of the peyote-religion are many and are complexly inter- 
related. Among the most obvious, and those most often 
listed, are: the ease in obtaining the narcotic; the lack 
of Federal restraint; the cessation of intertribal warfare ; 
reservation life with its consequent intermarriage and 
peaceful exchange of social and religious ideas; the ease 
of transportation and postal communication; and the 
general attitude of resignation towards the encroaching 
culture of the white race. 
From the Father Peyote down to the cigarette wrap- 
pings, the peyote service is a form of worship expressed 
through the use and symbolism associated with articles 
of nature—both animal and vegetable. It is obvious to 
any student of peyote that perhaps one of the greatest 
factors to which is attributable the diffusion and tenaci- 
ty of the cult is its appeal to the aboriginal mind, in the 
face of rapid culture changes. 
Of the plants used in the ceremony, only peyote is new 
to the Plains Indians. Its remarkable physiological and 
psychological effects have caused it to beeome dominant 
in this new complex of traditional ceremonial plants. Pe- 
yote has become dominant in the daily life of the Indian 
as well as in the ceremony, for its use as a therapeutic 
agent and general tonic is now widespread. In fact, the 
medicinal powers attributed to the peyote are responsible 
probably more than anything else for the wide and rapid 
distribution of the peyote-cult. It still holds its place in 
Indian life as a physical and spiritual panacea. 
Peyote and the plants associated with it embody so 
much of the traditional that is of prime importance to 
Indian religion and enough of the new that the peyote- 
cult has been enabled to withstand persistent opposition. 
The peyote-religion will doubtless successfully resist dis- 
integration for many years because of its remarkable a- 
daptability to the changing life of the Indian. 
[147 ] 
