Part 23

Peyote taught Wilson many variations in the ceremony as well. He used a crock instead of a kettle for the peyote drum. At one period in the development of the ritual only the firemen did the drumming besides the leader and his assistant (i.e., four men, three firemen and the leader’s assistant, proceeded clockwise around the tipi with the drum, drumming for each singer in turn, instead of the standard method of passing the drum for all to use); Wilson did not require the drum to make four rounds, for this might occasionally have interfered with the morning rite of filing out of the tipi “to meet the sun” with raised arms and prayer. In his rite only the leader made the initial prayer-smoke, though older men might ask for smokes later in the night if they so desired. Cigarettes could be made only at one of four places, one informant stated: at the leader’s place, at the north or south at the ends of the cross, and at the fireman’s place, and the leader had to smoke all of them first. Upon reentering after a recess, each person was incensed and fanned by the firemen and others to blow away whatever evil influences might cling to him from the outside night. In time Wilson added special functionaries at the cross-bars of the crucifix to perform this fanning, making eight officials: two fanners, three firemen-drummers and three leaders (road man, drummer and cedar man) symbolizing the Father, Son and Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity. In the Wilson rite there was much touching of the father peyote as communicants made their circuit of the altar on reentering. It is said that water could be asked for at any time, and permission to leave was not necessary if the rules about passing in front of an eater or smoker were observed.

Wilson himself took his “moon” to the tribes of northeastern Oklahoma. The Shawnee were influenced impermanently, and today only Ernest Spybuck has a modified Big Moon. The Seneca were influenced through the Quapaw, whom Wilson first succeeded in deeply influencing. The Quapaw leader, Victor Griffin, made a moon at Devil’s Promenade which was modified around 1906 or 1907 from Wilson’s moon.[13] The Delaware around Dewey were much influenced by Wilson from 1890-92 on.[14] But the Osage were the most important converts. By 1902 “most of the Indians at the Hominy camp and elsewhere in the Nation [had] taken it up and become devoted to it.”[15] Black Dog, one of the first Osage converts, introduced the “West Moon” in which the door is at the west and the altar similarly reversed; most of the Osage moons today, however, are the standard Clermont east moons. The Potawatomi may have been influenced by the teachings of Wilson somewhat also.[16] Wilson’s nephew, Anderson, brought the Seneca peyote in 1907 on the request of a Seneca married to a Quapaw woman.[17]

The economic motive seems evident in much of Wilson’s behavior. Speck tells of the introduction of peyote among the Osage as follows:[18]

[About 1891] John Wilson was on his way from Anadarko to conduct meetings among the Delawares around Copan. While passing through the Osage nation he visited Tall Chief, a Quapaw married to an Osage woman. While here Wilson was stopped by an Osage who had previously attended Peyote meetings among the Delawares and requested to meet a group of Osage and tell them about his revelations and his convictions and instruct them in its rules. He consented and complied with their wishes. The Osage in attendance at his meeting were convinced and converted. He accordingly stayed on with them about three weeks. Black Dog was at the time Chief of the Osage. His tribe was won over in force to the Wilson sect of Peyote worshippers.... J. Wilson then returned to Anadarko, leaving behind him among the Osage two young Delawares who stayed back attracted by the prospects of fortune offered by the wealthy Osage. Wilson had received presents from the tribe of new converts amounting to considerable value, a wagon, a carriage, a buggy and teams of good horses and harness for each and other horses, fourteen in all, not to mention blankets, goods and money.

His death occurred after a similar mission to the Quapaw. He had been among them to conduct a meeting and was returning to Anadarko in a buggy with a Quapaw woman and another woman. Wilson’s wife was still living at the time, and he was either offered the Quapaw woman or demanded her while among the tribe. Speck quotes his nephew:[19]

Anderson said he did not like to think this but that the Quapaw were not all good people and had possibly been actuated by a desire to establish a home for Wilson in order to keep him and his ministry in their midst.

In any event, Wilson had been given a number of horses, which were tied to the back of his buggy. While crossing a railroad track, these horses pulled back and prevented their crossing just as a locomotive bore down upon them. Wilson was instantly killed. His detractors maintain that this was just punishment for his failure to live up to his own teachings. Since this period many communicants have fallen away from his “moon,” for his own[20]

moral instructions ... referred to abstinence from liquor, to restraint [in] sexual matters and fidelity to matrimony.

Though influenced by Catholic teachings, Wilson had a peculiar and specific attitude toward the Bible.[21] According to Speck,[22] he

instructed the Indians to seek knowledge by direct communion and to avoid consulting the Bible or the Gospels for the purpose of moral instructions. He insisted that the Bible was intended for the white man who had been guilty of the crucifixion of Christ and that the Indian who had not been a party to the deed was exempt from guilt on this score and that therefore, the Indian was to receive his religious influences directly and in person from God through the Peyote Spirit, whereas Christ was sent for this mission to the white man.

He nevertheless embodied in his person many of the messianic characteristics of his several native prophet predecessors; a Delaware informant said “John Wilson used to perform miracles” in meetings, such as divining what was in a man’s mind, and telling him who the persons were that he saw in a vision. The Osage, at least formerly, had a marked reverence for Wilson. Speck wrote in 1907 that[23]

pictures of Wilson are in demand among the devotees, who kiss them on sight. The man has been deified since his death.

There is much variation of opinion about Wilson among Indians of various tribes, but perhaps the statements of his nephew, George Anderson, are authoritative if not entirely disinterested. Speck says:[24]

An idea seems to have become current, either through the rumors of designing persons who opposed him or through exaggeration among his followers, that Wilson is responsible for having told his associates that he would return to life again after death and also that they should pray to him in the Peyote meetings.... Anderson denies that Wilson made either assertion. He had heard Wilson tell in his meetings that at times the worshippers when taking peyote might see him, as some are said since to have done, his face appearing to their vision over the fire. [With reference to the second statement Wilson on the contrary warned them not to pray to him, but through peyote to God.] ... This warning has not, however, prevented the practice of praying directly to and through John Wilson from becoming frequent among some of the Osages ... and probably among the Quapaw.

In both the latter groups [Anderson] has seen Wilson’s portrait placed on the “moon” in the Peyote lodge near the peyote “button” and the crucifix. Some who do this, he is convinced, actually concentrate thought upon Wilson instead of Peyote. And Anderson regards both practices as contrary to the teachings of Wilson. A custom has also spread among the Osage to wear a portrait button of John Wilson on the coat or, when in native dress, upon one of the fur or feather ornaments.... Anderson’s testimony [was] that John Wilson told his followers that _he was not sent by God to fulfill a mission_, but that he was _shown_ by Peyote how to conduct religious worship in the Peyote meetings in order to cure disease, heal injury, purge the body from the effects of sin[25] and to lead the Indians to reach the regions “above” _hukweyun_ in Delaware, or heaven, where they would _see Peyote and the Creator_.

The Caddo and Delaware, nevertheless, display considerable “touchiness” on the subject of John Wilson even today, since other tribes have ridiculed his real or supposed claims to divinity. Native criticism is not lacking either on the score of his economic exploitation of peyote leadership.[26] Petrullo[27] writes that

his enemies claim that in the course of his life he professed to have had fresh visions which always were interpreted to his personal gain....

However, his followers staunchly deny these allegations. Perhaps in answer to the accusation of being mercenary, Wilson, with one of his followers named Wolf, themselves set up a meeting once, at which they showed their generosity by giving away all their clothes with other gifts until they were clad only in breechclouts.[28] Yet even so the belief is widespread that his death was due to his exploitation of the gift-giving pattern to the extreme of demanding a Quapaw woman for his wife.[29]

The Wilson sect is still strong among the Osage and the Quapaw, but elsewhere, even among the Delaware and Caddo, it is waning considerably. The Caddo show a disposition to return to the Enoch Hoag “moon,” which is considered more “pure” and aboriginal.[30] But antagonisms to new elements Wilson sought to introduce date as far back as 1885. About this time Elk Hair was hunting in Comanche territory and learned a ritual he has since kept without change:[31]

Elk Hair preferred the Comanche way because it was the pure Indian way.... We brought back to our people the pure Peyote rite and we have used Peyote in the right way ever since.

Elk Hair, according to Petrullo,[32] “has barely managed to keep a following among the Delawares of Dewey,” but this region is the stronghold of the Anderson family and if defection of the Anadarko groups to the Hoag moon is any indication, we may expect a reinvigoration of the Elk Hair rite. Indeed, War Eagle wrote from Dewey in 1932 that[33]

Bacon Rind [whose recent death is mentioned in the letter] was one of the last of the old people who beli[e]ved in [the] Wilson cult; these first followers of peyote are about all gone. [The] small moon now prevales in the Osage. It will be a blessing to the world when all the Quapaws and what few Delawares [are left practicing it] will change [to the standard peyote rite].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mooney, _The Ghost Dance_, 903-905.

[2] Capt. Hugh L. Scott, in Mooney, _The Ghost Dance_, 904.

[3] We have elsewhere expressed the opinion that the Caddo had an historical significance in the spread of peyotism second only to that of the Kiowa-Comanche, and that Wilson represents this Caddoan influence predominantly. Though he had Delaware blood, this numerically small group could scarcely have wielded the influence or exercised the prestige necessary to account for the spread of his “moon;” the Caddo, on the other hand, who early had peyote, did have this prestige. We therefore believe Petrullo in error in claiming Wilson as a Delaware. Speck (_Notes on the Life_, 540) writes that “His associations with the Comanche and Caddo, to whom he was related by blood, were close.” Petrullo himself, indeed (_The Diabolic Root_, 44) indicates Caddoan influences on Wilson: “John Wilson, the originator of the Big Moon, was living among the Caddo. He was one of the first Delaware to eat peyote. He belonged to the Black Beaver band ... held by the Government at the Wichita and Caddo reservations. It was there that Wilson was born and raised.” Petrullo also says Wilson made visits to Arizona and New Mexico before returning to make his moon on the Caddo reservation.

[4] Note the prominence of hearts in the altar elaborated by Wilson. According to Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 45) “John Wilson ... had received some Catholic instruction.” These probably derive, therefore, from the Catholic “Sacred Heart.” (The heart is present in Huichol religion, but even if not wholly aboriginal [Aztecan influence?] and Catholic-influenced there too, it is quite independent of the Wilson heart motifs.)

[5] Cf. the prominence in Wilson’s moon of brushing each person entering with feathers.

[6] Cf. the Winnebago leader’s similar praying with confessants in peyote meetings.

[7] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 540-42; cf. also Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 80.

[8] “In response to the question as to whether Wilson ever spoke of the Peyote songs as symbolizing the singing of birds, Anderson asserted that he had heard of this among other Peyote sects but had never heard Wilson express it.” (Speck, _op. cit._, 542 note.)

[9] Some of Wilson’s Caddoan teachings were sufficiently unlike those of the Delaware to antagonize them. A Delaware informant of Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 66) said, “It [peyote] should be eaten in order to get well, not to have visions.” (Benedict’s study indicated, one recalls, that in the Woodlands only puberty-visions occurred, while in the Plains adults too may obtain them.) Again (p. 68) “Wilson was wrong. Peyote is good, but it is good and powerful medicine, not a religion like the Big House. [For instance] four boiled Peyote placed on top of the head will help in cases of insanity.”

[10] Cf. the Pawnee (Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 642).

[11] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 172.

[12] Petrullo, _op. cit._, 56-59, 67, 96, note 29.

[13] Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 103). He claims to be Wilson’s authorized successor and has revised his moon. Petrullo (_op. cit._, 4) says John Quapaw is Wilson’s real successor.

[14] Harrington (_Religion and Ceremonies_, 156) says Wilson brought the Lenape peyote from the Washita River Caddo as well as the Ghost Dance in 1890-92, which died out with him among the Delaware (_idem_, 190-91).

[15] Speck, _Notes on the Ethnology_, 171.

[16] On the mere score of Christian elements we do not agree, however, that Wilson’s influence necessarily extended to the Wichita, Winnebago, Kickapoo, and Omaha (Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 79). See following appendices.

[17] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 554.

[18] _Idem_, 553.

[19] _Idem_, 544.

[20] _Idem_, 546.

[21] For this reason we doubt the soundness of Petrullo’s inference that the Omaha, Winnebago, etc., were influenced by Wilson. These groups actually used the Bible in meetings and read from it. This influence, we believe, traces to another teacher, the Oto Jonathan Koshiway.

[22] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 547.

[23] Speck, _Notes on the Ethnology_, 171.

[24] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 549.

[25] Wilson taught that the number of peyote required to be eaten varies according to the amount of impurity in the “heart” and stomach of the individual, “which impurity resulting from sins committed he likened to ‘dirt’” (Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 545). The more frequently the communicant attended peyote meetings, the less dirt, obviously, there could accumulate. The degree of nausea, Wilson taught, is the punishment meted out for sin (cf. John Rave’s teaching).

[26] To be sure the pattern of gift-giving is deep-rooted in the Plains, yet it is a curious coincidence at least that Wilson should have taken peyote to the Quapaw, who own the largest lead and zinc mining fields in the world, and the Osage, made notoriously wealthy through oil. Anderson told Speck that the Osage had given Wilson $200 for building them a moon, and Charles Tyner (Quapaw) told me that he and Victor Griffin (Quapaw) had received $500 for an altar in one sum and some hundreds of dollars in money gifts later. The Osage once gave Anderson $20 and his wife $10 because his uncle, John Wilson, had built their moon (Speck, _op. cit._, 551). Wilson even used to charge $1 per person for the sweatbaths he gave before meetings.

[27] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 82; cf. 45, 95.

[28] Petrullo, _op. cit._, 45; cf. 104.

[29] His followers, in any case, betray their expectancy of financial reward. It was remarked, for example, that the impecunious Seneca gave Anderson only his trainfare when he brought peyote to them. Griffin, more business-like, always arranges beforehand the amount of compensation he is to receive.

[30] Cf. the case of the Caddo Alfred Taylor whom the Osage invited to introduce the basic Caddo moon—even the Osage are turning from the Wilson rite.

[31] Petrullo, _op. cit._, 43.

[32] _Idem_, 31-32.

[33] War Eagle, letter to Speck from Dewey, Oklahoma April 1, 1932. We believe Petrullo, as shown by this letter, has over-emphasized the decadence of the basic rite at Dewey. The Wilson-Elk Hair antagonism is shown in even trivial ways. The latter use the feathers of swift-flying birds to “hurry up” the medicine cure, the faster the singing of songs, the quicker the cure. The Wilson cultists, who sing slowly, accuse the little moon followers of “putting too much vigor and speed into their healing and praying meetings as is typified by their inclination to decorate their Peyote paraphernalia with Hummingbird feathers, symbolical of the acme of speed.” (Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 551; thanks are due to the University of Pennsylvania Committee of Faculty Research, for Grant No. 93 on which his work was done.)

APPENDIX 8: CHRISTIAN ELEMENTS IN THE PEYOTE CULT

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.

Koshiway said that the bird into which the Oto ashes are shaped is

the Spirit descending when Jesus was baptized: the Holy Spirit, like an eagle, with good eyes; you can’t fool it. [The ashes themselves represent] a prayer for the white hair of old age, and the fire is like the fire through which God spoke to Moses. Peyote is like a “telescope” through which you can see God.

The Delaware twin piles of ashes symbolize Christ’s lungs; Mary Buffalo says one pile is the grave of Christ, the other of John Wilson, among the Osage; the Quapaw say the whole coffin-shaped fire-pit is Christ’s grave. The Ponca, according to Brabant, believed the body of the Saviour would emerge from the altar and become visible to those who had eaten enough of the sacred plant. Among the Caddo,

the first stick in the fire represents the heart. There are twelve other sticks which represent the ribs [of Christ, as the ashes his lungs].[8]

The paraphernalia of the ceremony are also given Christian interpretations. The Delaware followers of Wilson call the corn husk cigarette the “pipe of Jesus.” And of an unspecified group Mooney writes that

many of the mescal eaters wear crucifixes, which they regard as sacred emblems of the rite, the cross representing the cross of scented leaves upon which the consecrated mescal rests during the ceremony, while the Christ is the mescal goddess.

Some Kiowa leaders make a cross under the water bucket, and cross the feathers in the water before drinking[9] and the peyote staff, like that of the Delaware, often has an inconspicuous cross near the top. The twelve feathers of the Omaha leader’s fan represent the twelve apostles of Christ. The Winnebago fans differ for the John Rave and the Jesse Clay rites, but both sects use eagle feathers which represent the wings of the birds mentioned in Revelations. John Rave’s staff is symbolic of the “shepherd’s crook,” and the mound of earth in the altar is “Mt. Sinai.” White Buffalo said that gourd rattles among the Nebraska Winnebago commonly bore drawings of Christ, his cross and crown, etc., and Radin says they often bear drawings of scenes from the Bible as well as peyote visions. A Cheyenne gourd seen at Apache and made by Spotted Crow had the following “Jesus talk” on it:

Help me O Lord My God O save me According to thy Mercy O God my heart is fixed. I will sing And give praise Even with my Glory.

The Winnebago explain that the exchange of gourd and drum between the leader and his assistant when singing the set songs means that “God gives power to Christ, in Heaven and earth,” just as the leader delegates his authority. The blowing of the leader’s “flute” at the four points of the compass is to announce the birth of Christ to the world, and later it symbolizes the trumpet of the Day of Judgment, when Christ will appear wearing the crown of glory (symbolized by the leader’s otter skin hat, worn at this time).[10]