The Native American Church is taken into account probably the most widespread religious movement among the many Indigenous people of North America. It holds sacred the peyote cactus, which grows naturally only in some parts of southern Texas and northern Mexico. Peyote has been used spiritually in ceremonies, and as a drugs by Native American people for millennia.
It accommodates several psychoactive compounds, primarily mescaline, which is a hallucinogen. Different tribes of peyote people have their very own name for the cactus. While it remains to be a controlled substance, U.S. laws passed in 1978 and 1994 allow Native Americans to make use of, harvest and transport peyote. However, these laws only allow federally recognized Native American tribes to make use of the substance and do not apply to the broader group of Indigenous people within the US.
The Native American Church developed into a definite lifestyle around 1885 among the many Kiowa and Comanche of Oklahoma. After 1891, it began to spread as far north as Canada. Now, greater than 50 tribes and 400,000 people practice it. In general, the peyotist doctrine espouses belief in a single supreme God who deals with humans through various spirits that then carry prayers to God. In many tribes, the peyote plant itself is a deity, personified as Peyote Spirit.
Why was the Native American Church incorporated?
The Native American Church just isn’t one unified entity like, say, the Catholic Church. It accommodates a diversity of tribes, beliefs and practices. Peyote is what unifies them. After peyote was banned by U.S. government agents in 1888 and later by 15 states, Native American tribes began incorporating as individual Native American Churches in 1918. In order to preserve the peyote ceremony, the federal and state governments encouraged Native American people to prepare as a church, said Darrell Red Cloud, the great-great grandson of Chief Red Cloud of the Lakota Nation and vice chairman of the Native American Church of North America.
In the next a long time, the faith grew significantly, with several churches bringing Jesus Christ’s name and image into the church so their congregations and worship can be accepted, said Steve Moore, who’s non-Native and is an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund.
“Local religious leaders in communities would see the image of Jesus, a Bible or cross on the wall of the meeting house or tipi and they might hear references to Jesus within the prayers or songs,” he said. “That probably helped persuade the authorities that the Native people were within the means of transformation to Christianity.”
This persecution of peyote people continued even after the formation of the Native American Church, said Frank Dayish Jr. a former Navajo Nation vice chairman and chairperson for the Council of the Peyote Way of Life Coalition.
In the Sixties, there have been laws prohibiting peyote within the Navajo Nation, he said. Dayish remembers a time during that period when police confiscated peyote from his church, poured gasoline on the plants and set them on fire.
“I remember my dad and other relatives went over and saved the green peyote that didn’t burn,” he said, adding that it took a long time of lobbying until an amendment to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1994 permitted members of federally recognized Native American tribes to make use of peyote for religious purposes.
How is peyote utilized in the Native American Church?
Peyote is the central a part of a ceremony that takes place in a tipi around a crescent-shaped earthen altar mound and a sacred fire. The ceremony typically lasts all night and includes prayer, singing, the sacramental eating of peyote, water rites and spiritual contemplation.
Morgan Tosee, a member of the Comanche Nation who leads ceremonies inside the Comanche Native American Church, said peyote is utilized within the context of prayer — not smoked — as many are inclined to imagine.
“When we use it, we either eat it dry or grind it up,” he said. “Sometimes, we make tea out of it. But, we don’t drink it like regular tea. You pray with it and take little sips, like you’ll take medicine.”
Tosee echoes the idea that pervades the church: “If you maintain the peyote, it’ll maintain you.”
“And when you imagine in it, it’ll heal you,” he said, adding that he has seen the medication work, healing individuals with various ailments.
People treat the trip to reap peyote as a pilgrimage, said Red Cloud. Typically, prayers and ceremonies happen before the pilgrimage to hunt blessings for journey. Once they get to the peyote gardens, they’d touch the bottom and thank the Creator before harvesting the medication. The partaking of peyote can also be accompanied by prayer and ceremony. The mescaline within the peyote plant is viewed as God’s spirit, Red Cloud said.
“Once we eat it, the sacredness of the medication is inside us and it opens the spiritual eye,” he said. “From there, we begin to see where the medication is growing. It shows itself to us. Once we complete the harvest, we bring it back home and have one other ceremony to the medication and provides because of the Creator.”
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