[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.