Note 32 — BOTANICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTE

White Wolf (Comanche) tells of Kuaheta, at the time acting as fireman in Comanche Jack’s meeting, that he once failed to return after having asked to leave the tipi. Commissioned to investigate, White Wolf found him outside “jumping like a deer” from deep peyote intoxication. Hoebel relates a similar experience in a Northern Cheyenne meeting. Tonakat, the well-known Kiowa “witch,” once forced a man to get up and dance in a meeting (Autobiography of a Kiowa Indian, recorded by the writer, 1936). Jonathan Koshiway (Oto) laughingly told me of a meeting in Kansas where the singer’s jaw became locked; the whole meeting was upset while they shook and fanned him with cedar incense until his jaw “came back.” This may have been an effect of the strychnine-like alkaloids in peyote, as in the case of Tom Panther (Shawnee) who became unable to talk or sing once in George Fry’s meeting: “it took me four or five minutes to say the word ‘study’,” he said.