Indians of North America -- Religion; Indians of North America -- Rites and ceremonies; Peyotism
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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