Note 11 — PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTISM

For one matter, the shaman’s staff never left his hand to be passed around as in the Plains; and each individual had some prophylactic fetish in his hand which he never dared relinquish throughout the meeting. Note, too, the fetish peyote on the altar: on this the leader could detect evil thoughts and acts, such as the magic intrusive “shooting” of water-beetles and feathers by rival shamans into each other.