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