Table Of ContentACTA UNIVERSITATIS STOCKHOLMIENSIS
STOCKHOLM STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION
--------- XXXIII ---------
THE ATTRACTION
OF PEYOTE
An Inquiry into the Basic Conditions for the Diffusion
of the Peyote Religion in North America
Ake Hultkrantz
ALMQVIST & WIKSELL INTERNATIONAL
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
STOCKHOLM STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION
Published by Stockholm University
GENERAL EDITOR:
AKE HULTKRANTZ (Vol. 1-27),
LOUISE BACKMAN (Vol. 28-30),
PER-ARNE BERGLIE (Vol. 31-)
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1. A. HULTKRANTZ, ed.: The Supernatural Owners of Nature. Nordic symposium on
the religious conceptions of ruling spirits (genii loci, genii speciei) and allied con
cepts. Stockholm 1961. Pp. 165,2 maps. Out ofprint.
2.1. PAULSON: Schutzgeister und Gottheiten des Wildes (der Jagdtiere und Fische) in
Nordeurasien. Eine religionsethnographische und religionsphanomenologische Unter
suchung jagerischer Glaubensvorstellungen. Stockholm 1961. Pp. 315. Out ofp rint.
3. V DUSENBERRY: The Montana Cree. A study in religious persistence. Stockholm
1962. Pp. 280, IX plates. Out ofp rint.
4. A. HULTKRANTZ: Les Religions des Indiens primitifs de l' Amerique. Essai d'une
synthese typologique et historique. Stockholm 1963. Pp. 157.
5. A. JOHANSONS: Der Schirmherr des Hofes im Volksglauben der Letten. Studien
tiber Orts-, Hof- und Hausgeister. Stockholm 1964. Pp. 304, III plates.
6. H.-E. HAUGE: Levande begravd eller brand i nordisk folkmedicin. En studie i offer
och magi. English Summary: Burying or Burning alive in Nordic Folk Medicine.
A Study in Sacrifice and Magic. Stockholm 1965. Pp. 160, V plates.
7. W EIDLITZ: Krsna-Caitanya. Sein Leben und seine Lehre. Stockholm 1968. Pp. 56l.
Out ofp rint.
8. A. JOHANSONS: Der Wassergeist und der Sumpfgeist. Untersuchungen volkstiim
hcher Glaubensvorstellungen bei den Volkern des ostbaitischen Raumes und bei den
Ostslaven. Stockholm 1968. Pp. 116, 3 illustrations.
9. B. G. NATHHORST: Formal or Structural Studies of Traditional Tales. The useful
ness of some methodological proposals advanced by Vladimir Propp, Alan Dundes,
Claude Levi-Strauss and Edmund Leach. Stockholm 1969. Pp. 80.
10. A. LJUNGDAHL: Profetrorelser, deras orsaker, innebOrd och forutsattningar. English
Summary: Prophet movements, their causes, import and the conditions under which
they arise. Stockholm 1969. Pp. 280. Out ofp rint.
11. P. JULIUSSON: The Gonds and their Religion. A study of the integrative function of
religion in a present, preliterary and preindustrial culture in Madhya-Pradesh, India.
Stockholm 1974. Pp. 248, 16 illustrations and maps.
12. L. ZEILICH-JENSEN: Den centraleskimaiska varldsbilden. Huvuddragen av eski
maisk religion mot bakgrunden av termerna for orientering. Deutsche Zusammen
fassung: Das Weltbild der Zentraleskimos. Die Hauptztige der Religion der Eskimos,
unter Zugrundelegung des Raumsinnes. Stockholm 1974. Pp. 224, 34 illustrations and
map.
(continued on previous side of cover)
ISSN 0562-1070
ISBN 91-22-01712-7
http://avaxho.me/blogs/ChrisRedfield
Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis
STOCKHOLM STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION
XXXIII
Åke Hultkrantz
THE ATTRACTION
OF PEYOTE
An Inquiry into the Basic Conditions for the Diffusion
of the Peyote Religion in North America
ALMQVIST & WIKSELL INTERNATIONAL
STOCKHOLM/SWEDEN
1997
This work has been published
with a grant from The Swedish Council for
Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
© Åke Hultkrantz
ISBN 91-22-01712-7
Norstedts Tryckeri, Stockholm 1977
ABSTRACT
Hultkrantz, Åke
The Attraction of Peyote: An Inquiry into the Basic Conditions for the Diffu
sion of the Peyote Religion in North America.
Institute of Comparative Religion, University of Stockholm.
The American Indian Peyote Religion is the dominating new religion on North
American Indian reservations since the end of the nineteenth century. It is based
on the consumption of a small type of cactus, peyote (Lophophora williamsii)
which, after being consumed, causes hallucinations. Researchers, in particular
anthropologists, have tried to reveal the social, economical and political pre
requisites of this movement. How this religion was formed, how it came about
on the basis of extant local religions ideas, new ideas from other Indian tribes
and Christian Missionary influences are all problems that have scarcely been
dealt with. The following work is an effort to evaluate the anthropological
achievements in this connection and to construct a collected contribution to an
understanding of the forming of Peyote Religion from religio-historical per
spectives.
Stockholm 1997, 233 pages, monograph
ISBN 91-22-01712-7
Shoshoni Painting of a Peyote Session. Photo: the author.
Peyote Water Drum
Peyote Button Pouch
Peyote Rattle
Peyote Paraphernalia from the Plains
Indian Museum, Cody, Wyoming.
Photos by Geraldine Hultkrantz.
PREFACE
During the past decades the use of psychoactive and narcotic drugs has swept
over the industrialized world and caused both unrest and painful-joyful addic
tion in many circles. Occasionally we have even heard of the forming of relig
ious groups, "cults", inspired by the common drug experiences. The expertise
is unanimous that while the consummation of the drug facilitates and accentu
ates religious experiences the motivations for the use of the drug in a religious
context must be sought in many quarters. Even where the use of the drug is the
centre of religious ritual there are many underlying factors which have paved
the way for its cultic realization. At the same time, the role of the religious
factor as the main drive must not be overlooked.
Drugs in different forms have served as stimulants for ecstasy in shamanism
since archaic times. Shamanic trance has certainly been looked upon mostly as
a purely psychogenic process, but a closer study of shamanic séances often dis
closes an admixture of psychoactive ingredients as well. In particular has this
been the case in Native America where, to quote Weston La Barre, a variety of
narcotic and other drugs have been employed without comparison in other parts
of the world. In some cases where hallucinogenic drugs are used the drug, or its
source, the marvellous plant, is the object of veneration and divinization. We
might say that the shamanic power manifested in auxiliary spirits has receded -
in these cases - for the additional power inherent in certain plants and drugs.
Some examples of such divinized potencies are the Ayahuasca of the Amazonas
and the Peyote of North America. As we shall see, the Peyote story highlights
the transmission of a psychoactive plant from being a basis of shamanic power
to becoming a cult object and medicine for a group of initiated people.
The present book is a study of Peyote within a religio-scientific framing.
In most anthropological publications dealing with the use of Peyote among
North American Indians the "Peyote cult" is introduced as one of the standard
examples of a successful acculturation between Native and white value patterns.
It seems to me however that the most important aspect of the Peyote religion (as
I prefer to call it) has not been treated in a satisfactory way: the problem why
this religion spread so quickly over such a wide area and why it was so easily
accepted in most (but not all) tribes of the Plains and Great Basin regions. This
book represents an effort to solve this problem. Since the handling of Peyote
operates in a religious setting religious factors have been particularly observed.
They have often been strangely overlooked in comparative analyses of the
Peyote religion. Other factors will be dealt with as well, but, as will be found,
they do not seem to me to be of equal importance.
The necessity of discussing such an acculturated complex as the Peyote re-
ligion not only in general anthropological but also in religio-historical terms has
been well formulated by Mircea Eliade:
Few religious phenomena are more directly and more obviously connected with
sociopolitical circumstances than the modern messianic and millenarian move
ments among colonial peoples (cargo-cults, etc.). Yet identifying and analyzing
the conditions that prepared and made possible such messianic movements form
only a part of the work of the historian of religions. For these movements are
equally creations of the human spirit, in the sense that they have become what
they are - religious movements, and not merely gestures of protest and revolt -
through a creative act of the spririt. In short, a religious phenomenon such as
primitive messianism must be studied just as the Divina Commedia is studied,
that is, by using all the possible tools of scholarship. For, if the History of Re
ligions is destined to further the rise of a new humanism, it is incumbent on the
historian of religions to bring out the autonomous value - the value as spiritual
creation - of all these primitive religious movements. To reduce them to socio
political contexts is, in the last analysis, to admit that they are not sufficiently
"elevated", sufficiently "noble" to be treated as creations of human genius.
(Eliade, History of Religions and a New Humanism, 1961, p. 6.)
The structure of this book may seem a bit unconventional since so much empha
sis has been laid on theories which have been formed by earlier investigators,
and their criticism, and so little is adduced from the empirical material on
Peyotism. However, this arrangement has been necessary, for we know very
little indeed of why Peyote, when it was first introduced into a tribal group, was
accepted. The efforts by some scholars to follow up the individual missionaries
of Peyote in the past yield very little in this connection. There is some safe data
from tribes like the Winnebago, Dakota, Ute and Navajo, but very little from
other groups. This situation has given rise to a wide debate on the subject.
The present investigation associates to this debate, and tries to integrate it
with the sparse facts and a holistic basic view. Instead of a painstaking account
of tribal Peyote histories - which in most cases would give most unsatisfactory
results - it has been the author's aim to present a collected perspective on the
problem. Some readers will no doubt complain that this is a shaky empirical
foundation for the solution of the problem; to the author, however, who has
waded through an immense amount of literature on the subject, this was the
only path to tread.
In order to build up the reader's background knowledge of Peyote there is
first a section on the nature of Peyote, the Peyote religion and its history. There
is also a chapter on the symbolism and practice of Peyote in one particular tribe
known to the author from field research. The aim is to transmit to the reader
some close contact with the Peyote service as experienced by the author. Then,
the various arguments which have been delivered on the spread of Peyote are
discussed. Finally, the possible reasons why Peyote was so easily accepted, or
accepted with hesitation, or not at all accepted, will be adduced.
Much of the literature for the present study was assembled in North America
- in the field, in archives, in libraries - and in Scotland. In Aberdeen I had
access to Professor H. W. Turner's great collection of reprints on new religious
movements, at that time located at the Department of Religious Studies, Uni
versity of Aberdeen. It was called, "Project for the Study of New Religious
Movements in Primal Societies (PRONERMS)". Professors Weston La Barre
and the late Omer C. Stewart have placed their numerous writings on Peyote at
my disposal. Also Professor George Morgan has kindly supplied me with
papers from his production on Peyote. I have enjoyed stimulating conversations
with most of the scholars now mentioned, and with Professor David Aberle. To
all my colleagues who have assisted me I extend my sincere thanks.
Some material is presented here for the first time: field material recorded by
myself among the Wind River Shoshoni, Wyoming, and by my friend and dis
ciple Dr. Paul Steinmetz, S. J., among the Oglala Lakota, South Dakota. I thank
Dr. Steinmetz for the use of his extensive field notes. I also want to thank The
Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences for a
generous grant to publish the work.
Last but not least I should like to thank my dear wife, Geraldine, for all her kind
efforts to brush up my English into a legible form.
Åke Hultkrantz
Table of Contents
Preface 7
Table of Contents 10
Introduction 11
I. Peyote and the Peyote Religion 18
1. The Peyote "Herb" and Its Properties 18
2. History and Diffusion the of Peyote Religion 26
3. Doctrine and Ritual 40
II. The Peyote Religion: A Shoshoni Example 47
1. Peyote among the Wind River Shoshoni 47
2. Peyote Symbolism 54
3. A Shoshoni Ritual Meeting 56
III. Why Peyote Spread: the Indian Testimony 67
1. The General Persuasion 67
2. The Origin Legend of Peyote 68
IV. Why Peyote Spread: the Research Opinion 71
1. Trends of the Discussion 71
2. The Peyote Religion as a Crisis Religion 75
3. Peyote and the Situation of Cultural Shock 81
4. Peyote as a Means of Personal Adjustment 89
5. Peyote as a Medicine 91
6. Peyote as an Expression of Religious and Ritual Continuity:
Peyote and the "Mescal Bean Cult" 100
7. Peyote as an Expression of Religious and Ritual Continuity:
Peyote and vision Quest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
8. Peyotism and pan-Indianism 115
9. The Facility of Peyote Religion 124
10. The Role of the Peyote Proselytizer 128
11. Peyote as an Instrument against White Domination 137
12. Peyote Religion as an Alternative to Christianity and as
a Form of Christianity 139
13. Ghost Dance and Peyote 150
V. The Religious Motivation of Peyote 154
1. A Question of Values 154
2. Peyote and the "Pharmacological" Theory of Religious Origins . 160
3. The Religious Factor in the Adoption of Peyote Religion . . . . 164
VI. The Decisive Causes: An Assessment 169
1. A Scale of Causes 169
2. The Growth and Development of the Peyote Religion 171
3. Factors Enhancing the Diffusion of the Peyote Religion 177
4. Factors Restricting the Acceptance of the Peyote Religion . . . . 186
5. The Appeal of Peyote 193
Bibliography 198
Index 230
