[1] “These beans are often confused with those of a certain species of
_Erythrina_, which are sometimes sold in their place in the markets of
Mexico, but which are not at all narcotic” (Safford, _Narcotic Plants_,
397).
[2] Not to be confused with the “mountain laurel” _Kalmia latifolia_.
[3] Henry, _The Plant Alkaloids_, 395, 398.
[4] Henry, _op. cit._, 397; cf. Safford, _Narcotic Plants_, 397.
[5] Bellanger, in Havard (Bulletin 519:6); Opler, _The Autobiography_;
Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:256; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_,
358. The use of frijolillo in maguey liquor (which equates with mescal)
probably accounts for the usage “mescal bean.” Since the text was written
further Apache material has appeared (Castetter and Opler, _Ethnobiology
of the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache_, 54-55).
[6] Mooney, _Miscellaneous Notes_, 6. Schultes figures a Kiowa necklace
of true mescal beans (_Sophora secundiflora_ Ortega, Lag. ex DC.) strung
on buckskin, with a piece of red ribbon, beaver fur and a child’s
ring enclosing a bundle of dried beaver-testis “medicine” in a lace
handkerchief, as trinkets or amulets.
[7] Skinner, _Ethnology of the Ioway_, 261; Gilmore, _Uses of Plants_, 99.
[8] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 718-19.
[9] Cf. the origin of peyote in deer’s foot-prints or hooves.
[10] “The maⁿkácutzi beans were supposed to be alive. Those I have seen
in the possession of various Iowa were kept in a buckskin wrapper which
was carefully perforated that they might see out.” Cf. the ability of the
father peyote to see.
[11] Cf. the preparation of peyote by grinding on metates like corn.
[12] Cf. the black drink ceremony to the east, and the Plains Sun Dance.
[13] Early peyotism was likewise an agricultural “first-fruits” rite.
[14] The Wichita used mescal beans in horse-racing too. Cf. the use of
peyote in racing and deer-hunting, and the use of datura in deer-hunting.
[15] Cf. the fetishistic use of the father peyote in war.
[16] Cedar and sage are likewise involved in peyotism.
[17] Harrington, quoted by Skinner, _Ethnology of the Ioway_, 245-47.
[18] Compare note 13.
[19] The Delaware, Osage, Quapaw and Oto call the leader’s peyote staff
an “arrow,” the Ponca a “bow.”
[20] Cf. peyotism’s four ritual songs, and the whistling outside at
midnight at the four points of the compass.
[21] But _Erythrina flabelliformis_ contains no toxic alkaloids; see
Appendix 2.
[22] Did that truculent and little-known group, the Caddo, have the
mescal cult?
[23] Has this taboo any reference to the boneless meat of the peyote
ritual breakfast?
[24] Voegelin, _Shawnee Field Notes_.
[25] The Huichol, for whatever such evidence is worth, in the
mythological songs of their shamans, recite how the world began and
how they were taught to hunt deer, to seek hikuli and to raise corn
(Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:8). The route they take in gathering
peyote is from beginning to end full of religious and mythological
associations, and they meet their deities on the way in the shape of
mountains, stones, springs, etc. (_idem_, 2:132). According to their
traditions, they originated in the south, but got lost under the earth
as they wandered northward, reappearing in the country of the hikuli
(_idem_, 2:23). Such deep-rooted symbolisms as theirs argues age.
[26] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 360, 366-67, 379, 383, 386;
Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:357-358, 444 (but see 1:378).
[27] Velasco, _Dictamen Fiscal_, 194; Opler, _The Autobiography_; _Lipan
Field Notes_; _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_; Wagner, _Entwicklung
und Verbreitung_. Opler says that peyote was introduced within the memory
of the oldest living Mescalero; after 1910 it was in decided decline.
[28] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 62-63. The origin legend is Kiowa. Mooney
received a letter dated July 18, 1921 from the Taos Indian, Star Road,
relative to trials of “peyote boys.”
[29] Cozio, _Proceso_.
[30] In 1921 on the orders of the Governor, Manuel Cordova, a peyote
meeting was raided and the blankets and shawls of all participants
somewhat highhandedly confiscated. Prominent medicine-men refused to
doctor “peyote boys” because the new religion was prejudicial to their
vested interests. In 1923 two adherents of the cult were whipped, one
twenty-five lashes, by the Lieutenant-Governor. Three men were fined
$700, $800 and $1000, and the case ultimately reached the American court;
the judge decided that the Governor had no right to impose such heavy
fines, reversed the judgment and ordered the return of the property.
This done, the officers resigned from office, and for a time there
were no secular officers at Taos because no one wanted to take up the
controversy. In 1931 the confiscated property taken ten years before had
still not been returned, the Council refusing even to consider a $10
fine in compensation; $25 was demanded for the return of each shawl and
blanket.
[31] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 80, note 64; 99, note 166; 118; John
Collier, in _Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_.
[32] This widespread origin legend of the Plains is also Mescalero and
Lipan, and from certain indications I suspect that it is Tamaulipecan
also.
[33] Mooney, in _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:701, “Kiowa Apache.”
[34] Mooney, _Peyote Notebook_, 14.
[35] Shonle, Peyote; _The Giver of Visions_, 54. Jack Sankadote, for
example, was carried into a meeting as a baby by his father, and he is in
his fifties.
[36] Several older Kiowa patterns parallel peyote usages (e.g. the
smoking ceremony of the Old Women’s Society: leader west of central fire,
lieutenants on either side of the door, five dishes of food from the fire
eastward; the Buffalo Medicine Men’s Society bundle-repair meeting with
a sage “stage,” etc.), and the Kiowa-Comanche had the all night singing
and beating on a rolled-up hide on the eve of departure on the war-path.
But such parallels from the tribes one knows best lead to often naïve
particularistic explanations and should be guarded against. As a matter
of fact it is the wide distribution of sweat bath doctoring and society
meetings which accounts for the ease with which peyotism made its way
in the Plains. The following two paragraphs are partly based on data
gathered by Donald Collier, a colleague of the Laboratory of Anthropology
Kiowa trip.
[37] In judging the relative importance of the Kiowa and the Comanche
in the diffusion of peyotism, one should recall that Comanche was
historically the lingua Franca of the southern Plains. Quanah took peyote
to the Caddo and Wichita it is said, though he was not the first to do
so; he led meetings among the Cheyenne and the Arapaho in 1884. Petrullo
(_The Diabolic Root_, 129) says he learned peyote about 1868 in Arizona,
New Mexico and Old Mexico.
[38] “It is desirable to eat with the Comanche or the Kiowa because they
are reputed to have learned of Peyote many years before the others.”
(Petrullo _op. cit._, 33.)
[39] _Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:870b; cf. Mooney, in _Peyote
as Used in Religious Worship_, 13-14, 15; Rouhier, _Monographie_, 102.
[40] Jock Bullbear’s and Mooney’s testimonies in _Peyote as Used in
Religious Worship_, 40, 48, 57.
[41] Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 410. The practice apparently is also Kiowa
and Oto.
[42] Wissler, _Societies and Dance Associations_, 436; the statement was
made in conversation.
[43] Newberne and Burke, _Peyote: An Abridged Compilation_, table.
[44] Wagner, _Entwicklung und Verbreitung_, 84, footnote.
[45] Newberne and Burke, _op. cit._, 33 ff.
[46] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 71-72.
[47] Wilson said that one Smith had been in Oklahoma from a group on
the Yukon River in southern Alaska; they were said to have used it for
fifteen years. Jenness (letter to Schultes) reported a rumor that a
little peyote had filtered into Salishan groups of British Columbia but
Gunther (letter to Schultes) reported its absence among the Flathead and
Kutenai.
[48] Hoebel, _Northern Cheyenne Field Notes_.
[49] Letter from Fred Washington to Dr. F. G. Speck, April 21, 1932.
Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 165) says the Delaware got peyote from the
Kiowa; there is obvious Caddo influence too, via John Wilson.
[50] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 693-94, 724; _Medicine Ceremony of
the Menomini_; _Ethnology of the Ioway_, 190, 217, 248-49.
[51] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 758.
[52] “We the undersigned members of the Kickapoo Tribe of Indians in
Kansas most earnestly petition you to help us keep out the pellote, or
mescal, from our people. We realize that it is bad for us Indians to
indulge in that stuff. It makes them indolent, keeps them from working
on their farms, and taking care of their stock. It makes men and women
neglect their families. We think it will be a great calamity for our
people to begin to use the stuff.... We most urgently petition you that
immediate action must be taken before the stuff gets hold of our people”
(Seymour, _Peyote Worship_, 183).
[53] Skinner, _Medicine Ceremony of the Menomini_, 24, 42-43, 97.
[54] Speck, _Delaware Peyote Symbolism_.
[55] Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 163-67; _The Uses of Plants_,
104-106; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_; Speck, _Delaware Peyote
Symbolism_; testimony of Sloan in _Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_,
35. Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 637.
[56] _Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_, 10-11, 30-31, 43, 44-45.
This booklet was compiled after 1911, giving for “twenty years [ago]” a
maximally early date of 1891; but other internal evidence indicates a
publication date of 1916, giving the date 1896 as quoted.
[57] Speck, _Notes on the Ethnology_, 171.
[58] No doubt with the memory of the fate of Albert Stamp’s attempted
“moon” among the Caddo, Taylor exhibited considerable modesty when this
flattering offer was made. “I appreciate that offer,” he said, “but I’m
just Alfred Taylor, that’s all I am, and I never did run a meeting, and
I would rather you’d get somebody else from down home who runs meetings
to do it for you.” Several weeks later my informant said he didn’t think
Taylor would accept, though he might drum or build the fire “like a
servant”—“He’s afraid the Caddos will think he is pushing himself ahead
too much, but he has even drummed for Enoch Hoag; he just don’t like to
jump ahead of everybody too much away from home.” This abnegation is all
the greater when it is understood that the Osage are accustomed to make
handsome money gifts on such occasions.
[59] Koshiway compared the smoke-meeting before the war path to peyote:
“They have a meeting and smoke the pipe together and leave the next day.
This clears up the enemies, and you can prophesy then. Peyote is similar
to this—all night.” Another older pattern interestingly survives among
the Oto: in the informal morning period in the tipi, joking relationship
seems to function.
[60] One wonders if the Russellite eschatology was not made more
acceptable historically among the Oto because of an approximation to
certain Ghost Dance notions. In any case, the curious prohibition on
smoking may have symbolized, on the one hand, the rejection of older
patterns of religious smoking, reinforced by the prohibition of secular
smoking too.
[61] Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_, 38.
[62] Shonle, _Peyote: The Giver of Visions_, 55.
[63] Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 636-37. Wagner (_Entwicklung und
Verbreitung_, 75) disputes Shonle’s statement that they got it from the
Quapaw, on the ground of the greater complexity of the Quapaw rite. His
argument is unimpressive and a priori: John Wilson was the source of that
complexity. Cf. Opler, _The Autobiography_.
[64] There may be Doctor Dance parallels in peyotism (e.g., an earthen
altar, a fire in a round hole in the center of the tipi, doctoring at
night with coals, fan or sucking horn, presence of the relatives of the
patient in the meeting, etc.); another older Pawnee pattern in peyote may
be the special morning prayer-maker south of the door.
[65] “PEYOTE FAILS. It is a good thing that peyote is stopped for it
was doing more harm than good. Our young men of the reservation were
just beginning to start in eating the devil’s root.... Peyote fails
because it has no mouth so can not speak to its followers of their origin
and destiny, nor as to sin, repentance, forgiveness, salvation nor of
anything else. It has no ears, so can not hear prayer; it has no eyes,
so it can not see a person’s needs; no hands so can not help; no mind,
so can not think. It is therefore unable to ask God for the thing which
its worshipers need, and which they plead with it to implore God for. Our
boys tried to make others believe that peyote is a God and a religion,
but if one wants to believe in mysterious things it must be Christ or
peyote.” (Sam Newman, Ree [Arikara], in _The Indian Leader_.)
[66] Michelson, _Sauk and Fox Myths_.
[67] Skinner, _Observations on the Ethnology_, 10, 85.
[68] Native American Church, President’s Report, 1925.
[69] Speck, _Delaware Peyote Symbolism_.
[70] Voegelin, _Shawnee Field Notes_.
[71] _Peyote, An Insidious Evil_, 3-4; Office of Indian Affairs,
_Discussion Concerning Peyote_, 13.
[72] Much of this information is from Alfred Wilson, a Southern Cheyenne.
His presidential report for 1925 (Sixth Annual Convention of the Native
American Church) cites “locals” for the Caddo, Wichita, Pawnee, Arapaho,
Yuchi, Kiowa, Oto, Shawnee, Ponca, Sauk and Fox, Cheyenne, and Omaha.
Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 62; Willard Park informed me in 1936 that the
Paviotso lacked peyote.
[73] Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 4-5, 7; _The Winnebago Tribe_,
394, 400, 415, 423; _Crashing Thunder_, 169-70, 179, 185; Lowie, _Notes
Concerning New Collections_, 289; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult; Winnebago
Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_; Speck, _Delaware Peyote Symbolism_.
[74] Seymour, _Peyote Worship_, 184; Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_,
71-72; Shonle, _Peyote; The Giver of Visions_, 55.