Note 78 — COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PLAINS PEYOTISM

An especially handsome and regular one, oriented with a thorn on its “north” side, had fifteen full radial lines of hair-tufts. Of three others, one was kept in a woman’s small mirrored vanity-case, a pomade jar, and a silk handkerchief, all carefully wrapped up. Another very old one was given his brother-in-law, Yellow Bird, by a Comanche. A cracked one was kept in a beaded buckskin pouch along with a Catholic medallion dated 1890; it had been given him by an Apache. He has also preserved one given his wife by Mexicans at El Rio on their first peyote trip in 1926, and tied up with the mother’s he keeps two little ones which helped his little girl. And finally, there were seven which he laid behind the whistle one New Year’s meeting to represent the seven days of the week; his daughter drank the water in which they were soaked and became well in seven days. She is a grown woman now and he still keeps these peyotes which have so well demonstrated their power.