104 USES OF PLANTS BY INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 33 
CACTACEAE 
OpuntTIA HUMIFUSA Raf. Prickly Pear. (PI. 20, a.) 
U"chela (Dakota). The fruits are called w"chela taspu”. 
Pidahatus (Pawnee). 
An amusing summer game played by small boys of the Dakota 
Nation was the “cactus game.” Boys gathered on the prairie where 
the cactus abounded. One boy who was a swift runner was chosen 
“to be it,” as white children say in games. This boy would take 
a cactus plant and impale it on a stick. The stick served as a handle 
by which he held up the plant for the other boys to shoot with their 
bows and arrows. When a boy hit the target the target holder ran 
after him and would strike him with the spiny cactus; then he would 
‘return to the goal and receive the shots of other boys. Thus the 
game continued indefinitely at the pleasure of the players. 
The fruits were eaten fresh and raw after the bristles had been 
removed, or they were stewed. They were also dried for winter use. 
Sometimes from scarcity of food the Indians had to resort to the 
stems, which they roasted after first removing the spines. The 
mucilaginous juice of the stems was utilized as a sizing to fix the 
colors painted on hides or on receptacles made from hides. It was 
applied by rubbing a freshly peeled stem over the painted object. 
On account of this mucilaginous property the peeled stems were 
bound on wounds as a dressing. 
Lopnopnora witutAmsit (Lem.) Coulter. Peyote. 
Maka" (Omaha-Ponea). The medicine. 
The religious cult associated with this plant has been introduced 
among the Nebraska tribes from others to the southward. The plant 
is indigenous to the Rio Grande region, where its cult arose. Thence 
it spread from tribe to tribe, even to our northern national boundary. 
This plant is often popularly but erroneously called mescal. The 
use of peyote and the religious observances connected with it were 
introduced among the Omaha in the winter of 1906-07 by one of 
the tribe who returned from, a visit to the Oto in Oklahoma. He 
had been much addicted to the use of alcohol and had heard among 
the Oto that this religion would cure him. The cult had already 
been introduced into the Winnebago tribe, whose reservation adjoins 
that of the Omaha, so when he reached home he sought the advice 
and help of the leader of the Peyote Society in that tribe. A society 
was soon formed in the Omaha tribe, and although at first much 
opposed it grew till it absorbed half the tribe. At the present time 
its influence has somewhat weakened. 
The peyote plant and its cult appeal strongly to the Indian’s sense 
of the mysterious and occult. The religious exercises connected with 
