**Native American Church and Peyote: A Brief Overview**
The Native American Church is a widespread religious movement among Indigenous people in North America. It was formed around 1885 among the Kiowa and Comanche tribes of Oklahoma. Today, more than 50 tribes and 400,000 people practice this faith.
**What is Peyote?**
Peyote is a small cactus that grows naturally in southern Texas and northern Mexico. It contains psychoactive compounds, primarily mescaline, which is a hallucinogen. Different tribes have their own names for the cactus. Despite being controlled, U.S. laws allow Native Americans to use, harvest, and transport peyote.
**Why was the Native American Church formed?**
The church was formed after peyote was banned by the US government in 1888 and later by 15 states. To preserve the peyote ceremony, federal and state governments encouraged Native Americans to organize as a church. This led to the formation of individual Native American Churches in 1918.
**Persecution of Peyote People**
Peyote people faced persecution even after the formation of the Native American Church. In the 1960s, laws prohibited peyote in the Navajo Nation. Former Navajo Nation vice president Frank Dayish Jr. recalls a time when police confiscated peyote from his church and set it on fire.
**How is Peyote Used?**
Peyote is used in ceremonies that take place around a sacred fire. The ceremony typically lasts all night and includes prayer, singing, eating of peyote, water rites, and spiritual contemplation. Members of the Comanche Nation use peyote by eating it dry or grinding it up, sometimes making tea out of it.
**Peyote as Medicine**
Members of the Native American Church believe that peyote has healing properties. They view mescaline in the peyote plant as God‘s spirit, which opens the spiritual eye and allows them to see where the medicine is growing. The harvest is accompanied by prayer and ceremony, and once it’s complete, another ceremony takes place to give thanks to the Creator.
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