Chapter I: Part 1

Transcriber’s Note: The author’s citations of works published in languages other than English are sometimes inaccurately spelt. In addition, he uses a mixture of standard and nonstandard IPA symbols to transcribe words in the Kiowa and other Native American languages; these are preserved as originally printed.

THE PEYOTE CULT

BY
WESTON LA BARRE
_Professor of Anthropology
Duke University_

REPRINTED BY
THE SHOE STRING PRESS, INC.
Hamden, Connecticut
1959

© 1959, THE SHOE STRING PRESS, INC.

Originally published as
Yale University Publications
in Anthropology
NUMBER 19
Reprinted by permission of the Department of Anthropology,
Yale University

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

The field work which is a partial basis of this study was begun in the summer of 1935, when the writer was a member of the Laboratory of Anthropology at Santa Fé ethnological group which worked with the Kiowa under Dr. Alexander Lesser of Columbia University. The field work was continued alone in the summer of 1936 with funds granted by Yale University and the American Museum of Natural History. Field data were gathered with varying completeness from fifteen tribes: Kiowa, Comanche, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Osage, Quapaw, Seminole, Delaware, Pawnee, Cheyenne, Caddo, Oto, Ponca, Kiowa Apache and Wichita; in the case of the Kiowa, Oto, and Wichita two peyote meetings each were attended.

The debt to my almost constant field companion, Charles Apekaum (Kiowa), game warden, ex-Navy man, graduate of Chilocco, Haskell, and Carlisle, and my chief interpreter, is such that I may say my work could not have been carried out with such comparative facility and speed without his aid. His knowledge of people and places was invaluable to me. Special appreciation is expressed to Mr. Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne) of Thomas, Oklahoma, several times state president of the Native American Church, for lending me numerous letters and other documents from the official files of the organization, and to Jim Waldo (Kiowa) and Kiowa Charley for similar documents, including the articles of incorporation and state charter. To Jim Pettit (Oto) of Red Rock, local president of the Native American Church, and Charles Tyner (Quapaw) of Miami, the added debt of personal hospitality was incurred. The following informants were of particular help in gathering data: Cecil and Henry Murdock (Kickapoo); Sly Picard, George May and Henry Hunt (Wichita); Jim Aton, Belo Kozad and Homer Buffalo (Kiowa); Howard White Wolf (Comanche); Carl Pettit, Murray Little-crow, and Mrs. George Pipestem (Oto); Albert Stamp (Seminole); Tom and Collins Panther (Shawnee); Tennyson Berry (Kiowa Apache); Robert Little-dance and Louis MacDonald (Ponca); Mack Haag (Cheyenne); Elijah Reynolds (Delaware); and Sun Chief and James Sun-eagle (Pawnee). To Jonathan Koshiway (Oto), founder of the Church of the First-born, I wish to express appreciation for his painstaking efforts at completeness of information made on my behalf.

In a study of this scope one necessarily incurs considerable debts to colleagues for aid generously given and gratefully received. The notes of James Mooney on Kiowa, Comanche, and Tarahumari peyote, deposited in the Bureau of American Ethnology, as well as manuscripts by Frances Densmore on Winnebago, and Dr. Truman Michelson on Sauk and Fox peyote, were made available through the generosity of Dr. Matthew Stirling, to whom I express particular thanks. Mrs. Elna Smith very kindly lent further Bureau of American Ethnology material which had been in her care. Mr. D. F. Murphy of the Indian Office amplified my Osage notes, and Mr. John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, has been generous with information of legal and administrative nature. To Donald Collier, student at the University of Chicago, and Ing. Luis Híjar y Haro of Mexico City, I express appreciation for bibliographic items, as well as to Dr. Ralph Beals of the University of California at Los Angeles. Richard Schultes, student at Harvard University, who was with me for an ethnobotanical study during several weeks of my second summer of work, has also been generous in giving help on bibliographic as well as botanical and pharmaceutical matters. Dr. E. A. Hoebel of New York University made available his notes on Northern Cheyenne and Comanche peyote. Dr. Ruth Benedict of Columbia University and Dr. M. E. Opler of the University of Chicago have aided with Mescalero Apache notes, and the latter has very generously lent valuable manuscript notes on Tonkawa, Carrizo and Lipan peyotism. Dr. Frank Speck of the University of Pennsylvania was fertile with suggestions during the second period of field work, and since its completion has contributed important Delaware material. Mrs. Erminie Voegelin, student at Yale University, kindly lent her voluminous notes on Shawnee peyote, as did Mrs. Anne Cooke for the Ute, and John Noon, student at the University of Pennsylvania, for the Kickapoo. Dr. A. H. Gayton kindly lent an interesting paper on datura. While the present paper was still in proof form, Dr. Leslie A. White of the University of Michigan and Dr. Fred Eggan of the University of Chicago generously lent material on Taos and Northern Cheyenne peyotism respectively.

To Dr. Edward Sapir of Yale University, to the Laboratory of Anthropology at Santa Fé, and to Dr. Clark Wissler of the American Museum of Natural History, I wish to express my thanks for making available the funds on which field work was undertaken. To Dr. Sapir and to Dr. John Dollard of the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University I owe the warm personal debt of founding a knowledge and an interest in matters of psychological import herein treated. And to Dr. Leslie Spier, my dissertation adviser, I express gratitude for his constant stimulating interest, valuable bibliographic help, and leads of considerable ethnographic significance.

WESTON LA BARRE

_Note to the Reprint Edition_

In the twenty years since the original publication of this book, studies of peyotism have continued to appear, until there are at present over one thousand bibliographic items on the ethnography of peyotism and related subjects. The author has summarized recent studies in an extended review of “Twenty Years of Peyote Studies,” which is in press for appearance in an early issue of _Current Anthropology_. Readers interested in following two decades of developments in peyotism may wish to be referred to this publication.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE 3

INTRODUCTION 7

BOTANICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTE 10
Botany 10
Ethnobotany 11
Names for peyote 14
Etymology of “peyotl” 16
Identification of peyote 17
Physiology of Peyote Intoxication 17

THE ETHNOLOGY OF PEYOTISM 23
Non-ritual Uses of Peyote 23
Ritual Uses of Peyotl 29
Huichol 30
Tarahumari 33
Comparison of Mexican peyote rituals 35
Mescalero Apache and transitional forms of ritual 40
Kiowa-Comanche type rite 43
Comparison of Mexican, transitional, and Plains peyotism 54

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PLAINS PEYOTISM 57

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTISM 93

HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS 105
The Pre-peyote Mescal Bean Cult 105
History of the Diffusion of Peyotism 109

APPENDIX 1: Peyote in Mexico 124

APPENDIX 2: Peyote and the Mescal Bean 126

APPENDIX 3: Peyote and Teo-nanacatl 128

APPENDIX 4: “Plant Worship” in Mexico and the United States 131

APPENDIX 5: Chemistry of Peyote 138

APPENDIX 6: Physiology of Peyote 139

APPENDIX 7: John Wilson, the Revealer of Peyote 151

APPENDIX 8: Christian Elements in the Peyote Cult 162

APPENDIX 9: The Native American Church and Other Peyote Churches 167

BIBLIOGRAPHY 175

ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATES

Explanation of plates AT END

1. Peyote leaders
2. Altar and ash birds

TEXT FIGURES
PAGE

1. Arrangement of tipi for peyote meeting (Kiowa) 44
2. Peyote paraphernalia 47
3. Peyote drum 49
4. Peyote altars or moons 75
5. The diffusion of peyotism 122
6. Cement altar of the Big Moon rite (Osage) 154
7. Altar in West Moon Church (Osage) 155

THE PEYOTE CULT

INTRODUCTION

Peyote (Nahuatl, peyotl) or _Lophophora williamsii_ Lemaire, is a small, spineless, carrot-shaped cactus growing in the Rio Grande Valley and southward. It contains nine narcotic alkaloids of the isoquiniline series, some of them strychnine-like in physiological action, the rest morphine-like. In pre-Columbian times the Aztec, Huichol, and other Mexican Indians ate the plant ceremonially either in the dried or green state. This produces profound sensory and psychic derangements lasting twenty-four hours, a property which led the natives to value and use it religiously. Peyote is not, however, the same as teo-nanacatl, as Safford believed; the latter is a narcotic mushroom which likewise had a Mexican distribution. The term “peyotl” is also used in Mexico to designate other cacti and non-cacti, some of which, like peyote, are reputed to have aphrodisiac and other properties.

Physiologically, the salient characteristic of peyote is its production of visual hallucinations or color visions, as well as kinaesthetic, olfactory and auditory derangements. Psychiatrists have used it (experimentally) with unsatisfactory results in producing temporary psychosis, and therapeutically its use has been similarly disappointing because of the uncertainty of action of the antagonistic alkaloids of pan-peyotl. First, exhilaration is produced by the strychnine-like alkaloids, followed by profound depression, nausea and wakefulness, and finally, under the influence of the morphine-like alkaloids, brilliant color visions are produced, which last for several hours. There are no ill after-effects, and peyote is not known to be habit-forming. These properties have led to a number of non-ritual uses by natives for prophesying, clairvoyance, finding lost objects and the like, as well as empirically for the cure of all manner of illnesses.

In Mexico peyote was used seasonally in an agricultural-hunting religious festival, preceded by a ritual pilgrimage for the plant. Participants danced all night around a fire to the rasp-music of the shaman, as they ate the drug in this tribal celebration. Since about 1870 the cult has spread to the United States, particularly in the Plains, where nearly all groups use it. In the Southwest transitional region peyote became deeply involved in shamanistic rivalries and witchcraft, and in the Plains with war. A pre-peyote narcotic, the “mescal bean” (_Sophora secundiflora_) had there prepared the way for its introduction. The Plains cult is like the warriors’ societies of earlier times in some respects. The Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo were the chief agents of the spread of the cult throughout the entire Plains region to southern Canada and parts of the Great Basin. The standard ritual is an all-night meeting in a tipi around a crescent-shaped earthen mound and a ceremonially-built fire; here a special drum, gourd rattle and carved staff are passed around after smoking and purifying ceremonies, as each person sings four “peyote songs.” Various water-bringing ceremonies occur at midnight and dawn, when there is a “baptism” or curing rite, followed by a special ritual breakfast of parched com, fruit, and boneless meat.

The Caddo-Delaware John Wilson had peyote visions that led him to modify the altar and ceremony; this new form has spread to the Caddo, Delaware, Quapaw, Osage and others. Wilson was one of a long line of Indian prophet-messiahs, and his “moon” has been somewhat exploited economically. The Oto teacher, Jonathan Koshiway, founded a Christianized version of peyotism which spread to the Omaha, Winnebago and others. An organization of confederated tribes known as “The Native American Church” grew out of Koshiway’s “Church of the First-born” (which latter spread to Negro groups also). The cult has had considerable legal difficulties.

Praying and doctoring in meetings, and occasionally public confession of sins, are the major means for the liquidation of life-anxieties of this profoundly functional cult’s many present-day communicants. In the following pages we shall attempt to delineate the history of the study of the cult, the various botanical questions surrounding peyote, its physiological action and the various ethnological, psychological and historical questions involved in its diffusion.

First of modern students to describe the peyote rite was James Mooney, who visited the Kiowa, Comanche, Tarahumari, and “a number of other tribes, among them the Mexican tribes of the Sierra Madre, and as far south as the City of Mexico.”[1] But at his death he had published no further study of peyote; ethnographers of the period were in general concerned with preserving complete records of older native cultures, and ignored or paid scant attention to the modern cult of peyote. Mooney himself gave little notice to the rite in his monographs on the Cheyenne and the Kiowa,[2] although at the time he was undoubtedly the authority on the subject.

Wissler, for example, barely mentions the peyote cult.[3] Indeed, in its role of modern destroyer or supplanter of older native religions, peyote was even a matter of concern[4] and annoyance to some ethnographers. Lumholtz, with wonted thoroughness, published considerable data on Huichol and Tarahumari peyote in 1898 and later, and Kroeber in 1902 wrote a chapter on Arapaho peyote which has remained a model for later investigators.[5]

It remained for Paul Radin, however, in his studies of Winnebago peyote,[6] to point out to ethnographers an engrossingly interesting, but widely ignored, religious cult which was growing and spreading before their very eyes. Since the appearance of his papers in the years following 1914, the ethnographic literature on peyote has grown considerably, due importantly to the impetus Radin gave such studies. Lowie devoted a chapter partly to peyote in his book _Primitive Religion_; Rouhier paid some attention to ethnographic questions in his pharmacological monograph on peyote; and Wagner wrote a short comparative paper based largely on the Comanche and Huichol cults. Petrullo’s _Diabolic Root_ was devoted entirely to Delaware peyotism.[7]

No comparative treatment of the peyote cult of the order of Mooney’s on the Ghost Dance, Lowie’s on Plains societies, or Spier’s on the Sun Dance had ever been made when Dr. Maurice Smith of the University of Oklahoma began his studies. The unfortunate death of this investigator, however, prevented the finishing of his work, of which only a short paper[8] has seen publication. But studies of the peyote cult in individual tribes, both published and in manuscript, have multiplied to such an extent since the time of Kroeber’s and Radin’s studies that the time appears ripe to attempt an integrated comparative treatment of the religion.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mooney, _A Kiowa Mescal Rattle_, 64-65; _Mescal Plant and Ceremony_ (from which dates the medical and pharmaceutical interest in peyote); statement in _Peyote, as Used in Religious Worship_, 58.

[2] _The Cheyenne_, 418; _Calendar History_, 237-39.

[3] _The American Indian_, 376.

[4] Skinner, _Material Culture_, 42-43; _Societies of the Iowa_, 693-94, 724.

[5] Lumholtz, _Tarahumari Dances_; _Huichol Indians_; _Explorations en Mexique_; _Symbolism of the Huichol_; _Unknown Mexico_; Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 398-410.

[6] Radin, _Sketch of the Peyote Cult_; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 388-426; _Crashing Thunder_.

[7] Lowie, _Primitive Religion_, 200-204; Rouhier, _Monographie du Peyotl_; Wagner, _Entwicklung und Verbreitung_; Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_.

[8] Smith, Mrs. Maurice G., _A Negro Peyote Cult_.

BOTANICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTE

BOTANY

Numerous errors involved in the study of peyote, many of them still widely current, make it advisable to identify our subject-matter clearly at the very outset of our study. The plant peyote was first described by Sahagún in 1560 as a narcotic cactus used ritually by the Chichimeca, the root peiotl.[1] Jacinto de la Serna[2] in 1626 mentioned peyote, which he distinguished from other intoxicants. The first properly botanical description was made in 1638 by Hernandez,[3] the naturalist of Philip II of Spain, under the rubric De Peyotl Zacatensi, seu radice molli et lanuginosa. Ortega,[4] again, in 1754, mentioned peyote as used in a Cora dance.

Since 1845 peyote has had numerous modern botanical classifications, being listed variously as _Echinocactus williamsii_ Lem., _Anhalonium williamsii_ Lem., _Mammillaria williamsii_ Coulter, _Echinocactus lewinii_ Hennings, _Mammillaria lewinii_ Karsten, _Lophophora lewinii_ Thompson, etc. The commonest designation in the older ethnological literature is _Anhalonium lewinii_ or _A. williamsii_. For a considerable period it was thought that these last were two species—a point argued both on botanical and ethnographic grounds—but the present classification of peyote is as a single species, the unique member of its genus, _Lophophora williamsii_.[5]

The peyote plant is a curious and unique little cactus. It has no spines whatsoever, and ranges from the carrot-like to the turnip-like in shape and size, without, however, any branches or leaves. The rounded top surface, which alone appears above the soil (and which, cut off and dried, becomes the peyote “button”), is divided radially by straight, or slightly spiral, or sinuous furrows that in some specimens become so complex as to lose the appearance of ribs altogether. These ribs bear little tufts or pencils of matted grayish-white hair, not unlike artists’ fine camel’s-hair brushes. It is from these that the cactus takes both its modern botanical designation, _Lophophora_ (“I bear crests”) and its Aztec name _peyotl_ (from the resemblance to cocoon-silk). In the center of the top there is a little spot of closely matted fuzz, from which the ribs derive and grow; the flower, borne on a stalk, grows from here too, the pinkish-whitish blossom growing into a rapidly maturing club-shaped pinkish-reddish fruit.[6]

ETHNOBOTANY

Several matters regarding the botany of peyote should be discussed, for their having given rise to legends about the plant. After discussing the nefarious uses to which the Chichimeca put peyote, Hernandez writes that

on this account the root scarcely issues forth, but conceals
itself in the ground, as if it did not wish to harm those who
discover and eat it.[7]

Dr. Parsons[8] recounts a Taos origin legend in which peyote acts even more spectacularly. A warrior on the war-path heard a singing, and when he approached,

the plant would go open and shut like this [the narrator moves
his finger-tips close together and then opens them].... Then
the plant told the Indian to come inside. But the opening was
so small. Then it got bigger; it got to be a big hole in the
ground, a square hole. The Indian went down the hole. There was
a big hollow place down there in the ground, round like a kiva.

And the story continues, telling of how the Indian learned the peyote rite from the man in the kiva. On scrutiny this appears to be the Kiowa origin legend for peyote, modified by the addition of familiar Pueblo folk-tale motifs. The Kiowa themselves say,

you must look closely at peyote, because it is like a mole when
it comes on top of the ground—if you don’t look closely it is
gone again.

These curious legends, however, are not without some histological[9] and ecological reality. In this semi-desert region the subterranean funnel-formed tap-root of the plant is covered with woody scales which form a rigid shell. Rouhier writes:[10]

All this chlorophyll-region [the portion above the ground] is
tumid, plump and fleshy, firm and elastic to the touch, when,
after the season of heavy rains, the plant is replete and
vigorous. During the hot season it droops and shrivels, becomes
soft, and has a dull rumpled look. It retracts then into the
rigid cylinder formed by the desiccated corky desquammated
part of the stem; the plant literally gives the impression
of pulling its head into its neck. (M. Diguet has told us
that the plant, at this time, buries itself in the soil, as
though drawn, by a powerful force of traction of its adventive
radicles, at the base of the funnel which its tap-root has
bored.)

Another matter of ethnobotanical interest concerns the supposed existence of two varieties of peyote.[11] In discussing Peyotl Zacatensis Hernandez[12] writes that “they say they are male and female.” The Huichol likewise distinguish two kinds of Peyote, one, the more active and bitter in taste and presenting smaller and more numerous mammillations on the surface, called Tzinouritehua-hicouri, “Peyotl of the Gods,” the other, whose physiological effect is less pronounced, called Rhaïtoumuanitarihua-hicouri, “Peyotl of the Goddesses.” In the opinion of Rouhier,[13] “The Peyotl of the Goddesses ... is the young form of _Echinocactus williamsii_ [= _Lophophora williamsii_], and the Peyotl of the Gods is its adult form.”

Nor is this the end of the matter. It is well known that sex is attributed to plants in the Plains, but there is also a well-defined pattern regarding the sex[14] specifically of peyote throughout Mexico and the Plains. The Huichol have a tutelary goddess for peyote called Hatzimouika; the peyote deity of the Tarahumari, on the other hand, is male, and great reverence is paid by them to the hikuli walúla sälíami, or “hikuli great authority,” literally, who is surrounded by smaller plants, his “servants,” and who, not satisfied with mere sheep and goats, demands the sacrifice of oxen.

Being persons, peyote plants naturally talk and sing on occasion. Lumholtz[15] writes of the Tarahumari belief that

in the fields in which it grows, it sings beautifully, that the
Tarahumare may find it. It says, “I want to go to your country,
that you may sing your songs to me.” ... It also sings in the
bag while it is being carried home. One man, who wanted to use
his bag as a pillow, could not sleep, he said, because the
plants made so much noise.

Bennett and Zingg[16] mention the Tarahumari belief that the singing one hears as the bakánawa moves about in the night near the sleeper may be made clearer by chewing a bit of the plant. Indeed, Mooney[17] says the Tarahumari find the peyote by hearing its song, Híkurówa, which it sings day and night. Peyote speaks to the Tarahumari shaman during the night of dancing and curing, and encourages him with words and by singing to him. The fetish-plant in the ceremony proper is placed on the altar under a half-gourd resonator; the rasping of the shaman, thus amplified, is very pleasing to peyote, who manifests his strength by the amount of noise produced with his aid.

In the Plains, however, when pleased with the singing, the peyote goddess actually joins in with it.[18] The Kiowa call her sęⁱmąyi, literally, “Peyote Woman.” Mooney describes a Kiowa peyote rattle on which she is represented, and at her feet the Morning Star, which heralds her approach. A Taos origin legend for peyote tells of a warrior abandoned by his companions, who heard a singing and rattling near where he lay, and finally discovered it coming from the blossom in the center of the top of the plant.

The Shawnee[19] say that if you listen carefully you can “catch songs” from Peyote Woman. The Kickapoo likewise have the concept of the peyote “goddess” who sometimes sings in meetings when pleased; one informant further said that “the spirit of a woman who had been faithful to peyote sings after she has passed away. Sometimes we put pieces of food near the fire for spirits of a dead man or woman or child. Sometimes you hear a man’s voice too.” The Lipan say they hear “Changing Woman’s” voice in peyote meetings. The Wichita believe it is kicu·ídie, “the woman who stays in the water,” and her little son, wi·ḱιdiwιdá, “the boy who rolls along the banks of the water,” who are mentioned in prayer, and who give power in meetings. The “peyote-woman” belief is attenuated elsewhere in the Plains.[20]

NAMES FOR PEYOTE

Native terms for peyote differ somewhat in denotation and connotation. For clarity sake we shall list only those terms referring specifically to _Lophophora williamsii_. Native classifications of cacti, as well as extensions of the term “peyotl,” will be discussed in an appendix, as involving special problems.

The Huichol of Jalisco call peyote hícuri, hicori, xicori or hicouri (in the notation of speakers of different European languages); sometimes they refer to it metaphorically as foutouri, “flower.” The Cora of the Tepic mountains term peyote huatari, houtari or watara; the Tepehuane of Durango, kamaba. The Tarahumari of Chihuahua call it hikuli or hikori, sometimes adding, according to Lumholtz, the epithet wanamé (or houanamé), “superior,” to designate the peyote par excellence; the same meaning appears to be indicated in the reduplication híkurí-íkuríwa.[21]

The Opata[22] call it pejori, the Otomi beyo. The Pima of the Gila River region use the name peyori. The Comecrudo or Carrizo of Tamaulipas call peyote kóp, and Gatschet recorded the term kúampamát for “bailar el peyote” (“many are dancing [the peyote dance]”). The Lipan name is xʷucdjiyahi, “pricker one eats.” The Tonkawa of southern Texas call peyote nonč-gáⁱɛn; the Taos name is walena, the generic term for “medicine.” Mescalero Apache call it ho or hos; the Wichita nesac’. The Comanche wokwi or wokowi is said by Mooney to be the generic name for cacti.[23] The Arapaho call peyote hahaayāⁿx. Most of the Oklahoma tribes have their own version of the term peyotl, such as the Kickapoo pi·yot, or, like them, they may use some older native term for “medicine” such as natáⁱnoni. John Wilson (Caddo-Delaware), curiously, called peyote “sugar” or “bee-sugar”; and some Anadarko Delaware call peyote-eating “ear-eating.”

Whites have used numerous confusing and erroneous non-botanical terms for _Lophophora williamsii_. Of these usages the commonest, “mescal,” “mescal beans” or “mescal buttons” are the most confusing. Mescal (from the Nahuatl mexcalli, “metl [maguey] liquor”) in northern Mexico, properly refers to the _Agave americana_ or _Agave_ spp. baked in earth ovens and widely eaten in the Southwest, and from which the Mescalero Apache take their name. By extension the term is applied to the intoxicant distilled from the native beer, pulque, also made from _Agave_ spp. A more precise designation of this native brandy (as opposed to the native beer) is tesvino and its variants, from the Nahuatl tehuinti or teyuinti, “intoxicating.”[24]

“Mescal bean” as used to designate _Lophophora williamsii_ is quite indefensible, being wrong on two counts: the “mescal” bean proper is _Sophora secundiflora_ (= _Broussonetia secundiflora_) or, incorrectly, _Erythrina flabelliformis_. The former is a red bean which was used in a pre-peyote narcotic cult of the southern Plains, to be discussed later. The adjectival use of “mescal” in the designations “mescal beans” or “mescal buttons” no doubt comes from the known intoxicating properties of the distilled liquor mescal, as extended in meaning to other unfamiliar new intoxicants, _Sophora secundiflora_ (bean), and _Lophophora williamsii_ (cactus); the term “dry whisky” bears this out. Lumholtz,[25] indeed, wrote that the Texas Rangers, during the Civil War, when taken prisoner and deprived of all other stimulating drinks, soaked peyote (which they called “white mule”) in water and became intoxicated on the liquid. Further confusion of peyote with mescal has arisen from the north Mexican habit of mixing the two in a drink. Dealers call peyote the “turnip cactus” or “dumpling cactus” from its shape, to which also refers the local Mexican term biznagas, “carrot.” A local name in Starr County, Texas, where the plant grows abundantly, is challote, but the usual dealers’ name is “peyote buttons,” from their flat shape when dried.

ETYMOLOGY OF PEYOTE

A precise understanding of the meaning of this term is essential, for it gives a linguistic clue of primary importance in botanical identification. Molina[26] in 1571 recorded the Nahuatl term peyutl, whose elastic and imprecise sense designates something white, shining, silky or woolly, and which applies to the moth-cocoon, a spider-web, a fine tissue, or, indeed, from its appearance (familiar enough to the Aztecs) even to the pericardium or covering of the heart. Rémi Siméon, in his Nahuatl dictionary of 1885, lists “Peyotl or Peyutl—A plant whose root served to make a drink that took the place of wine (Sahagún); silkworm cocoon; pericardium, envelope of the heart.”[27]

This etymology, the oldest as well as the most authoritative, is accepted by Rouhier.[28] The present writer, having been informed of its linguistic impeccability, further finds it explanatory of otherwise curious extensions of the term “peyotl” in Hernandez,[29] as well as later Mexican usages. Various plants in Mexico besides _Lophophora williamsii_, some of them not even belonging to the Cactus Family, have been called “peyote.” In each case, however, there has been some part of the plant to which the meanings of flocculence or cocoon-like woolly pubescence descriptively can legitimately apply. An appendix is devoted to the clearing up of this terminological confusion.

IDENTIFICATION OF PEYOTE

We have now touched upon the etymological connotation of “peyotl,” and its extended denotation in Mexican usage. But one further matter remains to be pointed out, _viz._, incorrect identification and misusages involving peyote. Safford[30] in 1915 adequately indicated the identity of the modern peyote of the Plains with the peiotl of Sahagún and other earlier Spanish writers. Not content, however, with proving this somewhat obvious point, he went beyond and even contrary to his evidence and attempted to prove the identity of peyote with a further narcotic mentioned in Spanish sources, a yellow thin-stemmed mushroom, called teo-nanacatl by the Aztec. This confusing and wholly erroneous identification is discussed at length in an appendix, inasmuch as it has unfortunately won wide acceptance.

A more widespread error is the application of the terms “mescal,” “mescal bean” or “mescal button” to the cactus _Lophophora williamsii_ or peyote. These misusages are common in the literature on peyote, and arise from confusion with a pre-peyote narcotic of the southern Plains and Texas, the red bean of _Sophora secundiflora_, a true member of the Bean Family. The word “mescal” as applied either to the cactus or the bean is erroneous and misleading, and should properly be applied only to the “Indian cabbage” (_Agave_ spp.) of the Southwest, or the brandy distilled from Agave-beer or pulque.[31] The true “mescal bean” is discussed elsewhere.

PHYSIOLOGY OF PEYOTE INTOXICATION

The present section of our study proposes to deal with the physiology of peyote intoxication only insofar as it may be supposed to have influenced the form of native culture-patterns and rites surrounding its use. The efficacy of native doctoring with peyote, however, must be decided on the basis of properly controlled medical experiments, of a sort discussed in Appendix 6, and is not at issue here.

So far as the brute effect of the drugs is concerned, the first stage is one of physical and mental exhilaration. To this physiological fact no doubt is due the Mexican use of peyote in foot-races, in war and for allaying hunger and thirst when on fasting pilgrimages for the plant. Expression of this exhilaration by dancing is common in Mexico, and is found likewise among the Tonkawa, the Lipan and sporadically in the Plains.[32]

Gross attitudinal behavior may be exhibited in extreme cases. Lumholtz[33] says of the Huichol that

in a few cases a man may consume so much that he is attacked
with a fit of madness, rushing backward and forward, trying to
kill people, and tearing his clothes to pieces. People then
seize upon him, and tie him hand and foot, leaving him thus
until he regains his senses. Such occasions are thought to be
due to infringements of the law of abstinence imposed upon them
before and during the feast.

This semi-psychotic state is no doubt as much conditioned culturally as the Malay “running amok”; in Mexico early Spanish writers repeatedly describe native visions as sometimes horribly frightening as well as sometimes laughable. Indeed, in Mexico, among the Mescalero, and the early Plains users, aggressions welling up under peyote intoxication commonly took the form of witchcraft fear and counter-witchcraft. Typically in the Plains, however, the attitude repeatedly emphasized is that of intertribal brotherhood and an individual feeling of friendliness and well-being. Nevertheless some fifty native visions collected indicate great variability in the psychic state. A Taos instance records euphoria to the point of laughter,[34] but Crashing Thunder (Winnebago)[35] experienced a state of deep depression and intense _fear_:

The next morning [he writes] I tried to sleep. I suffered a
great deal. I lay down in a very comfortable position. After
a while a fear arose in me. I could not remain in that place,
so I went out into the prairie, but here again I was seized
with this fear. Finally I returned to a lodge near the one in
which the peyote meeting was being held, and there I lay down
alone. I feared that I might do something foolish to myself if
I remained there alone, and I hoped that someone would come and
talk to me. Then someone did come and talk to me, but I did
not feel any better. I went inside the lodge where the meeting
was taking place. “I am going inside,” I told him. I went in
and sat down. It was very hot and I felt as though I was going
to die. I was very thirsty, but I feared to ask for water.
I thought that I was surely going to die. I began to totter
over. I died and my body was moved by another life. I began to
move about and make signs. It was not myself doing it and I
could not see it. At last it stood up. The eagle feathers and
the gourds, these it said, were holy. They also had a large
book there. What was contained in the book my body saw. It
was the Bible.... Not I, but my body standing there, had done
the talking [this schizoid quality of consciousness in peyote
intoxication has been frequently noted by white observers].
After a while I returned to my normal condition. Some of the
people present had been frightened thinking I had gone crazy.
Others, on the other hand, liked it. It was discussed a great
deal; they called it the “shaking state.”

The vision experiences of John Wilson (Caddo-Delaware) and Enoch Hoag (Caddo) are typical results of physiologically-induced hallucinations in individuals whose culture-background highly values vision-experiences.[36] The Enoch Hoag “moon” had its origin apparently in a (tetanic?) trance, wherein he saw himself as dead, with many people around him weeping and his arms composed on his chest as with a corpse. His companions tried to give him water with a spoon, but his jaws were stiff—a common symptom of strychnine poisoning.[37]

The stimulating effect of peyote may partly account for the holding of meetings at night, for there is no desire or ability to sleep for ten or twelve hours after eating peyote; however, all-night meetings for various purposes are not unknown in the Plains, and the older culture pattern merely exploits the physiological fact as a limiting condition probably. Some observers report that, although there is heightened reflex-activity (including those of the skin), peyote induces a partial skin anaesthesis. A Zacatecas ceremony reported by Arlegui,[38] on the occasion of the birth of the first male child, appears to utilize this virtue of the plant:

The relatives gather and invite other Indians to a horrible
ceremony of which the father is the object. They give him to
drink a brew concocted of a root called peyot and which not
only has the property of intoxicating him who drinks it, but
also renders him insensible and drugs the flesh and paralyzes
the whole body. This drink is administered to the patient after
twenty-four hours of fasting. Then he is seated on a staghorn
in a place specially chosen for this. The Indians come with
sharpened bones and teeth of different animals. Then with
different ridiculous ceremonies, they approach the unfortunate
victim one by one; each one makes a wound on him, without pity,
making a great deal of blood flow out; and as those present are
numerous, the wounds are many and the unfortunate person is
so maltreated that, from head to foot, he offers a lamentable
spectacle.... According to how the miserable victim has borne
this, they augur the valor which the son of a father who has
suffered so much will possess.

The stages of peyote intoxication have been noted by natives. Writing of the Kiowa and Comanche, Mooney[39] maintained that “in the peyote ceremonies, the songs of those present are more vigorous after midnight,” and informants frequently indicate their awareness of this.[40] Kroeber says of this period late in the intoxication that[41]

the physiological discomforts have usually worn off, and the
pleasurable effects are now at their height. It appears that
new songs, inspired perhaps by the visions of the night, are
often composed during this day.

Many well known songs composed by such leaders as Quanah Parker (Comanche), Enoch Hoag (Caddo) and John Wilson (Caddo-Delaware, called Nĭshkûntŭ or “Moonhead”) are said to have arisen from the auditory hallucinations of peyote intoxication. The popular song “Heyowiniho” came to John Wilson in a synaesthetic auditory hallucination in which he heard the sound of the sun’s rising. Crashing Thunder[42] said of the beating of a drum that “the sound almost raised me in the air so pleasurably loud did it sound to me.” Other kinaesthetic derangements have been reported in visions.

The dilation of the pupils of the eyes possibly explains the Huichol[43] belief that the squirrel- and skunk-fetishes of their ceremony can see better than ordinary people, guiding and guarding the hikuli-seekers on their way. Visual phenomena, indeed, are perhaps the most conspicuous effects of peyote eating. The colors red and yellow, usually with reference to birds and feathers, are common in both Mexican and Plains peyote symbolism.[44] The widespread Plains belief that peyote makes one see better may derive from pupil-dilation; white observers have reported acuter vision in peyote intoxication from this cause. Indians frequently manifest a marked “photophobia” even in the mild morning sunlight after meetings, and many younger men affect colored glasses at this time.

The peyote alkaloids cause increased salivation, and there is a constant noise in meetings of spitting as the users eat peyote; in some meetings attended individual tin-can spittoons were provided. The increased flow of saliva probably accounts for the thirst-allaying effect of the plant encountered in the origin legends and elsewhere, but this and the diuretic[45] action of the drugs cause thirst to reappear more strongly later. A regular feature, therefore, of the typical Plains ritual is the bringing in of water at midnight and in the morning, which is passed around clockwise.[46] The widespread taboo on the use of salt in connection with peyote may have some reference to this action of the plant.[47] On the other hand, the use of sweet[48] foods is a necessary part of the ritual; these are stereotyped both in the Plains and Mexico to include parched corn in sugar-water, sweet fruit, and sweetened meat either dried and powdered or cut into chunks, and candy is a regular feature in some meetings. Sugar may in effect relieve the stage of depression in peyote intoxication somewhat.[49]

The classification of plants into male and female on the basis of their physiological action has, as we have seen, a botanical basis. We are convinced on the other hand, however, that peyote has no effect whatsoever in the curbing of an appetite for liquor. Both native and white apologists[50] for peyote advance this argument in extenuation and defence. Natives are perfectly sincere in their belief that the antagonism of peyote and alcohol is physiological (even in the face of conspicuous contrary evidence),[51] and Plains Indians are annoyed and hurt at the widespread association of drinking and peyote-eating through the confusion of the term “mescal.” Yet the stubborn ethnographic fact remains that in Mexico peyote is commonly drunk _with_ tesvino or mescal.

Various other physiological effects noted by whites find native parallels. Many of the visions recorded for natives deal with synaesthesias of sight and hearing and smell, and there occur cases of taste- and smell-hallucinations as well as the more common auditory and visual ones. Kinaesthetic derangements are also not unknown.[52]

One final question is less of physiological than psychological and ethnographic import. Along with teo-nanacatl, marihuana (_Cannabis_ spp.) and the Peyotl Xochimilcensis (_Cacalia cordifolia_), peyote has been said to have an aphrodisiac action. This association suggests that a matter of Spanish-White or Mexican-Indian ethnography is involved.[53] But love-magic was not unknown either in Mexico or the Plains, and it is conceivable that this new medicine (particularly since it was used for “witching”) because of its other spectacular effects, might have been valued for this purpose also.

We have now discussed the bearing of physiological reactions on the peyote ritual and other native behavior: the _exhilarating_ first effect of the drug (in the allaying of hunger and thirst on the march, to give courage in war, and strength in dancing and racing) and the second stage of _depression_ and _visions_ (“running amok,” witchcraft-suspicion, psychic fear-states, euphoria and feeling of brotherhood, partial anaesthesia, the “suffering to learn something” characteristic of the Plains vision quest, synaesthesias, auditory hallucinations, and “catching songs,” visual hallucinations, and “learning” of painting- and bead-designs, symbolical birds and feathers, etc.).

We found, too, behavior definitely related to the pupil-dilating power of peyote as well as its sialogogue and diuretic action; the injunction against salt and the use of sweet foods, however, may involve culture-historical matters. We have been skeptical of the alleged anti-alcoholic virtue of peyote, and have likewise doubted that _physiologically_ peyote is either aphrodisiac or anaphrodisiac, despite heated claims on both sides. The efficacy of native doctoring with peyote is a special problem treated elsewhere along with the therapeutic and psychiatric experiments of Whites.

The following ethnographic part of our study deals first with the non-ritual uses of peyote, arising from its special properties, and secondly with the ritualization of its use.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “They [the Chichimeca] have a considerable knowledge of plants and roots, their qualities and their virtues. They were the first to discover and use the root called peiotl, which enters among their comestibles in the place of wine” (Sahagún, _Histoire générale_, 10:661-62). Again, “There is another herb, like tunas of the earth [tunas is the Spanish name for the fruit of the prickly pear, _Opuntia opuntia_]; it is called peiotl; it is white; it is produced in the north country; those who eat or drink it see visions either frightful or laughable; this intoxication lasts two or three days and then ceases” (Sahagún, _Historia general_, 3:241; in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 294-95).

Translations from the Spanish have been made with the aid of Mr. H. W. Tessen of the Yale Graduate School.

[2] “Teo-nanacatl [has] ... the same properties as _ololiuhqui_ or _peyote_, since when eaten or drunk, they intoxicate those who partake of them, depriving them of their senses, and making them believe a thousand absurdities” (_Manual de Ministros_; in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 309-10).

[3] “Peyote of Zacatecas, or soft and lanuginous root. The root is of nearly medium size, sending forth no branches nor leaves above ground, but with a certain wooliness adhering to it, on which account it could not be aptly figured by me” (_De Historia Plantarum_, 3:70; in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 295. See also Rouhier, _Monographie du Peyotl_, 43-44).

[4] “Nearby [the leader] was placed a tray filled with peyote, which is a diabolical root [raiz diabolica] that is ground up and drunk by them so that they may not become weakened by the exhausting efforts of so long a function” (Ortega, _Historia del Nayarit_; in Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 295).

[5] Those interested in the taxonomic problem should consult the numerous botanical references in the bibliography. Britton and Rose, in their four volume work on the Cactaceae classify peyote as _Lophophora williamsii_, which will be followed in the present study.

[6] The most succinct and complete description of the plant is found in Britton and Rose, _The Cactaceae_, 83-84.

Peyote’s range is comprehended within an irregularly-shaped lozenge from Deming, New Mexico, to Corpus Christi, Texas, to Puebla, Sombrerete, Zacatecas, and back to Deming. That is, the valley of the Rio Grande (north), Tamaulipecan Mountains (east), the watershed of the affluents of the right bank of the Rio Grande de Santiago and Rio de Mezquital (south), and the foothills of the Sierra Madre, the Sierra de Durango and the Sierra del Nayarit (west). It prefers the calcareous and argillaceous soils of the Cretaceous formation in the north of this region.

[7] In Safford, _Aztec Narcotic_, 295; see also _Narcotic Plants_, 401.

[8] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 63.

[9] The best histological account is in Rouhier, _Monographie_, 34-42; the work of Dr. Helia Bravo, _Nota acerca de la Histología_, is more recent. Richard Schultes at Harvard has also pursued histological studies. It is noteworthy that the Indians ordinarily take only the upper portion of the plant, which contains a larger proportion of the alkaloids according to Rouhier.

[10] Rouhier, _op. cit._, 25. I am persuaded that many such insights would be afforded us in ethnography if we had a less cavalier attitude toward native science and history: for after all even our own science grows from criticism of traditional notions.

[11] From the middle of the last century there has raged an acrimonious debate as to whether there are two varieties of peyote corresponding to _Anhalonium williamsii_ and _A. lewinii_. The former, it was contended, had seven or eight straight ribs and lacked most of the alkaloids of the latter, which had more numerous (twelve or more) sinuous ribs. This long, somewhat nationalistic debate may be regarded as ended since Rouhier (_Monographie_, 67) in 1926 figured a bicephalous plant on the same root, one head being a true _williamsii_, the other a perfect _lewinii_. It is apparent that the _lewinii_ “variety” is merely an older plant, which often takes the _williamsii_ aspect in its younger stages of growth; the more numerous alkaloids of the former more mature plant is likewise purely a growth-phenomenon, as are the rib-configurations and mammillations, though environmental and seasonal conditions may be involved as well.

[12] Hernandez, _De Historia Plantarum_, 204, “Se dice que hay macho y hembra.” Inaccurately translated by Safford, _Aztec Narcotic_, 295, and Rouhier, _Monographie_, 43. The simplest and most obvious translation is the most satisfactory. According to the Lipan (Opler, _Use of Peyote_, 279) male peyotes bloom red, female peyotes white.

[13] Diguet, _Le Peyote_, 25; Rouhier, _Monographie_, 133.

[14] _Handbook of the American Indians._ 1:604b. Spier informs me this is also Navaho and perhaps Pueblo as well. As indicated elsewhere, peyote, teo-nanacatl and associated plants have repeatedly been thought to be aphrodisiacs. The supposed sex of the plants may have some reference to this belief; cf. the Huichol belief that “Maize is a little girl whom one sometimes can hear weeping in the fields; she is afraid of the wild beasts, the coyote and others that eat corn” (Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 2:279). Different colors of corn belong to different deities also; it is interesting to note that the Huichol attribute different colors symbolically to peyote which have no effective reality (Rouhier, _op. cit._, 133). In 1935, in a non-peyote context, Apekaum told me that cotton plants in a field we were passing were male and female; some trees were male, too, and others female, he thought. No botanical realities were involved in any of these cases. The Jivaro also attribute sex to plants (Karsten, _Civilization_, 301, 304-06, 314-15, 323) as do the Aymará and others.

[15] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:362.

[16] Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 295.

[17] Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:365; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 293.

[18] This auditory hallucination of hearing voices in peyote intoxication is most striking. Several explanations may be offered: the cultural (the belief is common in Mexico and the Plains that peyote talks and sings), the physiological (white observers, many in obvious ignorance of the ethnographic facts, have reported aural hallucinations), or the physical (the peculiarly resonant vibrations of the water-drum echoing from the taut, cone-shaped canvas of the tipi). A physiological constant for Indians and whites (culturally modified) seems indicated. See Mooney, _A Kiowa Mescal Rattle_, 65; Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 63.

[19] Statements without references are understood to be made from my own field work.

[20] The Cora peyote goddess appears to be “Mother Hūrimoa” (Preuss, _Die Nayarit-Expedition_, 103). Tarahumari dancers sometimes imitate hikuli’s talk with a sound which reminded Lumholtz of the crow of a cock (_Tarahumari Dances_, 455). The Lipan information is from Opler (_The Use of Peyote_).

[21] Diguet, _Le peyote et son usage_, 21, 25; Rouhier, _Monographie_, 4; Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 297; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:357, 2: _passim_; Preuss, _Die Nayarit-Expedition_, 103; Bennett and Zingg, _Tarahumara_, 135; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_.

[22] Rudo Ensayo (1760) in Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_. A note by F. W. H[odge] indicates a purely medicinal use of peyote for the Opata. Otomi: León, _fide_ Mooney; Mooney doubts this, somewhat unwarrantedly I think. Pima: Alegre, in Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_. Comecrudo: _Handbook of the American Indians_, 1:209a; Mooney, _Tarumari-Guayachic_, whose source is probably Gatschet. Lipan: Opler, _The Use of Peyote_. Tonkawa: Mooney, _op. cit._ Taos: Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 114, note 115. Mescalero Apache: Rouhier, _Monographie_, 4 (Opler records this as xuc); Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 297; Mooney, _op. cit._ Comanche: Mooney, _Miscellaneous Notes_; the present writer recorded wↄ´kweᵖⁱ and pua´kιt (= “medicine”).

[23] Mooney (_Peyote Notebook_, 21) likewise says the Kiowa term for peyote sęⁱ means “prickly” or “prickly fruit” and is generic for all cacti. But peyote, it will be remembered, is conspicuous for its lack of spines; perhaps this was an older term for the prickly pear, _Opuntia opuntia_, transferred to the more recently known plant. In any case it occurs nowadays in many compounds: sęⁱmąyi, “peyote woman,” sęⁱpiⁱ, “peyote meeting,” etc., and in the phrase behábe sęⁱᴅɔki, “smoke, peyote power.” (Compare the Comanche hos mäbä´mho’i.) See also Mooney, _Calendar History_, 239; Rouhier, _Monographie_, 4; Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 399; Speck, _Notes on the Life of John Wilson_, 552.

[24] See _Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:845, 846 (the Yuma, Mohave, Ute, Apache, etc., use it). The Mescalero Apache do not derive their name from the use of the peyote, “mescal,” as Mooney stated, being so designated long before they knew or used peyote. In the second etymology see Siméon, _Dictionnaire_, 436; also Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_, 293. See also La Barre, _Native American Beers_, 225.

[25] Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:358. For “dry whiskey” see the _New Century Dictionary_, Supplement: “Mescal Buttons.” For the other names see Rouhier, _op. cit._, 4; Britton and Rose, _The Cactaceae_, 3:84 (the spelling pellote of Velasco, from Mooney, is a Castillianization of the Nahuatl); _Peyotes, datos para su estudia_, 209. The spelling pezote in Alarcón, _Tratato de las Supersticiones_, 131, is obviously a copyist’s error.

[26] de Molina, _Vocabulario_, 80, “Peyutl—capullo de feda, o de gufano.” The Spanish o and u constitute a single phoneme in Nahuatl, according to Mr. Benjamin Whorf, so the vowel is purely a matter of recording. On the other hand, Reko’s etymology in _Was bedeutet das Wort Teo-Nanacatl?_ (lent through the courtesy of R. E. Schultes) is inadmissable. He writes: “Pe-yotl, Old-Aztec Pi-yautli, is quite clear in its etymology: Pi is the significative (or affix) for ‘little.’ ... Yau-tli is always something narcotic or strong narcotic-smelling substance. Yau- is the root, -tli the post-positive article (substantive significative).... A pi-yautli (pe-yotl) is therefore the mildly intoxicating poison, in contrast with Hua-yautli (today Guayule, sap of the Gum-tree, which smells very strong) which means extremely intoxicating.” This is an ad hoc forcing of an etymology on a word, according to Whorf: in the first instance “old Aztec” pi-yautli appears to be an assumed rather than a quoted form; but even so, -yautli should not give -yotl or -iotl of Sahagún’s recording, but an unchanged -yautli. If the rules for Nahuatl sound-change are to be observed, peyotl must come from an uncontracted stem of two syllables, plus the absolutive suffix, this stem being pe-yo; -yautli, on the other hand, must come from a contracted stem, originally of two syllables, ya-wi (the -i standing for a variable or unknown vowel), plus the absolutive suffix, having the form -tl when preceded by a vowel, -tli when preceded by a consonant, i.e., a contracted stem. As for the first syllable, pi- and pe- are absolutely distinct phonemically in Aztec. The etymology, therefore, is neither phonetically nor phonemically correct, and assumes random and unexplained sound changes. The writer is grateful to Mr. Whorf for the preceding information. P. Augustin Hunt y Cortes (in Rouhier, 7) derives peyotl from the active verb pepeyoni, pepeyon, “to move, to stir, to set into motion, to excite, to activate.” Other offerings are “child” and a derivation from peyonanic, “stimulate, goad, prick, incite.” These are untenable for the same reasons that Reko’s is.

[27] Siméon, _Dictionnaire_ 412, 436.

[28] Rouhier, _Monographie_ 7.

[29] _De Historia Plantarum_, 3:70 (Peyotl Xochimilcensi). Peyote, because of its abundance in certain localities, figures frequently in place names.

[30] Safford, _An Aztec Narcotic_; see also other items by this author in the bibliography.

[31] See the _New Century Dictionary_, “Pulque,” 4841, a word conjectured to be of Carib (Haiti or Cuba) or Spanish origin. Agave and maguey are the American aloe, sometimes called “century plant” (cf. “maguey,” 3578, “agave,” 108). “Mescal” proper, therefore, = Agave americana = maguey = American aloe = “century plant.”

[32] White Wolf (Comanche) tells of Kuaheta, at the time acting as fireman in Comanche Jack’s meeting, that he once failed to return after having asked to leave the tipi. Commissioned to investigate, White Wolf found him outside “jumping like a deer” from deep peyote intoxication. Hoebel relates a similar experience in a Northern Cheyenne meeting. Tonakat, the well-known Kiowa “witch,” once forced a man to get up and dance in a meeting (_Autobiography of a Kiowa Indian_, recorded by the writer, 1936). Jonathan Koshiway (Oto) laughingly told me of a meeting in Kansas where the singer’s jaw became locked; the whole meeting was upset while they shook and fanned him with cedar incense until his jaw “came back.” This may have been an effect of the strychnine-like alkaloids in peyote, as in the case of Tom Panther (Shawnee) who became unable to talk or sing once in George Fry’s meeting: “it took me four or five minutes to say the word ‘study’,” he said.

[33] Lumholtz, _Huichol Indians_, 9.

[34] Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 63.

[35] Radin, _Crashing Thunder_, 198-99.