SPIRITUAL STRUGGLE

SPIRITUAL STRUGGLE
Members of the Native AmericanChurch pray in Maryland for legislation to protect their right to usepeyote*"*
Congress considers Native American Church pleas on peyote use
By Karen Lincoln Michel
Staff ffriler *f The Dallas Morning Kern
M
KANDOCTTY, Texas—Life is a soulful
journey for followers of an ancient
religion known as the peyote way.
The 400,000 members of the Native American
Church call their belief the road of life a road
well-traveled by countless generations of North
America's indigenous people who have eaten the
peyote cactus to sustain a deeper understanding
of God and creation.
This road leads some of its faithful followers
from as far away as Alaska and Canada on yearly
• A pilgrimage to South Texas.
9A
• Dealers respect the culture.
9A
• A look at state laws.
9A
pilgrimages to the RtoGrande Valley. Many are
poor, spending what little money they can spare
to collect their sacred herb, found oaly in Texas
and northern Mexico.
to recent years, this spiritual path has become
mired to red tape and threat of prosecution in 22
states. What church members consider to be a
holy medicine that has been used in religious
ritual 10,000 years old is classified as a
hallucinogen under the Controlled Substances
Act of 1970.
The active ingredient in peyote is mescaline, a
mind-altering stimulant that the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration has placed hi the
stun* category us heroin and LSD.
"I wish people would quit saying it's a drug,"
said Sylvia Nakai, a Navajo from New Mexico who
traveled 1,000 miles to South Texas with her
family to gather peyote during Easter week.
'It mates me angry, But who will listen to us?"
Federal lawmakers are considering a bill that
Please see CHURCH on Page 8A.
Peyote buttons such as the
one at left are harvested legally in the Rio Grande Valley. Faithful users make pilgrimages from across the
continent to acquire it.
Continued from Page 1A.
sacramental use of peyote for
American Indians in all SO states — a
move that would pull them from the
grip of a 30-year drug war that they
say has no connection to their beliefs.
Drug enforcement officials say
hippies In the 1960s experimenting
with the cactus prompted the
government to look more closely at
peyote before adding it to the
Controlled Substances Act
"In the late 1960s, white folks who
were fairly young and had money and
some time on their hands started
experimenting with peyote," said
John Geider, a public affairs officer
with the DBA hi Dallas.
"They weren't interested in the
Walter Wabaunsee (below)
wraps himself in a blanket
after a night of prayer in
Maryland about peyote legislation that Congress is
considering.
Photography by
Beatriz Terrazas
of peyote to Native Americans."
He called peyote "a victim of the
times."
Robert Peregoy, senior staff
attorney for the Native American
Rights Fund in Washington. D.C., said
there is no organized opposition to the
Native American Church bill that
Congress will vote on this session.
He said the church's greatest
challenge lies in breaking down
misconceptions of how peyote is used
by church members.
"I would call it a confusion of
use of peyote with a drug
," he said. "It's really a lack of
"Once people know that peyote is
used in controlled religious
settings by responsible people, and
once they learn that studies prove
it's not harmful or addictive, then
it's not really a problem."
Prehistoric tradition
Since the final days of the Ice Age,
native people have built a religion
around peyote. The oldest known
peyote specimens used in ritual
carbon dated to 5,000 B.C.
The specimens, found in a 1933
archaeological cave dig in the Rio
Grande Valley, are hi the artifact
collection at the Witte Museum in San
Antonio.
Roberta McGregor, associate
curator of anthropology at the
museum, said the peyote buttons are
believed to be the sacrament used by
medicine men of the Lower Pecos
people who lived 10,000 years ago.
"We think that they probably
ingested peyote for out-of-body
Spanish conquerors, the first
Europeans to observe Indians using
various plants for divine worship,
began a massive effort to convert
Indians to Christianity in the 16th
use of peyote.
Only tribes living in remote areas
of Mexico retained the practice. They
introduced the ritual to Indians hi the
United States in the 18th and 19th
centuries.
The modern-day Native American
Church emerged in the United States
about 120 years ago and has spread to
more than 70 tribes nationwide and hi
Canada
The Native American Church,
formally established in IMS, uses
pevote for ceremoniirf purposes. The
jaten fresh or dried as a
powder. Buttons soaked In water are
served as a tea. Before presenting it to
the congregation, the peyote will have
been prayed over and blessed with
cedar smoke.
Peyote is consumed at various
times throughout the all-night prayer
service, which is held for a specific
reason. The occasion may.be a
birthday, marriage or baptism or
perhaps to pray for a sick person—
any reason a church member wants
prayers said.
Church considers peyote
a sacrament
•
Laws vary
Native American Church members
in 28 states, including Texas, can
legally use peyote in ritual because
these states have legislative or
court-ordered exemptions for varying
degrees of protection. Some states
have simply adopted a drug
enforcement code that exempts the
church from the Controlled
Substances Act
hi the 22 other states, churcb
members are subject to arrest,
prosecution and imprisonment for
practicing the peyote religion because
no state law protects them. Most of
these states are in the eastern half of
the nation. Few, if any, have active
church members who would have
called for an exemption.
The lack of a uniformed standard
prompted American Indians to
demand Congress establish iron-clad
protection for the Native American
Church.
VS. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii,
introduced a four-part bill last year
that In part provides an exemption
from the Controlled Substances Act
for the use, possession and
transportation of peyote for bona fide
religious ceremonies by people of at
least one-quarter Indian blood. US.
Rep. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.,
introduced similar legislation in the
House under separate bills this spring.
hi an article published two years
ago in the West Los Angeles Law
Review, Mr. Inouye said the treatment
of American Indians is a "serious
human rights problem" in the United
States.
"It is now time for us to accord
respect and equality to American
Indians, especially hi regard to their
right to worship in the manner that
their ancestors have for centuries
before them," he said. 'Tf the First
Americans cannot be secure in such
freedom, the liberty of all Americans
stands in danger."
Pour American Indian dvil rights
groups representing more than 160
tribes have made the passage of the
religious freedom amendments their
top legislative priority for 1994.
It's a decision long-awaited by
American Indians and a coalition of
more than 60 interf aith supporters
and civil rights organizations.
The coalition draws backing from
such groups as Baptists, Jews,
Methodists, the United Church of
Christ, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace,
the American Civil Liberties Union
and the Women's International
League for Peace and Freedom.
Court pressure
Texas model
TTie Native American Church
initiated a push for tighter legislation
in 1990, after a US. Supreme Court
decision in Oregon vs. Smith gave
states the right to limit sacramental
use of peyote.
Al Smith, a Klamath Indian, was
fired from his job as a drug abuse
counselor for attending a Native
American Church service off-duty. He
sued the state of Oregon for
unemployment benefits but was
denied compensation when the high
court ruled that the First Amendment
does not permit laws to be broken in
the name of religious freedom.
On the court's decision to abandon
the "compelling state interest" test,
Justice Antonln Scalia wrote in the
majority opinion that the test was too
strict in protecting diverse American
religious liberty and called it a
"luxury" that a democratic society
"cannot afford."
The ruling sparked fear and
uncertainty among American Indians
about the church's future and about
the First Amendment's integrity in
upholding religious rights.
The tremors soon erupted into
The proposed bills on peyote have
roots in Texas law. Besides being the
only US. state where peyote grows,
Texas was the first state to provide
protection for peyote use by the Nairn
American Church.
"Texas is absolutely crucial for the
passage of this bill," said James
Botsford, a Wisconsin attorney who
provides legal counsel for the Native
American Church of North America,
an international organization with
more than 250,000 members across
North America.
"We think lawmakers in other
states will be looking to Texas for
guidance on this bill just because of ie
history in dealing with the church
and because Texas is the only source
of peyote in the United States," he said
The relationship between Texas
and church members is amicable and
cooperative, say church leaders and
officials within the Texas Department
of Public Safety, the agency that
regulates the sale of peyote to
card-carrying church members.
This wasn't always true.
to 1967, the Texas Legislature
outlawed the possession of peyote to
discourage drug abuse, said Mr.
GeideroftheDEA.
A year later, a state district judge
from Laredo ruled the ban on peyote
unconstitutional. The ban came after
Indians petitioned the Texas
Legislature to pass an exemption for
sacramental use and distribution of
peyote.
Since then, peyote distributors
have been licensed by the state and
are required to keep detailed records
of receipts and disbursements.
that the American Religious Freedom
Act of 1978 be strengthened.
"I dont know what I would do if we
were to lose this medicine," said
Isadore Nakai, a Navajo who says he
kneels on his tepee grounds outside
his home each morning and prays
that the legislation will pass.
"The way I think about it, it's our
strength," he said. "It's not just a
church on the weekend. If s a way of
life for us Indian people."
"I wish people would
quit saying it's a drug. It
makes me angry. But
who will listen to us?"
— Sylvia Nakai,
Navajo from
New Mexico
Limited exemption
The Texas exemption, which the
drug enforcement officials adopted as
its federal code, applies to church
members who are at least one-fourth
Indian ancestry.
The blood quantum requirement
aggravates members of the Peyote
Way Church of God, a group of whites
from Arizona and New Mexico who
blend Mormon practices with a belief
based in peyote.
Ann Zaph, apostle and past
president of the Peyote Way Church of
God, said her church's belief differs
from the Native American Church in
that it requires members to fast for 24
hours before ingesting peyote during
a 13-hour "spirit walk." The walk takes
place on a IWacre religious sanctuary
in southeast Arizona owned by Peyote
Way.
"It's a very individual experience,"
Native American Church members
do not fast before attending their
all-night ceremonies. Their services
follow strict procedures and protocol
for scheduled talks, prayers and times
for singing and drumming. Services
are held in a tepee, Indian lodge or
member's home.
The white peyote church is legal in
Arizona because that state passed a
full exemption for any bona fide
religious use.
Bill Stites, a member of the Peyote
Way Church of God who is awaiting
an appeal on a 1993 conviction of
peyote possession, said he respects the
Native American Church but
considers the blood quantum
requirement unconstitutional.
"I dont think it's right to have
religious preference based on ethnic
origin," he said.
The US. Sth Circuit Court of
Appeals in New Orleans disagreed
with Mr. Stites in 1991 when it ruled
against the Peyote Way Church of God
in a civil rights case that challenged
the constitutionality of the Texas law.
In his own fight with Texas, Mr.
Stites said he was vacationing in Big
Bend National Park when he was
caught with 32 fresh peyote buttons.
He claimed a First Amendment
right to use peyote. But because he
couldnt urove he had at least
one-fourth Indian blood, he was found
guilty by an Alpine, Texas, jury.
Mr. Stites' attorney in Fort Worth,
Ward Casey, said he's not worried
about Congress passing the blood
quantum requirement as part of the
peyote protection MIL He said his
client has recourse under the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act
signed in November by President
Clinton.
Under the act, the burden falls on
the state to prove why religious rights
should be limited
Prohibition parallel
Douglas Long, former president of
the Native American Church of North
America, said that just as the the use
of sacramental wine was protected by
law during Prohibition, religious use
of peyote should be upheld today.
"The analogy is striking,'' Mr. Long
said in testimony submitted during a
Religious Freedom Act last year.
"The sacramental use of wine was
not related to the nation's alcohol
problem—and the sacramental use of
peyote is not related to the nation's
drug problem."
Mr. Long also said peyote does not
contribute to the nation's drug
trafficking problem.
Speaking at a religious conference
in Washington. D.C, hi March, Mr.
Long said he could walk out of his
hotel and find illegal drugs for sale
within two blocks. But he wouldn't be
able to find peyote.
Between 1980 and 1987, he said,
drug enforcement officials
confiscated 19.4 pounds of pr'ote
nationwide — the equivalent of one
grocery bag for the entire country.
In the same period, he said, the
DBA confiscated more than 15 million
pounds of marijuana.
At the March conference,
American Indian leaders said if s time
to end what they call 500 years of
intolerance against indigenous people
that began with Christopher
Columbus.
"The First Amendment has never
really applied to American Indians,"
said Walter Echo-Hawk, staff attorney
for the Native American Rights Fund
in Boulder, Colo.
He said the Constitution didn't
protect followers of the Ghost Dance,
an Indian religion that was stamped
out by the U.S. government more than
100 years ago. And, he said, it doesn't
protect the Native American Church
and other American Indian beliefs
today.
"The religious freedom crisis is not
over for Native Americans until this
legislation passes," Mr. EchoHawk
^said.
A
Monday, June 20, 1»4
S, Texas
a holy site
to church
members
By Karen Lincoln Michel
Buff Wrflero/ The Dallas Morning News
MIRANDO CITY, Texas—The
power of prayer guides Isadore
Nakai on a thousand-mile
pilgrimage from the wind-carved
rocks of the Na vajo Reservation to
the cactus plains of South Texas.
Each spring, he follows in the
footsteps of generations of native
people who have journeyed to this
desolate land, where Mother Earth
bears a cactus plant believed to be
the flesh of God — a place Native
American Church members call
Peyote Gardens.
Hundreds of church members,
such as Mr. Nakai, come by the
carloads each year to the Bio
Grande Valley for the chance to
pray on ground where their holy
medicine grows. These followers,
many of whom blend Christianity
with their religion, believe peyote
is a holv medicine that holds divine
Jefferson Foster, 7,
Yazzie Robbins examine a peyote button. Leroy Carr sits next to him as Eddie K. Clark walks by.
fiowers from the Creator.
. It takes the faithful weeks of
planning and spiritual preparation
to make the journey. Each of the 70
ar more tribes who practice the
peyote way has special customs and
beliefs that guide their travels.
Mr. Nakai, his wife and two
:hildren made their annual trek a
Few days before Easter, just as
dozens of other families had done
the same week.
"My grandfather used to tell us:
'We dont come down here any old
way. This is a sacred ground,' " said
Mr. Nakai, 47.
"Everything about this medicine
is sacred," he said. "It was put here
on this earth to heal us. It comforts
us in hard times and guides in our
everyday lives."
Most Indians who come to Peyote
Gardens gather at the Mirando City
home of Amada Cardenas, 89, who
harvested and sold peyote for
almost 60 years before retiring five
years ago.
The petite, elderly Hispanic
woman opens her home to Native
American Church members for a
place to rest and have a cup of
coffee. She is called Grandma by
generations of Indians who have
taken comfort in her hospitality.
Prom Palm Sunday to Easter,
Mrs. Cardenas estimates, more than
100 church members stopped by her
place on their way to buy medicine
from dealers registered with state
and federal officials.
Nearly all peyote harvested in
Texas conies from a 45-mile swath of
rocky soil, owned by ranchers, that
stretches 90 miles north from Rio
Grande City.
Church members can receive
their medicine by mail, but
believers from as far away as Alaska
and Canada opt to make the journey
to Texas.
get up, he reminds them not to
brush off the dust from their
clothes because even that is holy,
"This sacrament and this place
where it grows really means
something to me," ne said. "I'm
really thankful to God that I'm...
Native American."
Flesh of God
Just as Catholics believe wafers
and wine are the body and blood of
Christ, Native American Church
members believe peyote is the flesh
of God. To partake of this bitter
plant, believers say, is the first step
to understanding the Creator and
all of Creation.
"God gave this sacred medicine
to the Native Americans to use it for
their spiritual needs," said George
Hindsley, president of the Native
American Church, Half-Moon
Fireplace Inc., State of Wisconsin.
"The more we consume of it.the
more we understand God."
Peyote touches each person's
soul differently, he said. But most o
all. he said, it makes people feel
humble.
Lorenzo Max, a Navajo, talks to Amada Cardenas at her home in Mirando City, Texas. In the
"You learn from this medicine
next room is Robert Foster. Mrs. Cardenas has long opened her home to American Indians.
that there is something more
powerful than you are," he said.
Many church members say they . prayers were offered for her in the yard or on the grounds of whoever "You understand this, and you pay
homage to the Creator."
all-night ceremony, she walked out will let them hold their religious
are overcome with profound
The sacrament is eaten by
services. Others simply kneel next
experiences just by standing o the of the tepee the next morning.
everyone gathered around a specia
"If you believe in the sacrament to small shrines of peyote cacti
white shale soil where their
fireplace that holds ritualistic
medicine grows.
and believe in the power of prayer, displayed in the yards of some
meaning. Most fireplaces originate
peyote dealers.
you will get help," he said. "When
Arapaho Chief Virgil Frank
Next to the tears they shed in the from the Kiowa and Comanche, thf
you witness these things, it makes
ST., 66, a trustee of the Native
first to practice the peyote ritual ir
parched soil, church members
you have an even stronger belief."
American Church of Oklahoma!
the United States.
leave prayer offerings of tobacco,
In their holy land, no cathedral
said he carries with him an
During prayer meetings, which
cedar, corn pollen, sage and
or temple awaits them. They are
experience of peyote's healing
usually begin in early evening ant!
sometimes coins.
greeted only by dealers who guard
powers that occurred in Peyote
end the next morning, members ti
As his grandfather taught him,
fields of peyote protected by
Gardens when he was a boy.
Mr. Nakai tells his children to sit on to achieve a spiritual
barbed-wire fence.
He said his grandmother, wtb
understanding so all prayers
the ground and pray when they
had lapsed into a coma, was broaght
Some church members bring
come to Peyote Gardens. When they
tepees to erect in Mrs. Cardenas'
inside a peyote meeting. After \
Inside tepees, where many
prayer services take place, a
flickering fire sits at the heart of
the holy circle. An altar of cloth
holds sacred Instruments made of
animal parts and natural materials,
The altar lies between the fire and
the leader of the prayer service,
called a roadman.
Each roadman leads services ,
according to rituals of a fireplace.
But all leaders follow basic
procedures that include scheduled
talks, prayers and times for singing
and drumming, partaking of
sacrament and drinking holy water.
Women are the silent strength of
the prayer service. Legends say God
spoke to a woman in a dream and
told her how to communicate with
him through the peyote ritual.
The roadman who practices the
"Half-Moon" fireplace reserves a
special time for his wife, or female
relative, to carry in water. Her
blessing over the water comes at a
sacred time of morning, Just before
dawn when all is still.
Everything in a peyote meeting
has order and purpose, from the
turns taken at singing and
drumming to the clockwise motion
that people walk around the
fireplace.
The mood is reverent as
members sit in quiet contemplation.
Spiritual connection
Sometime during a peyote
meeting, Navajo roadman Lorenzo
Max says, a door opens to the spirit
world.
Mr. Max, 34, of Tuba City, Ariz..
said his uncle told him, "Nephew,
when you go into a meeting, try to
eat as much medicine as you can
because right around past midnight
there's a certain point where
there's a door that's going to open,
and you have to be sensitive to it."
Mr. Max said he was told it might
last an instant or a few minutes.
"For a certain length of time," he
said, "you can communicate
spiritually with God."
It's during this time, many
believers in peyote say, that the sick
can be healed and miracles can
happen.
FredParton,68,a
Caddo-Delaware from Oklahoma,
said his son was miraculously cured
of kidney failure as he was
undergoing dialysis treatment
years ago.
"We had four meetings for him,"
Mr. Parton said. "After the fourth
meeting, the doctor met me in the
hall and told me that at 12 o'clock
midnight my son's kidneys started
working again."
He said his son has been in good
health since.
Countless testimonials to the
curing powers of peyote have been *
told by Native American Church
members, from minor physical
ailments to cancer.
Scientific studies, however, have
found no medicinal value in peyote.
Mr. Max said American Indians
and their beliefs are hard to grasp
and often are misunderstood by a
society that views them through
Eurocentric and Judeo-Chrlstian
eyes.
"We can try and try to explain it
to them," he said. "But as long as
they are not spiritual people as we
know spirituality, they're going to
have a hard time understanding."
Dealers say they respect
the culture they serve
Monday, June 20, 1994
By Karen Lincoln Michel
SB)/WrUwii/The Dnltaa Morning News
OILTON, Texas—The Good
Friday sun poured its first light as
Isabel Lopez prepared to harvest
peyote in thorn fields alive with
prickly-pear cactus in bloom.
Lent marks the busiest time of
year for eight peyote distributors
licensed by the Texas Department of
Public Safety. Their lives revolve
around picking a spineless cactus
plant used in ritual by the
400,000-member Native American
Church.
"We've got a lot of customers
depending on us," said Mrs. Lopez,
72. who began harvesting in 1939.
"We've been getting a lot of
people coining here every day for the
last two weeks," she said. "As soon as
we get home from the fields, they're
waiting for us."
The waiting church members
travel from all over the United States
and Canada to buy their holy
medicine, which the Controlled
Substances Act classifies as a
hallucinogen. People of at least
one-quarter American Indian blood
are the only legal purchasers of
peyote because of laws that exempt
them from the act
"Some people say it's a drug," Mrs.
Lopez said. "For the Indians, I don't
Salvadore Johnson emerges from the brush holding a peyote
button. He's one of a handftl of registered dealers in Texas.
signed by church officials.
The dealers — six in Rio Grande
City, one in Mirando City and Mrs.
Lopez in Oilton — sell peyote from
drying racks in their back yards.
The tops of the cactus, called
"buttons," sell freshly cut for about
5145 to $185 per thousand. Dried
buttons go for about $145 per
thousand.
The peyote dealers, who are
Last year, the state reported that
Hispanic, carry on a tradition of
"peyoteros," who developed the trade dealers harvested nearly 1.9 millioi
peyote buttons for sales grossing
in the late 1800s after Indians were
$210,240.
forcibly removed from Texas.
Mrs. Lopez said when she was a
Modern-day peyoteros sell to
card-carrying members of the Native girl, peyote was so abundant that
horses would carry heavy loads iron
American Church. Members also
the fields. T?hen she started picking
must show an au thorn ition form
at 17, horses were replaced by Model
A automobiles.
Today, most dealers hire
employees to pick for them. But Mrs.
Lopez and her husband Margarito,
75, are the last to sell only what they
harvest by hand.
Before they leave for the fields,
Mr. Lopez loads their pickup with
tools of the trade: sharp, hoelike
shovels; gunny sacks; and five-gallon
buckets, The couple leave at 7 a.m.
and return about 3 p.m. with sacks of
peyote — up to 5,000 plants if it's a
good day.
The bluish-green cactus lives in
dusters beneath the shade of
Mesquite sh "ubs and thorn bushes
that thrive in the caliche shale soil
rf Starr, Webb, Jim Hogg and Zapata
counties.
The buttons protrude above
ground. At various times of the year,
the crowns bloom Into petals of
pastel pink and white.
Mature plants reach the size of
oranges; smaller plants break
through the ground about acorn-size.
The cactus produces such a bitter
taste that even grazing cattle walk
past.
Mrs. Lopez said she tracks peyote
by its scent carried by strong Gulf
winds.
"It smells like dry root, like an
earthy smell," she said.
Even with 55 years' experience,
she says peyote "plays tricks" on her.
Sometimes she crosses a cluster of
peyote to pick later, but when she
returns the peyote is gone.
Native American Church
members, who routinely recount
similar stories, attribute these
"disappearances" to the spiritual
powers of the cactus.
Salvadore Johnson, 47, who began
harvesting 33 years ago, said he
believes peyote Is sacred.
"I have learned to understand
peyote, and I appreciate what It has
done for my family," be said.
Because he has devoted his life to
caring for peyote, he said, it has'
looked after his family's health and
well-being.
Mr. Johnson, a Latino proud of his
Mexican Indian heritage, is one of
few distributors who have
worshiped with Native American
Church members. A ceremonial
gourd used to accompany peyote
songs hangs in the living room of his
LEGISLATING PEYOTE
A bill pending in Congress would legalize the sacramental use of peyote
in all 50 states for people who are at least one-quarter American Indian.
Currently, peyote used in bona fide religious ceremonies is protected by
legislation or court rulings in 28 slates. In the 22 other states, members
of the Native American Church, a peyote-based religion, are subject to
arrest, prosecution and imprisonment.
Protected use
Unprotected use
«""'
Note: Nebraska is one of the 22 states
without a peyote law. However, religious
use of peyote is protected on the state's
three reservations through a federal code.
SOURCE: Native American flights Fund
The Dallas Morning News
Mirando City home.
"Our life is very, very much the
same as an Indian's life," Mr.
Johnson said of Hispanics in the Rio
Grande Valley.
Driving down the narrow, rutted
road to a peyote field, Mr. Johnson
said he sees nc difference between
sacramental use of peyote and wine
used in his Catholic Church.
"We have santos that we pray to
for different things," he said. "The
Indians have peyote."
Gazing into the fields, he said,
"Do I believe this place is holy?
"I believe sV'