BADiN] THE PEYOTE CULT 397 



Shortly after this he traveled again and came to a band of Indians 

 who were eatmg peyote. It was his custom to try everything when 

 he went visitmg. He did not realize what he was doing when he 

 ate this medicme, but he did it anvhow. After a while he began to 

 thiiik of his manner of life, and he felt that he was doing WTong. All 

 the evil he had done he remembered. Then he prayed to God. 

 Suddenly it occm-red to him, "Perhaps T am the only one doing this." 

 Then he looked around and watched the others, and he saw them 

 praying in the same manner. 



Not long after that he came home, takuig with him some of this 

 medicme. He knew it was holy. At home he offered tobacco to it 

 and kept on eating it. Soon it cured him of a disease he had. He 

 tried to mduce some of tlie others to try it, but they refused. After 

 a while a few tried it', and the peyote movement l)egan to spread. 

 All the old customs that they had been accustomed to obsene they 

 abandoned. They gave up the medicine dance and the ceremonies 

 connected with the clans. For that reason, therefore, the con- 

 servative people hated them; their own brothers and sisters hated 

 them, for they had abandoned what were considered holy ceremonies. 



Albert Henslet's Account of the Peyote ^ 



(Pis. 8, d; 9, d) 



I am 37 years old. It was 37 years ago that my mother ga^'e birth 

 to me in an ol<l-fashioned reed lodge. When I was a j-ear old she 

 died and my grandmother took care of me. I had come mto the 

 world a healthy child, but bad luck was apparently to pm-sue me, 

 for when I was 7 years old my grandmother died. Then my father 

 took care of me. At that time he began to be a bad man; he was a 

 drunkard and a horse thief. He would frequently get into trouble 

 and run away, always takmg me along with him, however. On one 

 occasion we fled to Wisconsin, and there we sta.yed two years. We 

 got along pretty well, and there my father married again. By his 

 second wife he had three children. 



After a while he got ijito trouble agaui, and misfortune followed 

 misfortune. People were kUling each other, and I was left alone. 

 If at any tune of my life I was ui trouble it was then. I was never 

 happy. Once I did not have anythhig to eat for four days. We 

 had fled to the wilderness, and it was rammg continually. The 

 comitry was flooded with high water, and we sat on the top of a 

 tree. It was impossible to sleep, for if we went to sleep we would 

 fall off mto the water, which was very deep. The shore was quite 

 far away. As we were promment people, we soon heard that my 



« This account is of great importance, because Hensley introduced a large number of Christian elements 

 into the ceremony, the principal one being the Bible. 



