Native American Church, is a loosely confederated religious organization with some 250,000 American Indian adherents in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.Its distinctive characteristic is the sacramental use of peyote (Lophophora williamsii), a cactus found in the Chihuahuan Desert that contains the psychedelic mescaline. An important part of the twentieth‐century Pan‐Indian movement, the Native American Church has been further influential by expanding the scope of religious practice protected under the First Amendment.

Suppression of peyote use began during the Spanish colonial period; starting in the 1880s, U.S. government Indian agents issued new prohibitions. At that time, the peyote ceremony was spreading into Oklahoma from the Rio Grande region as two Lipan Apaches, Billy Chiwat and Pinero, introduced it to Quanah Parker (Comanche), who along with John Wilson (Caddo) became the ceremony's principal systematizers. The ceremony proved popular among tribes throughout the Great Plains and Southwest in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a way to revitalize Native American culture, which was under stress from dispossession, forced acculturation, alcoholism, and family breakdown. The Native American Church's formal history commenced in 1918, when practitioners of the ancient peyote ceremony, seeking legal protection, incorporated the church in Oklahoma.

In light of its crisis origins, the Native American Church's tenets emphasize social unity, hard work, sobriety, and monogamy. The ritual use of peyote is believed to advance these goals through the plant's powers to heal and to elevate consciousness. The two main ritual forms, the Half Moon Way and the Big Moon or Cross Fire Way, both of which last all night and take their names from the shape of the altar used, were developed by Parker and Wilson, respectively. A recurring issue for the Native American Church has been the extent of syncretism between Christianity and traditional Native American religion.

After a series of conflicts in which peyote use fell afoul of antidrug laws, the Native American Church committed itself to expanding the First Amendment's guarantees of religious freedom. Led by Reuben Snake, the church built a coalition that lobbied Congress in the early 1990s. In response, Congress enacted the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments of 1994 guaranteeing that the religious use of peyote by Native Americans would not be prohibited or subject to discrimination by either federal or state authorities.
See also Church and State, Separation of; Drugs, Illicit; Indian History and Culture; Religion.

Bibliography

Omer C. Stewart , Peyote Religion: A History, 1987.
Huston Smith and Reuben Snake, comps. and eds., One Nation under God: The Triumph of the Native American Church, 1996.

Jonathan D. Sassi

NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH

NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH. The Native American Church, a development that evolved out of the Peyote Cult, is a religion combining some Christian elements with others of Indian derivation. It features as a sacrament the ingestion of the peyote cactus, which may induce multicolored hallucinations. Christian elements include the cross, the Trinity, baptism, and some Christian theology and eschatology. The peyote rite is an all-night ceremonial, usually held in a Plains-type tipi.

Prominent rituals include singing, prayers, testimonials, and the taking of peyote. First incorporated in Oklahoma in 1918, the Native American Church has become the principal religion of a majority of the Indians living between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, and it is also important among the Navajo in the Great Basin, in east-central California, and in southern Canada.

Peyotism's legal standing met a serious challenge in 1990, when the U.S. Supreme Court decreed, in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), that the free exercise clause of the First Amendment did not exempt Indians from criminal prosecution for the use of peyote in states where its use was outlawed as a controlled substance. The decision placed minority religions in jeopardy. In response Oregon passed a 1991 law permitting the sacramental use of peyote by American Indians in the state, and Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, which required the government to demonstrate a compelling state interest to justify any measure restricting religious practices.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LaBarre, Weston. The Peyote Cult. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

Slotkin, James Sydney. The Peyote Religion: A Study in Indian-White Relations. New York: Octagon Books, 1975.

Stewart, Omer C. Peyote Religion. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.

Vecsey, Christopher, ed. Handbook of American Indian Religious Freedom. New York: Crossroad, 1991.

ChristopherVecsey

Kenneth M.Stewart/j. h.

See alsoBill of Rights ; Indian Policy, U.S.: 1900–2000 ; Indian Religious Life ; Religious Liberty .