BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
Voi. 4, No. 8 
Campripcr, Massacnuserrs, APRIL 12, 1937 
PEYOTE AND PLANTS USED IN 
THE PEYOTE CEREMONY 
BY 
RicHarp Evans ScHULTES 
I. Economic Importance of Peyote. 
Pryore, (Lophophora Williamsti (em.) Coult.), a 
small, grey-green, narcotic cactus of the Rio Grande re- 
gion of the United States and Mexico, is the centre of an 
elaborate religious ceremony common to more than thirty 
American Indian tribes. The peyote-cult, incorporated in- 
to the Native American Church, has been given a charter 
by the State of Oklahoma. Inasmuch as this cult, prac- 
tically unknown in the United States before 1885, yet 
numbering 13,300 members in 1922,' is rapidly increas- 
ing’ in the face of intense opposition from missionary 
groups, the following observations should prove botani- 
‘ally and ethnologically interesting. 
Peyote is also an important article of commerce. It 
grows in a limited area close to the Rio Grande in ‘Texas 
and in scattered places throughout the states of Aguas 
'There is great need for a new and exact census. No later statistics 
are available from the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the United States 
Department of the Interior. The number of communicants at the pres- 
ent time is, without doubt, far in excess of this figure for 1922. 
See **Secretary Ickes Moves to Protect Minority Religious Group at 
Taos Pueblo’’, Indians at Work, November 15, 1936, pp. 8-13; Office 
of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C. 
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