Part 5
One of the Tamaulipecan tribes would usually hold feasts for only those of its own community, or it would invite some of those that were neighbors and friends. They took place generally by night. Devoting two or three previous days to the preparation of a sufficient quantity of peyote, and the gathering of fruits of the season, and in allotting certain fruits of the chase, which, broiled on the hearth that illuminated the feast, were served at a common banquet. The feast always had an object among these peoples. With feasts they celebrated the beginning of summer, which was the season least rigorous for these nude people, or the abundant harvests of corn, or of forest fruits, or their victory in some attack on their enemies. When these feasts were held for one tribe alone they took place commonly in the rancherías where they lived permanently. But when one who was promoting the feast invited some of his neighbors, then he chose an intermediate point between the two places that they inhabited, and that was picked out generally in the most inaccessible or hidden places in the mountains. As soon as everything was prepared for the banquet and the guests had collected, a great bonfire was lighted. They placed around it the fruits of the hunt prepared before hand. Those that took part in the dance immediately formed a circle around the fire, and to the measured beats of the drum (the drum was made of an aro of wood over which they attached the parchment of a deer or a coyote) which, united with the voices, composed the music. They took part in the dance alternately raising one foot and then the other, or the whole circle started circling around the fire. During the dance dancers and spectators broke out in discordant howls, each one reciting in his own strophes, alluding to the cause that was motivating the feast. Of this versification I have already previously given you an idea: relative to the celebration of some triumph gained in their skirmishes; and in the same way they directed their phrases to the sun, to the moon, and to the clouds, when they were enjoying good weather; to the earth and to the rain when they had an abundance of fruit; and finally to their strength and bravery when they recalled their hunts in the mountains or their wars. The poetic enthusiasm of the guests became more animated with the first fumes of the peyote, which, placed on a counter that was improvised on the trunk of a tree, was served to them by young Indian girls and the old men, and in the same gourds, jars, or rude baked clay vases. This class of feast always used to end with the complete drunkenness of all the guests, who, exhausted moreover by the dance, fell asleep around the almost burnt-out fire. [As previously noted, prophecy was a feature of these rites]. In addition to these feasts that are called mitotes, they also have other games and recreation during the hours of the day, such as ball, fighting, and foot-racing; and these games are often that which gives the motive for their mutual discontent, and sometimes precipitates formal wars among them.
We note in this account the connection of peyote with corn harvests, deer hunting and war; and dancing, racing and a morning ceremony are also mentioned. Regarding the ball-game:[54]
Among the Acaxee [peyote] was reported to have been placed on one side of a ball ground during a game; its further use here is unknown, but it is likely that it was taken in small doses by the players during the game, as is done in the kicking race of the Tarahumare in modern times.
Chichimecan peyote-eating appears to be connected with war:
Those that eat it or drink it see frightening and laughable visions. This spree lasts two or three days and then stops. It is a common food of the Chichimecas, for it stimulates them and it gives them sufficient spirit to fight and have neither fear, thirst, nor hunger, and they say it guards them from all danger.
The Zacatecan use of peyote seems likewise to pertain to war, since they eat it to learn the outcome of battles. The drugging and ceremonial wounding of the father of a new-born male child, further, is to augur its valor in war. The Caxcane used peyote ceremonially, with associations unknown to us, but the Tlaxcaltecan use points again, though uncertainly, to war. Preuss writes that “the god of the Morning-Star has a close relationship to this cactus, among the Huichol,” and the Morning Star has definite war associations.[55]
Dancing is commonly associated with peyotism in the Mexican area, being recorded for the Comecrudo, Chichimeca, Cora, Huichol, Tamaulipecan, Tarahumari and Lipan.[56] Use in ritual racing is known for the Tarahumari, Huichol and Tamaulipecan tribes; and the Acaxee tied strips of deer-hide or -hooves (the word used means either) on the instep as an aid in climbing hills—a custom recalling the carrying of hikuli-deer in racing and the Wichita use of mescal beans. The ritualized journey for peyote is recorded for the Cora, Huichol, Tarahumari, Tepecano and somewhat doubtfully for the Tlaxcaltecan.[57]
The ceremonial fire has no definitive association with peyotism in Mexico,[58] though it is a prerequisite of the Plains rite even on the hottest summer nights; nor has the copal incense of the Huichol and Tarahumari any relation to the Plains use of sage and cedar.[59] The corn shuck cigarette among the Huichol and Tarahumari is, furthermore, in a somewhat different context, though Plains ceremonial cigarettes are certainly Mexico-Southwest in origin.[60] The gourd rattle is Mayo, Tarahumari, Gila River Pima, Walapai, Havasupai, Pueblo, Mescalero, Lipan, Karankawa, Wichita, Seri, Chitimacha, Cherokee, Creek, Koasati and Yuchi (i.e., southern Mexico, the Southwest, peripheral Plains and Southeast) and therefore has no special association with peyote, though again, it may be the origin of the gourd rattle in the central and northern Plains.[61] Though the staff is a constant feature in the Plains ceremony, in Mexico[62] this is decidedly not the case. The shaman’s rasp among peyote-using tribes is noted only for the Cora, Huichol and Tarahumari—and has a far wider distribution among non-users of peyote, while being absent in the Plains rite.[63] The Tamaulipecan aro with drumhead of coyote- or deer-skin is unlike the peyote drum of the north, and further, the use of the drum is untypical in the Mexican rite.[64]
On the other hand, the use of parched corn is more clearly a part of Mexican peyotism, as is also deer-hunting.[65] “Plant-worship” is most evident perhaps for the Tarahumari, who revere hikuli, bakánawa, mulato, rosapara, sunami, ocoyomi and dekúba; the Tepecano sometimes substitute marihuana or rosa maria (_Cannabis sativa_) for peyote in their worship, and elsewhere other plants are involved.[66] Birds are a recognizable feature in Mexican peyotism: the Huichol macao, humming-bird and swift are noted, and the Tarahumari humming-bird, green dove and owl.[67]
Bennett and Zingg on the Tarahumari would as well apply to all Mexican peyotism:[68]
... the use of peyote resembles an elaborate curing ceremony rather than a cult. There is nothing to suggest a society centered around peyote-eating.... The group of peyote-eaters does not involve any exclusiveness, requirements, or ritual pertaining to individuals. The peyote ceremonies are not given for the pleasure of eating the plant, but to cure some disease.
Properly speaking, then, Mexican peyotism is a tribal affair, centering around the shaman, on whose shoulders rests the whole tribal welfare as involved in abundant corn harvests, successful deer-hunting, and success in war (which he may prognosticate).[69] Shamanistic curing is conspicuous in both Huichol and Tarahumari peyotism. Beals,[70] writing of northern Mexico says that
the degree of shamanistic influence apparent at present is greater than at some time in the past.... Possibly the use of peyote also had some influence in extending and reviving shamanistic concepts.... Visionary experiences reach their highest development ordinarily in religions of the shamanistic type.
These remarks go far toward explaining the differential diffusion of peyotism. Peyote never penetrated the Yuman Southwest, perhaps because the _dream_ performed the psychological function of the peyote vision (which, moreover, was not very significant in Mexico). Again, the ritual use of peyote failed to penetrate the Pueblo Southwest or the Aztec, both strongholds of priestly religion; perhaps the stereotyped institutional rituals of these regions stifled such orgiastic individual emotional experiences as peyote is calculated to induce. On the other hand, peyotism entered the shamanistic Southwest (the Mescalero) and one Pueblo, Taos, where the kachina cult was weak, and once it reached the individualistic vision-valuing Plains, it fairly ran riot.
MESCALERO APACHE AND TRANSITIONAL FORMS OF RITUAL
Peyote came to the Mescalero[71] about 1870, in the same “general movement which resulted in its adoption by a large number of the tribes of the United States.”[72] Like other Apache ceremonies its origin was attributed to an individual’s encounter with a power, but the tribe involved was the Tonkawa, Lipan or “Yaqui.” Like the Plains groups, the Mescalero made a trip south to get peyote,[73] which was kept by the shaman for ceremonial use only, lest private individual users who did not “know” and have the right to use the power go mad. The primary purpose of meetings was for doctoring,[74] though “occasionally a peyote meeting was called for some other purpose—for peyote, like other sources of supernatural power, was believed to be efficacious for locating the enemy, finding lost objects, foretelling the results of a venture, etc.”
The news that a peyote shaman is conducting a meeting for a sick person spreads rapidly, and all who are to attend bathe at noon of the appointed day.[75] At nightfall they enter the tipi, where the peyote chief is sitting west of the fire facing the door, with a gourd rattle in one hand and an incised wooden staff in the other.[76] The staff is his protection against witchcraft, and he “sings to it”; he exchanges the gourd for the drum of his assistant, but retains the staff in his left hand. In front of him on an eagle feather or piece of buckskin lies the large talismanic “chief peyote” or “Old Man Peyote.”[77]
He is assisted by a door-keeper and a fire-tender, who builds a crescent mound of earth around the fire-pit with the horns east, and keeps the fire going all night.[78] Once having entered, one is not supposed to leave the tipi until morning save briefly, taking one of the eagle feathers lying on either side of the door, and replacing it as soon as possible. The peyote,[79] in a sack or on a woven tray, is first eaten by the peyote chief, who then administers their first buttons to novices, using two eagle-tail feathers as a spoon, with three ritual feints, after which these “fly” into their mouths. Then after smoking[80] the peyote is passed around by the assistants as the leader prays. Beginning at the southeast the drum is passed clockwise as each person sings four songs, his own ceremonial songs or songs received in visions, while the leader or his assistants shakes the rattle. The leader sings most of the songs.
There was a mild bias against women[81] among the Mescalero; they received medicine power, but could not become a peyote chief, because the responsibilities of the office were too great—for a leader must prevent anything happening between even the greatest of rival shamans in meetings.[82] In this he was aided by the chief peyote which “he frequently consulted ... to ascertain whether anything were amiss; any evil thoughts or efforts at witchcraft were said to ‘show’ on this ‘chief peyote’.” A favorite device of witches to weaken the leader was to make his assistants vomit the peyote.
Peyotism was readily accepted by the Mescalero, in whose older culture were patterns of receiving supernatural power from animals, etc. Indeed, Opler calls the Mescalero
a tribe of shamans, active or potentially active [and peyote became another among many sources of power for them]. It will be readily grasped, however, that since peyote leadership and the conduct of peyote rites were open to any one who claimed a supernatural experience with the plant, since, in other words, an individualistic, shamanistic premise underlay the utilization of peyote for religious purposes, centralized leadership and definite organization could not be achieved. The Mescalero use of peyote never developed into a cult or society with a regular membership and place of meeting, with officers and principals selected or agreeable to the entire body of devotees ... [even with the] emphasis on curative rites....
This, in Mexico, made the rite tend to be tribal in character, the shaman quasi-priest. Mescalero peyotism, therefore, is truly transitional between the Mexican all-inclusive rite of _tribal_ cure and the individualistic Plains _societal_ ceremony; no equilibrium was permanently reached between the two, and Opler adduces abundant evidence of the _rival_ nature of peyotism among competing shamans.[83] The concept was that everyone was to get in rapport with his power(s) via peyote, with the peyote shaman, however, remaining the figurehead leader—a multiple “working together” of powers, peyote being the power _par excellence_ that worked with other powers. The Mescalero, then, attempted to force the physiologically somewhat refractory individual peyote experience into the shamanistic mold. The leader remained the arbiter and mediator, and held special symbols of authority, the staff and the rattle, to compensate for his real loss of status as cynosure, when participants in the curing rite were enlarged beyond the patient and his relatives.
Notable is the lack of Christian elements in Mescalero peyotism, in contrast with some Plains groups; 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 at many points.”[84] On the other hand, when we recalled the history of their relations with Whites and such psychologically similar cults as the Ghost Dance of the Plateau, Great Basin and Plains, it is somewhat surprising that a warlike and predatory group like the Mescalero did not associate peyote and anti-White feeling. Opler has recorded a Tonkawa peyote ceremony with clear anti-White features; but the Mescalero had an aboriginal ceremony before peyote whose function was the consternation and defeat of enemies, and this, directed toward the whites, usurped the function of ritual opposition through peyote.[85]
KIOWA-COMANCHE TYPE RITE
Aside from the John Wilson, John Rave, and Church of the First-born variants, the basic Plains ceremony is remarkably homogeneous in various tribes. Since the Kiowa and the Comanche, historically considered, were the center of this diffusion,[86] in the interests of economy we choose their ceremony to detail as the “Plains type-rite.” In the following account care is taken that every statement be specifically true of the Kiowa and at the same time representative of the Plains; minor Comanche differences are shown in footnotes.
Living beyond the habitat of peyote, all Plains tribes have to make pilgrimages for it or buy it. The journey is not ritualized, but there is a modest ceremony at the site: on finding the first plant, a Kiowa pilgrim sits west of it, rolls a cornshuck cigarette and prays, “I have found you, now open up, show me where the rest of you are;[87] I want to use you to pray for the health of my people.” He sings and eats green plants while harvesting them; only the tops are taken, that the root may regenerate buds, a fine large one being saved as a “father peyote” for meetings later.[88]
Many groups, like the Kiowa, “vow” meetings as in the Sun Dance. They may be held in gratitude for recovery from illness, on a child’s first four birthdays, for doctoring the sick, to pray for the successful delivery of a child, or for the health of the participants in general. Present too is the possibility of instruction and power through a peyote vision; in the Plains this is the primary motive, with doctoring second. In the last twenty years “holiday meetings” have been introduced.[89]
In preparation, the Kiowa commonly take a sweatbath.[90] In the old days buckskin dress was prescribed, but nowadays a “blanket” or folded sheet for men and a shawl for women satisfies this requirement; buckskin moccasins are more comfortable than stiff-soled shoes during a night spent sitting cross-legged. Older men still paint for meetings; one leader for example had a yellow hair-part with a short red forehead line perpendicular to this, vertical red lines in front of the ears, and yellow around the eyes.[91]
The sponsor selects his leader (ᴅωλḱi) or himself acts as one; a leader usually has his own drummer (o’ᴅ’asodeḱi) and fireman (ɢ’iɢ’uḱi), and some a “cedar man” also. The sponsor’s womenfolk erect the tipi, prepare and bring the food and water the next morning. The floor is carefully cleaned and plumes of sagebrush are spread around the inside of the tipi, as in a sweat-lodge, for a seat. The sponsor stands the cost of the meeting (from twenty-five to fifty dollars), or others may help in paying; he also supplies the peyote or pays the leader for it, but communicants often bring their own buttons also.
The leader supplies the paraphernalia: the staff (ᴅo’ᴅę́ä, “brace-to hold-stick”) of bois d’arc, the gourd rattle, eagle wing-bone whistle, cedar incense, altar cloth, drum, and perhaps his personal “feathers” for doctoring. The drum (ᴅωä´ᴅω or ʙώλkωᴅωä`ᴅω) is a No. 6 cast-iron three-legged trade-kettle with the bail-ears filed off. The buckskin head is well soaked and tied over the kettle, a third- or half-filled with water into which ten or a dozen live coals (and sometimes herb-perfumes) have been dropped; the Kiowa say the drum represents thunder, the water in it rain, and the coals lightning. Seven marbles are put under the buckskin around the outside kettle rim to serve as bosses for the thong wound once-and-a-half times round them; the same thong is passed through each loop and laced criss-cross seven times under the kettle, unknotted, to tighten the head and form on the bottom the seven-pointed “Morning Star.” The single drumstick (ʙωλkωtωn) is straight, carved, beaded, and embellished with a buckskin tassel or fringe on the handle end. The gourd-handle is also beaded and fringed, and tufted with red horse-hair (ɢuλks’ǫgʸä) at the top end passing through the gourd, the neck of which is plugged with half a spool; the gourd itself may be covered with texts or symbolical drawings.[92] Participants are free after midnight to use the cult drumstick and gourd or their individual ones as they choose. Formerly “only the leader brought in the medicine fan with him, but now many young men bring them in who have no special business to.” These have a beaded and fringed cylindrical handle, with feathers loosely supported in individual buckskin sockets sewed around the shafts; often they are notched, tipped with horse-hair, or down feathers are added at the base—as individual “visions” dictate. The leader also supplies the fetish “father peyote,” but no Bible is used in the Kiowa or usual Plains ceremony.[93] Formerly only old men and warriors attended meetings, but now women and girls over thirteen come in, when not menstruating, though they may not sing the songs or use the paraphernalia.[94]
The tipi is entered any time after nightfall, with a preliminary clockwise circuit outside as in the sweatbath (all circuits inside must be clockwise also). Sometimes several line up behind the leader, who prays briefly: “I am going into my place of worship. Be with us tonight.” Entrance however is often informal and made one by one, before the leader comes in with his rattle and staff in one hand, and his paraphernalia-satchel[95] in the other; he sits west of the fire, which has been started by the fireman, north of the door, who comes in first of all. His drummer is south of him, to his right, his cedar-man (if there is one) north and left. Others enter and informally take places, but after he is seated they kneel on the right knee at the door for a moment, looking to him for permission to enter and be assigned a place; the sponsor meanwhile may call out, “Come in! So-and-so,” to these, informally welcoming them. A tipi some twenty-five feet in diameter seats thirty people comfortably. In summer the sides are raised to allow a breeze to blow through.
At the west center, horns to the east, is the crescent altar[96] (piέtᴅω) with a groove or “path” (ɢ’ωmhoṇ) along it from horn to horn, interrupted by a flat space in the center where the “father peyote” is later to rest on sprigs of sage. The “path” symbolizes man’s path from birth (southern tip) to the crest of maturity and knowledge (at the place of the peyote) and thence downward again to the ground through old age to death (northern tip). The crescent, carefully shaped beforehand by the fireman out of clayey earth, also represents the mountain range of the origin story where sęmąyi or “Peyote Woman” first discovered the plant. East of it in a shelving depression is a fire, constantly mended by the “fire-chief” during the night to keep it in a worm-fence arrangement, the closest approximation to the ritual crescent-shape possible with straight sticks. The accumulating ashes are shaped with great care into another crescent between fire and altar. A “smokestick”[97] is kept smoldering in an east-west position close to the fire to light all cigarettes.
All seated, the leader places the father peyote on the sage sprigs, orienting it by the thorn or mark made when he cut it.[98] After this the ceremony is considered begun, all informal talking and joking ceases, and others entering are late-comers. Everyone begins to stare at the fetish peyote and the flickering fire.[99] Then the leader leans his eagle-humerus whistle against the west outside of the moon, mouth end up, takes out his cedar incense bag, gourd, tobacco, etc., and arranges them conveniently near him.
The first ceremony is smoking or praying together. The leader makes himself a cigarette of Bull Durham with corn husk “papers” dried and cut to shape, and passes the makings clockwise to the rest, including women.[100] His own made, the fireman presents the smokestick to the leader (who may first offer it courteously to his drummer) and this too is passed to the left. While all smoke, the leader prays: “beha´be sęį´ᴅɔki (smoke, peyote power). Be with us when we pray tonight. Tell your father to look at us and listen to our prayers.” He holds his cigarette mouth end toward the peyote and motions upward that it may smoke as he prays: