The Church & the Cactus

"In the first creation, God himself used to talk to the people and tell them what to do. Way after, Christ came among the white people and told the people what to do . . . White people have everything . . . The Indian got nothing. But in a little while, toward the last, God gave us peyote; that's how we happened to find God."

So an old Indian described the origin of the Native American Church (about 65,000 members). Last week the N.A.C. met near Tama, Iowa for its tenth annual convention, worried that white men and some of their fellow Indians are trying to take the gift of peyote away from them.

The Sacred Button. Peyote (pronounced pay-oh-tee) is a small, carrot-shaped cactus that grows wild in the valley of the Rio Grande. Cut off and dried, its top forms a bitter-tasting "button" that, eaten or brewed as tea, is capable of strong and strange effects upon the mind. Just what the effects are has not yet been scientifically determined.* The Indians have known about peyote for centuries; Cortez' men found the Aztecs using it when they invaded Mexico. It has always been associated with religious ceremony.

With the organization of the Native American Church (approximately 1918), the peyote cult was formally Christianized. Members of the church believe in the Trinity and in the divinity of Christ; peyote helps them experience their faith as an immediate reality. According to one anthropologist the Indians say: "A white man uses prayers out of a book; they are just words on his lips. But with us, peyote teaches us to talk from our hearts."

The Last Possession. Last week 22 delegates from eleven tribes wound up their four-day annual meeting with the traditional peyote ceremony. Into a large, canvas-covered tepee near the home of Howard Poweshiek, leader of the church on the reservation in Iowa, the Indians stepped quietly in single file. It was sundown. Dressed mostly in jeans or slacks and open shirts, the men sat cross-legged on the bare earth, facing a fire. Each helped himself to the peyote buttons that were passed around, and from time to time someone lit up a ceremonial cigarette (Bull Durham tobacco and corn husks). Until 7:30 the next morning, the big tepee was filled with prayers and gentle chants, and the soft rhythmic beat of the gourd. There was a "Fire Chief" to tend the fire, a "Cedar Chief" to sprinkle powdered cedar into the flames, and a "Drummer Chief" to keep up the music. The ritual varies slightly from tribe to tribe; sometimes, as in a ceremony last month near Window Rock, Ariz., the sacred button is revered as "Father Peyote."

At the Tama meeting, the delegates re-elected 58-year-old Allen P. Dale, a relief investigator from Vinita, Okla., for his fifth term as president. President Dale's report took triumphant note of a recent amendment to the Texas narcotics act to exempt peyote.

"We Accept . . ." But there was still plenty to worry about. Traditionalists among the Indians are opposed to the burgeoning Native Church because they fear it undercuts the older, pre-Christian tribal customs. Many Christian missionaries want to see the church outlawed altogether. In 1940 the Navajo Tribal Council forbade the use of peyote, and this year arrested 13 members of the

Native American Church for breaking this law. "They have taken everything from the Indian," said Dale. "Now, through their missionaries, they want to take our last possession, our lifeline, our religion . . . We accept Jesus Christ and the Bible. We are Christians."

* In his latest book, The Doors of Perception, Novelist Aldous Huxley prescribes mescaline, a derivative of peyote, for all mankind as an alternative to cocktails.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.