Shamanism and Peyote Use Among the Apaches
of the Mescalero Indian Reservation
L. Bryce Boyer, Ruth M. Boyer, and Harry W. Basehart
from: Hallucinogens & Shamanism,
Edited by Michael J. Harner
©1973, Oxford University Press
In a volume devoted to the study of shamanism and hallucinogenic drugs
it is important to include data concerning a group whose experiences with
the hallucinogenic peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii) in shamanistic rituals
resulted in serious conflict and, ultimately, proscription of the ceremonial
use of the drug. 1 Inthis contribution we present information concerning
the Apaches of the Mescalero Indian Reservation, some of whom used peyote
in shamanistic contexts between about 1870 until some time after 1910. We
then examine some of the reasons why its use was abandoned and why their
accredited shamanistic practices subsequently have excluded the use of
hallucinogens.2
The Apaches presently living on the reservation include members of
three tribes, in order of descending numbers, Mescaleros, Chiricahuas, and
Lipans (R. M. Boyer, 1962, Appendix A). The reservation was established in
1873 for the Mescaleros. The Chiricahuas were taken as prisoners of war in
1886 after the capitulation of Geronomo and his followers. When they were
freed in 1913, the majority chose to move to the reservation and to become
part of the Mescalero tribe. The Lipans were destroyed as functioning groups
during the latter half of the nineteenth century, when their few known remaining
members joined the Mescaleros.
Nineteenth-century authors stated that the Mescaleros used peyote
in religious rites in 1867 (Methvin, 1899:36-37), the Chiricahuas in 1875
(Tones, 1899:95)1· and the Lipans in 1885 (Havard, 1885:521; 1886:38).
Nevertheless, it is not generally known that these Apaches ate peyote. They
were excluded from Shonle's (1925) map of the distribution of the use of
peyote in the United States and they were listed as non-users in a booklet
compiled under the aegis of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Newberne, 1925.)
During his field work in the 1930's, Opler (1936); learned that the
Mescaleros had practiced rather elaborate ceremonies centering on the utilization
of peyote for some forty years and that the Lipans had used it in shamanistic
contexts (Opler, 1938, 1940, 1945)·
According to the aged informant Antonio Apache, the Lipans obtained
peyote from the Carrizo Indians (Opler, 1938); and the Mescaleros are said
to have learned peyote rites from the Lipans not long before 1870 (LaBarre,
1938) or from the Tonkawas, Lipans, Yaquis, or other non-Apachean groups
of northern Mexico (Opler, 1936:148). But for some slight degree of
experimentation by today's young people with marijuana and perhaps LSD, the
reservation Apaches are not known to have used any other hallucinogenic drugs
with the exception of alcohol. Modern informants affirm that peyote has been
and may now be used for social purposes, but that formerly it was ingested
only during Mescalero and Lipan shamanistic ceremonies. We have been unable
to confirm its use during the years 1958-71. No one now has knowledge of
peyote use by the Chiricahuas of the reservation.
To understand why the shamanistic use of peyote was abandoned requires
an insight into Apache religious concepts and a cognizance of personality
structure among these people. Initially we shall summarize the religious
tenets.
Aboriginal religio-medical philosophies, the criteria for according
the status of shaman to individuals, and shamanistic procedures have been
similar if not identical among the three tribes in recorded times (Boyer,
1964)· They conceive the world to be permeated by supernatural power
which has no intrinsic attribute of good or evil; its virtue resides in its
potency. Power approaches people through the agency of a plant, animal, or
natural phenomenon by means of a dream or other hallucinatory experience;
its acceptance is frequently accompanied by an ordeal. Ritual instruction
may be received directly from the power or from other shamans. Any person
is a possible power recipient. Thus, Opler (1936:146) described the Mescaleros
as "a tribe of shamans, active or potentially active."
An individual might own any number of powers. If he is thought to
use power for purposes which are not oriented toward the common good, he
is accorded the status of witch. Yet those who are thought to use their powers
for the benefit of the group, the shamans, are implicitly witches since a
shaman who saves a life must then either sacrifice his own or that of a loved
person. Obviously, jealousies, enmities, and suspicion abound. Each shaman
has private instructions concerning the use of power, and his rites are
individually owned. Consistent with native concepts of leadership and authority
(Basehart, 1959, 1960, 1970), there has never been a chief shaman.
Opler's informants stated, and today's Apaches agree, that ritual
peyote use was acquired from personal contact with power that approached
people while it was invested in peyote flowers or "buttons." Various Mescalero
shamans acquired peyote power and became leaders of a peyote camp in which
curing and other ceremonies were conducted. During such rites, various shamans
and other participants used and were affected by peyote, experiencing the
usual perceptual and logical distortions, hallucinations, and physical effects.
Whether the Lipans had a formal peyote camp is not known.
There is a fundamental incongruity between the principles involved
in ordinary Mescalero shamanistic ceremonies and the rules that applied to
peyote rites. In ordinary shamanistic practices, a single shaman is tire
principal figure and the experiences of attendants at ceremonies are subordinate.
Religious ecstasy, visions, and communications with supernaturals are the
shaman's prerogatives and validate his power and efficacy. The use of peyote
by other people at ceremonies made its psychological and physiological effects
common, and the uniqueness of the shaman's experiences disappeared. The peyote
meetings became places in which shamanistic rivalries and witchcraft flourished.
Disruption resulted, rather than cohesiveness through shared experience.
The peyote ceremonies were not accompanied by the acceptance of Christian
beliefs and practices, and the Mescaleros never became involved in the Peyote
Religion (see Slotkin, 1956). Instead, the use of peyote was intended to
affirm the vitality of traditional religious practices at a time when the
impact of reservation confinement contributed to an increased awareness of
social and cultural deprivation. Yet antagonisms became so open and bloody
that eventually the peyote gatherings were abandoned. The hostilities which
became overt during the meetings were ascribed to the peyote. Since its use
involved witchcraft practices, its ingestion was equated with the potential
for witchcraft.
It will be recalled that, in the native conceptualization, power has
no intrinsic attribute of good or evil, and can be used for moral or immoral
purposes at the will of its human owner. To our knowledge, peyote power is
unique among the Mescaleros in that it is uniformly considered to be bad.
Some Mescaleros believe that one other power, the owl, is intrinsically evil.
Thus, the hoot of an owl is considered to presage death. However, some Apaches
regard the owl as the bearer of the power of a human witch, others believe
ghosts to inhabit owls, and yet others deem owls to be witches whose actions
are motivated by their own evil will or power.
During 1959-60 there were thirteen accredited Mescalero, Chiricahua,
and Lipan shamans on the reservation. Perhaps fifteen Mescaleros, here termed
pseudoshamans, claimed to own supernatural power but were considered generally
to be imposters.
One of the shamans, Ancient One, was the sole living person known
to have participated in the peyote camp. Of the shamans, only he and Black
Eyes (Boyer, 1961; Klopfer and Boyer, 1961), both Mescaleros, were at times
judged to be witches. It was said that they and two of the pseudoshamans
still used peyote in the illicit practices of witchcraft and love magic
ceremonies, rites which are potentially dangerous to those who perform them.
The shamans, considered to be legitimate possessors of peyote power, were
not punished by that power for their actions. However, the peyote had "turned
back" on the pseudoshamans. As a consequence, one of them lost one of his
legs in an accident and the other was castigated indirectly when one of his
close relatives was killed and another lost a limb.
Let us turn now to a brief and partial recapitulation of facets of
current socialization practices. R. M. Boyer (1962) found that child-rearing
techniques tend to be uniform in emotional content, and usually in actual
practice, provided the mother has been brought up on the reservation. Further,
during the prelatency period of a child's growth, socialization practices
strongly resemble aboriginal tactics.
Typically, there is gross inconsistency in the maternal care of children.
Frequently, the baby of the family is afforded tender and loving care but
periodically the mother will impulsively abandon the infant to the supervision
of others, sometimes to children of only four or five years of age, for hours
or days while she engages in narcissistic pursuits, commonly involving drinking.
Ordinarily, a husband does not object to such treatment of small children
because his attention and regard are no more constant. Under such conditions,
the development of a sense of basic trust (Erikson, 1950) is Stultified;
one result is the marked ambivalence and suspiciousness which form aspects
of Apache personality.
With the birth of a baby, usually when the previous child is 18 to
24 months old, the older child is abruptly, and often brutally, displaced.
The resultant sibling rivalry is intense but strongly disapproved. Nevertheless,
its repression is insecure and its effects become blatantly manifest when
teenagers and adults are under the influence of alcohol. We refer here to
only two of the severe psychological traumata encountered by growing children.
In the aboriginal situation, other socialization practices were reasonably
effective in directing hostilities engendered by such child-rearing practices,
for example, those mentioned above toward outsiders, witches, ghosts and
other culturally defined objects. During the long period when these Apaches
were nomadic hunters, gatherers, and raiders, such externalization of aggression
served to strengthen group solidarity. With changing life conditions, in
the presence of feeble repression of interfamilial and intragroup resentments,
individuals' hatreds are generally discharged in manners which result in
anomie and various forms of self-destruction (Boyer and Boyer, 1972)·
L. B. Boyer's essential research method consisted of conducting
psychoanalytically oriented investigative interviews (Boyer, 1964a). He had
from 1 to 145 interviews each with 60 different persons of both sexes, ranging
in age from 4 to 65 years. He found a personality configuration which was
typical for these Apaches.
They are impulse-ridden, fear loss of control, especially of feebly
repressed hostile urges, and are suggestible and phobic. They tend to avoid
introspection and seek outer controls and explanations for their behavior
and thoughts. They are suspicious and dependent and their libidinal attachments
are unstable. The men, who are caught between passive and aggressive urges,
have insecure sexual identities. The typical Apache personality configuration
corresponds with the Western psychiatric diagnosis of character disorder
with hysterical and impulsive attributes.
L. B. Boyer was generally considered to be a shaman and, accordingly,
was in an unusually good position to learn about shamans and their activities.
He found them to have personality configurations that concur with those which
are typical for the Apaches, differing only to the degree to which they
successfully employ imposture and in their having greater creative potential
(Boyer, 1962).3 They are not autocultural deviants who have resolved serious
psychopathological conditions through assuming shamanistic roles (Ackerknecht,
1943; Devereux, 1956; Silverman, 1967)· The personality structure of
the impostor as delineated by psychoanalysts (Greenacre, 1958) is clinically
similar to that of the usual Apache shaman.
A capacity to regress in the service of the ego (Kris, 1952) and an
ego-controlled availability of primary process thinking (Freud, 191·5)
are related to creativity and showmanship. These characteristics appear to
be necessary for the successful practice of shamanism and for convincing
impostureship. It is noteworthy that the pseudoshamans who were interviewed
were found clinically to lack creative potentials and the capacity to use
regression in the service of the ego.
Because it was impossible to conduct psychiatric interviews in depth
with all of the shamans and pseudoshamans, the Rorschach test was employed
as a research adjunct. Protocols were obtained from all Apaches of fifty
years of age and older (referred to here as the old-age group), 12 of the
13 shamans and 7 pseudoshamans (Boyer, Klopfer, Brawer, and Kawai, 1964).
The protocols of the shamans and pseudoshamans were compared with those of
the old-age group and with each other. As expected, the protocols of the
old-age group showed hysterical signs. The shamans demonstrated more hysterical
signs and, additionally, a way of handling data with keener awareness of
peculiarities and more selective theoretical interest; they had creative
characteristics and a high degree of reality testing potential in addition
to a capacity to regress in the service of the ego. Viewed heteroculturally,
or within Devereux's framework of the ideal psychological normal, they more
nearly approached normality than did their culture mates." The personality
of the pseudoshamans was strikingly different. They were not hysterical,
had variable degrees of reality testing potential, and impoverished
personalities. Klopfer concluded from indirect data that the shamans were
able to use imposture convincingly whereas pseudoshamans could not.
COMMENT
Historical and modern data provide some partial and tentative answers
to the intriguing question of why the Mescaleros abandoned the use of peyote
in shamanistic rituals and today forbid its use.
Apache child-rearing practices engender much hostility. Aggression
was and is addressed institutionally toward outsiders, witches, ghosts, and
cultural bogies in an attempt to produce individual repression of hostile
impulses originally directed toward familial and societal members. The effort
was more effective aboriginally but has never been strikingly successful.
In the past, as today, when individuals were under the influence of
hallucinogens, including alcohol, their unstable repression of hateful impulses
toward parent and sibling surrogates became blatantly overt and threatened
tribal unity.
The use of peyote in the camps introduced a foreign element into Apache
shamanistic procedures, the simultaneous assumption of authority by more
than one practitioner. Each of them vied for supremacy of power and status.
The physiopsychological effects of the hallucinogen reduced the efficacy
of their repression of the hostilities which had resulted from their
socialization experiences.
The drug-induced regression resulted in their releasing aggression
in its earlier, childish form, directly toward parent and sibling surrogates.
Bloodshed and feuds occurred; the Apache wisely banned the peyote camps.
It would appear that the ascription of the quality of evil to peyote
(power), an act which involved basic deviation from the conceptualization
of power without intrinsic properties of good or evil, was intended to deny
the presence of intragroup hostility.
The use of peyote was proscribed for shamans; thenceforth it was employed
by possessors of supernatural power solely in witchcraft rituals, as was
owl power, and love magic practices.
It can be no coincidence that only peyote and owl power have been
considered to be evil in themselves. In each instance, murderous wishes are
projected onto the power in question.
The Mescaleros, Chiricahuas, and Lipans fear the use of peyote for
two stated reasons: (1) it has an evil power which will drive them to do
evil and (2) it causes hallucinations, that is, reduces their capacity to
perceive and judge external reality accurately.
There is fear of the visual aberrations and of the strange qualities
of movement encountered. In the first case, intrapersonal asocial tendencies
are projected onto the peyote. Sexual transgressions arouse little overt
anxiety among these Apaches except when inter-generational incest has occurred,
but they fear their poorly controlled aggressive impulses. The second case
is similar. The Apaches may displace their fear of loss of control over
destructive urges onto fear of loss of control of perceptual accuracy.
A number of questions remain, of which we shall deal briefly with
three.
First, why did two shamans continue to use peyote in illicit practices!
Both were considered to be very powerful and were feared by most Apaches.
Black Eyes, intoxicated, frequently bragged that he was a witch and once
flaunted peyote buttons before the psychoanalytic author. Ancient One had
no need to flaunt his witchcraft potential. He was said to have killed many
individuals, both tribal enemies and Apaches, sometimes by means which appeared
to have required the intervention of the supernatural. His own children were
so awed by his presumed powers that they even hesitated to whisper their
conviction that he was a witch. Perhaps these two men deemed themselves to
be so strong that they were above social sanctions and continued to use peyote
both to demonstrate their contempt for their fellow Mescaleros and for material
purposes. It is probable that they could demand greater recompense and command
greater respect from performing rituals which were conceptualized as illegitimate
in Apache practice and belief.
Second, why did two pseudoshamans use peyote in their rituals? They
had impoverished personalities, and were generally scorned both as shamans
and witches and employed solely by the most suggestible. We postulate that
they used peyote in an attempt to raise their esteem in their eyes and those
of others, hoping that they would truly become powerful if they could exploit
the effects of the hallucinogens. Each of them confided to L. B. Boyer while
intoxicated that they doubted their own claims of power possession and
consciously sought to deceive others.
Third, the use of alcohol among these Apaches is commonplace. While
it is officially and to some extent socially disapproved, it is accepted
as "one way of life," a way accepted even prior to white domination. Under
its influence, hallucinosis is frequent, and exceedingly violent actions
often occur. Further, in the drunken state, perception is blurred and distorted,
paralleling one aspect of the experiences induced by the ingestion of peyote.
Why, then, was the use of alcohol socially permissible, while peyote was
proscribed? A significant reason would appear to be the incorporation of
peyote into the shamanistic ritual complex from the time of its introduction
to the Apaches; the consumption of alcohol, to our knowledge, has never been
culturally acceptable in ceremonial contexts. Where the group situation at
peyote meetings fostered conflict centering on the varying powers controlled
by and controlling particular individuals, aggression released during drinking
parties was channeled outside the personally mediated world of the supernatural.
It will be most interesting to observe future Apache involvement with
hallucinogens, inasmuch as their use has become commonplace among adolescents
and young adults throughout the United States. Will the ban against the use
of peyote extend to other hallucinatory agents with which Apaches may become
familiar in their increasing intercourse with the world beyond the reservation?
Or, might acquaintance with some hallucinogens pave the way for the re-definition
of peyote, especially in view of the diminished commitment of the majority
of present-day Apaches to the system of supernatural beliefs associated with
shamanism?
Research designed to answer these and related questions should yield
significant data for cross-cultural comparison of processes of sociocultural
change.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
REFERENCES
Ackerknecht, E. H. 1943 Psychopathology, Primitive Medicine and Primitive Culture. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 14:30-67
Basehart, H. W. 1959 Chiricahua Apache Subsistence and Socio-Political Organation. University of New Mexico Mescalero-Chiricahua Land Claims Project, Contract Research 290-154, mimeographed.
—1960 Mescalero Apache Subsistence Patterns and Socio-Political Organization. Ibid.
—1970 Mescalero Band Organization and Leadership. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 26:87-106.
Boyer, L. B. 1961 Notes on the Personality Structure of a North American Indian Shaman. Journal of the Hillside Hospital 10:14-33
—1962 Remarks on the Personality of Shamans, with Special Reference to the Apaches of the Mescalero Indian Reservation. The Psychoanalytic Study of Society 2:233-54.
—1964 Folk Psychiatry of the Apaches of the Mescalero Indian Reservation. Magic, Faith and Healing. Studies in Primitive Psychiatry Today (Ari Kiev, ed.), pp. 384-419· Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press.
—1964a Psychological Problems of a Group of Apaches: Alcoholic Hallucinosis and Latent Homosexuality among Typical Men. Psychoanalytic Study of Society 3:203-77·
—1964b Further Remarks Concerning Shamans and Shamanism. Israel Annals of Psychiatry and Related Disciplines 2:235-57
—1969 Shamans: To Set the Record Straight. American Anthropologist 71:307-9.
Boyer, L. B., and Ruth M. Boyer 1972 Effects of Acculturation on the Vicissitudes of the Aggressive Drive among the Apaches of the Mescalero Indian Reservation. Psychoanalytic Study of Society 5:40-82.
Boyer, L. B., B. Klopfer, Florence B. Brawer, and H. Kawai 1964 Comparisons of the Shamans and Pseudoshamans of the Mescalero Indian Reservation, A Rorschach Study. Journal of Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment 28:173-80.
Boyer, Ruth M. 1962 Social Structure and Socialization of the Apaches of the Mescalero Indian Reservation. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Castetter, E. F., and M. E. Opler 1936 The Ethnobiology of the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache. A. The Use of Plants for Foods, Beverages and Narcotics. University of New Mexico Bulletin, Vol. 4, No, 5.
Devereux, G. 1956 Normal and Abnormal: The Key Problem of Psychiatric Anthropology. Some Uses of Anthropology: Theoretical and Applied, pp. 23-48 Washington, D. C.: Anthropological Society of Washington.
Erikson, E. H. 1950 Childhood and Society, New York: Norton.
Freud, S. 1915 The Unconscious. The Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Standard Edition, 1957 (J. Strachey, ed.), Vol. 14, pp. 159--215. London: Hogarth Press.
Greenacre, Phyllis 1958 The Imposter. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 27: 59-82
Handelman, D. 1968 Shamanizing on an Empty Stomach. American Anthropologist 70:353-56
Havard, V. 1885 Report on the Flora of Western and Southern Texas. Proceedings of the United States National Museum 8:449-533
—1886 Drink Plants of the North American Indians. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 23:33-46
Jones, T. H. 1899 A Condensed History of the Apache and Comanche Indian Tribes. San Antonio: Johnson.
Klopfer, B., and L. B. Boyer 1961 Notes on the Personality Structure of a North American Indian Shaman: Rorschach Interpretation. Journal of Projective Techniques 25:170-78.
Kris, E. 1952 Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art. New York: International Universities Press.
La Barre, W. 1938 The Peyote Cult. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Methvin, J. J. 1899 Andele. Louisville: Pentecostal Herald Press.
Newberne, R. E. L. 1925 Peyote. Lawrence, Kansas: Haskell Institute.
Opler, M. E. 1936 The Influence of Aboriginal Pattern and White Contact on a Recently Introduced Ceremony: The Mescalero Peyote Rite. Journal of American Folk-Lore 49:143-66
—1938 The Use of Peyote by the Carrizo and Lipan Apache Tribes. American Anthropologist 40:271-85.
—1940 Myths and Legends of the Lipan Apache Indians. Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society 36:56-58.
—1945 A Mescalero Apache Account of the Origin of the Peyote Ceremony. El PaIacio 52: 210--212.
Shonle, Ruth 1925 Peyote--Giver of Visions. American Anthropologist 27:53-75
Silverman, J. 1967 Shamans and Acute Schizophrenia. American Anthropolgist 69:21-31.
Slotkin, J. S. 1956 The Peyote Religion. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Hallucinogens
and Shamanism symposium at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological
Association in 1968. The research which made this communication possible
was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grants M-2013
and M-go88 and University of California (Berkeley) Faculty Grants. It has
continued since 1958.
The ultimate purpose of the research is to delineate areas of interaction
among social structure, socialization, and personality organization. Harry
W. Basehart has been responsible for collecting data pertaining to social
structure. He was assisted in 1959-60 by Bruce B. MacLachlan. Ruth M. Boyer
has gathered socialization data and also aided Basehart. L. Bryce Boyer has
studied personality organization. The principal psychological consultant
was Bruno Klopfer; his assistants were Florence B. Brawer, Hayao Kawai, and
Suzanna B. Scheiner. Basehart has spent more than a year on the reservation,
MacLachlan over fourteen months, and the Boyers over two years.
L. BRYCE BOYER, M.D., RUTH M. BOYER, PH.D., and HARRY W. BASEHART,
PH.D., have worked as an inter-disciplinary team in their studies of Mescalero
Apache shamanism. L. Bryce Boyer is a practicing psychoanalyst in Berkeley,
California, who in his considerable field research: specializes in shamanism.
Ruth M. Boyer is an anthropologist and Lecturer in the Department of Design
at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Basehart is Professor of
Anthropology at the University of New Mexico and Editor of the Southwestern
journal of Anthropology.
2. The Apaches call peyote hoos. Almost no one remembers an aboriginal
name, xucladjin-dei (Castetter and Opler, 1936:61)
3. Subsequently, Boyer reviewed the relevant literature on shamanism
and concluded that, cross-culturally, shamans have personality configurations
similar to those exhibited by Apache practitioners (Boyer, 1964b).
4. Devereux's (1956) stand has been frequently misunderstood. He held
that shamans must be considered to be seriously neurotic or psychotic when
compared with the hypothetical psychological normal. Boyer's viewpoint has
been similarly misunderstood. Thus Handelman (1968) has stated that Boyer
considers shamans to be psychologically abnormal, inferring therefrom that
he deems them to be autocultural deviants, which is not true (Boyer, 1969).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On loan from: The Psychedelic Library
Psychedelics and Culture