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]