Conditions for the spread of the Peyote cult in North America

Since the late 1800s, a nativistic Indian movement called the peyote cult (or peyote religion) has spread across native North America, centered on the Prairies and Plains. Its central ritual involves consuming the peyote cactus, which contains hallucinogenic mescaline. Pre-Columbian Mexicans used peyote in public ceremonies, but the modern form is a distinct religious complex promoting health, happiness, and welfare. The text examines conditions for the cult's diffusion, asking why it spread to some areas and was obstructed in others, noting that changes in the North American Indian situation at the end of the nineteenth century enabled religious innovations and the introduction of this foreign movement.

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Abstract

As is well known large parts of native North America with the Prairies and Plains in the middle of the continent as the centre of diffusion have constituted, since the end of the last century, the scene of a nativistic Indian movement, the so-called peyote cult. The peyote cult—or, as it should have been called, the peyote religion — is named after its central cultic action, the consumption (by eating, drinking or smoking) of the spineless cactus peyote (Lophophora williamsii). This cactus that may be found growing wild along the Rio Grande and in the country south of this river contains several alkaloids, among them the morphine-like, hallucinogeneous mescaline. In pre-Columbian days peyote was used in connection with certain public ceremonies among the Indians of Mexico, for instance, at the annual thanksgiving ceremonies. In its modern form the peyote ritual constitutes a religious complex of its own, considered to promote health, happiness and welfare among its adepts. The two major questions are: what were the conditions for the diffusion of the peyote cult? What particular factors accounted for the spread of the cult to just those areas that were mentioned above, and for its obstruction in other areas? The change in the North American Indian situation at the end of the nineteenth century supplied new facilities for religious innovations and for the introduction of a foreign religious movement, the peyote cult.