The present Oto church in Oklahoma, under the presidency of James Pettit, considers itself a local branch of the Native American Church, but the Kansas group still carries on the Russellite no-smoking rule. The return to the older standard pattern came about in this way.[5] The well-known Kiowa leader, Belo Kozad, came to the Oto with Jack Sankadote (one of the two original Kiowa users) and an Apache named Star. The meeting was held fourteen miles east of Red Rock, and Koshiway’s attendance at this was a turning-point. Belo prayed to peyote—a practice itself rejected by Koshiway—that Jack take up his “road.” Jack maintained his disapproval of smoking, but for some time had apparently come to prefer being an accepted member of the larger group to being an important outsider. Somewhat later, he revisited the Kiowa and his friend Albert Cat, attending several meetings there. At one of these Belo offered Koshiway a prayer-smoke, and finally after some hesitation he took it—a very small act objectively, to be sure, but symbolizing the healing of a schism in the native peyote religion. On this trip south Koshiway had been given money gifts, and a sick woman the Oto had brought with them had been doctored by Old Man Horse (Kiowa); these factors perhaps weighed somewhat in favor of his embracing the state-wide cult. In the ideology of Belo (and most Kiowa as well) there was no theoretical objection to Christian churches, but the usual attitude was that peyotism and Christianity were mutually exclusive _alternatives_.[6] Still later Belo Kozad again visited the Oto and led a meeting, and this time Koshiway was his assistant or drummer, and Koshiway now had his place in the classic rite. His adaptability and good humor have given him a position of considerable importance in Oto peyotism, though he is by no means the oldest user—more important perhaps even than that of Sam Bassett, the “tribal priest.” Several other fore-runners of the Native American Church should be mentioned. In 1897 the Oto brought the new religion to the Omaha and Winnebago of Nebraska and by 1909 there was an organization called the Union Church of mescal-eaters at Winnebago, Nebraska, which made use of the Bible.[7] The Omaha formed a similar organization called the American Indian Church Brother Association, whose elaborate symbolic crest is figured in Wagner. The Kiowa United American Church mentioned by Mrs. Voegelin may also have been a forerunner of the Native American Church.