RUSSELL, FRANK. "The Pima." In Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. .1904-1905.

STEVENSON, MATILDA COXE. "The Sia." In Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. . . . 1889-90.

VOTH, H. R. "The Oraibi Powamu Ceremony." Field Columbian Museum, Anthropological Series, vol. 3, number 2.

WISSLER, CLARK. "The American Indian." New York, 1920.

STATE TEACHers' College,

FRESNO, CALIFORNIA.

PEYOTE, THE GIVER OF VISIONS

BY RUTH SHONLE

I

W

HEN THE Spanish fathers first walked among the Indians in Mexico, they were disturbed by the use which the Indians made in their ceremonies of a small plant, which the Spaniards thought was a dried mushroom. This plant has since been identified as peyote (Lophophora williamsii), a small spineless cactus indigenous to the lower valley of the Rio Grande, especially on the Mexican side.1 When eaten in the fresh or dried state, this cactus causes a kind of intoxication and, more important to the Indians, color visions.2 This mysterious and seemingly magical vision-giving power and the curative properties which peyote is believed to possess have made it the center of elaborate religious ceremonies. For many years-even centuries— these ceremonies were confined to tribes whose wanderings carried them through or near the peyote country. But since about 1890 the ceremonial use of peyote has spread among the Indians as far north as the Sioux and Chippewa and west to the Ute. The ceremony has been incorporated into the cycle of tribal ceremonies, in some cases even displacing them. The cult can no longer be disregarded in a study of significant tribal ceremonies, nor should the opportunity be foregone to discover the factors which have favored the recent diffusion and the extent to which an intrusive cult is modified in the process of its adoption.

The information upon which this study is based has been obtained from three sources: anthropological studies of specific 1 Safford, Narcotic Plants and Stimulants of the Ancient Americans, p. 399. Safford, An Aztec Narcotic, pp. 299-300.

2 "The physiological action of peyote may be divided into a preliminary stage and a stage of intoxication. In the preliminary stage there is excitement, a feeling of exhilaration, and a diminished power to perceive the sensation of movement, performances involving effort being hardly noticed... The stage of intoxication is characterized by an inclination to lie down, although there is never a tendency to sleep." Newberne and Burke, Peyote, an Abridged Compilation, p. 20, quoting Dr. Walter E. Dixon.

tribes; correspondence with agents in charge of reservations; and correspondence with Indian peyote users. These sources have yielded a considerable mass of material, but even so there are uncertainties and gaps which can be filled only by increased attention to the peyote ceremonies on the part of those in the field.

II

The origin of the use of peyote by the Mexican Indians is lost in the past. Various writers record its use among the Aztec in the sixteenth century; the Chichimeca before 15694; the Cora Indians as early as 17545 and as recently as 18996; the Huichol, Tepecano and Tepehuane in 18997 and the Tarahumare' for the same period. The Comanche and Kiowa were initiated into its use prior to 1891.9 The Mescalero and Tonkawan Indians are credited with being the intermediary agents between the Mexican Indians and the Comanche and Kiowa,10 but this link in the chain has become traditional and cannot be asserted with assurance. But it seems relatively certain that peyote was carried no further north than the Comanche and Kiowa until after 1890; nor does it seem to have ever been used by the Indians of the Southwest. The Oto Indians also received peyote from the Tonkawans, but at a later date (1893-96). Of other tribes of the same region, Mooney is

"The production of visions is the most interesting of the physiological effects of peyote. The visions ranged from ill-defined flashes of color to most beautiful figures, forms, landscapes, dances-in fact, there seemed to be absolutely no limit to the variety of visions.” Ibid., p. 21, quoting Doctors D. W. Prentiss and Francis P. Morgan.

Safford, Narcotic Plants and Stimulants of the Ancient Americans, pp. 404-05, quoting Sahagun, Hist. Nueva España.

Ibid., p. 399, quoting Sahagun.

'Ibid., p. 402, quoting Ortega, Historia del Nayarit.

Safford, An Aztec Narcotic, p. 305, from Diguet, La Sierra du Nayarit et ses Indigènes.

1 Ibid.

Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, pp. 361 ff.

9 Peyote, Hearing before a subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs, pp. 63, 70, quoting James Mooney.

10 Ibid.

"Information given by Richard Shunatona, Pawnee, Okla., and Charles Whitehorn, Red Rock, Okla.

(1900-08)

reported as saying that "in 1890 the Caddo and Wichita were little acquainted with peyote, and only one man in the Arapaho knew anything about it," the same being true also of the Cheyenne.12 But from this date on the spread was rapid. The Delaware learned the peyote ceremony from the Caddo in the years between 1890 and 1892,13 at the same time that the Quapaw passed their knowledge of it on to the Pawnee. 14 By 1905 not only did most of the tribes on the reservations in Oklahoma have a group of peyote users, but the Northern Arapaho had begun to use it and a few years later the Winnebago and Omaha had learned the ceremony and transmitted it to the Sioux, who in their turn gave it to the Ute. A glance at the attached table and the map15 indicates that the Kiowa have been the main agents in disseminating the peyote cult, although the Winnebagos have been active and there is scarcely a tribe, except the most recent acquirers of the cult, which has not given the ceremony to some neighboring tribe. The connection with Mexican tribes has been completely lost, although the peyote plant still comes from that region, and the tribes now stationed in Oklahoma have become the center for diffusion of the cult through the North American tribes. How great the separation is from the Mexican tribes and how close the connection is between the Plains Tribes will come out more clearly in the discussion of the ceremonies used.

More important perhaps than the dates are the factors which have caused the recent spurt in the diffusion of peyote. In the four hundred years prior to 1890 that the Indians have been known to white men, and one can only guess at how many centuries before, peyote spread at most to only five or six tribes

12 Peyote, Hearing before a subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs, p. 71, quoting James Mooney.

13 Harrington, Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape, p. 185.

14 Murie, Pawnee Indian Societies, p. 636.

15 The map shows (1) the number of reservations upon which peyote is used; (2) the percentage of Indians on each reservation using peyote (it should be noted that relative numbers of users from reservation to reservation are not shown, but that each reservation is used as an independent group-unit); (3) lines of diffusion. The data is based on reservations rather than on tribes because information was available for the former and not for the latter and because the diffusion of peyote is in part a reservation phenomenon.