404 ANNUAL EEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



than you want. The medicine does not work right away, but after it begins 

 to take effect along toward midnight they begin to cry and sing and pray and 

 stand and shake all over, and some of them just sit and stare. I used to sit 

 in their range right along, and ate some of their medicine, but after I ate it 

 the first time I was kind of afraid of it. It made me feel kind of dizzy and my 

 heart was kind of thumping and I felt like crying. Some of them told me 

 that this was because of my sins. It makes me nervous, and when I shut my 

 eyes I kind of see something like an image or visions, and when my eyes are 

 open I can't see it so plain. One of these fellovi^s took 12 beans, or 12 peyote, 

 sitting with some girls. 



"After I have take 12 peyote I saw a mountain with roads leading to the 

 top and people dressed in white going up tliese roads. I got very dizzy, and I 

 began to see all kinds of colors, and arrows began to fly all around me. I 

 began to perspire very freely. I asked to be taken out of doors. At that time 

 it was 20° below zero. I felt better when I got out of doors. When I went 

 in again I began to hear voices, just like they came from all over the ceiling, 

 and I looked around in the other room and thought I heard women singing in 

 there ; but the women were not allowed to sing in the meetings usually, and so 

 this was kind of strange. After eating 36 of these peyote I got just like drunk, 

 only more so, and I felt kind of good, but more good than when I drink whisky ; 

 and then after that I began to see a big bunch of snakes crawling all around in 

 front of me, and it was a feeling like as if I was cold came over me. The treas- 

 urer of the Sacred Peyote Society was sitting near me, and I asked him if he 

 heard young kittens. It sounded as if they 'were right close to me ; and then I 

 sat still for a long time and I saw a big black cat coming toward me, and I felt 

 him just like a tiger walking up on my legs toward me; and when I felt his 

 claws I jumped back and kind of made a sound as if I was afraid, and he asked 

 me to tell him what was the matter, so I told him after a while. I did not care 

 to tell at first ; but I made up my mind then, after what I saw, that I would not 

 take another one of these peyotes if they gave me a $10 bill. In this Sacred 

 Peyote Society they have a form of baptism and they baptize with the tea made 

 from stewing the peyote, and they baptize ' in the name of the Father, and the 

 Son, and the Holy Ghost,' the Holy Ghost being the peyote. Then you drink 

 some of the tea, and they make signs on your forehead with the tea, and then 

 take an eagle's wing and fan you with it. I heard an educated Indian, and he 

 said in a meeting on Sunday morning, ' My friends, I am glad I can be here 

 and worship this medicine with you ; and we must organize a new church and 

 have it run like the Mormon Church.' " ^ 



USE IN ANCIENT MEXICO. 



From the preceding description of a meeting of the Sacred Peyote 

 Society held by the Winnebagos and Omahas in 1914, I turn back to 

 the first account we have of the Teonanacatl feasts of the Aztecs, 

 written by Padre Bernardino Sahagun in the sixteenth century — be- 

 fore Sir Francis Drake set out upon his voyage round the world — 

 before tobacco, which the Mexicans also - worshipped, was first 

 brought to England : 



The first thing eaten at the party was certain black mushrooms, which they 

 call nanacatl, which intoxicate and cause visions to be seen, and even provoke 



1 Daiker, F. H., " Liquor and Peyote a Menace to the Indian, ' in Report of tlie Thirty- 

 second Annual Lake Mohonk Conference, October, 1914, pp. 66, 67. 



