[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.