Note 36 — BOTANICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTE

Fernberger (Further Observations, 368), citing Petrullo, writes: “The best reporters of this group of Indians [Delaware] insist that visions may occur under peyote intoxication but that it has become socially admirable to suppress these visions and that, after some practice, this may be successfully accomplished.” But after establishing ordinarily friendly relations with informants I found no such reticence about visions; these, indeed, were publicly discussed in the Sunday forenoons after meetings (usually spent lounging under “shades” quietly exchanging peyote experiences). Many, like Spotted Horse (Kiowa), Tom Panther (Shawnee) and Sly Picard (Wichita) distinguished the ordinary effects of peyote from full-blown “visions”; and some corrective modesty is occasionally exhibited for the familiar Plains assertiveness and individualism, for, in fact, through peyote visions individuals push themselves to positions of leadership and influence. Fernberger continues: “The informants also state that they are able to control visions when they occur, that is, to change the vision to that of any particular known object or to hold a vision that occurs in consciousness for a considerable time. Both of these statements are totally at variance with the descriptions of all previous observers of the visual manifestations.” We disagree with this dictum; many informants would paraphrase the statement of Tom Panther (Shawnee) that in peyote intoxication, “I wasn’t boss of myself.” White observers too have remarked on the dualism of consciousness exhibited by Crashing Thunder. One might even go so far as to say that this is a reason natives think of peyote as an external “power” working its influence on them.