Indians of North America -- Religion; Indians of North America -- Rites and ceremonies; Peyotism
Some individuals particularly cherish and prize their “father peyotes.”
A well-known Wichita leader showed the writer his private collection of
them one forenoon after a meeting.[78] Some famous “peyote chiefs” are
almost heirlooms. Belo Kozad, a prominent Kiowa peyote leader, has one
which once belonged to the famous Comanche chieftain, Quanah Parker. This
was passed around at the end of the meeting and handled with the utmost
reverence.[79]
_Bible._ Peyote-users have also taken over the typical Protestant
fetishism of the Bible, but this Christian element in peyote meetings
is confined exclusively to Siouan-speaking groups. Radin states
categorically that “the use of the Bible is an entirely new element
introduced by the Winnebago,” but there is good reason to believe that
Hensley borrowed this trait from more southerly Oklahoma groups which he
visited in the early days of Winnebago peyotism. The Omaha placing of
an open Bible near the father peyote may indeed have been influenced by
the Winnebago (who put the peyote directly on the open book), and so too
the Iowa, but the Oto use of the Bible in the Church of the First-born
probably preceded it in Oklahoma, where, indeed, John Wilson’s Big Moon
cult embodied Christian elements. Further, the reading of the Bible is a
feature of the Rave rite only, not of the Clay version, a more aboriginal
form.[80]
The Winnebago use the New Testament, especially Revelations. Hensley used
to have the singing stop at intervals, so that the younger educated men
might translate and interpret portions for non-reading members. For some
individuals at least, the Bible was the touchstone of behavior:
Then we went home [says Crashing Thunder] and they showed me a
passage in the Bible where it said that it was a shame for any
man to wear long hair. I looked at the passage. I was not a
man learned in books, but I wanted to give them the impression
that I knew how to read so I told them to cut my hair. I was
still wearing it long at the time. After my hair was cut I took
out a lot of medicines, many small bundles of them. These and
my shorn hair I gave to my brother-in-law. Then I cried and
my brother-in-law also cried. He thanked me, told me that I
understood and that I had done well.
Another time, in a peyote vision, his body deserted Crashing Thunder and
turned the leaves of the Bible until it came to Matthew 16 and read[81]
that “Peter did not give himself up”; this meant that the peyote was
troubling him because he was stubborn and would not acquiesce to its
power.[82]
The Bible was also used to support rationalizations after the fact:[83]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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