Crow Dog : Four Generations of Sioux Medicine Men (9780062200143) (9 page)

It seemed like forever until Arrow Sight came to bring me down. The sweat lodge was ready. I was hungry and thirsty. Arrow Sight said, “Before you talk, before you sweat, there is a young boy to feed you.” They gave me water and corn, and that young boy, George Four Horns, gave me four spoonfuls of everything they had prepared for me. Inside the sweat lodge I told them what I had seen and heard. I left nothing out. I added nothing. Arrow Sight, Good Lance, my father, they all interpreted it for me. “It is all good. It made you a medicine man. But that’s only one vision quest. You must go on three more before you can be the four different kinds of spiritual man combined in one person. But you have enough power now to take it from here. You are a medicine man. From now on you have to travel Grandfather’s road. There is no looking back.”

I am a member of the Native American Church, the peyote church. Some people criticize me for that. They say that the sun dance is a Lakota belief, but peyote comes from another tribe. I shouldn’t mix the two up. But I was born into the peyote way. I like it because it unites our people. Whatever religion, whatever ceremonies a tribe has, peyote makes them as one. I see nothing wrong with holding onto my old Lakota beliefs while, at the same time, I also practice the peyote way together with my brothers and sisters from all tribes. When we sit in a meeting with people from other Indian nations, we might not speak their language, but spiritually we understand one another. In our songs our languages become one. Anything is good that brings our people together in a spiritual way, from the Yukon to the Rio Grande, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Peyote power is the knowledge of God through peyote. It is our Indian medicine, our holy herb, our sacrament.
It is not a chemical drug but a natural plant. It elevates my mind into another world, into a higher dimension. With the peyote I went to a lot of good places and met a lot of good people. Grandfather Peyote has no mouth, but he talks to me; he has no eyes, but he looks at me; he has no ears, but he listens. He is a song brought by the wind. The peyote way is thousands of years old. It is as old as the earth.

The word
peyote,
my elders told me, comes from the Uto-Aztecan
peyotl,
meaning caterpillar, because the peyote cactus is fuzzy, like a caterpillar’s back. In Lakota we call it
unchela,
or simply medicine. When the Spaniards came to Mexico, peyote was already there. The priests called it the “devil’s root, which keeps the Indians from salvation.” They burned alive all Indians they found using this sacred medicine. In the United States, the missionaries called peyote “a barrier to civilization” and put in jail those who prayed with it.

There is a tale of how peyote came to the people. My father told it to me. Somebody had taught it to him. Long ago, long before the white man came, there was a tribe living far to the south of us. Those people were suffering from a sickness, and many died of it. An old woman had a dream that she would find a medicine to cure her people. So she went out to search for this plant. She took her young granddaughter along. They got lost in a desert. They were getting weak from hunger and thirst. They lay down to sleep under some bushes. They thought they would die.

Suddenly, toward morning, an eagle flew above them, from the east toward the west. The old woman prayed to this sacred bird for help. Then she heard a voice, saying, “I have a medicine that will help you.” The voice came out from a peyote plant. It was a big Grandfather Peyote, with sixteen segments. The old woman cut the top part off, the green part, and they ate this. The peyote juice inside refreshed them and made them strong. The old woman and her granddaughter got peyote power.

When the second night came, the old woman prayed to the spirit, “I am lost. Have pity on me.” And a voice answered, “You
are lost now, but after two more nights you will find your way home.” When they awoke at dawn, the old woman and the girl partook again of the sacred medicine. It made them feel strong, as if they had eaten a big meal. The old woman told the girl, “Granddaughter, pray with this new herb. It has great power in it.”

During the third night, the woman had a vision that showed her how to use the peyote spiritually. In the morning she told the girl, “Granddaughter, we must find more of these holy plants to save our people.” Then she heard many voices calling: “Over here, over here, I’m the one to pick.” The peyote plants were leading them to their hiding places under shrubs and bushes. The old woman and the girl filled a whole hide bag with them.

During the fourth night, the old woman heard the voice again: “Toward the sunrise, you’ll see three mountains. Behind the one in the middle you’ll find your camp.” So in the morning they walked that way and found their village. And the people were happy to have them back. Though they had not eaten in four days, the medicine had kept them strong. The people were still dying of sickness, but the old woman had been shown in her vision how to use peyote ceremonially to cure the people. So she did this, and the people got well. Through the peyote they received new understanding. It gave them a new mind. And they brought this medicine to their neighbors and instructed them in its use until the peyote way was accepted by many tribes.

Peyote doesn’t grow in this country, except for a small area in southern Texas. We have to go into Mexico to harvest it. The Huichol, Yaqui, and Tarahumara have always had it, but not the tribes north of the Rio Grande. About one hundred fifty years ago the Comanche had a chief called Quanah Parker. In his youth he had been a great warrior. He traveled down into Mexico and there a bull gored him. He was about to die, but an Indian woman cured him with peyote. He took the medicine back to his tribe. He also had the ritual as the woman had taught him. It was different from the Huichol and the Yaqui way, though they all used the
same sacrament. Quanah Parker founded the Native American Church. It was part Indian religion and part Christianity. His ritual became known as the crossfire ceremony, because a Bible was used in it and prayers to Jesus were in its songs. And they smoked cornhusk cigarettes in their meetings. Later non-Christian Indians founded the moon fire ceremony. They don’t use the Bible and have the pipe instead of the cornhusk cigarettes, but we all get along with one another. We all pray with the same medicine. From the Comanche peyote spread to other tribes, farther north.

Peyote came to us in Rosebud around 1903. I was told that some people from the Winnebago tribe, John Bearskin and Mountain Wolf Woman, taught this religion to some of our Lakota men.

In 1922 we got the first charter for the Native American Church in South Dakota. Eagle Hawk, a college student, and Joe Good Breath were the ministers. Francis Little Stallion was a leader, Fanny Little Stallion a delegate. Orange Star was a helper, and Ed Red Feather and Jim Blue Bird were directors. Jim Sky Bull became the overseer.

My grandfather on my mother’s side ran into trouble on the Rosebud reservation. That was in 1918. He went to Kansas and met up with some Potawatorni and Oto. They invited him to join in their peyote ceremony.

He first went into a sweat bath for purification. At that time they did not chop up the peyote as we do now. They cleaned the middle part out. They got a whole basketful of fresh green buttons, maybe about three or four hundred. Then after they had partaken, they offered some to their Sioux guest. So he took the medicine and, in the middle of the night, all of a sudden, he felt like he was behind bars. It was as if the tipi poles had turned into bars. And he could not find the entrance to the tipi. But then suddenly he experienced the greatness of the holy herb: “A new power got hold of me, so many things peyote is showing me. It makes me understand myself. The peyote spirit is releasing me
from what is binding me.” He was sitting among his new Potawatomi and Oto friends, joining them in their prayers. As he prayed, the morning star came up and the tipi poles moved aside and opened a path for him. Then he heard a mockingbird talking to him: “You have been released from what was tying you up.” He stayed with these people for six weeks, going to meetings all the time, sometimes inside a house, sometimes in a tipi. When it was time to leave he told these friends that he wanted to take these ways back to his people in South Dakota. So they instructed him in the rituals and taught him the songs. And in this way he took the new knowledge with him.

My grandfather John Crow Dog first took peyote in Macy, Nebraska, at a powwow in 1921. He followed the sound of the water drum. It led him to where some Winnebago had a meeting. He joined them and took the sacrament and came to know the medicine. But he didn’t join the church. He told them, “You eat peyote. That’s good, I respect it. But I’m a loner. I do things my own way. When I die, just plant me someplace. I don’t need a cemetery. I stay by myself, far from other folk. I ain’t a membership man.”

My father came to the medicine in this way. In 1929 he visited his cousin John Good Shield, who lived close to Jim Sky Bull. John Good Shield complained to my dad that his uncle Noah Little was an alcoholic. He thought maybe Sky Bull could help. So they went up to Sky Bull and took in a meeting. My dad took the medicine and was under the power for four days. He had a good vision. He felt something sacred. They gave my father water and corn, chokecherries, and jerk meat. My father got up and thanked all these people for what they had done for him. He told them, “Anytime you need help, I’ll help you. I’m a poor man, but whatever I have I’ll share with you. I’ll be coming back. I’ll cut wood for you, bring food, whatever. Grandfather Peyote has spoken to me.” So from that time on my father went to the meetings and became a member of the peyote church.

A Native American Church ritual is beautiful. It is as tightly
run as a Catholic Mass. All the things we use in a meeting—the drum, the staff, the gourd, the fan—must be handled in the right way. Whether it takes place in a house or tipi, the setup is always the same. There are differences between a moon fire and a crossfire meeting, and between a Lakota and a Navajo one, but in the main parts they are all alike. If you looked down on a peyote meeting it would appear like this:

At the west, in the back, opposite the door of the tipi, sits the road man, or road chief. We call him that because he leads us on the road of life. He has a shawl around his shoulders that is half red and half blue. To his right sits the drummer, and to his left the cedar man, who uses cedar as incense during the meeting. At the east, by the door, sits the fire man, who tends and shapes the fire and also acts as doorkeeper. Close to him is the water carrier, always a woman. Among the Lakota she is either the wife or daughter of the road chief. The road chief has with him the holy things—the staff, the gourd, the feather fan, the eagle bone whistle, and a bundle of sage. In front of him is an altar cloth. Some members bring their own staffs, gourds, and fans in a decorated wooden box. If it is a crossfire meeting, there will be a Bible. If I run a meeting there will be a rack in front of me, made of two upright forked sticks with a crosspiece. This is for the sacred pipe to rest on. In some places they smoke cornhusk cigarettes instead of the pipe. In front of the pipe rest is the half-moon altar. It is made of sand and is shaped like a crescent, a half-moon. From one tip to the other we make a groove that represents the road of life. The top of the altar is flat. On its center we place the chief peyote, the Grandfather Peyote. Farther down from the road
man are the ashes, also shaped into a half-moon. Then there is the fire place itself, with its glowing coals and the fire power. And then down the line in a row is the sacred food—the pail of water, the corn, the meat (which could be wasna, or pemmican), and then the chokecherries or other fruit.

1. Road Chief (also Road Man)

2. Cedar Man

3. Drummer

4. Pipe Rack

5. Halfmoon Altar

6. Path

7. Grandfather Peyote (also Father Peyote and Chief Peyote)

8. Ashes

9. Fire Glowing

10. Place Embers

11. Water

12. Corn

13. Chokecherries (Wojapi)

14. Meat (Wasna)

15. Water Bearer

16. Fireman (also Door Keeper)

The water represents the water of life. There can be no life without it. The spirit dwells in the water. The corn is the food of the Indian who created this corn, who bred it from a small kind of grass thousands of years ago. The meat, or wasna, represents our brother, the buffalo, who gives of his flesh so that the people may live. The chokecherries stand for the generations. We put a branch of chokecherries on the sacred tree during the sun dance.

Outside the tipi, on the right side of the door, is a stack of wood to keep the fire going.

I call the sacred things we use in our meetings the elements. They are there for a reason. First, the drum represents the Indian’s heartbeat. Sometimes, during a meeting, your heart beats along with the drum. That scares some people who have come for the first time, because the drumbeat is so fast. The drum is at the center; it is the spirit of peyote. Long ago, the drum was made of wood. Now it is an iron or metal kettle with three legs or no legs at all. In a crossfire, if the kettle has three legs, that represents the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The drum is a water drum. It is filled with the water of life. The spirit is there and you put a prayer in it. The water gives the drum its special sound, the peyote sound. It is the Great Spirit’s tune. The hide is the spirit’s skin or, in a crossfire, Jesus’ skin as he is beaten by the soldiers or, maybe, the Indian’s skin as he is beaten by the police. Early on we used buffalo hide, but now it is deerskin. At dawn every morning, the deer comes to the water. So hide and water go together. Some use moose hide. The hide stands for all the four-legged animals who give us food.