Part 24

The Bible as an additional piece of peyote paraphernalia probably stems from the Christianism of the Oto, who used it in their meetings, being mentioned also for the Iowa, Omaha and Winnebago. The New Testament, and particularly Revelations, is a favorite among the Rave cultists (Jesse Clay’s followers do not use the Bible)—Crashing Thunder finding in it authority for a hair-cut, and others discovering reasons after the fact for holding their meetings at night. Three Old Testament texts are widely known also:

And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. (Exodus 12.8.)

And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it as a feast by an ordinance forever. (Exodus 12.14.)

For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.... Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. (Romans 11.16 and 18.)

Various other Biblical references appear in the ceremony. Among the Iowa the leader carries the water himself in the morning to show his humility, and because of Christ’s washing of feet mentioned in the Gospels. The Winnebago equate the physiological action of peyote with Christ’s casting out devils. A Comanche said suffering is caused by one’s sins and lack of faith in peyote, and that point in the night when nausea is commonly severest is called the “Dark Hour, the hour of the Crucifixion.” A Kickapoo leader often cast his prophecies in Biblical language. A Kiowa, again, appeared to have a belief about the first peyote found which parallels the miraculous proliferation of the loaves and the fishes in the Bible. Koshiway compared the Indians to the fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, when Christ said “Peace, be still!” to the angry waves, just as peyote says it to the storm-tossed Indians in this latter-day world. And for the man who lives a good life, the ashes of the fire will open up like the waters of the Red Sea, and he can pass through the fire to the father peyote along the “Peyote Road” on the moon.[11]

Some two dozen songs, previously reported in the text, show Christian influence. The closing song of the Negro Church of the First-born was the Christian hymn, “Till We Meet Again,” but the majority of peyote songs have native words. The Rave rite, derived from the Oto and the Quapaw (influenced by the Christianity of Jonathan Koshiway and John Wilson, respectively), contained more Christian elements in symbolism and song than the Jesse Clay cult. This was the more aboriginal, yet he back-handedly quoted the Scriptures to justify the plain staff (“like Moses’”) of his ceremony as against the decorated staff of Rave. Occasional peyote visions show Christian influence: some of Crashing Thunder’s were of this sort, and a Kiowa had visions of a mitred priest who nodded smilingly and approvingly at the father peyote on the altar, but in the visions collected Christian elements are uncommon.[12]

Mexican peyotism and the Wilson rite were influenced by Catholicism, but the Church of the First-born and the Native American Church by Protestantism (the Russellites, the Mormons, etc.). At the first Oto meeting attended a vessel was passed around in the morning for a “free-will offering,” as in Protestant churches, and the Pawnee, Kiowa and others have “Ladies’ Auxiliaries” to the local Native American Church. These women have quilting parties, can fruit, make up box lunches to raise church money and visit the sick, much as their White sisters do. Other White elements appear in the meetings themselves. The Iowa leader and fireman, for instance, shake hands with everyone in the tipi after the ritual feast, in token of friendship and good will. The Osage and Quapaw “round-houses,” too, are in obvious imitation of White peoples’ churches, but the Osage are criticized for ostentation along White “leisure class” lines. More conservative groups make disparaging remarks about the “beds” in their meetings, their electric lights in the round house, and their cigars—some Osage churches are even provided with spittoons!

Yet when all these features have been summed up, it is still clear that the layer of Christianity on peyotism is very thin and superficial indeed. Furthermore, the Christianized Wilson and Rave rites among the Caddo and Winnebago are currently losing followers to the more conservative Hoag and Jesse Clay moons—and there are frequent expostulations against the mixing of the native religion with the White.[13] Some groups feel no inconsistency in belonging to both the peyote church and some White Protestant sect as well, but the unfriendliness of the functionaries of the latter groups toward peyotism and their lack of reciprocal tolerance has driven many borderline cases openly into the peyote church. The Indians feel, perhaps rightly, that peyotism is their last strong link with the aboriginal past, which others are trying to destroy. Hence it has contributed greatly to the sense of community and morale of the Indian groups in Oklahoma.

Of course apologists sometimes use Christian arguments to confound the enemies of the cult, as when peyote and the water are equated to the Catholic use of bread and wine in Communion,[14] or when Old Man Green (Oto) told a minister that he was condemning God’s work in attacking peyote. But these do not proceed from any profound faith in Christianity. A Shawnee comment is most typical:

Christ was born only several hundred years ago, not when the world was created, like peyote.

Prayers are still addressed to the older tribal deities in peyote meetings: the Winnebago to Earthmaker, the Oto to Wakan, the Cheyenne to Mayan, etc. A Kickapoo summed up the religious history of his tribe as follows:

We had medicine bags before Jesus was born over in Bethlehem, in the old country. The old generation worshipped idols. When God’s son was going to be born, they were trying to make the people believe God. And after Jesus was born, they commenced this [peyote].

Nevertheless, it should be reiterated that on the whole, despite the apparent and superficial syncretism with Christianity, peyotism is an essentially aboriginal American religion, operating in terms of fundamental Indian concepts about powers, visions and native modes of doctoring. The Christianity of many native Christians is precarious at best—as we have seen from various case histories—when it comes into any very serious conflict with native culture. Perhaps most peyote-users would echo the words of the famous Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, with reference to the superiority of peyotism over Christianity:

The white man [he said] goes into his church house and talks _about_ Jesus, but the Indian goes into his tipi and talks _to_ Jesus.[15]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “[De la Serna] adds that ... they delighted in caricaturing the Eucharist, dividing among their congregation a narcotic yellow mushroom for the bread, and the inebriating pulque for the wine. Sometimes they adroitly concealed in the pyx, alongside the holy water, some little idol of their own, so that they really followed their own superstitions while seemingly adoring the Host. They assigned a purely pagan sense to the sacred formula, ‘Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’ understanding it to be, ‘Fire, Earth, and Water,’ or the like” (Brinton, _Nagualism_, 28); Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 369, 385. _Coix Lachryma Jobi_ was an early Spanish introduction, but may have replaced some native seed (e.g., mescal) used as beads. Serna’s mushroom is probably teo-nanacatl.

[2] Klineberg, _Notes on the Huichol_, 449; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:314; 2:170, 189.

[3] Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 2:171-72, 272; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 294.

[4] Bennett and Zingg, _op. cit._, 290; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:360-61. On Tarahumari Christianity see _Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:692b; the ease of acceptance suggests congruence with aboriginal forms.

[5] Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_.

[6] The Winnebago did not introduce the first Christian elements, as Radin believed. A Taos Indian (Plains-influenced?) once visioned Christ (Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 66).

[7] Radin, _The Winnebago Tribe_, 418; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_.

[8] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 101, 113; Brabant, in Seymour, _Peyote Worship_, 182. Cf. Gilmore’s Omaha (_The Mescal Society_, 165-66) whose fireplace is the heart of Jesus.

[9] But there seemed to be a certain quality of propaganda for the ethnographer’s benefit in one Kiowa doctoring meeting, when the name of Jesus was mentioned in prayers with unwonted frequency.

[10] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 96, cf. 56-59, 67, 96, note 9; Mooney, _A Kiowa Mescal Rattle_, 65; Harrington, _Religion and Ceremonies_, 186-88; Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 165-66; _Uses of Plants_, 106; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 4, 12; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 416-17; White Buffalo in Blair, _The Indian Tribes_, 282 (letter of April 15, 1909).

[11] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 724, 727; Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 165-66; _The Uses of Plants_; Densmore, _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_; _The Peyote Cult_; Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 5-6; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 394-95; _Crashing Thunder_, 186-87, 200; Simmons, in Mooney, _Miscellaneous Notes_.

[12] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 727-28; Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 637; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_; Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 5; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 395; _Crashing Thunder_, 193-94; Smith [Mrs. M. G.], _A Negro Peyote Cult_.

[13] The turmoil among the Caddo seems to grow out of the attempt to mix Christian with native motives and John Wilson is nowadays by no means universally revered. “There have been some Delawares living with the Caddo who have from time to time tried to introduce the Catholic faith in the Peyote meeting. Often they used the crucifix on the Peyote on the moon. All these attempts have met with opposition from most of the Delawares” (Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 77).

[14] Petition of 62 Osage to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, in _Peyote, as Used in Religious Worship_, 64-67.

[15] Simmons, _The Peyote Road_.

APPENDIX 9: THE NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH AND OTHER PEYOTE CHURCHES

The many attempted anti-peyote legal measures, and the frank hostility of some persons[1] to peyotism early stimulated the cultists to seek some sort of legally-guaranteed security for their worship. The first of several incorporated peyote churches, the Oto Church of the First-born, has heretofore been little known. Peyote came to the Oto under the late White Horn’s leadership from the Tonkawa some time before 1896. The original rite is said to have been “just like the Apache,” which is to say, the standard pre-John Wilson Plains type. But the Oto, like other tribes, began to have “government trouble” about their worship shortly before the World War. A group of younger men, Frank Eagle, George Pipestem, Charles MacDonald and Charles W. Dailey, who had been away to school and were considerably influenced by White Protestantism, sought, at this juncture, to use the White man’s weapons in their own defence. But by far the most important figure in this movement was Jonathan Koshiway.

Although enrolled as a Sauk-and-Fox, Koshiway’s mother was an Oto. He had formerly lived in northeastern Kansas, and had been an Indian evangelist for the Church of Latter-Day Saints.[2] As an individual Koshiway was considerably influenced by Middle Western Protestantism, and solved for himself the adjustmental problem of double culture-bearers by discovering that the old native religion of his childhood was the _same_ as the White Christianity of his maturity, with merely different phrasing and vocabulary. Did not God speak to Moses through a burning bush, like the Indians’ peyote fire? When God viewed his creation, does not the Bible say that “God saw that it was good,” and was not the little peyote plant one of the herbs of the field thus created? Did not Christians also make use of wafers and sacramental wine just as the Indians used the flat buttons of the sacred herb and peyote “tea”? Did not Christianity even embody the Plains ritual number in the “Four Foundations” of Love, Faith, Hope, and Charity?

Jack was a “Bible student” in Kansas City at one time, and is notably fluent in these syncretic interpretations, being called upon frequently to speak in peyote meetings, especially when visitors are present to whom explanations are in order. Another important influence upon Koshiway—as well as upon George Deroin (Iowa) of Perkins, who may once have been his associate—was that of the Russellites, a somewhat desiccated Protestant cult of the Middle West, who did not believe in any “earthly” government. This dogma naturally suited a group in difficulties with temporal government. Koshiway explained to me that the name finally chosen for the organization is a “heavenly name” and that the church proper is “up there”; yet practical peace must be made with Caesar on earth, and this Koshiway set about with care to do.

First of all he consulted White Horn, leader of the native peyote rite, and gained his support. Koshiway generously states that White Horn was the co-founder of the Church of the First-born, but the fact appears to be that the latter’s role consisted in giving the official approval of the older established peyote cult. Koshiway also visited many white ministers to get their advice on organization. There appears to have been some friction about this, and even Koshiway ended up by insisting that the peyote church should not be “under” any white Protestant church, but independent. Then, despite the fact that the Russellites preach non-cooperation with the Government and the ultimate break-up of all temporal governments, Koshiway went to a lawyer in Perry, Oklahoma, H. F. Johnson, and sought legal advice. On December 8, 1914, the “First-born Church of Christ” was incorporated under the laws of Oklahoma and received a charter for an organization located at Red Rock, Oklahoma, signed by Benjamin F. Harrison, the Secretary of State.[3] The articles of incorporation were signed by Jonathan Koshiway and four hundred and ten other names.

Koshiway wanted an “authorized” preacher to come and baptize the newly constituted church’s adherents, but this never became a regular practice, if, indeed, it ever actually occurred at all. A reluctance to come half-way was manifested by the Protestant groups concerned, and in time Jack himself took up all the usual functions of a minister, marrying, conducting funerals and in addition doctoring in meetings and “hollering” the way his source of medicine power does. Secondary Shawnee influences occurred in this later period, but the chief ritual difference between the usual peyote rite of the Plains and that of the Oto Church of the First-born is directly traceable to the influence of the Russellites.

This difference was over the question of smoking in meetings. As Koshiway reconstituted the Church, the preliminary smoking of corn shuck cigarettes was abolished—a remarkable innovation when one recalls the deeply entrenched ceremonial use of tobacco in the Plains, but when a narcotic was sacrificed in the ritual, tobacco went, not peyote. Koshiway took peyote to a group of Oto in Kansas under Charley Rubido, and by this time the work of syncretism which had been accomplished became evident, for,

when we examined the literature [says Koshiway] we found that [the native Russellites under Rubido and the Koshiway peyotists] were just alike.

In both groups smoking was omitted, and cedar leaves were burned in place of this at intervals of prayer. When the leader called upon an individual to pray, he was given cedar to burn to produce smoke and bear away the prayer. The Bible was a conspicuous part of the meeting also.[4]

The later history of the Church of the First-born was influenced by the interaction of Koshiway and the later-founded Native American Church. At Cheyenne, a little town northwest of Calumet, Oklahoma, a group of Oto, Kiowa and Arapaho had an intertribal conference to decide upon measures of defence for peyotism. Jack took the Oto charter to this conference and explained his solution of the problem. James Mooney at this, or a later conference, was influential in persuading the assembly to adopt this method of organization, but many of the group apparently objected to the element of White religion implied in the title “First-born Church of Christ” and rejected the name. The title ultimately chosen was the “Native American Church,” which emphasized the intertribal solidarity of the cult, as well as its aboriginality.

Koshiway’s behavior at this point is interesting. He had not succeeded in making himself the head of the church of his naming as extended in a state-wide organization. As he himself puts it he “began to deny” the First-born Church of Christ, and “joined” the Native American Church, where, though he was less important as an individual, he nevertheless was a member of a larger and more official in-group. He is much amused in his attitude toward the remnants of the Oto church; says he,

They were so religious [about smoking]—I converted them, and then they turned around and said I wasn’t right; that’s how peculiar us Indians are!

As a matter of fact, however, Koshiway seems to have believed that the true belief about peyote was _a fortiori_ what he, the founder of the church, successively believed. When later he re-introduced the smoking of tobacco into the ceremony, he actually was himself backsliding into the older native custom and retreating from the Russellite-influenced no-smoking rule. The real Puritans, obviously, were the Kansas group who retained the rule. A curious and amusing compensation is evident in the most modern reconstitution of the Oto smoking ceremony: the “shucks” in meetings attended were fully twice as long as those normally used in the Plains rite!

The present Oto church in Oklahoma, under the presidency of James Pettit, considers itself a local branch of the Native American Church, but the Kansas group still carries on the Russellite no-smoking rule. The return to the older standard pattern came about in this way.[5] The well-known Kiowa leader, Belo Kozad, came to the Oto with Jack Sankadote (one of the two original Kiowa users) and an Apache named Star. The meeting was held fourteen miles east of Red Rock, and Koshiway’s attendance at this was a turning-point. Belo prayed to peyote—a practice itself rejected by Koshiway—that Jack take up his “road.” Jack maintained his disapproval of smoking, but for some time had apparently come to prefer being an accepted member of the larger group to being an important outsider. Somewhat later, he revisited the Kiowa and his friend Albert Cat, attending several meetings there. At one of these Belo offered Koshiway a prayer-smoke, and finally after some hesitation he took it—a very small act objectively, to be sure, but symbolizing the healing of a schism in the native peyote religion. On this trip south Koshiway had been given money gifts, and a sick woman the Oto had brought with them had been doctored by Old Man Horse (Kiowa); these factors perhaps weighed somewhat in favor of his embracing the state-wide cult. In the ideology of Belo (and most Kiowa as well) there was no theoretical objection to Christian churches, but the usual attitude was that peyotism and Christianity were mutually exclusive _alternatives_.[6] Still later Belo Kozad again visited the Oto and led a meeting, and this time Koshiway was his assistant or drummer, and Koshiway now had his place in the classic rite. His adaptability and good humor have given him a position of considerable importance in Oto peyotism, though he is by no means the oldest user—more important perhaps even than that of Sam Bassett, the “tribal priest.”

Several other fore-runners of the Native American Church should be mentioned. In 1897 the Oto brought the new religion to the Omaha and Winnebago of Nebraska and by 1909 there was an organization called the Union Church of mescal-eaters at Winnebago, Nebraska, which made use of the Bible.[7] The Omaha formed a similar organization called the American Indian Church Brother Association, whose elaborate symbolic crest is figured in Wagner. The Kiowa United American Church mentioned by Mrs. Voegelin may also have been a forerunner of the Native American Church.

This organization was formed by an intertribal group which met at El Reno and included Mack Haag (Cheyenne) of Calumet, Sidney White Crane of Kingfisher, Charles W. Dailey (Oto), George Pipestem (Oto), and Charles E. Moore (Oto), all of Red Rock, Frank Eagle (Ponca) of Ponca City, Wilbur Peawa (Comanche) of Fletcher, Mam Sookwat (Comanche) of Baird, and Apache Ben of Apache, Oklahoma.[8] A certificate of incorporation was granted to “The Native American Church” at Oklahoma City under the Great Seal and the signature of the Secretary of State, dated October 10, 1918, and signed by Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne), Louis McDonald (Ponca), Delos Lonewolf (Kiowa), Herman McCarthy (Osage) and Tennequah (Comanche). The strongly intertribal nature[9] of the organization is indicated by the various tribal affiliations of the men elected to the offices of the Native American Church. The constitution under which the charter was obtained was changed at Washington in the administration of Ned Brace, and several amendments were made in 1935. Frank Cayou (Omaha) of Hominy has for some time been seeking a national charter from Congress, through Secretary Ickes and Commissioner Collier, so far with no success.

Formerly there was an annual tax of two dollars for each individual member of the state organization, one half kept by the local group and the other half sent to the state headquarters, but later this was changed to a ten dollar tax per tribe. In Oklahoma there are now (1936) twenty-four tribes organized in the church, and these send two delegates from each local church (if there are several locals there may be as many as six delegates from one tribe). The yearly convention is held the last Friday in November, formerly always in El Reno, though in 1936 it was held in Hominy. El Reno is the site of “The Wigwam,” a young Indian men’s fraternal organization which once maintained a museum-meeting room convenient for these conventions, hence the Native American Church was incorporated as of this place. Because of the many native languages represented, English is the lingua Franca of negotiations at conventions. The chief function of the state organization so far has been the mobilizing of political power and application of pressure on legislative groups, in the preservation of what the Indians regard as their constitutionally guaranteed right of religious freedom.

The Winnebago and Omaha of Nebraska, and also the Indians of South Dakota, Wisconsin and Kansas have patterned their constitutions after that of the original Oklahoma Native American Church. The Native American Church is now also incorporated in Montana and Nebraska;[10] in the latter state Jesse Clay was the first president[11] of an actively evangelistic group which sends “missionaries” into new regions, ambitious of making peyote the universal Indian religion. In Oklahoma there are local tribal organizations within the Native American Church. For example, among the Kickapoo there is a “men’s club” which meets after every peyote meeting and a “women’s club” which meets on the second Thursday of every month. The Ponca also have a “Ladies’ Auxiliary,” as do also the Pawnee. These data are of course incomplete, but it is believed that they are representative.