Sarah Nuber- The Native American Church

For the research paper in this class, I am writing about how mind-altering drugs are important in the religious lives of oral cultures and Native Americans cultures. I am reading a book by Huston Smith called, Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals. The Native American Church exists today and its roots go back before Christianity and before the other historical religions came about. Chapter 9 is about the Native American Church that exists today and it gives accounts from different Native Americans about how they use Peyote religiously. There is one account from a Native American named Hochunk and he basically says that everything they do in their religion is to honor the Creator and to find their place in his Creation (pg 116). He says that they always try to honor one another and to be respectful of each other and this comes from a sacred herb, and that this herb is actually divine. They call Peyote their Medicine because God filled it with love and compassion and when they eat it, they can feel the love that God is. (pg 116). They believe that eating Peyote physically puts God inside of them and this makes them treat others with love, joy, respect and compassion. There is another account from a Native American named A. Kiowa and it talks about how in the first creation God spoke directly to the people and told them what to do, and then Christ came and told the white people to do and then that God gave the Indians Peyote and that’s how they found God. (p 118) Other Native Americans in this chapter talk about how they get holy feelings when they eat Peyote and that they feel the presence of the Great Spirit. Peyote is their sacrament and is very important to the Native American religion, it has a lot of Christianity incorporated into it which I was not aware of. I thought this quote from Quannah Parker (creator of the peyote religion who is also mentioned in the Gill text pg 125) was interesting, “The White Man goes into his church and talks about Jesus. The Indian goes into his Tipi and talks with Jesus.”