BADiN] THE PEYOTE CULT 423 



The first and foremost virtue predicated by Rave for the peyote 

 was its curative power. He gives a number of instances in which 

 hopeless venereal diseases and consumption were cured by its use; 

 and this was the first thing one heard about it as late as 1913. In 

 the early days of the Peyote cult it appears that Rave relied prin- 

 cipally for new converts upon the knowledge of this great curative 

 virtue of the peyote. The main point apparently was to induce 

 people to try it. No amount of preaching of its direct effects, such 

 as the hyperstimulation induced, the glorious visions, and the feeling 

 of relaxation following, would ever have induced prominent members 

 of the old Winnebago religious societies to try it. For that reason 

 it is highly significant that all the old members of the Peyote cult 

 speak of the diseases of which it cured them. Along this line lay 

 unquestionably its appeal for the most converts. Its subsequent 

 spread was due to a large number of interacting factors. One in- 

 formant claims that there was little religion connected with it at 

 first, and that the people drank the peyote on account of its peculiar 

 effects. 



The manner in which it spread at the beginning was simple and 

 significant — viz, along family lines. As soon as an individual had 

 become a peyote eater he devoted all his energies to converting 

 other members of his family. From instances that have come to 

 our notice this lay in an insistent appeal to family ties and personal 

 affection. A man showed unusual courtesy, showered innumerable 

 favors upon relatives he was anxious to convert, and thereby earned 

 the gratitude of the recipient, who at some critical moment, let us 

 say, such as illness or mental depression, showed it by partaking of 

 the peyote. The same methods were employed in the more general 

 propaganda. The author knows of Peyote people who drove many 

 miles in order to be present at the bedside of some old conservative 

 who was ill, perhaps neglected by his relatives; bring him food, and 

 spend the night with him in the most affectionate solicitude. They 

 always had sufficient tact and understanding of human nature not 

 to obtrude their purpose on the sick man too much. To the casual 

 observer their object seemed simply that of a Samaritan. They 

 would hardly have admitted that behind aU their solicitude lay the 

 desire to obtain a new convert. They would have claimed that their 

 only purpose, over and above their sincere desire to comfort the 

 sick man, was to demonstrate to their fellow Winnebago what changes 

 the peyote had WTought in them. In this way the patient drew the 

 inference, an inference that was likely to be drawn all the more quickly 

 and forcibly when he contrasted the behavior of these Peyote nurses 

 with that of his pagan relatives. The author was fortunate enough 

 to obtain a fairly complete account of a conversion, illustrating both 

 these features. 



