Indians of North America -- Religion; Indians of North America -- Rites and ceremonies; Peyotism
[50] Big Moon leaders apparently required fees; Speck (Peyote MSS.)
says the Seneca were too poor to pay more than the leader’s carfare
when the cult was brought to them. Wilson himself met his death when
some horses given him by the Quapaw and tied to the back of his wagon
pulled backward at a crossing as a locomotive approached, and some of his
enemies assert that this was in punishment for his avariciousness and
economic exploitation of peyotism. He even charged money for sweatbaths
he prepared in connection with meetings.
[51] Cf. Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 410. A Shawnee gave the meeting-tipi to
two old men the next morning, and the writer has exchanged gifts with
several tribes, notably the Oto and the Kiowa.
[52] Koshiway said he ate 100 once: “I was like a Ford, all broken down,
connecting rods loose. The next day I was overhauled and hitting on all
four, and went to work.” Belo Kozad, well-known Kiowa leader, said he
ate 100 green peyote once but had a “hard time keeping it down.” Big Bow
(Kiowa) claims to have eaten 75 at the time of his prophetic vision of
the World War. One Oto sometimes eats 40 to 50 at which a man comes and
instructs him. Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne) for eight years President of the
Oklahoma N.A.C. said he ate 84 green ones once. Densmore (_Winnebago
Songs of the Peyote Ceremony_) says Winnebago ate 40 to 100, and many of
them ate 60; elsewhere (_The Peyote Cult_) she states a Winnebago usually
ate 15, but some ate up to 40. Lipan (Opler, _Lipan Apache Field Notes_)
ate 12 to 50. A Tonkawa leader (Opler, _Chiricahua Apache_) ate 40. Users
at Taos (Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 66) ate as many as 60, but usually about
20 or 30. Mescalero (Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_) ate
from 4 to 40, with 12 as a “generous amount.” Iowa (Skinner, _Societies
of the Iowa_, 724-25) considered 16 a good amount, women being restricted
to 2. Huichol (Lumholtz, _The Huichol Indians_, 9) rarely ate more than 4
or 5 daily, but at times consumed up to 20. An Arapaho stated under oath
(_Peyote as Used in Religious Worship_, 49) he had eaten 12-30 peyote
at different times, agreeing with Kroeber’s average of 12, with amounts
of more than 30 eaten sometimes. A White observer in a Comanche meeting
said he had seen them eat 30 or 40 apiece (Simmons, _The Peyote Road_).
An Osage, on the other hand, stated before an official group that 5 was
the upper limit for women and 7 for men (_Peyote as Used in Religious
Worship_, 31), a statement open to doubt.
[53] Opler, _Lipan Apache Field Notes_.
[54] Opler, _The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern_; _Chiracahua Apache_;
Parsons, _Taos Pueblo_, 3; Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 402, 405; Skinner,
_Ethnology of the Ioway_, 249 (but the Christian symbolism here is
Plains); Harrington, _Religion and Ceremonies_, 187-88; Petrullo, _The
Diabolic Root_, 53.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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