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.