Part 7

[17] Hoebel, _Comanche Field Notes_; Voegelin, _Shawnee Field Notes_. The Iowa Red Bean medicine bundle was used for war, horse stealing, hunting and horse racing (Skinner, _Ethnology of the Ioway Indians_, 245-47, _Societies of the Iowa_, 718-19). A similar mescal war bundle and cult was present among the neighboring and related Oto. The Red Medicine bundles of the Pawnee contained mescal beans likewise; indeed the Pawnee are thought to be the origin of the Iowa bundle and associated war-dance. The Pawnee “kill” the beans by breaking and stirring them in a large kettle, drinking the concoction toward morning until they vomit, to “clean out” the body. There is an unmistakable similarity to the “black drink” ritual vomiting here (see Appendix 4).

[18] Mulato, sunami, and rosapara cacti, however, protect against Apache machinations; Mooney (_Tarumari-Guayachic_) cites a Chalája arroyo near Conaguchi (from chärä or chälä, “squirrel,” the epithet of witches) where witches were formerly burned; cf. the use of the squirrel-fetish in the Tarahumari peyote ritual. In Tamaulipas intertribal peace was so precarious that peyote mitotes were commonly held in remote and inaccessible intermediate mountain regions; the recital of war deeds was sometimes part of the rite (Prieto, in Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_). De la Serna (in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 310) describes the use of teo-nanacatl in witching. For Tarahumari witching with hikuli see Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:314, 323-24, 371-72.

[19] A favorite diversion of witches to weaken the leader was to make his assistants vomit (Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_). My Kiowa companion vomited in a Ponca meeting, the first he had ever attended in that tribe. He attributed it to their unfriendly feeling and felt considerably relieved when we visited next morning a meeting held by old friends among the Oto; but he himself had once witched a Comanche in a meeting (_Autobiography of a Kiowa Indian_). Tonkawa data is from Opler, _Autobiography of a Chiricahua Apache_. The exploits of the Kiowa witch Tonakat have already been mentioned. The Comanche “used it in the old times, but not rightly; the medicine men used it for sorcery, so people got scared and stopped using it” (Hoebel, _Comanche Field Notes_). Among the Cheyenne, Flacco and Cloud Chief strongly opposed the introduction of peyote; the former said “it was used to witch people and make them crazy.” The Northern Cheyenne (Hoebel, _Field Notes_) and Lipan (Opler, _The Use of Peyote_) and Winnebago “fear states” may have a physiological basis.

Mrs. Voegelin (_Shawnee Field Notes_) quotes an informant: “Wilson showed them how to swallow mescal beads.... N. S. didn’t go; she was afraid of them. The Delaware had it too; she never wanted to go look. John Wilson also taught them how to shoot a person with red beads two inches long; the person would fall down, hard; then John Wilson doctored on them with medicine. [Several Shawnee] crept up in the grass when the Quapaws were holding a Ghost Dance once, at night. S’s wife got shot.... Finally some one spoke to John Wilson, ‘You men, you abuse the women.’ An old Peoria woman who went all the time, and swallowed those red beads—she was kind of crazy—told Wilson that. The agent finally stopped it.... When they were shot, John Wilson used peyote to bring them back.”

[20] Alegre, _Historia de la Compañía_, 2:219-20; Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 131. It is not proven that peyote applied externally has an anaesthetic or anodyne action (the Zacatecan use in the childbirth ceremony is internal); but natives recognize the ability of peyote to induce a stuporous state. The Aztec (Gerste, _Notes sur le médicine_, 51) used peyote to stupify sacrificial victims. But peyote does not cause sleepiness, and the following Maratine Indian battle song (in Prieto, _op. cit._, 119-20; Mooney, _Peyote Notebook_) should perhaps be translated “become stuporous:” “The women and ourselves shouting with pleasure, Shall drink peyote and shall fall asleep.” For Opata data see Ensayo, in Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_; for Lipan see Opler, _The Use of Peyote_.

[21] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 59; Flores, in Urbina, _El Peyote y el Ololiuhqui_, 26; Rouhier (_Monographie_, 96) adds the Caxcane use “for swellings and spasms”; Hernandez, _De Historia Plantarum_, 3:70; Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 295; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 294; Hrdlička, _Physiological and Medical Observations_, 173, 242, 244, 250, 251; Lumholtz, _The Huichol_, 9; _Unknown Mexico_, 2:241-42.

[22] Would pupil-dilation from peyote cause temporary “cures” satisfying the uncritical?

[23] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 183, 196; Mooney, _The Mescal Plant_, 9. Lumholtz (_Unknown Mexico_, 2:157) himself confidently prescribed peyote for a scorpion-sting.

[24] Beals, _Comparative Ethnology_, 131 (Acaxee); Rouhier, _Monographie_, 12, fn. 3 (Tlaxcala). The Kiowa witch Tonakat fixed a fireplace in the form of a turtle, the source of his power, and used a meeting once for shamanistic display, being shot with a cartridge and remaining unharmed, etc. A Caddo-Delaware tells of a famous Kiowa doctor who used similar tricks in doctoring a woman. He held a black handkerchief over her to see the location of the disease, dipped a feather in water, cut the skin and removed two 1½″ bugs, the wound healing immediately. Both popped when thrown into the fire, thus prognosticating her recovery from a twenty years’ illness. Wild Horse (Caddo-Delaware) said doctors did “wizard sleight-of-hand tricks” in meetings; “some Indians can make you believe you see things.” Some Tonkawa who visited the Kiowa about 1890 performed tricks in meeting like eating fire (Mooney, _Peyote Notebook_).

[25] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:241-42.

[26] The suppression of peyote was sought under an act of Jan. 30, 1897 (29 Stat. 506), Sect. 6 of the Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906 (34 Stat. 768-72), Sect. 11 of the same act, and Service and Regulatory Announcement No. 13, Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry (issued May 3, 1915)—all without success. Specific Federal anti-peyote bills were next attempted: Senate 1862 (65th Congress 1st Sess. Apr. 17, 1917), House of Representatives 10669 (64th Congress 1st Sess.), House of Representatives 4999 (65th Congress 1st Sess. June 12, 1917), House of Representatives 2614 (65th Congress 2nd Sess. May 13, 1918-Oct. 7, 1918). These all failed of passing. An anti-peyote proviso attached as a rider to Appropriations bill House of Representatives 8696 of March 28, 1918 was deleted before passage, under pressure from a powerful and alert Indian lobby. Later bills were House of Representatives 398 (66th Congress 1st Sess.), House of Representatives 2071 (about March 29, 1924), House of Representatives 5057 (not passed by Senate, but amended as:) House of Representatives 5078 (about Jan. 24, 1924, 68th Congress 1st Sess.)—all defeated. The Senate bill 1399 of Feb. 8, 1937 is pending at the present writing.

State laws against peyote have been more successful. The Oklahoma law of March 11, 1899 was automatically repealed by omission in the codification of the state laws; the Darnell bill of 1927 was defeated April 13, 1927. The following states have anti-peyote laws: Colorado (before 1923), Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana (by 1925), Nebraska, Nevada (by 1918), New Mexico, North Dakota (before 1923), South Dakota, Utah (before 1918), and Wyoming (1929). The Native American Church is incorporated in Oklahoma and Montana, however, under state charters.

[27] The trip is made after the rainy season and the corn harvest (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:127); the roasting of corn is of equal ritual importance with the hikuli-harvest and the deer-hunt: the three, indeed, deer, corn and peyote are symbolically the same (Lumholtz _op. cit._, 2:156, 279).

[28] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:82, 126-27, 141, 157, 271, 272; _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:576-77; Klineberg, _Notes on the Huichol_, 449. For the gourd-symbolism see also Lumholtz, _op. cit_., 2:57-58, 129, 220; for the arrows, _Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:663.

[29] Cf. the universal corn shuck cigarette of Plains peyotism (a region of deep-rooted pipe ceremonialism), a remarkable case of culture-continuity.

[30] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:129-35.

[31] Lumholtz, _The Huichol_, 8; _Unknown Mexico_, 2:129-32, 141, 277-78; for the use of the water see 2:57-58, 220.

[32] Cf. the Plains mode of preparing the meat, though the memory of the meaning of this feature (like the corn shuck cigarette and ritual parched corn) is long since gone.

[33] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:132-35, 153, 156, 189, 271. The triple corn-deer-peyote symbolism is completed when the women grind peyote on a metate.

[34] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:54, 272, 273-74. Cf. the Plains “fire-stick” and fire-arrangement.

[35] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:29-31, 142-44, 149-50.

[36] Spanish friars came in after 1722, but Huichol peyotism is almost wholly free of Christian beliefs (_Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:576-77). Even the “baptism” rite is probably native.

[37] Klineberg (_Notes on the Huichol_, 449) mentions special dances led by “angels” the next day—a boy and a girl dressed in their finest. It is not clear if this refers to the dance leaders or to the ceremonial “race for life” with the eating of cake-animals and spraying of the runners by the elders. But elsewhere Lumholtz describes a dance with carved bamboo serpent-sticks, deer-tails on short sticks, and whiskbroom “combs” (_Unknown Mexico_ 2:49-50).

[38] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:272, 274-75.

[39] But the whole peyote ritual might be divided into (1) the trip for hikuli, (2) the deer hunt, and (3) the roasting of corn, though peyote-deer-corn are symbolically identical.

[40] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:279. Tamaulipecan peyotism is similarly a hunting and first-fruits ceremony.

[41] “The idea of the antlers being arrows readily occurred to the Huichol, since they are the animal’s weapon of attack and defence” (Lumholtz, _Symbolism of the Huichol_, 69).

[42] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:7-8, 56, 172-73, 201-203; _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:663b; _Symbolism of the Huichol_, 42, 66, 71, 174; _The Huichol_, 10.

[43] Bits of deer meat, corn-tamales and strung peyote-plants are treated with exactly equivalent ritual. In the peyote dance serpent-sticks are thrust into the air (like prayer sticks, praying for rain?), and small whisks made of materials brought from the hikuli-country represent deer-tails. In the origin legend, peyote first arose in the tracks of a gigantic deer; indeed, when the gods first used peyote they ground deer-antlers on a metate with water to make an intoxicant, just as peyote is ground to make “tea” and corn to make tesvino. The fire is built in a special way suggesting deer-antlers or the god-chairs. Arrows as definitely symbolize prayer as the prayer sticks of the Southwest. The poker or fire-arrow of Grandfather Fire is smeared with blood and decorated with plumes; it is his “pillow” and the rest of the sticks are his “chair.” (One “appearance” of the god is a heart, modelled of the paste of the sacred wáve seed toasted and ground like corn, and renewed in the god-house every five years.) Facial paintings of the Huichol are called úra, “spark,” being made of a yellow root dug in the peyote country when the hikuli is gathered; yellow particularly symbolizes the fire gods, of whom there are two. Tatévali, “Grandfather Fire,” is the god of prophesying and curing shamans whose birds are the macao, royal eagle, cardinal bird, etc. The other, Tatótsi Mára Kwári, “Greatgrandfather Deer-tail,” is the god of singing-shamans, whose bird is the white-tailed hawk. Their relationship is peculiar: Greatgrandfather Deer-tail, the symbol of fertility, is the son of Grandfather Fire, from whose plumes he sprang. Lumholtz (_Symbolism of the Huichol_, 10-11) explains the difficulty by indicating that the former represents a spark, the latter a fire fed by wood.

[44] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, ix, 136, 291-92; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_; Lumholtz, _Tarahumari Dances_, 453; _Unknown Mexico_, 1:362.

[45] Bennett and Zingg, _op. cit._, 292; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:363. The rasp is not used in the fiesta on returning from the trip, but in later ones.

[46] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:171-72, 343-44, 363-64. The shaman’s women assistants are called rokoro, “stamens”; he is the pistil—a botanically erroneous symbolism, however.

[47] The Tarahumari rasp is definitely associated with peyotism, indicating (Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 71) a Huichol provenience; but they list rasps for the Cora, Mayo, Pima (“rain sticks”), Hopi (in the kachina dance) and N. Paiute (to charm antelope into a corral). The rasp is not exclusively Uto-Aztecan however; it occurs for the Wichita, Hidatsa, Salinan, and archaeologically in Illinois. Tarahumari Brazil-wood rasps are brought from the hikuli-country.

[48] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:313, 363-66; Bennett and Zingg, _op. cit._, 293; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_.

[49] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:367-69, 371; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 293. Near Eagle Pass a folk-Catholic saint is El Santo Niño de Jesús Peyotes, whose attributes are a staff, gourd, feathered hat and basket similar to but distinct from El Santo Niño de Atoche. In Mexican legend he is a little boy; his statue is in the cathedral or cathedral square at Rosales, Mexico. Another attribute is said to be the crescent moon.

[50] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:292-93, 314, 344, 347-48, 371-72, 384; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 294. The ceremony is called napítshi nawlíruga, “moving (dancing) around the fire” (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:364). In the dry season the Tarahumari dance the yumari almost nightly to the Morning Star, and sacrifice tesvino to the sun; a man is often deputed to do the dance alone while the others work in the fields, to bring rain (Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 1:352). The Morning Star is important in the Cora rite too (Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 1:344; Preuss, _Nayarit-Expedition_, _passim_) as well as figuring in Plains peyotism, though somewhat vaguely.

[51] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:357-58, 444; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 360, 366-67, 379, 383.

[52] Beals, _Comparative Ethnology_, 131. He adds, though, that “This [use] may also be aboriginal, and very probably dates back to the separation of the Huichol from their peyote-using relatives, the Guachachiles.” He cites Thomas and Swanton (_Indian Languages_, 22) but evidence is meagre. For the Cora we have Ortega (in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 295, and _Narcotic Plants_, 402): “Close to the musician was seated the leader of the singing whose business it was to mark the time. Each of these had his assistants to take his place when he should become fatigued.... They began forming as large a circle as could occupy the space of ground that had been swept off for this purpose. One after the other went dancing in a ring or marking time with their feet, keeping in the middle the musician and the choirmaster whom they invited, and singing in the same unmusical tone that he set them. They would dance all night from five o’clock in the evening to seven o’clock in the morning, without stopping or leaving the circle. When the dance was ended all stood who could hold themselves on their feet; for the majority from the peyote and the wine which they drank were unable to utilize their legs or hold themselves upright.”

[53] Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24.

[54] Beals, _Comparative Ethnology_, 131.

[55] Sahagún, _Historia general_, 3:241 (Chichimeca); Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 119-20, cites a Maratine Indian (Tamaulipecan) peyote song referring to war. Arlegui, in Urbina, _El Peyote y el Ololiuhqui_, 26; see also Rouhier, _op. cit._, 12, note 3, 96, 331, note 3; Alegre, in Urbina, _op. cit._, 26; Preuss, _Die Nayarit-Expedition_, 39. The Morning Star is the principal Cora god (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:511, see also _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:348a). Elder Brother among the Huichol is the god of wind and hikuli (Lumholtz, _Symbolism of the Huichol_, 42). The Tarahumari dance yumari for the Morning Star (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:344). In the Plains the drum-lacing signifies the Morning Star. Spier (_Yuman Tribes_, 165) writes: “[The battle leader’s] song first described the morning star, ‘big star,’ which in some unidentified way is connected with war. Just what was his function in battle was not ascertained.” He also dreamed he saw cacti fighting like men.

[56] Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_; Sahagún, _Historia general_, 3:118; Ortega, _Historia del Nayarit_, 22-23; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:367-68, 2:274-75; Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24.

[57] Racing (Tarahumari, Huichol, Tamaulipas, Acaxee): Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:284-85, 2:49-50; Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24; Beals, _The Acaxee_, 8.

[58] Beals (_Comparative Ethnology_, 127, 141, 211-12) lists it for Southern Mexico, Jalisco-Tepic, Southwest.

[59] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:362, 2:54; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 295. See also Wissler, _The American Indian_, 213; _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:604b. In the Plains some tribes differentiated twigs and leaves as male and female.

[60] The Tarahumari feast for the moon involves smoking to make clouds (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:130; _Tarahumari Dances_, 441). The Huichol carry “tamale” cigarettes in their gourds and offer them to Grandfather Fire.

[61] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 67; Beals, _Aboriginal Survivals_, 32; Russell, _The Pima_, 168; Spier, _Havasupai Ethnography_, 272; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:313; Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_, _The Use of Peyote_; Sayles, _An Archaeological Survey_, Table 2; Oliver, in Gatschet, _The Karankawa Indians_, 18; Gatschet, in Swadesh, _Chitamacha Texts_; Kroeber, _The Seri_, 14, 42; Roberts, _Musical Areas_, 21; Paz, _Koasati Field Notes_; Bartram, _Travels_, 502; Speck, _Yuchi_, 61.

[62] Tarahumari officials are called igúsuame, “stick-bearers” (Bennett and Zingg, _op. cit._, 375-76) but this may be an Hispanicism. However, Aztec merchants (Sahagún) carried staffs. But so far as the peyote ritual is concerned, the staff is not mentioned for the Cora-Huichol or Tarahumari; and the various names for the peyote staff in the Plains suggests either an indigenous or a Southwestern, not a Mexican, origin.

[63] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumari_, 71, 293-94; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:366-67. The Tarahumari hunter used a notched deer-bone rasp. The Cora, Mayo, and Pima, Hopi and Northern Paiute suggest a general Uto-Aztecan occurrence of the trait, but the rasp, is also Wichita, Hidatsa.

[64] Prieto, _Historia y Estadistica_, 123-24. See the Plains section for discussion of drums.

[65] A little white flower, tōtó, of the wet corn-producing season symbolizes corn for the Huichol and is a prayer for it, being plastered on women’s cheeks, woven in girdles, etc. (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 229-30). The Tamaulipecan rite celebrates the harvest and deer-hunting as well as war; the Tepehuane all-night rite with a mimicry of deer-hunting ends with a feast on the first “toasted corn” of the season (Lumholtz, 1:479). Acaxee corn toasted on the ear was the usual food on war-parties (Beals, 10). Concerning the standardized parched-corn in sugar-water of the Plains, note that the Aztec made offerings of toasted corn (sometimes with honey), and to the culture-hero Opuchtli offered mumuchtli “a sort of corn which when toasted opens up and shows the white marrow [popcorn] forming a very white flower. They said this represented hail, which is attributed to the water gods.” (Sahagún, _A History of Ancient Mexico_, 1:36, 40, 87.)

[66] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 138, 295; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:357-58 (wherein all but the last named are cacti), 2:124-25 (Tepecano). The accepted etymology of teo-nanacatl, “divine mushroom,” suggests the same attitude; in the Antilles “among the most prominent of the plants worshipped ... [are] mushrooms, pines, opuntias, zapos, and zeybas.” (Rafinesque, cited in Bourke, _Scatological Rites_, 91; but Rafinesque is an undependable authority). The Cherokee called casine yapon (the “black drink”) “the beloved tree” (Bartram, _Travels_, 357). It is also said that in Virginia toadstools were an object of worship because of their mysterious growth (Bourke, _ibid._). In Peru coca was looked on with veneration and suppliants must approach priests only with some in their mouths. Compare the use and attitudes toward tobacco, mescal beans, datura, guarana paste, cohoba, chocolate (_Theobroma cacao_), aya-huasca, yahé, etc.

[67] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:172-73, 207, 263 ff. The Huichol had hikuli-shields; curiously, Crow-Neck (Kiowa) about 1860 made a peyote shield according to a vision he had at Mescalero, but he threw it away when he was captured on his first fight in Mexico. The Kiowa, however, had heraldic shield-societies before peyote, of which this is probably an aberrant example. (For the bird and arrow equation see Spier, _Yuman Tribes_, 331, Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 2:201-202.) See also Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 1:313, 323-24, 371-72; _Tarahumari Dances_, 452.

[68] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumari_, 294.

[69] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:311, writes: “Without his shaman the Tarahumare would feel lost, both in this life and after death. The shaman is his priest and physician. He performs all the ceremonies and conducts all the dances and feasts by which the gods are propitiated and evil is averted, doing all the singing, praying, and sacrificing. By this means, and by instructing the people what to do to make it rain, and secure other benefits, he maintains good terms for them with their deities, who are jealous of man and bear him ill-will. He is also on the alert to keep those under his care from sorcery, illness, and other evil that may befall them ... the Tarahumare ... keeps his doctor busy curing him, not only to make his body strong to resist illness, but chiefly to ward off sorcery, the main source of trouble in the Indian’s life.”

[70] Beals, _Comparative Ethnology_, 128.

[71] This entire section is summarized from data collected by M. E. Opler. I gratefully acknowledge the courtesy and generosity of his lending me the article _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_ before publication, as well as _The Autobiography of a Chiricahua Apache_, and unpublished notes on Lipan, Tonkawa and Carrizo peyotism; it would be difficult to establish Mexican-Plains continuities without these invaluable data and the warm coöperation of Dr. Opler.

[72] The Mescalero are listed neither in Shonle (_Peyote: The Giver of Visions_, 53-75) nor in Newberne and Burke, _Peyote_. Mescalero peyotism, like Tarahumari, is on the decline.

[73] The Lipan make a smoke and pray when the first plant is found; they are hard to find unless one eats one, then “a noise like the wind” comes, and one by one the plants appear “just like stars.” Only the tops are cut off.

[74] Though this was general in Mescalero ceremonialism, they also controlled the weather thus, found lost objects, located the enemy, etc.; a Chiricahua prayed for health, in the name of Yuan and Child of the Water. The Lipan formerly did not use it for doctoring apparently. The Tonkawa, according to Mooney, performed shamanistic tricks in peyote meetings; and a Carrizo chief, for example, filled the tipi once with down-feathers blown from his mouth, then sucked them all in save one which he gave to a Lipan visitor. Others made a bear, turtle, and buffalo, etc., appear.