A
Brief History of the Native American Church
by Jay Fikes
from One Nation Under God
Copyright (c) 1996 by Huston Smith
Used by the Council on Spiritual Practices with permission. All rights
reserved.
Veneration of the small spineless cactus called peyote probably began
immediately after the first hunter-gatherers discovered its remarkable
effects. The Native American deification of the plant is estimated to be about
10,000 years old. Peyote cactus buttons uncovered in Shumla Cave in southern
Texas have been radiocarbon dated to 5,000 B.C. The Huichol Indians of
northwestern Mexico still use peyote sacramentally. Their peyote pilgrimage
may have been in place by 200 A.D. Scholars consider it the oldest
sacramental use of peyote in North America.
Huichols revere Peyote as the heart, soul, and memory of their Creator,
Deer-Person. Huichol healers and singers achieve such union with their
Creator, as incarnated in Peyote, that Peyote speaks through them, as here:
If you come to know me intimately, you shall be like me and feel like I do.
Although you may not see me, I shall always be your elder brother. I am
called the flower of Deer-Person. Have no fear, for I shall always be the
flower of God.(1)
Deer-Person, the supreme teacher of the Huichol, teaches songs, reveals
himself to shamanic healers through his Peyote spirit, and punishes those who
violate his moral precepts. "It is because of the wisdom of Deer-Person,"
we are told, "that shamans exist. That is how we Huichols are able to
diagnose diseases with our visionary ability and soul, which are the eyes of
Deer-Person. That is our method of curing."(2)
Huichol Peyote rituals have profound roots in the archaic hunter's view of
the world. Huichols follow strict rules when they pilgrimage to collect the
sacred plant in the high desert nearly 400 kilometers northeast of their
homeland. They publicly confess their sexual transgressions and abstain from
sex and salt. They testify that the Creator was destined to take the form of
deer and Peyote. Because Peyote embodies the spirit, and is the heart of
Deer-Person, they must hunt him with arrows. When they eat his heart,
incarnated in the Peyote actus, they eat it raw, honoring the precedent set
by their elder brothers, the immortal wolves. To commemorate the wolves
eating the deer raw,
our Peyote hunters must do likewise when they eat his heart (Peyote). As the
deer escaped from the ancestor-deities, he took the form of Peyote there in
huiricuta (the holyland where Peyote is collected). Peyote grows in clusters
which resemble the shape of a deer. That is why we shoot it with our
arrows.(3)
Huichol religion parallels Christianity in that the Creator, out of
compassion for his people, subjects himself to the limitations of this world.
In Christianity he incarnates himself as a man who dies but is resurrected to
save human beings; in Huichol belief he dies and is reborn in the Peyote
plant to give his people wisdom. The Aztec are the cultural cousins of the
Huichol, and their word peyotl or peyutl
denotes the pericardium, the envelope or covering of the heart. This
corresponds strictly to the Huichol belief that Peyote embodies the Creator's
heart
From the very beginning, immigrants to the New World have misunderstood the
Native American adoration of peyote. In 1620, sixty years after the
sacramental use of peyote was first reported by the Franciscan Friar Sahagun,
the Spanish Inquisition denounced it as diabolic and made its use illegal.
Inquisitional persecution of Mexican Indian peyotists included torture and
death.
We have many early, brief descriptions of peyote use among natives of
northwestern Mexico, and two Inquisition reports from Santa Fe, New Mexico,
which document peyote's use in divination, showing that by 1630 it was
already being used five hundred miles north of its natural habitat. Serious
study of its use, however, did not begin until the 1890s, when James Mooney,
an anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institution, researched Peyote
meetings among the Kiowa in Oklahoma. From there he went on to study Peyote
rituals on other reservations as well as its use by the Tarahumara in Mexico.
In 1918, after testifying in favor of Native American peyotists at Congressional
hearings, Mooney advised peyotists of various Oklahoma tribes to obtain a
legal charter to protect their religious freedom. With Mooney's help and
encouragement, the Native American Church was officially incorporated in
1918.
The exact route and time of diffusion of what is today the Native American
Church of North America is unclear. All available evidence suggests that the
Carrizo culture, which once occupied the area that extends from Laredo to the
Gulf of Mexico in what is now Texas, was instrumental in developing Peyote
meetings among Native Americans who resided there. Carrizo Peyote rituals
that were observed in 1649 included all-night dancing around a fire, but with
no tepee. The western neighbors of the Carrizo, the Lipan Apache, seemed to have
transformed the Carrizo ceremony before teaching it to the Kiowa,
Kiowa-Apache, and Comanche.
Peyote was accepted as a remedy and inspiration by members of many Oklahoma
tribes during an era of agonizing cultural disintegration, which reached a
peak during the 1880s. By 1874, the Kiowa and Comanche, once proud warriors
of the southern Plains, were confined to reservations in Oklahoma. The loss
of liberty intrinsic to reservation life brought great pain and suffering to
all Native Americans. Perhaps because it provided a powerful alternative to
both ancient tribal religions and missionary-controlled versions of
Christianity, the Peyote religion spread like wildfire. In the 1880s, two new
religious movements were popular among Native Americans. One, the Ghost
Dance, tried to renew the old ways. Following the Wounded Knee Massacre of
1890, the Ghost Dance practically disappeared. The other, the Peyote
religion, allowed members to establish a new identity which combined
aboriginal and Christian elements. Except for the secular pow-wow, Peyote
meetings are now the most popular Native American gatherings.
The Peyote meeting is a genuinely intertribal institution. Reservations
established in Indian territory, which subsequently became the State of
Oklahoma, contained tribes that had formerly been scattered across the
country. In the early 1880s, after the railroads reached Laredo, Texas, in
the heart of the area where peyote is gathered, the stage was set for rapid
communication between Oklahoma tribes and all other Native Americans. The
railroads made it easier for Native Americans to obtain their sacrament and
share their religious traditions.
The most famous of all Oklahoma peyotists was Quanah Parker, a Comanche, who
helped bring Half Moon style Peyote meetings to members of the Delaware,
Caddo, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ponca, Oto, Pawnee, Osage, and other tribes. Half
Moon meetings have remained freer of Christian infusions than have those of
the Big Moon branch of the Church which a Caddo, John Wilson, pioneered in
disseminating. By 1910, both of these styles of meetings had spread far
beyond the Oklahoma reservations where they originated.
As soon as Christian missionaries became aware of the sacramental use of
peyote on their reservations they began to agitate against it. First in
Oklahoma and later elsewhere, Indian agents joined the missionaries in
lobbying to outlaw the substance. The Indians bravely defended their
religious freedom in their respective states and in Congress. One of the most
eloquent of these defenders was Albert Hensley, a Winnebago educated at the
Carlisle Indian School. By 1908, Hensley and the Winnebago had come to regard
Peyote as both a Holy Medicine and a Christian sacrament. "To us it is a
portion of the body of Christ," Hensley said, "even as the
communion bread is believed to be a portion of Christ's body by other
Christian denominations. Christ spoke of a Comforter who was to come. It
never came to Indians until it was sent by God in the form of this Holy
Medicine."(4)
Descriptions of still-existing Peyote rituals that are essentially free of
Christian admixtures - those of the Tepehuan, Cora, Huichol, and Tarahumara
tribes in Mexico, for example - hint of pre-Columbian origins of contemporary
Church meetings, for anthropologists can point to aboriginal counterparts for
virtually all of the sacred artifacts that the Native American Church uses.
Sacramental smoking of tobacco wrapped in corn husks, the staff of authority,
feather fans, gourd rattles, incense, a central fireplace, and emphasis on
the four cardinal directions all have their parallels in Mexican Peyote
rituals that continue today. Some features of Mexican Peyote rituals, however
- outdoor dancing and elaborate ritual pilgrimages to collect peyote are
examples - have disappeared or were diluted as Peyote meetings moved north
into the Plains. Christian doctrine has gradually redefined the meaning of
many ancient sacred artifacts. To cite a single instance , in Big Moon (also
called Cross Fire) meetings where Christian infusions are most in evidence,
sacred tobacco is no longer used as a catalyst for prayer; the Bible has
replaced it. Despite such differences, the Cross Fire still shares a common
ceremonial core with the Half Moon rituals.
Today the Native American Church of North America has eighty chapters and
members belonging to some seventy Native American Nations. In the continental
United States, every state west of the Mississippi has at least one chapter.
The steady proliferation of its membership among diverse North American
tribes has made it Native America's largest religious organization. Its total
membership is estimated to be around 250,000.
Singing occupies about sixty percent of the Church's devotional ritual. Each
of about twenty-five worshipers has ample opportunity to sing to the
accompaniment of a gourd rattle and small drum that is pounded rapidly.
Singing is often in the local Native American language, but English phrases
like "Jesus only" and "He's the Savior" are likely to
erupt. Worshipers sing, drum, pray, meditate, and consume peyote during
all-night meetings. Most meetings are held for healing, baptism, funerals,
and birthdays.
Peyote is regarded as a gift from God. It counters the craving for alcohol
and is not eaten to induce visions. It heals and teaches righteousness. It is
eaten, or consumed as a tea, according to a formal ritual. Reverently, it is
passed clockwise around the circle of church members a number of times in the
course of all-night prayer vigils.
The Church has no professional, paid clergy. Members are free to interpret
Bible passages according to their own understanding. Morality is basically
Christian and stresses the need to abstain from alcohol and be faithful to
one's spouse. Other prominent values include truthfulness, fulfilling one's
family obligations, economic self-sufficiency, praying for the sick, and
praying for peace.
NOTES
1.
Quoted
in Jay C. Fikes, Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism, and the
Psychedelic Sixties (Victoria, B.C.: Millenia Press,
1993), 235.
2.
Ibid.,
193.
3.
Ibid.,
195.
4.
Quoted
in Omer C. Stewart, Peyote Religion: A History
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 157.
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