Chapter X: Part 10

The principal leader of the Ghost dance among the Caddo
is Nĭshkûntŭ, “Moon Head,” known to the whites as John
Wilson. Although considered a Caddo, and speaking only
that language,[2] he is very much of a mixture, being half
Delaware, one-fourth Caddo, and one-fourth French. One of his
grandfathers was a Frenchman. As the Caddo lived originally
in Louisiana, there is a considerable mixture of French blood
among them, which manifests itself in his case in a fairly
heavy beard. He is about 50 years of age [in 1892-93], rather
tall and well built, and wears his hair at full length flowing
loosely over his shoulders. With a good head and strong,
intelligent features, he presents the appearance of a natural
leader.... He was one of the first Caddo to go into a trance,
the occasion being the great Ghost dance held by the Arapaho
and Cheyenne near Darlington agency, at which Sitting Bull
presided, in the fall of 1890. On his return to consciousness
he had wonderful things to tell of his experiences in the
spirit world, composed a new song, and from that time became
the high priest of the Caddo dance. Since then his trances
have been frequent, both in and out of the Ghost dance, and in
addition to his leadership in this connection he assumes the
occult powers and authority of a great medicine-man, all the
powers claimed by him being freely conceded by his people.

Captain Scott, who visited the Caddo in 1890-91 during the period of their greatest excitement about the Ghost Dance, also met Wilson, of whom he writes:[3]

John Wilson, a Caddo man of much prominence, was especially
affected [by the Ghost Dance], performing a series of gyrations
that were most remarkable. At all hours of the day and night
his cry could be heard all over camp, and when found he would
be dancing in the ring, possibly upon one foot, with his eyes
closed and the forefinger of his right hand pointed upward, or
in some other ridiculous posture. Upon being asked his reasons
for assuming these attitudes he replied that he could not help
it; that it came over him just like cramps.

Wilson soon became a well-known doctor in this connection. Scott continues:

John Wilson had progressed finely, and was now a full-fledged
doctor, a healer of diseases, and a finder of stolen property
through supernatural means. One day, while we were in the tent,
a Wichita woman entered, led by the spirit. It was explained
to us that she did not even know who lived there, but some
force she could not account for brought her. Having stated
her case to John, he went off into a fit of the jerks, in
which his spirit went up and saw “his father” (i.e., God), and
who directed him how to cure this woman. When he came to, he
explained the cure to her, and sent her away rejoicing. Soon
afterwards a Keechei man came in, who was blind of one eye, and
who desired to have the vision restored. John again consulted
his father, who informed him that nothing could be done for
that eye because that man held aloof from the dance.

When Mooney visited the Caddo on Sugar Creek late in 1895,

John Wilson came down from his own camp to explain his part
in the Ghost dance. He wore a wide-brim hat, with his hair
flowing down to his shoulders, and on his breast, suspended
from a cord, about his neck, was a curious amulet consisting
of the polished end of a buffalo horn, surrounded by a circlet
of downy red feathers, within another circle of badger and owl
claws. He explained that this was the source of his prophetic
and clairvoyant inspiration. The buffalo horn was “God’s
heart,” the red feathers contained his own heart,[4] and the
circle of claws represented the world. When he prayed for help,
his heart communed with “God’s heart,” and he learned what he
wished to know. He had much to say also of the moon. Sometimes
in his trances he went to the moon and the moon taught him
secrets.... He claimed an intimate acquaintance with the other
world and asserted positively that he could tell me “just what
heaven is like.” Another man who accompanied him had a yellow
sun with green rays painted on his forehead, with an elaborate
rayed crescent in green, red, and yellow on his chin, and
wore a necklace from which depended a crucifix and a brass
clockwheel, the latter, as he stated, representing the sun.

On entering the room where I sat awaiting him, Nĭshkûntŭ
approached and performed mystic passes in front of my face
with his hands, after the manner of the hypnotist priests in
the Ghost dance, blowing upon me the while, as he afterward
explained to blow evil things away from me before beginning to
talk on religious subjects....[5] Laying one hand on my head,
and grasping my own hand with the other, he prayed silently
for some time with bowed head, and then lifting his hand from
my head, he passed it over my face, down my shoulder and arm
to the hand, which he grasped and pressed slightly, and then
released the fingers with a graceful upward sweep.[6]

A curious mixture of Caddoan (?) mescalism, Ghost Dance, Delaware “shooting” ceremonies and early peyotism occurred among the Shawnee when Wilson came to them about 1889. The Quapaw were being taught the Ghost Dance, in which a small water drum was used to accompany the circling of the dancers, alternately men and women. Wilson showed them how to swallow mescal beans, and also how to “shoot” them into a person so that he or she would fall down. Then he doctored the person with peyote to bring him back to consciousness. A number of tribes were involved in these doings, according to Mrs. Voegelin, the Shawnee, Delaware, Mohawk, Peoria, Caddo (?), Quapaw, Iowa and Oto. Gradually, however, Wilson turned from the Ghost Dance to peyote. Already in Mooney’s time he was “prominent in the mescal [i.e., peyote] rite, which has recently come to his tribe [the Caddo] from the Kiowa and Comanche.”[7]

Both mescalism and the Ghost Dance, in his person, have traceable influence upon peyotism. This syncretism of cultures in one personality is of considerable interest.

Before Wilson had quite reached the age of forty, he had lived
the life of an ordinary Indian of Oklahoma. He was addicted to
moderate drinking. He frequented the social dances and gambling
gatherings usual among reservation groups of his type. He had
participated likewise in the contemporary religious ceremonies
performed by the Delaware.... As a vagrant, not however in
the condemning sense of the term, he had wandered as most
Oklahoma Indians do, from tribe to tribe and inevitably also
among the whites experiencing the wide range of personal and
social contacts which might be inferred from the statement.
Anderson states, in short, that his uncle had lived a sinful
life but adds in effect that he had not been guilty of any
major offences. He was married to a woman of Delaware and Caddo
descent and had an adopted son, Black Wolf, reputed to be also
part Delaware part Caddo, and who is still living (1932) and
carrying out Wilson’s teachings and ministrations.

About this time he attended a Comanche dance, where a Comanche man presented him with a peyote button and told him to give it a trial—which he did in an unusually thorough manner. Speck continues:

Before long he concluded to adopt the advice given and to
retire from worldly companionship, to make the trial and to
study its outcome. With this objective in mind he informed
his wife, secured provisions for a few weeks stay in camp and
together they drove away in a wagon to a little creek where
an abundant supply of fresh drinkable water might be had.
The place he selected was a secluded “clean and open place”
where they would be alone free from intrusion and worldly
distractions. Anderson thinks that Wilson remained there about
two or three weeks but he does not remember hearing him say
how long. When all was ready he began his innovation to the
mysteries of Peyote the first night by eating 8 or 9 “buttons.”
We learn that during the period of self exposure to the power
of Peyote he took the medicine at frequent intervals during the
day or night as the impulse prompted him using about the same
quantity each time it was taken. As soon as he began, using the
words of the informant, “_Peyote took pity on him_” for his
humble mien and sincere desire to learn its power. During the
whole period he allowed nothing to distract him, giving his
entire thought and wish to learn what Peyote might teach him.
The outcome was the revelation that motivated him for the rest
of his life and made him a teacher of the Peyote doctrines,
which he himself exclusively evolved through the revelations
given him at this time.

During the time of his sojourn, Wilson did not fast or undergo
other abnegations but lived normally.... Each time Wilson
took peyote during those days and nights of seclusion he ate
about fifteen peyote “buttons.” ... During the two weeks or
so of his experimental seclusion, Wilson was continually
translated in spirit to the sky realm where he was conducted
by Peyote. In this estate he was shown the figures in the sky
and the celestial landmarks which represented the events in
the life of Christ, and also the relative positions of the
Spiritual Forces, the Moon, Sun, Fire, which had long been
known to the Delawares, through native traditional teachings,
as Grandfather and Elder Brothers. Here, too, he was shown the
grave of Christ, now empty, “where Christ had rolled away the
rocks at the door of the grave and risen to the sky.” He was
shown, always under the guidance of Peyote, the “Road” which
led from the grave of Christ to the Moon in the Sky which
Christ had taken in his ascent. He was told by Peyote to walk
in this path or “Road” for the rest of his life, advancing
step by step as his knowledge would increase through the use
of peyote, remaining faithful to its teachings ... [and if he
did] he would finally, just before his death, bring him into
the actual presence of Christ and of Peyote.... The details of
construction of the earth works to form the “Moon” which he was
to construct in the Peyote tent were all revealed to him with
their meanings as Peyote continued his instructions to Wilson
during his visits to the sky.... Also came revelations as to
how the face should be painted, the hair dressed. Of major
importance, however, was the complete course of instruction
given to Wilson by Peyote in the singing and syllabization of
the numerous Peyote songs which were to form the principal
parts of the ceremony of worship. Anderson felt certain that
Wilson possessed and used no less than two hundred of these
songs.[8]

Wilson’s original moon, however, passed through an evolution, for Anderson’s drawing in Speck is considerably simpler in design than those depicted for the Osage by Murphy, or photographed by the author for the Quapaw. An early version, apparently, is one collected from Henry Hunt (Wichita) near Anadarko. In this the crescent or “moon” is elongated to imitate the parted hair of an Indian, whose eyes are the two mounds of ashes between its horns; a line runs from the father-peyote to the east, terminating in a mound with five circles concentrically zoning it like a globe-map, with another line at right angles to this drawn from tip to tip of the crescent, making a cross, at the intersection of which is drawn a heart resembling a man’s nose. There is also a heart at the “parting” of the hair, on which the fetish peyote rests, and a third one on the top of the zoned mound at the east. This altar is said to symbolize Moonhead’s face, and indeed it much resembles one when seen from the eastern door. Speck says in confirmation of our conjecture that

at first, he said, he made a small “Moon,” increasing its size
day by day symbolical of his progress in spiritual knowledge.
By the end of his sojourn amid spiritual environment, he came
to make the so-called large “Moon,” the Wilson “Moon” which has
become typical of his followers.[9]

But Wilson, no doubt, made still later additions, for these early moons entirely lack the elaborate apron symbolism of the Osage and Quapaw altars.

A Delaware informant said Wilson’s moon was first used north of Lookeba, Oklahoma. Black Wolf and George Caddo were early converts to his version—which, indeed may initially have been not so different from the older Caddo moon with a cross and mound east of the crescent (the Wilson division of the tipi into north and south side, for example, is an old one in Caddoan ceremonial organization).[10] The symbolism of the Wilson “Big Moon” receives varied interpretations nowadays. The Osage call the three hearts of the altar the “Heart of Goodness,” the “Heart of the World,” and the “Heart of Jesus;” others interpret the “world” as the “sun.” The ashes are the graves of Christ and Wilson for some, the dividing of the Red Sea for others. Some say the whole fire-pit is the grave of Christ, and the ash mounds his lungs, as the figure under the fire is his heart. The twelve lines of the altar apron are variously the twelve steps to heaven, the twelve heavens of Delaware mythology, the twelve months of the year, the twelve feathers of the eagle’s tail, etc. The symbolism of seven for the “days of the week” is possibly Southwestern in origin (cf. the seven bosses of the drum). Diamond-shaped figures close to the sun-mound represent Christ’s foot-prints, according to Petrullo,[11] while the “WW” or “MM” at the west of the altar are said to mean this for the Quapaw (“Moonhead” or “Wilson” depending on one’s position while reading the initials). The cross of the altar, of course, is symbolical of the Crucifixion. The cigarette of corn husk is known as the “Pipe of Jesus” among the Delaware.[12]

Peyote taught Wilson many variations in the ceremony as well. He used a crock instead of a kettle for the peyote drum. At one period in the development of the ritual only the firemen did the drumming besides the leader and his assistant (i.e., four men, three firemen and the leader’s assistant, proceeded clockwise around the tipi with the drum, drumming for each singer in turn, instead of the standard method of passing the drum for all to use); Wilson did not require the drum to make four rounds, for this might occasionally have interfered with the morning rite of filing out of the tipi “to meet the sun” with raised arms and prayer. In his rite only the leader made the initial prayer-smoke, though older men might ask for smokes later in the night if they so desired. Cigarettes could be made only at one of four places, one informant stated: at the leader’s place, at the north or south at the ends of the cross, and at the fireman’s place, and the leader had to smoke all of them first. Upon reentering after a recess, each person was incensed and fanned by the firemen and others to blow away whatever evil influences might cling to him from the outside night. In time Wilson added special functionaries at the cross-bars of the crucifix to perform this fanning, making eight officials: two fanners, three firemen-drummers and three leaders (road man, drummer and cedar man) symbolizing the Father, Son and Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity. In the Wilson rite there was much touching of the father peyote as communicants made their circuit of the altar on reentering. It is said that water could be asked for at any time, and permission to leave was not necessary if the rules about passing in front of an eater or smoker were observed.

Wilson himself took his “moon” to the tribes of northeastern Oklahoma. The Shawnee were influenced impermanently, and today only Ernest Spybuck has a modified Big Moon. The Seneca were influenced through the Quapaw, whom Wilson first succeeded in deeply influencing. The Quapaw leader, Victor Griffin, made a moon at Devil’s Promenade which was modified around 1906 or 1907 from Wilson’s moon.[13] The Delaware around Dewey were much influenced by Wilson from 1890-92 on.[14] But the Osage were the most important converts. By 1902 “most of the Indians at the Hominy camp and elsewhere in the Nation [had] taken it up and become devoted to it.”[15] Black Dog, one of the first Osage converts, introduced the “West Moon” in which the door is at the west and the altar similarly reversed; most of the Osage moons today, however, are the standard Clermont east moons. The Potawatomi may have been influenced by the teachings of Wilson somewhat also.[16] Wilson’s nephew, Anderson, brought the Seneca peyote in 1907 on the request of a Seneca married to a Quapaw woman.[17]

The economic motive seems evident in much of Wilson’s behavior. Speck tells of the introduction of peyote among the Osage as follows:[18]

[About 1891] John Wilson was on his way from Anadarko to
conduct meetings among the Delawares around Copan. While
passing through the Osage nation he visited Tall Chief, a
Quapaw married to an Osage woman. While here Wilson was stopped
by an Osage who had previously attended Peyote meetings among
the Delawares and requested to meet a group of Osage and tell
them about his revelations and his convictions and instruct
them in its rules. He consented and complied with their
wishes. The Osage in attendance at his meeting were convinced
and converted. He accordingly stayed on with them about
three weeks. Black Dog was at the time Chief of the Osage.
His tribe was won over in force to the Wilson sect of Peyote
worshippers.... J. Wilson then returned to Anadarko, leaving
behind him among the Osage two young Delawares who stayed back
attracted by the prospects of fortune offered by the wealthy
Osage. Wilson had received presents from the tribe of new
converts amounting to considerable value, a wagon, a carriage,
a buggy and teams of good horses and harness for each and other
horses, fourteen in all, not to mention blankets, goods and
money.

His death occurred after a similar mission to the Quapaw. He had been among them to conduct a meeting and was returning to Anadarko in a buggy with a Quapaw woman and another woman. Wilson’s wife was still living at the time, and he was either offered the Quapaw woman or demanded her while among the tribe. Speck quotes his nephew:[19]

Anderson said he did not like to think this but that the Quapaw
were not all good people and had possibly been actuated by a
desire to establish a home for Wilson in order to keep him and
his ministry in their midst.

In any event, Wilson had been given a number of horses, which were tied to the back of his buggy. While crossing a railroad track, these horses pulled back and prevented their crossing just as a locomotive bore down upon them. Wilson was instantly killed. His detractors maintain that this was just punishment for his failure to live up to his own teachings. Since this period many communicants have fallen away from his “moon,” for his own[20]

moral instructions ... referred to abstinence from liquor, to
restraint [in] sexual matters and fidelity to matrimony.

Though influenced by Catholic teachings, Wilson had a peculiar and specific attitude toward the Bible.[21] According to Speck,[22] he

instructed the Indians to seek knowledge by direct communion
and to avoid consulting the Bible or the Gospels for the
purpose of moral instructions. He insisted that the Bible
was intended for the white man who had been guilty of the
crucifixion of Christ and that the Indian who had not been a
party to the deed was exempt from guilt on this score and that
therefore, the Indian was to receive his religious influences
directly and in person from God through the Peyote Spirit,
whereas Christ was sent for this mission to the white man.

He nevertheless embodied in his person many of the messianic characteristics of his several native prophet predecessors; a Delaware informant said “John Wilson used to perform miracles” in meetings, such as divining what was in a man’s mind, and telling him who the persons were that he saw in a vision. The Osage, at least formerly, had a marked reverence for Wilson. Speck wrote in 1907 that[23]

pictures of Wilson are in demand among the devotees, who kiss
them on sight. The man has been deified since his death.

There is much variation of opinion about Wilson among Indians of various tribes, but perhaps the statements of his nephew, George Anderson, are authoritative if not entirely disinterested. Speck says:[24]

An idea seems to have become current, either through the rumors
of designing persons who opposed him or through exaggeration
among his followers, that Wilson is responsible for having
told his associates that he would return to life again after
death and also that they should pray to him in the Peyote
meetings.... Anderson denies that Wilson made either assertion.
He had heard Wilson tell in his meetings that at times the
worshippers when taking peyote might see him, as some are said
since to have done, his face appearing to their vision over the
fire. [With reference to the second statement Wilson on the
contrary warned them not to pray to him, but through peyote to
God.] ... This warning has not, however, prevented the practice
of praying directly to and through John Wilson from becoming
frequent among some of the Osages ... and probably among the
Quapaw.

In both the latter groups [Anderson] has seen Wilson’s portrait
placed on the “moon” in the Peyote lodge near the peyote
“button” and the crucifix. Some who do this, he is convinced,
actually concentrate thought upon Wilson instead of Peyote. And
Anderson regards both practices as contrary to the teachings
of Wilson. A custom has also spread among the Osage to wear a
portrait button of John Wilson on the coat or, when in native
dress, upon one of the fur or feather ornaments.... Anderson’s
testimony [was] that John Wilson told his followers that _he
was not sent by God to fulfill a mission_, but that he was
_shown_ by Peyote how to conduct religious worship in the
Peyote meetings in order to cure disease, heal injury, purge
the body from the effects of sin[25] and to lead the Indians to
reach the regions “above” _hukweyun_ in Delaware, or heaven,
where they would _see Peyote and the Creator_.

The Caddo and Delaware, nevertheless, display considerable “touchiness” on the subject of John Wilson even today, since other tribes have ridiculed his real or supposed claims to divinity. Native criticism is not lacking either on the score of his economic exploitation of peyote leadership.[26] Petrullo[27] writes that

his enemies claim that in the course of his life he professed
to have had fresh visions which always were interpreted to his
personal gain....

However, his followers staunchly deny these allegations. Perhaps in answer to the accusation of being mercenary, Wilson, with one of his followers named Wolf, themselves set up a meeting once, at which they showed their generosity by giving away all their clothes with other gifts until they were clad only in breechclouts.[28] Yet even so the belief is widespread that his death was due to his exploitation of the gift-giving pattern to the extreme of demanding a Quapaw woman for his wife.[29]

The Wilson sect is still strong among the Osage and the Quapaw, but elsewhere, even among the Delaware and Caddo, it is waning considerably. The Caddo show a disposition to return to the Enoch Hoag “moon,” which is considered more “pure” and aboriginal.[30] But antagonisms to new elements Wilson sought to introduce date as far back as 1885. About this time Elk Hair was hunting in Comanche territory and learned a ritual he has since kept without change:[31]

Elk Hair preferred the Comanche way because it was the pure
Indian way.... We brought back to our people the pure Peyote
rite and we have used Peyote in the right way ever since.

Elk Hair, according to Petrullo,[32] “has barely managed to keep a following among the Delawares of Dewey,” but this region is the stronghold of the Anderson family and if defection of the Anadarko groups to the Hoag moon is any indication, we may expect a reinvigoration of the Elk Hair rite. Indeed, War Eagle wrote from Dewey in 1932 that[33]

Bacon Rind [whose recent death is mentioned in the letter]
was one of the last of the old people who beli[e]ved in [the]
Wilson cult; these first followers of peyote are about all
gone. [The] small moon now prevales in the Osage. It will be
a blessing to the world when all the Quapaws and what few
Delawares [are left practicing it] will change [to the standard
peyote rite].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mooney, _The Ghost Dance_, 903-905.

[2] Capt. Hugh L. Scott, in Mooney, _The Ghost Dance_, 904.

[3] We have elsewhere expressed the opinion that the Caddo had an historical significance in the spread of peyotism second only to that of the Kiowa-Comanche, and that Wilson represents this Caddoan influence predominantly. Though he had Delaware blood, this numerically small group could scarcely have wielded the influence or exercised the prestige necessary to account for the spread of his “moon;” the Caddo, on the other hand, who early had peyote, did have this prestige. We therefore believe Petrullo in error in claiming Wilson as a Delaware. Speck (_Notes on the Life_, 540) writes that “His associations with the Comanche and Caddo, to whom he was related by blood, were close.” Petrullo himself, indeed (_The Diabolic Root_, 44) indicates Caddoan influences on Wilson: “John Wilson, the originator of the Big Moon, was living among the Caddo. He was one of the first Delaware to eat peyote. He belonged to the Black Beaver band ... held by the Government at the Wichita and Caddo reservations. It was there that Wilson was born and raised.” Petrullo also says Wilson made visits to Arizona and New Mexico before returning to make his moon on the Caddo reservation.

[4] Note the prominence of hearts in the altar elaborated by Wilson. According to Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 45) “John Wilson ... had received some Catholic instruction.” These probably derive, therefore, from the Catholic “Sacred Heart.” (The heart is present in Huichol religion, but even if not wholly aboriginal [Aztecan influence?] and Catholic-influenced there too, it is quite independent of the Wilson heart motifs.)

[5] Cf. the prominence in Wilson’s moon of brushing each person entering with feathers.

[6] Cf. the Winnebago leader’s similar praying with confessants in peyote meetings.

[7] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 540-42; cf. also Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 80.

[8] “In response to the question as to whether Wilson ever spoke of the Peyote songs as symbolizing the singing of birds, Anderson asserted that he had heard of this among other Peyote sects but had never heard Wilson express it.” (Speck, _op. cit._, 542 note.)

[9] Some of Wilson’s Caddoan teachings were sufficiently unlike those of the Delaware to antagonize them. A Delaware informant of Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 66) said, “It [peyote] should be eaten in order to get well, not to have visions.” (Benedict’s study indicated, one recalls, that in the Woodlands only puberty-visions occurred, while in the Plains adults too may obtain them.) Again (p. 68) “Wilson was wrong. Peyote is good, but it is good and powerful medicine, not a religion like the Big House. [For instance] four boiled Peyote placed on top of the head will help in cases of insanity.”

[10] Cf. the Pawnee (Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 642).

[11] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 172.

[12] Petrullo, _op. cit._, 56-59, 67, 96, note 29.

[13] Petrullo (_The Diabolic Root_, 103). He claims to be Wilson’s authorized successor and has revised his moon. Petrullo (_op. cit._, 4) says John Quapaw is Wilson’s real successor.

[14] Harrington (_Religion and Ceremonies_, 156) says Wilson brought the Lenape peyote from the Washita River Caddo as well as the Ghost Dance in 1890-92, which died out with him among the Delaware (_idem_, 190-91).

[15] Speck, _Notes on the Ethnology_, 171.

[16] On the mere score of Christian elements we do not agree, however, that Wilson’s influence necessarily extended to the Wichita, Winnebago, Kickapoo, and Omaha (Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 79). See following appendices.

[17] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 554.

[18] _Idem_, 553.

[19] _Idem_, 544.

[20] _Idem_, 546.

[21] For this reason we doubt the soundness of Petrullo’s inference that the Omaha, Winnebago, etc., were influenced by Wilson. These groups actually used the Bible in meetings and read from it. This influence, we believe, traces to another teacher, the Oto Jonathan Koshiway.

[22] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 547.

[23] Speck, _Notes on the Ethnology_, 171.

[24] Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 549.

[25] Wilson taught that the number of peyote required to be eaten varies according to the amount of impurity in the “heart” and stomach of the individual, “which impurity resulting from sins committed he likened to ‘dirt’” (Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 545). The more frequently the communicant attended peyote meetings, the less dirt, obviously, there could accumulate. The degree of nausea, Wilson taught, is the punishment meted out for sin (cf. John Rave’s teaching).

[26] To be sure the pattern of gift-giving is deep-rooted in the Plains, yet it is a curious coincidence at least that Wilson should have taken peyote to the Quapaw, who own the largest lead and zinc mining fields in the world, and the Osage, made notoriously wealthy through oil. Anderson told Speck that the Osage had given Wilson $200 for building them a moon, and Charles Tyner (Quapaw) told me that he and Victor Griffin (Quapaw) had received $500 for an altar in one sum and some hundreds of dollars in money gifts later. The Osage once gave Anderson $20 and his wife $10 because his uncle, John Wilson, had built their moon (Speck, _op. cit._, 551). Wilson even used to charge $1 per person for the sweatbaths he gave before meetings.

[27] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 82; cf. 45, 95.

[28] Petrullo, _op. cit._, 45; cf. 104.

[29] His followers, in any case, betray their expectancy of financial reward. It was remarked, for example, that the impecunious Seneca gave Anderson only his trainfare when he brought peyote to them. Griffin, more business-like, always arranges beforehand the amount of compensation he is to receive.

[30] Cf. the case of the Caddo Alfred Taylor whom the Osage invited to introduce the basic Caddo moon—even the Osage are turning from the Wilson rite.

[31] Petrullo, _op. cit._, 43.

[32] _Idem_, 31-32.

[33] War Eagle, letter to Speck from Dewey, Oklahoma April 1, 1932. We believe Petrullo, as shown by this letter, has over-emphasized the decadence of the basic rite at Dewey. The Wilson-Elk Hair antagonism is shown in even trivial ways. The latter use the feathers of swift-flying birds to “hurry up” the medicine cure, the faster the singing of songs, the quicker the cure. The Wilson cultists, who sing slowly, accuse the little moon followers of “putting too much vigor and speed into their healing and praying meetings as is typified by their inclination to decorate their Peyote paraphernalia with Hummingbird feathers, symbolical of the acme of speed.” (Speck, _Notes on the Life_, 551; thanks are due to the University of Pennsylvania Committee of Faculty Research, for Grant No. 93 on which his work was done.)

APPENDIX 8: CHRISTIAN ELEMENTS IN THE PEYOTE CULT

Very few ascertainably Christian elements are discoverable in Mexican peyotism. Some such as “curing” with rosaries of Job’s-tears beads dipped in tesvino, eating bits of the idol’s body and the like, may be largely aboriginal.[1] “El Santo Niño de Peyote” of Santa Rosalia is apparently a local variation of El Santo Niño de Atoche; the mission of El Santo Nombre de Jesus Peyotes is so-called merely from the abundance of the plant thereabouts. The overlay of Mexican Catholicism is elsewhere thin and localized also. The Huichol[2] see the saints in their color visions as pictures or giant men and women walking about; sometimes they press the saints into service in their rain-making ceremonies. The cross[3] in tesvino-curing and those on the Huichol peyote patio may really derive from an old native four-point symbolism. The Tarahumari[4] call the large green hikuli “peyote christiano,” in contrast to a small, red, ineffective one called “peyote cimarrón,” and Christian Tarahumari lift their hats to the plant and make the sign of the cross, but the essential ritual was unmodified by Christian ideas. None of these Christian features is common to Mexican peyotism.

The rite as it came to the United States, then, was aboriginal in character, as far as we can ascertain. Opler writes that[5]

there is no hint of the influence of Christianity in the
Mescalero use of peyote. The growth of the cult among these
people has been maintained entirely within the traditional
bounds of Apache ceremonialism. Indeed, far from becoming a
weakened and Christianized version of native beliefs, the
Mescalero Apache acceptance of peyote resulted instead in an
intensification of the aboriginal religious values and concepts
at many points.

This characterization would equally well fit the basic Kiowa-Comanche rite of the Plains, in which Christian elements are quite absent. These elements in the Plains are distinctly a secondary development, stemming from the Oto Koshiway and such Oto-influenced groups as the Omaha, Iowa and Winnebago[6] and the groups taught by John Wilson, such as the Delaware, Quapaw and Osage.

Arapaho-Winnebago officials and ritual food are given Christian symbolism:[7]

During the evening the leader represents the first created man,
the woman dressed up is the New Jerusalem, the bride waiting
for the bridegroom. The cup used by the leader and the woman
is supposed to symbolize the fact that they are to become one;
the water represents the God’s gift, His Holiness. The corn
represents the feast to be partaken of on the Day of Judgment
and the fruit represents the fruit of the tree of life. The
meat represents the message of Christ and those who accept it
will be saved.

The Winnebago, Quapaw and Osage peyote officials represent the Father (the leader), the Son (the drummer) and the Holy Ghost (the cedar-man); the trinity of hearts in the Big Moon may represent much the same idea in the Osage-Quapaw rite.

Koshiway said that the bird into which the Oto ashes are shaped is

the Spirit descending when Jesus was baptized: the Holy Spirit,
like an eagle, with good eyes; you can’t fool it. [The ashes
themselves represent] a prayer for the white hair of old age,
and the fire is like the fire through which God spoke to Moses.
Peyote is like a “telescope” through which you can see God.

The Delaware twin piles of ashes symbolize Christ’s lungs; Mary Buffalo says one pile is the grave of Christ, the other of John Wilson, among the Osage; the Quapaw say the whole coffin-shaped fire-pit is Christ’s grave. The Ponca, according to Brabant, believed the body of the Saviour would emerge from the altar and become visible to those who had eaten enough of the sacred plant. Among the Caddo,

the first stick in the fire represents the heart. There are
twelve other sticks which represent the ribs [of Christ, as the
ashes his lungs].[8]

The paraphernalia of the ceremony are also given Christian interpretations. The Delaware followers of Wilson call the corn husk cigarette the “pipe of Jesus.” And of an unspecified group Mooney writes that

many of the mescal eaters wear crucifixes, which they regard as
sacred emblems of the rite, the cross representing the cross of
scented leaves upon which the consecrated mescal rests during
the ceremony, while the Christ is the mescal goddess.

Some Kiowa leaders make a cross under the water bucket, and cross the feathers in the water before drinking[9] and the peyote staff, like that of the Delaware, often has an inconspicuous cross near the top. The twelve feathers of the Omaha leader’s fan represent the twelve apostles of Christ. The Winnebago fans differ for the John Rave and the Jesse Clay rites, but both sects use eagle feathers which represent the wings of the birds mentioned in Revelations. John Rave’s staff is symbolic of the “shepherd’s crook,” and the mound of earth in the altar is “Mt. Sinai.” White Buffalo said that gourd rattles among the Nebraska Winnebago commonly bore drawings of Christ, his cross and crown, etc., and Radin says they often bear drawings of scenes from the Bible as well as peyote visions. A Cheyenne gourd seen at Apache and made by Spotted Crow had the following “Jesus talk” on it:

Help me O Lord My God O save me According to thy Mercy O God my
heart is fixed. I will sing And give praise Even with my Glory.

The Winnebago explain that the exchange of gourd and drum between the leader and his assistant when singing the set songs means that “God gives power to Christ, in Heaven and earth,” just as the leader delegates his authority. The blowing of the leader’s “flute” at the four points of the compass is to announce the birth of Christ to the world, and later it symbolizes the trumpet of the Day of Judgment, when Christ will appear wearing the crown of glory (symbolized by the leader’s otter skin hat, worn at this time).[10]

The Bible as an additional piece of peyote paraphernalia probably stems from the Christianism of the Oto, who used it in their meetings, being mentioned also for the Iowa, Omaha and Winnebago. The New Testament, and particularly Revelations, is a favorite among the Rave cultists (Jesse Clay’s followers do not use the Bible)—Crashing Thunder finding in it authority for a hair-cut, and others discovering reasons after the fact for holding their meetings at night. Three Old Testament texts are widely known also:

And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire,
and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
(Exodus 12.8.)

And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall
keep it as a feast by an ordinance forever. (Exodus 12.14.)

For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if
the root be holy, so are the branches.... Boast not against the
branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the
root thee. (Romans 11.16 and 18.)

Various other Biblical references appear in the ceremony. Among the Iowa the leader carries the water himself in the morning to show his humility, and because of Christ’s washing of feet mentioned in the Gospels. The Winnebago equate the physiological action of peyote with Christ’s casting out devils. A Comanche said suffering is caused by one’s sins and lack of faith in peyote, and that point in the night when nausea is commonly severest is called the “Dark Hour, the hour of the Crucifixion.” A Kickapoo leader often cast his prophecies in Biblical language. A Kiowa, again, appeared to have a belief about the first peyote found which parallels the miraculous proliferation of the loaves and the fishes in the Bible. Koshiway compared the Indians to the fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, when Christ said “Peace, be still!” to the angry waves, just as peyote says it to the storm-tossed Indians in this latter-day world. And for the man who lives a good life, the ashes of the fire will open up like the waters of the Red Sea, and he can pass through the fire to the father peyote along the “Peyote Road” on the moon.[11]

Some two dozen songs, previously reported in the text, show Christian influence. The closing song of the Negro Church of the First-born was the Christian hymn, “Till We Meet Again,” but the majority of peyote songs have native words. The Rave rite, derived from the Oto and the Quapaw (influenced by the Christianity of Jonathan Koshiway and John Wilson, respectively), contained more Christian elements in symbolism and song than the Jesse Clay cult. This was the more aboriginal, yet he back-handedly quoted the Scriptures to justify the plain staff (“like Moses’”) of his ceremony as against the decorated staff of Rave. Occasional peyote visions show Christian influence: some of Crashing Thunder’s were of this sort, and a Kiowa had visions of a mitred priest who nodded smilingly and approvingly at the father peyote on the altar, but in the visions collected Christian elements are uncommon.[12]

Mexican peyotism and the Wilson rite were influenced by Catholicism, but the Church of the First-born and the Native American Church by Protestantism (the Russellites, the Mormons, etc.). At the first Oto meeting attended a vessel was passed around in the morning for a “free-will offering,” as in Protestant churches, and the Pawnee, Kiowa and others have “Ladies’ Auxiliaries” to the local Native American Church. These women have quilting parties, can fruit, make up box lunches to raise church money and visit the sick, much as their White sisters do. Other White elements appear in the meetings themselves. The Iowa leader and fireman, for instance, shake hands with everyone in the tipi after the ritual feast, in token of friendship and good will. The Osage and Quapaw “round-houses,” too, are in obvious imitation of White peoples’ churches, but the Osage are criticized for ostentation along White “leisure class” lines. More conservative groups make disparaging remarks about the “beds” in their meetings, their electric lights in the round house, and their cigars—some Osage churches are even provided with spittoons!

Yet when all these features have been summed up, it is still clear that the layer of Christianity on peyotism is very thin and superficial indeed. Furthermore, the Christianized Wilson and Rave rites among the Caddo and Winnebago are currently losing followers to the more conservative Hoag and Jesse Clay moons—and there are frequent expostulations against the mixing of the native religion with the White.[13] Some groups feel no inconsistency in belonging to both the peyote church and some White Protestant sect as well, but the unfriendliness of the functionaries of the latter groups toward peyotism and their lack of reciprocal tolerance has driven many borderline cases openly into the peyote church. The Indians feel, perhaps rightly, that peyotism is their last strong link with the aboriginal past, which others are trying to destroy. Hence it has contributed greatly to the sense of community and morale of the Indian groups in Oklahoma.

Of course apologists sometimes use Christian arguments to confound the enemies of the cult, as when peyote and the water are equated to the Catholic use of bread and wine in Communion,[14] or when Old Man Green (Oto) told a minister that he was condemning God’s work in attacking peyote. But these do not proceed from any profound faith in Christianity. A Shawnee comment is most typical:

Christ was born only several hundred years ago, not when the
world was created, like peyote.

Prayers are still addressed to the older tribal deities in peyote meetings: the Winnebago to Earthmaker, the Oto to Wakan, the Cheyenne to Mayan, etc. A Kickapoo summed up the religious history of his tribe as follows:

We had medicine bags before Jesus was born over in Bethlehem,
in the old country. The old generation worshipped idols. When
God’s son was going to be born, they were trying to make the
people believe God. And after Jesus was born, they commenced
this [peyote].

Nevertheless, it should be reiterated that on the whole, despite the apparent and superficial syncretism with Christianity, peyotism is an essentially aboriginal American religion, operating in terms of fundamental Indian concepts about powers, visions and native modes of doctoring. The Christianity of many native Christians is precarious at best—as we have seen from various case histories—when it comes into any very serious conflict with native culture. Perhaps most peyote-users would echo the words of the famous Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, with reference to the superiority of peyotism over Christianity:

The white man [he said] goes into his church house and talks
_about_ Jesus, but the Indian goes into his tipi and talks _to_
Jesus.[15]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “[De la Serna] adds that ... they delighted in caricaturing the Eucharist, dividing among their congregation a narcotic yellow mushroom for the bread, and the inebriating pulque for the wine. Sometimes they adroitly concealed in the pyx, alongside the holy water, some little idol of their own, so that they really followed their own superstitions while seemingly adoring the Host. They assigned a purely pagan sense to the sacred formula, ‘Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’ understanding it to be, ‘Fire, Earth, and Water,’ or the like” (Brinton, _Nagualism_, 28); Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 369, 385. _Coix Lachryma Jobi_ was an early Spanish introduction, but may have replaced some native seed (e.g., mescal) used as beads. Serna’s mushroom is probably teo-nanacatl.

[2] Klineberg, _Notes on the Huichol_, 449; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:314; 2:170, 189.

[3] Lumholtz, _op. cit._, 2:171-72, 272; Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_, 294.

[4] Bennett and Zingg, _op. cit._, 290; Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, 1:360-61. On Tarahumari Christianity see _Handbook of the American Indians_, 2:692b; the ease of acceptance suggests congruence with aboriginal forms.

[5] Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_.

[6] The Winnebago did not introduce the first Christian elements, as Radin believed. A Taos Indian (Plains-influenced?) once visioned Christ (Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 66).

[7] Radin, _The Winnebago Tribe_, 418; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_.

[8] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 101, 113; Brabant, in Seymour, _Peyote Worship_, 182. Cf. Gilmore’s Omaha (_The Mescal Society_, 165-66) whose fireplace is the heart of Jesus.

[9] But there seemed to be a certain quality of propaganda for the ethnographer’s benefit in one Kiowa doctoring meeting, when the name of Jesus was mentioned in prayers with unwonted frequency.

[10] Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 96, cf. 56-59, 67, 96, note 9; Mooney, _A Kiowa Mescal Rattle_, 65; Harrington, _Religion and Ceremonies_, 186-88; Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 165-66; _Uses of Plants_, 106; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 4, 12; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 416-17; White Buffalo in Blair, _The Indian Tribes_, 282 (letter of April 15, 1909).

[11] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 724, 727; Gilmore, _The Mescal Society_, 165-66; _The Uses of Plants_; Densmore, _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_; _The Peyote Cult_; Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 5-6; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 394-95; _Crashing Thunder_, 186-87, 200; Simmons, in Mooney, _Miscellaneous Notes_.

[12] Skinner, _Societies of the Iowa_, 727-28; Murie, _Pawnee Indian Societies_, 637; Densmore, _The Peyote Cult_; _Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_; Radin, _A Sketch of the Peyote Cult_, 5; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 395; _Crashing Thunder_, 193-94; Smith [Mrs. M. G.], _A Negro Peyote Cult_.

[13] The turmoil among the Caddo seems to grow out of the attempt to mix Christian with native motives and John Wilson is nowadays by no means universally revered. “There have been some Delawares living with the Caddo who have from time to time tried to introduce the Catholic faith in the Peyote meeting. Often they used the crucifix on the Peyote on the moon. All these attempts have met with opposition from most of the Delawares” (Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_, 77).

[14] Petition of 62 Osage to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, in _Peyote, as Used in Religious Worship_, 64-67.

[15] Simmons, _The Peyote Road_.

APPENDIX 9: THE NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH AND OTHER PEYOTE CHURCHES

The many attempted anti-peyote legal measures, and the frank hostility of some persons[1] to peyotism early stimulated the cultists to seek some sort of legally-guaranteed security for their worship. The first of several incorporated peyote churches, the Oto Church of the First-born, has heretofore been little known. Peyote came to the Oto under the late White Horn’s leadership from the Tonkawa some time before 1896. The original rite is said to have been “just like the Apache,” which is to say, the standard pre-John Wilson Plains type. But the Oto, like other tribes, began to have “government trouble” about their worship shortly before the World War. A group of younger men, Frank Eagle, George Pipestem, Charles MacDonald and Charles W. Dailey, who had been away to school and were considerably influenced by White Protestantism, sought, at this juncture, to use the White man’s weapons in their own defence. But by far the most important figure in this movement was Jonathan Koshiway.

Although enrolled as a Sauk-and-Fox, Koshiway’s mother was an Oto. He had formerly lived in northeastern Kansas, and had been an Indian evangelist for the Church of Latter-Day Saints.[2] As an individual Koshiway was considerably influenced by Middle Western Protestantism, and solved for himself the adjustmental problem of double culture-bearers by discovering that the old native religion of his childhood was the _same_ as the White Christianity of his maturity, with merely different phrasing and vocabulary. Did not God speak to Moses through a burning bush, like the Indians’ peyote fire? When God viewed his creation, does not the Bible say that “God saw that it was good,” and was not the little peyote plant one of the herbs of the field thus created? Did not Christians also make use of wafers and sacramental wine just as the Indians used the flat buttons of the sacred herb and peyote “tea”? Did not Christianity even embody the Plains ritual number in the “Four Foundations” of Love, Faith, Hope, and Charity?

Jack was a “Bible student” in Kansas City at one time, and is notably fluent in these syncretic interpretations, being called upon frequently to speak in peyote meetings, especially when visitors are present to whom explanations are in order. Another important influence upon Koshiway—as well as upon George Deroin (Iowa) of Perkins, who may once have been his associate—was that of the Russellites, a somewhat desiccated Protestant cult of the Middle West, who did not believe in any “earthly” government. This dogma naturally suited a group in difficulties with temporal government. Koshiway explained to me that the name finally chosen for the organization is a “heavenly name” and that the church proper is “up there”; yet practical peace must be made with Caesar on earth, and this Koshiway set about with care to do.

First of all he consulted White Horn, leader of the native peyote rite, and gained his support. Koshiway generously states that White Horn was the co-founder of the Church of the First-born, but the fact appears to be that the latter’s role consisted in giving the official approval of the older established peyote cult. Koshiway also visited many white ministers to get their advice on organization. There appears to have been some friction about this, and even Koshiway ended up by insisting that the peyote church should not be “under” any white Protestant church, but independent. Then, despite the fact that the Russellites preach non-cooperation with the Government and the ultimate break-up of all temporal governments, Koshiway went to a lawyer in Perry, Oklahoma, H. F. Johnson, and sought legal advice. On December 8, 1914, the “First-born Church of Christ” was incorporated under the laws of Oklahoma and received a charter for an organization located at Red Rock, Oklahoma, signed by Benjamin F. Harrison, the Secretary of State.[3] The articles of incorporation were signed by Jonathan Koshiway and four hundred and ten other names.

Koshiway wanted an “authorized” preacher to come and baptize the newly constituted church’s adherents, but this never became a regular practice, if, indeed, it ever actually occurred at all. A reluctance to come half-way was manifested by the Protestant groups concerned, and in time Jack himself took up all the usual functions of a minister, marrying, conducting funerals and in addition doctoring in meetings and “hollering” the way his source of medicine power does. Secondary Shawnee influences occurred in this later period, but the chief ritual difference between the usual peyote rite of the Plains and that of the Oto Church of the First-born is directly traceable to the influence of the Russellites.

This difference was over the question of smoking in meetings. As Koshiway reconstituted the Church, the preliminary smoking of corn shuck cigarettes was abolished—a remarkable innovation when one recalls the deeply entrenched ceremonial use of tobacco in the Plains, but when a narcotic was sacrificed in the ritual, tobacco went, not peyote. Koshiway took peyote to a group of Oto in Kansas under Charley Rubido, and by this time the work of syncretism which had been accomplished became evident, for,

when we examined the literature [says Koshiway] we found
that [the native Russellites under Rubido and the Koshiway
peyotists] were just alike.

In both groups smoking was omitted, and cedar leaves were burned in place of this at intervals of prayer. When the leader called upon an individual to pray, he was given cedar to burn to produce smoke and bear away the prayer. The Bible was a conspicuous part of the meeting also.[4]