NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH

also called Peyotism, or Peyote Religion most widespread indigenous religious movement among North American Indians and one of the most influential forms of Pan-Indianism. The term peyote derives from the Nahuatl name peyotl for a cactus. The tops of the plants contain mescaline, an alkaloid drug that has hallucinogenic effects. It was used in Mexico in pre-Columbian times to induce supernatural visions and as a medicine. From the mid-19th century, use of peyote extended north into the Great Plains of the United States, and probably first developed into a distinct religion about 1885 among the Kiowa and Comanche of Oklahoma. After 1891 it spread rapidly as far north as Canada and is now practiced among more than 50 tribes. Statistics are uncertain, but reports suggest nearly a fifth of the Navajo in 1951 practiced the peyote religion (despite strong tribal council opposition) as did one-third of Oklahoma Indians in 1965. The Native American Church claimed some 225,000 adherents in 1977. The various forms of peyotist beliefs combine Indian and Christian elements in differing degrees. Among the Teton, for example, the Cross Fire group uses the Bible and sermons, which are rejected by the Half Moon followers, who, however, teach a similar Christian morality. In general, peyotist doctrine consists of belief in one supreme God (the Great Spirit), who deals with men through various spirits, which include the traditional waterbird or thunderbird spirits that carry prayers to God. In many tribes peyote itself is personified as Peyote Spirit, considered to be either God's equivalent for the Indians to his Jesus for the whites, or Jesus himself. In some tribes Jesus is regarded as an Indian culture hero returned, as an intercessor with God, or as a guardian spirit who has turned to the Indians after being killed by the whites. Peyote, eaten in the ritual context, enables the individual to commune with God and the spirits (including those of the departed) in contemplation and vision and so to receive from them spiritual power, guidance, reproof, and healing. The rite characteristically, but not always, takes place in a tepee around a crescent-shaped, earthen altar mound and a sacred fire. The all-night ceremony usually commences about 8 PM Saturday and is led by a peyote chief. The services include prayer, singing, sacramental eating of peyote, water rites, and contemplation; they conclude with a communion breakfast on Sunday morning. The way of life is called the Peyote Road and enjoins brotherly love, family care, self-support through steady work, and avoidance of alcohol. Peyotism has been much persecuted. Although peyote was banned by government agents in 1888 and later by 15 states, Congress, backed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the churches, and some Indian groups, resisted repeated attempts from 1916 to 1937 to have its use prohibited. In self-defense, peyote groups sought incorporation under state lawsfirst in Oklahoma as the First-born Church of Jesus Christ in 1914, then as the Native American Church in 1918, and by 1960 in some further 11 states. In the 1960s appeals by peyotists in the name of constitutional freedom of religion were supported by anthropologists and others and upheld in several state supreme courts. Evolution of contemporary cultures The great diversity that marked Indian cultures also persisted into modern times. After the arrival of the Europeans, some tribes disappeared by amalgamation with others or by wars and epidemics, and some languages perished. The process of adaptation to white encroachments and of acculturation to European ways worked at varying rates within the various Indian societies, transforming and devitalizing segments of custom and practice. Nevertheless, many Indian populations north of Mexico continued to manifest an unexpected viability, and Indian attitudes, customs, and values persisted. Colonial policies The formulation of public policy toward the Indians was of concern to the major European colonizing powers. The Spanish tried assiduously to Christianize the natives and to remake their living patterns. Orders were issued to congregate scattered Indian villages in orderly, well-placed centres, assuring the Indians at the same time that by moving to such centres they would not lose their outlying lands. This was the first attempt to create Indian reservations. The promise failed to protect Indian land, according to the Franciscan monk and historian of Mexico, Juan Torquemada, who reported about 1599 that there was hardly a palm of land that the Spaniards had not taken. Many Indians who did not join the congregations for fear of losing what they owned fled to mountain places and lost their lands anyway. The Russians never seriously undertook colonization in the New World. When Peter I the Great sent Vitus Jonassen Bering into the northern sea that bears his name, interest was in scientific discovery, not overseas territory. Later, when the problem of protecting and perhaps expanding Russian occupation was placed before Catherine II the Great, she declared (1769): It is for traders to traffic where they please. I will furnish neither men, nor ships, nor money, and I renounce forever all lands and possessions in the East Indies and in America. The Swedish and Dutch attempts at colonization were so brief that neither left a strong imprint on New World practices. The Dutch government, however, was probably the first (1645) of the European powers to enter into a formal treaty with an Indian tribe, the Mohawk. Thus began a relationship, inherited by the British, that contributed to the ascendancy of the English over the French in North America. France handicapped its colonial venture by transporting to the New World a modified feudal system of land tenure that discouraged permanent settlement. Throughout the period of French occupation, emphasis was on trade rather than on land acquisition and development, and thus French administrators, in dealing with the various tribes, tried primarily only to establish trade relations with them. The French instituted the custom of inviting the headmen of all tribes with which they carried on trade to come once a year to Montreal, where the governor of Canada gave out presents and talked of friendship. The governor of Louisiana met southern Indians at Mobile. The English, reluctantly, found themselves competing on the same basis with annual gifts. Still later, United States peace commissioners were to offer permanent annuities in exchange for tribal concessions of land or other interests. In contrast to the French, the English were primarily interested in land and permanent settlements; beginning quite early in their occupation, they felt an obligation to bargain with the Indians and to conclude formal agreements with compensation to presumed Indian landowners. The Plymouth settlers, coming without royal sanction, thought it incumbent upon them to make terms with the Massachuset Indians. Cecilius Calvert (the 2nd Baron Baltimore) and William Penn, while possessing royal grants in Maryland and Pennsylvania respectively, nevertheless took pains to purchase occupancy rights from the Indians. It became the practice of most of the colonies to prohibit indiscriminate and unauthorized appropriation of Indian land. The usual requirement was that purchases could be consummated only by agreement with the tribal headman, followed by approval of the governor or other official of the colony. At an early date also, specific areas were set aside for exclusive Indian use. Virginia in 1656 and commissioners for the United Colonies of New England in 1658 agreed to the creation of such reserved areas. Plymouth Colony in 1685 designated for individual Indians separate tracts that could not be alienated without their consent. In spite of these official efforts to protect Indian lands, unauthorized entry and use caused constant friction through the colonial period. Rivalry with the French, who lost no opportunity to point out to the Indians how their lands were being encroached upon by the English; the activity of land speculators, who succeeded in obtaining large grants beyond the settled frontiers; and, finally, the startling success of the Ottawa chief Pontiac in capturing English strongholds in the old Northwest (the Great Lakes region) as a protest against this westward movement, together prompted King George III's ministers to issue a proclamation (1763) that formalized the concept of Indian land titles for the first time in the history of European colonization in the New World. The document prohibited issuance of patents to any lands claimed by a tribe unless the Indian title had first been extinguished by purchase or treaty. The proclamation reserved for the use of the tribes all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and Northwest. Land west of the Appalachians might not be purchased or entered upon by private persons, but purchases might be made in the name of the king or one of the colonies at a council meeting of the Indians. This policy continued up to the termination of British rule and was adopted by the United States. The Appalachian barrier was soon passedthousands of settlers crossed the mountains during the American Revolutionbut both the Articles of Confederation and the federal Constitution reserved either to the president or to Congress sole authority in Indian affairs, including authority to extinguish Indian title by treaty. When French dominion in Canada capitulated in 1760, the English announced that the Savages or Indian Allies of his most Christian Majesty, shall be maintained in the lands they inhabit, if they choose to remain there. Thereafter, the proclamation of 1763 applied in Canada and was embodied in the practices of the dominion government. (The British North America Act of 1867, which created modern Canada, provided that the parliament of Canada should have exclusive legislative authority with respect to Indians, and lands reserved for the Indians. Thus, both North American countries made control over Indian matters a national concern.) The people Physical types Although American Indians are fundamentally Mongoloid, considerable variation is found. The generally uniform physical features are these: the hair is usually straight, coarse, and uniformly black; the skin is reddish brown, the eyes dark, and the body hair scant; the cheekbones are prominent; and the facial size is generally large. Such features as cephalic index, nasal form, and stature, however, are extremely variable. The uniform features are definitely Mongoloid; the variable features are more difficult to assess. Some scholars believe that the early migrant populations were essentially Mongoloid and that the variations came about through adjustment to American environments. Other scholars argue that the New World was peopled by a variety of physical types, with later mixtures but some marginal survival in isolated regions. Archaeologically, the earlier populations were generally long headed (dolichocephalic) and showed fewer Mongoloid characteristics. These early peoples were slight in build with well-developed brow ridges, and many represent either a proto-Mongoloid type or an unspecialized early Caucasoid form related to the Ainu of Japan. Detailed study of the distribution of blood groups among the American Indians may eventually aid in solving the problem of their origins. Thus, for example, it has been found that blood type B is generally absent in the aboriginal population of the Americas (though its incidence is high among Asian Mongoloids), and type A is found mainly in North American Indians. Modern genetic theory would explain much of the variation found in terms of such factors as mutation, selection, admixture, and random genetic drift. In the small-scale groups involved in the early peopling of the New World, relatively rapid changes were possible and could account for all of the variation found. Population and languages Estimates of the aboriginal population are based on information supplied by explorers, traders, missionaries, and other early reporters and are only as good as the reporters' observations were trustworthy. A more serious impediment to an accurate count is that some tribes, by the time they were visited, had already been depopulated by European diseases and weapons. The American anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber submitted a population total for the area north of Mexico at about 1,150,000. He subgrouped the populations to accord with subsistence areas rather than geographical boundaries. In addition, he ranked the areas according to population densities, expressed in numbers of persons per square kilometre: California area, 43.40; northwest Pacific Coast, 28.30; southwestern United States, 10.70; ColumbiaFraser rivers area, 7.15; eastern area, 6.95; Arctic coast, 4.02; Great Basin, 2.47; and northern area, 1.35. Although agricultural areas of the east and southwest contained the greater population (about 405,000 in all), Kroeber believed that the predominantly fishing economy of the Pacific Coast (Bering Strait to southern California) had greater relative density of population. His estimates were Pacific Coast, 25.2 persons per square kilometre; agricultural areas, 10.1; remaining area north of Mexico, 2.2. The population of a little over 1,000,000 for North America north of Mexico contrasts with the estimated 5,000,000 for Mexico and Central America and with the estimated 25,000,000 for the Western Hemisphere as a whole. (These uncertifiable estimates must, however, be approached with caution.) The outstanding characteristic of American Indian languages is their diversity. There were more than 60 language families in North America, comprising over 500 languages, but these have been reduced to a smaller number of superstocks by modern linguists. The American linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir, for instance, proposed six linguistic groups for North America (including the Arctic): Eskimo-Aleut, Algonquian-Wakashan, Na-Den, Penutian, Hokan-Siouan, and Aztec-Tanoan (see North American Indian languages). No American language has any genetic relationship to any language group in the Old World that has yet been fully demonstrated. It may be concluded from this that the ancestors of the Indians left the Old World so long ago that any relationship was lost through linguistic change. The prehistoric period The earliest records of the peopling of North America are scanty, and it is difficult to characterize their culture beyond calling it a hunting and gathering economy. The first settlers seem to have crossed the Bering Strait region from Asia during the expansion of the glacial sheets of the Ice Age (or Pleistocene Epoch). As the great ice sheets developed and expanded, they not only covered major land areas in the Northern Hemisphere but also brought considerable areas of the continental shelves above sea level. In the Arctic this provided a tundra coastal plain across which man could move from Asia to North America. The amount of the Earth's moisture incorporated into the ice probably lowered the sea level hundreds of feet. Asia and America were thus not separated again by the melting of the glaciers and the consequent gradual rise of the sea until about 9,000 or 10,000 years ago; likely sites of the earliest migrants are now below sea level. The Americas were the last major land mass, with the possible exception of Australia, to be occupied by prehistoric man, who, in order to spread over the vast area of the two continents, first had to develop the cultural equipment to exist in the Arctic area. Once this adjustment was made, he was able to move by way of ice-free, open-land routes into the Mackenzie Basin and down into climatically less rigorous and ecologically richer and more accommodating central North America. In addition to the Mackenzie route southward, at a later time the Yukon River valley also offered an ice-free route, and still later (8,00010,000 years ago) the Liard and Peace river systems were available for intramontane travel. The Pacific Coast slope was probably available for travel at about the same time. Some migrations may also have occurred by way of the Aleutian Islands, but this would have taken place at a considerably later date. Early cultures The earliest well-defined cultures in the New World have been placed by radiocarbon dating at about 10,000 to 8000 BC. At this period, two distinct traditions in North America are known: the Paleo-Indian big-game hunters of the West, the Great Plains, and eastern North America; and the Desert culture peoples of the western BasinRange region.