the father peyote rests. Seven
lines around the apron represent week days, the twelve lines the months
of the year. The ashes mean the parting of the Red Sea, or mean to some
the sheep and the goats. This altar was made by the authorised builder,
Victor Griffin, and his assistant, Charley Tyner. _Upper right_, Symbolic
peyote painting by Mopope (Kiowa) showing sacred staff, seven-marbled
drum, drumstick, gourd rattle, doctoring feathers, and altar or moon
with ash crescent. The water bird intermediary is carrying a prayer
from the father peyote on the altar across the ritual fire to the great
spirit indicated by the seven rays of feathers of the rising sun. The
lightning lines from the god-head result from the artist’s visits to
the Southwestern pueblos. _Center_, A fine example of the scissors-tail
ash bird made at an Oto meeting near Red Rock, Oklahoma. _Lower_, An
unusually fine example of the water bird ash bird made at a Shawnee
meeting near McCloud. The burnt sticks finish out the scissors-tail
of the bird. The smokestick in the foreground is carved with native
and Christian symbols (now in Peabody Museum, Harvard University). (It
is believed that the Yuchi altar of Petrullo, Plate 2, is erroneously
figured and is of the order of those shown here.)
PLATES
[Illustration: [LA BARRE] PLATE 1
PEYOTE LEADERS]
[Illustration: [LA BARRE] PLATE 2
ALTAR AND ASH BIRDS]
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