Note 52 — COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PLAINS PEYOTISM

Koshiway said he ate 100 once: “I was like a Ford, all broken down, connecting rods loose. The next day I was overhauled and hitting on all four, and went to work.” Belo Kozad, well-known Kiowa leader, said he ate 100 green peyote once but had a “hard time keeping it down.” Big Bow (Kiowa) claims to have eaten 75 at the time of his prophetic vision of the World War. One Oto sometimes eats 40 to 50 at which a man comes and instructs him. Alfred Wilson (Cheyenne) for eight years President of the Oklahoma N.A.C. said he ate 84 green ones once. Densmore (Winnebago Songs of the Peyote Ceremony) says Winnebago ate 40 to 100, and many of them ate 60; elsewhere (The Peyote Cult) she states a Winnebago usually ate 15, but some ate up to 40. Lipan (Opler, Lipan Apache Field Notes) ate 12 to 50. A Tonkawa leader (Opler, Chiricahua Apache) ate 40. Users at Taos (Parsons, Taos Pueblo, 66) ate as many as 60, but usually about 20 or 30. Mescalero (Opler, The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern) ate from 4 to 40, with 12 as a “generous amount.” Iowa (Skinner, Societies of the Iowa, 724-25) considered 16 a good amount, women being restricted to 2. Huichol (Lumholtz, The Huichol Indians, 9) rarely ate more than 4 or 5 daily, but at times consumed up to 20. An Arapaho stated under oath (Peyote as Used in Religious Worship, 49) he had eaten 12-30 peyote at different times, agreeing with Kroeber’s average of 12, with amounts of more than 30 eaten sometimes. A White observer in a Comanche meeting said he had seen them eat 30 or 40 apiece (Simmons, The Peyote Road). An Osage, on the other hand, stated before an official group that 5 was the upper limit for women and 7 for men (Peyote as Used in Religious Worship, 31), a statement open to doubt.