The Peyote Religion continues to be, in 1961, as it was twenty years ago: the most dynamic, the largest, and the most controversial aboriginal religion of the American Indians in the United States. Since the first edition of Weston La Barre’s classic study of Peyotism has been out of print for years, its reprinting by the Shoe String Press is a service to the scholarly community and to the new members of the Peyote religion who wish authentic and detailed information on their religion. Notwithstanding the fact that Peyote had been studied from the point of view of ethnology, physiology, psychology, pharmacology, and theology for a half century following the brilliant descriptions of Peyotism by Dr. James Mooney for Oklahoma, it was La Barre’s study which brought together and summarized the available knowledge on the subject. The full geographic spread, from Mexico to Canada, and the full historic perspective from Sahagún in 1560 were appreciated and understood only with La Barre’s monograph.
A surprising uniformity of ritual from tribe to tribe was discovered and was shown to exist along with many peculiarities characteristic of the particular tribes where they were practiced. Even the elements which appeared to have been borrowed from Christianity were recognized by La Barre to have aboriginal models. Thus confessions, preaching, water sprinkling, prayers for the sick, and so forth, which might be thought of as coming from Christinaity, were shown to be ancient in the Plains culture area where Peyotism reached stability in the United States.
Anyone with a scholarly or scientific interest in the native American church (ie., the Peyote religion) should start with The Peyote Cult, by Dr. Weston La Barre.
