[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_).