Note 17 — THE ETHNOLOGY OF PEYOTISM

Hoebel, Comanche Field Notes; Voegelin, Shawnee Field Notes. The Iowa Red Bean medicine bundle was used for war, horse stealing, hunting and horse racing (Skinner, Ethnology of the Ioway Indians, 245-47, Societies of the Iowa, 718-19). A similar mescal war bundle and cult was present among the neighboring and related Oto. The Red Medicine bundles of the Pawnee contained mescal beans likewise; indeed the Pawnee are thought to be the origin of the Iowa bundle and associated war-dance. The Pawnee “kill” the beans by breaking and stirring them in a large kettle, drinking the concoction toward morning until they vomit, to “clean out” the body. There is an unmistakable similarity to the “black drink” ritual vomiting here (see Appendix 4).