From Dr. Parsons’ careful account, it is clear that Taos practises the classical Plains rite. Contact with the Arapaho-Cheyenne version dates at least as far back as 1907, and tentative beginnings of this sort continued in later years.[28] Interestingly, Cozio recorded in 1720 the prosecution of a Taos Indian who had taken peyote and disturbed the town.[29] In any case the history of peyote at Taos has been a stormy one.[30] About 1918 the hierarchy became bitterly opposed to peyote, and turned three men out of their kiva membership in an attempt to rout it out. Dr. Parsons[31] believes that the weakness of the kachina cult at Taos accounts perhaps for peyote getting any foothold there at all. It is no coincidence that the Water Kiva, which has to do with the main elements of the kachina cult, the pilgrimage, is the one most outstandingly opposed to peyote. Considerable political activity has erupted over the issue, and Dr. Parsons surmises that the protective influence of a recently deceased political figure in the pueblo was also of significance. It may well be that recent Federal legislation will so strengthen the hand of the civil authorities at Taos that the suppression of peyote can be accomplished; in 1923 the number of “peyote boys” was only 52 in a population of 635. In the Plains the most important tribes in the diffusion of the peyote cult were the Kiowa, the Comanche, and to a lesser degree perhaps, the Caddo. Most Kiowa agree that they got peyote and the accompanying ritual from the Mescalero Apache. The usual story is that a raiding party came to the Apache country, and that during an Apache peyote meeting being held at the time, the leader by clairvoyant means was made aware of the approach of the war-party leader. He told his fireman to invite the man in, enemy though he was. In this manner the man learned the ceremony, and at the end he was presented with peyote and ritual paraphernalia to take back to his tribe.[32]