Peyotism the White Man\'s Reality

Peyotism

The white man's reality is his streets with their banks, shops, neon lights and traffic; streets full of policemen, whores, and sad-faced people in a hurry to punch a time clock. But this is unreal. The real reality is underneath all this. Grandfather Peyote helps you find it."

Crow Dog

Peyotism and North American Indian religion are intimately interlinked and extends over a vast expanse of recorded and unrecorded history. The use of Peyote as an essential element of North American religion is evidenced in many archeological and historical findings.

The religious use peyote is very ancient. One cache of dried peyote found in a Texas cave, has been dated at approximately 7000 years old. The use of peyote in ceremonies among Mexican tribes was a well established tradition by the time of the European entrance into the continent. This pre-historical religious use eventually diffused into the North American regions.

However, the ancient religions of the North American Indian culture was disrupted and in some instances destroyed by the incursion of other cultures into the area. "Along with this evangelistic migration came changes in the basic ceremonies associated with peyote. "

The above fact relating to the eventual changes caused by the migration of settlers into the New World will form an important aspect of the following overview of the Peyote religion. The central focus of this paper however will be on an integrated view of the origins and importance of Peyotism in North American Indian culture and traditions.

2. Native American spirituality and culture

In order to understand the importance and functioning of the culture of Peyote in North American Indian spirituality, one has to firstly understand the central concepts and underlying theoretical and spiritual basis of Indian religion. It must be stated at the outset that understanding these religions requires a mindset and conceptuality that is often different to modern Western religions. As will be discussed, there is a danger in attempting to understand the spiritual dimensions of the North American Indian through the perceptual lenses of Western Culture, which often results in various misinterpretations of these cultures.

The foundations of the Indian religions rest on the belief in the interconnections between different dimensions or worlds of reality. A cardinal point in understanding Indian and many other ancient religious structures is that the world of spirituality, within these more ancient cultures, is closer to the reality of everyday life than is possibly the case in contemporary culture. This is an extremely important aspect, as the Native American Indian cultures view the natural world as a living conduit to the worlds of the spirit.

In other words, the world of spirituality was not distant or removed from the experiences of everyday life. To this end there were spiritual specialists within all these ancient cultures whose role it was to explore the realms of the spiritual and secondly to interpret and act as negotiators between the spiritual world and the world of common reality. These spiritual specialists are known today as the Shaman or "healers" in ancient North American culture. The use of peyote was an important part of the Shaman's ritual and process of contacting and envisioning the spiritual dimensions.

Many earlier ethnographers and researchers of Indian culture viewed the traditions from the point-of-view of Western concepts of reason and rationality, completely failing to understand the importance and meaning of the use of Peyote in the Indian culture and reducing it to a form of drug. For example, the following quotation from an early ethnographic study claims that Peyote and its use is an insidious elements of Indian culture which is seen not as an important part of the religious techniques and methods of the people, but rather as one of the causes of the downfall of the culture.

The greatest and most insidious evil remains to be considered. The use of peyote, or mescal, has become one of the most serious menaces to the progress of the Indian race in the United States. The chemical constituents, the therapeutic value, the physiological and physical effects of the drug must be thoroughly understood if the Indian is to free himself from this vice. "

The use of Peyote was certainly not intended as a form of "drug abuse" and played a vital part in the religious constructions in the culture, particularly with regard to the "vision" or trance state of the Shaman or spiritual specialist.

A brief background as to the various myths and views that dominate North American spiritual culture is also important in understanding the use and significance of the Peyote cult. The various myths and views of reality and creation within the contest of North American Indian cultures are extensive.

Indian and Inuit religions consist of a complex set of social and cultural customs for dealing with the sacred and the supernatural. There are rich traditions of religious mythology and ceremonial rituals in most areas. Spectacular religious manifestations are found on the Northwest Coast (Kwakiutl, Haida, Tsimshian), the northern Great Plains (Blackfoot, Peigan, Blood, Sarcee) and the Central and Eastern Woodlands (Ojibwa, Cree, Huron, Iroquois). In general, the Sub-Arctic Athapaskan groups and the Arctic Inuit have less elaborate religious ceremonials, but are rich in mythic tradition.

It is not possible to classify or reduce these various myths, but a general view is that they all relate to three kinds of mythical structures. The first are the creation myths "that describe the origins of the cosmos and the interrelations of its elements. Here belong the Earth Diver myth, in which either the Great Spirit or the Transformer who dives or orders other animals to dive into the primeval water to bring up mud, out of which he fashions the Earth."

There are many other variations of the creation myth.

Secondly, there are the institutional myths, which tell of the origins of religious institutions, such as the Sun Dance.

Thirdly, there are a large group of ritual myths which "serve as detailed texts for the performance of ceremonials and rituals by which cosmic order is dramatically represented "

An essential point that is made in many of these myths is that there is a profound distinction between ancient or primordial time and the present time. The primordial time is seen to be a time in which there was no or little separation between man and God and the spiritual world. There is therefore a sense of distance or separation between the ideal past and the present - a common factor found in many other religions. This separation of the spiritual from the mundane world was recognized in all the various myths and Indian cultures and ceremonies; and rituals were preformed to repair and rejoin the material and the spiritual worlds. An indication of the structure of Indian spiritual thought is given by the description of the spiritual geography of the culture.

The world is believed to have a circular surface covered with a domelike overworld. These levels are joined by a 'cosmic axis', which may be represented by a 'world tree', a 'rainbow bridge' or the 'backbone of the worlds' (the Milky Way). Religious myths of the Star Husband (Temagami Ojibwa), the Chain of Arrows (Tlingit) or the Stretching Tree (Chilcotin) tell of contacts made between humans and the world beyond via this axis. Ceremonially, such elements as columns of smoke, central house posts or the central pole of the Sun Dance Lodge represent this axis. Whirlpools or caves may represent the way to the underworld.

3. The Shaman and the Peyote Culture very important personage in understanding these cultures, and the significance of Peyote, is the Shaman or spiritual practitioner, who stands in rough equivalence to the Western idea of the Priest.

The Shaman is the central figure responsible for maintaining a balance between the spiritual and the mundane. He, or she, does this through ritual and ceremony. The Shaman is also the messenger of the spiritual world as well as the healer. He is the explorer of the spiritual dimensions that infuse our world. It should also be remembered in this context that the spiritual and ordinary worlds are seen to be continually co-present in ancient Indian culture. For example, sickness or disease is seen as having spiritual causes. Therefore, the Shaman as spiritual practitioner is also the healer of illness.

Of several religious figures, Shamans are the most notable. They function as healers, prophets, diviners and custodians of religious mythology, and are often the officiants at religious ceremonies. In some societies, all these functions are performed by the same person; in others Shamans are specialists.

In many Indian cultures the use of Peyote, and other natural substances, are seen as essential elements of this opening up of awareness and understanding in the Shamanic experience and is used explicitly for the spiritual process and not as a recreational drug.

The Shamanic 'journey' into the spiritual world therefore forms not only an essential religious function in the culture but also has many social aspects related to it. Without the Shaman's visions and entrance into the spiritual dimension the causes of disease, for example, would not be known. Shamanic intervention is also a part of the social fabric of these cultures, and the Shaman is often consulted in terms of political and tribal disputes. The classic Shamanic trance or journey consists of a number of elements:

Leaving the realm of the mundane, that is, the physical world; (2) Traveling to the supernatural; and (3) Returning to the world of the mundane.

In order to facilitate this vital function the Shaman often uses psychoactive plants such as Peyote to aid his perception of the spiritual world. "The transition between the world of the mundane and the supernatural world is frequently facilitated by inducing trance states using psychoactive plants."

Peyote

The use of Peyote and the origins of the Peyote cult are buried in antiquity. An early Spanish chronicler, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, "estimated on the basis of several historical events recorded in Indian chronology that Peyote was known to the Chichimeca and Toltec at least 1890 years before the arrival of the Europeans."

The Peyote cult is estimated to be very ancient and some experts place the plant's known use as between three and seven thousand years ago. However, "The earliest European records concerning this sacred cactus are those of Sahagun, who lived from 1499 to 1590 and who dedicated most of his adult life researching the Indians of Mexico."

Peyote was used throughout Mexico to as far north as Texas, and San Pedro in the Andes mountain region of South America. "The earliest known depiction of San Pedro cactus is on a stone tablet found in Peru dating to 1300 B.C. Ritual objects containing images of Peyote were found dating back to 500 B.C."

Peyote or Lophophora williamsii contains the psychedelic drug known as Mescaline. Mescaline belongs to a family of compounds known as phenethylamines.

Put very simply, the essential function and use of Peyote or Mescaline is to contact the spiritual world and God. In the Peyote Cult, the plant is seen as a sacred messenger, or as a sacrament.

As in the case of any other sacrament, the worshipper eats Peyote under the proper ritual conditions in order to obtain power to commune effectively with God and the other spirits. That is why the amount of Peyote taken during a rite depends upon the solemnity of the occasion; the more serious the rite, the greater the amount of Peyote imbibed.

The Shamanic roots of the modern Peyote Cult are still evident and form an underlying and integral part of modern practices. The Shaman who works with the plant will have had to undergo an initiatory period with training in the specifics of the spiritual dimension. "Typically, a shamanic healer working with entheogenic plants undergoes a lengthy initiation and training (sometimes lasting years) under the guidance of an experienced elder before working with others."

In 1918 the Peyotists were incorporated into the North American Church. The North American Church is described as a "Native American religious group whose beliefs blend fundamentalist Christian elements with pan-Native American moral principles."

In 1940 the church was declared illegal by the Navajo Tribal Council, which saw it as a threat to Navajo culture. However, the church continued to flourish and in 1967 the Navajo tribal council reversed its decision.

Today Peyotism is the "most widespread indigenous contemporary Native American religion." In 1996 the Church had 250,000 members in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

Furthermore, the Church teaches an ethical doctrine which is similar in some respects to the monotheistic religions of the West. However, there are central differences, particularly with regard to central Christian components; "...its exponents often stating that while Christ came to the whites, peyote came to the Native Americans. "

The Peyote rites can be extensive and often last from sunrise to sundown. There are usually four elements to the rites; which consists of prayer, singing, eating the sacramental peyote, and contemplation. Researchers claim that the religion originated among the Kiowa in Oklahoma about 1890. They also state that modern Peyotism incorporates the traditional use of Peyote.

It is often difficult for many Westerners to understand the intensely sacred nature of the Peyote for the Indians. It is not just a method of trance or vision induction but is deemed to be a spiritual entity in its own right. It is essentially used to enable the individual to "... communicate with God without the medium of a priest. It is an earthly representative of God to many Peyotists. " central aspect of Peyotism is that the Peyote is seen as containing spiritual power. "The Great Spirit put some of his supernatural power (mana) into Peyote, which he gave to the Indians to help them in their present lowly circumstances" (Slotkin 1952:568). Slotkin continues: "By eating Peyote under the proper ritual conditions, a person can incorporate some of the Great Spirit's power in the same way that the White Christian absorbs that power by means of the sacramental bread and wine. "