Note 50 — COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PLAINS PEYOTISM

Big Moon leaders apparently required fees; Speck (Peyote MSS.) says the Seneca were too poor to pay more than the leader’s carfare when the cult was brought to them. Wilson himself met his death when some horses given him by the Quapaw and tied to the back of his wagon pulled backward at a crossing as a locomotive approached, and some of his enemies assert that this was in punishment for his avariciousness and economic exploitation of peyotism. He even charged money for sweatbaths he prepared in connection with meetings.