Peyote Religious Art

An examination of the vibrant traditional and folk arts inspired by the sacramental use of peyote by members of the Native American Church

Despite challenges by the federal government to restrict the use of peyote, the Native American Church, which uses the hallucinogenic cactus as a religious sacrament, has become the largest indigenous denomination among American Indians today. The Peyote Road examines the history of the NAC, including its legal struggles to defend the controversial use of peyote. Thomas C. Maroukis has conducted extensive interviews with NAC members and leaders to craft an authoritative account of the church’s history, diverse religious practices, and significant people. His book integrates a narrative history of the Peyote faith with analysis of its religious beliefs and practices—as well as its art and music—and an emphasis on the views of NAC members. Deftly blending oral histories and legal research, Maroukis traces the religion’s history from its Mesoamerican roots to the legal incorporation of the NAC; its expansion to the northern plains, Great Basin, and Southwest; and challenges to Peyotism by state and federal governments, including the Supreme Court decision in Oregon v. Smith. He also introduces readers to the inner workings of the NAC with descriptions of its organizational structure and the Cross Fire and Half Moon services. The Peyote Road updates Omer Stewart’s classic 1987 study of the Peyote religion by taking into consideration recent events and scholarship. In particular, Maroukis discusses not only the church’s current legal issues but also the diminishing Peyote supply and controversies surrounding the definition of membership. Today approximately 300,000 American Indians are members of the Native American Church. The Peyote Road marks a significant case study of First Amendment rights and deepens our understanding of the struggles of NAC members to practice their faith.

The largest religion begun, organized, and directed by and for Native Americans, Peyotism includes the use of peyote in its ceremonies. As a sacred plant of divine origin, peyote use was well established in religious rituals in pre-Columbian Mexico. Toward the end of the 19th century Peyotism spread to the Indians of Texas and the Southwest, and it spread rapidly in the United States after the subsidence of the Ghost Dance. It persists today among Native Americans in Northern Mexico, the United States, and Southern Canada. Possibly because of the controversy over peyote use, a lot has been written about the Native American Church. This bibliography provides a useful guide for scholars, students, and Native Americans who want to research Peyotism. The bibliography includes books and book chapters, master's theses, Ph.D. dissertations, magazine and journal articles, conference papers, museum publications, U.S. government publications, audiovisual materials, and World Wide Web sites. In addition, it includes selected articles from newspapers, law reviews, medical and psychiatric journals, and scientific journals that provide information on Peyotism. A valuable research guide, the bibliography will help to provide a greater understanding of the history, ceremonies, and significance of the pan-Indian religion.

In Peyote and the Yankton Sioux, Thomas Constantine Maroukis focuses on Yankton Sioux spiritual leader Sam Necklace, tracing his family’s history for seven generations. Through this history, Maroukis shows how Necklace and his family shaped and were shaped by the Native American Church. Sam Necklace was chief priest of the Yankton Sioux Native American Church from 1929 to 1949, and the four succeeding generations of his family have been members of the Church. As chief priest, Necklace helped establish the Peyote religion firmly among the Yankton, thus maintaining cultural and spiritual autonomy even when the U.S. government denied them, and American Indians generally, political and economic self-determination. Because the message of peyotism resonated with Yankton pre-reservation beliefs and, at the same time, had parallels with Christianity, Sam Necklace and many other Yankton supported its acceptance. The Yanktons were among the first northern-plains groups to adopt the Peyote religion, which they saw as an essential corpus of spiritual truths.

Describes the peyote plant, the birth of peyotism in western Oklahoma, its spread from Indian Territory to Mexico, the High Plains, and the Far West, its role among such tribes as the Comanche, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Caddo, Wichita, Delaware, and Navajo Indians, its conflicts with the law, and the history of the Native American Church.

In 1956, pioneering psychedelic researchers Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond were invited to join members of the Red Pheasant First Nation near North Battleford, Saskatchewan, to participate in a peyote ceremony hosted by the Native American Church of Canada. Inspired by their experience, they wrote a series of essays explaining and defending the consumption of peyote and the practice of peyotism. They enlisted the help of Hoffer’s sister, journalist Fannie Kahan, and worked closely with her to document the religious ceremony and write a history of peyote, culminating in a defense of its use as a healing and spiritual agent. Although the text shows its mid-century origins, with dated language and at times uncritical analysis, it advocates for Indigenous legal, political and religious rights and offers important insights into how psychedelic researchers, who were themselves embattled in debates over the value of spirituality in medicine, interpreted the peyote ceremony. Ultimately, they championed peyotism as a spiritual practice that they believed held distinct cultural benefits. “A Culture’s Catalyst” revives a historical debate. Revisiting it now encourages us to reconsider how peyote has been understood and how its appearance in the 1950s tested Native-newcomer relations and the Canadian government’s attitudes toward Indigenous religious and cultural practices.

The first substantial study of a Mexican Indian society that more than any other has preserved much of its ancient way of life and religion.

New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements is the most extensive study to date of modern American alternative spiritual currents. Hugh B. Urban covers a range of emerging religions from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including the Nation of Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, ISKCON, Wicca, the Church of Satan, Peoples Temple, and the Branch Davidians. This essential text engages students by addressing major theoretical and methodological issues in the study of new religions and is organized to guide students in their learning. Each chapter focuses on one important issue involving a particular faith group, providing readers with examples that illustrate larger issues in the study of religion and American culture. Urban addresses such questions as, Why has there been such a tremendous proliferation of new spiritual forms in the past 150 years, even as our society has become increasingly rational, scientific, technological, and secular? Why has the United States become the heartland for the explosion of new religious movements? How do we deal with complex legal debates, such as the use of peyote by the Native American Church or the practice of plural marriage by some Mormon communities? And how do we navigate issues of religious freedom and privacy in an age of religious violence, terrorism, and government surveillance?