Very few ascertainably Christian elements are discoverable in Mexican
peyotism. Some such as “curing” with rosaries of Job’s-tears beads dipped
in tesvino, eating bits of the idol’s body and the like, may be largely
aboriginal.[1] “El Santo Niño de Peyote” of Santa Rosalia is apparently
a local variation of El Santo Niño de Atoche; the mission of El Santo
Nombre de Jesus Peyotes is so-called merely from the abundance of the
plant thereabouts. The overlay of Mexican Catholicism is elsewhere thin
and localized also. The Huichol[2] see the saints in their color visions
as pictures or giant men and women walking about; sometimes they press
the saints into service in their rain-making ceremonies. The cross[3] in
tesvino-curing and those on the Huichol peyote patio may really derive
from an old native four-point symbolism. The Tarahumari[4] call the
large green hikuli “peyote christiano,” in contrast to a small, red,
ineffective one called “peyote cimarrón,” and Christian Tarahumari lift
their hats to the plant and make the sign of the cross, but the essential
ritual was unmodified by Christian ideas. None of these Christian
features is common to Mexican peyotism.
The rite as it came to the United States, then, was aboriginal in
character, as far as we can ascertain. Opler writes that[5]
there is no hint of the influence of Christianity in the
Mescalero use of peyote. The growth of the cult among these
people has been maintained entirely within the traditional
bounds of Apache ceremonialism. Indeed, far from becoming a
weakened and Christianized version of native beliefs, the
Mescalero Apache acceptance of peyote resulted instead in an
intensification of the aboriginal religious values and concepts
at many points.
This characterization would equally well fit the basic Kiowa-Comanche
rite of the Plains, in which Christian elements are quite absent. These
elements in the Plains are distinctly a secondary development, stemming
from the Oto Koshiway and such Oto-influenced groups as the Omaha,
Iowa and Winnebago[6] and the groups taught by John Wilson, such as the
Delaware, Quapaw and Osage.
Arapaho-Winnebago officials and ritual food are given Christian
symbolism:[7]
During the evening the leader represents the first created man,
the woman dressed up is the New Jerusalem, the bride waiting
for the bridegroom. The cup used by the leader and the woman
is supposed to symbolize the fact that they are to become one;
the water represents the God’s gift, His Holiness. The corn
represents the feast to be partaken of on the Day of Judgment
and the fruit represents the fruit of the tree of life. The
meat represents the message of Christ and those who accept it
will be saved.
The Winnebago, Quapaw and Osage peyote officials represent the Father
(the leader), the Son (the drummer) and the Holy Ghost (the cedar-man);
the trinity of hearts in the Big Moon may represent much the same idea in
the Osage-Quapaw rite.