Note 62 — THE ETHNOLOGY OF PEYOTISM

Tarahumari officials are called igúsuame, “stick-bearers” (Bennett and Zingg, op. cit., 375-76) but this may be an Hispanicism. However, Aztec merchants (Sahagún) carried staffs. But so far as the peyote ritual is concerned, the staff is not mentioned for the Cora-Huichol or Tarahumari; and the various names for the peyote staff in the Plains suggests either an indigenous or a Southwestern, not a Mexican, origin.