a peyote experience

I sat still most of the night. I tried to find positions that would be more comfortable, but I had remembered what Royce had said about sitting on the knees and how that showed endurance and vigilance as well as respect. But it was too hard to stay that way. I was just all cramped up.

The fire was there in the center, crackling. A moon shaped alter out of earth had been formed around half the perimeter of the fire pit and the father peyote rested on it. It was dark, with only dancing fire forms cast about the walls of the tipi. Everything felt swimmy, almost like the stream that had engulfed me was running over me. It wasn't cold, just the sensation of being pulled too and fro and yet immobile. The music! Oh yes, the music! It went on and on and on. I found myself emphasizing the syncopation quietly, and raising my hands up in dance-like gestures. I would look about at the others, and they also sat there, quietly, contemplating. There was not any talking. It was a very serious prayer meeting, and I had not felt so devoted to such an activity in a long time.

My throat hurt. That's why we were there. I had gone to the White Eagle Methodist Church that past Sunday and had run into Dwight Buffalohead and told him about this congested right ear that I had been experiencing for over a year. He had said, "we should have a meeting for you."

I had begun listening to peyote music a few years back, but the issue of pagan implications, coupled with a fundamentalist Christian upbringing, still kept me at a distance. But the music! The fast rhythm of that little drum! And how did they change the pitch of it like that? And the rattle! The voice, forever in an ongoing syncopated drone! I was quite fascinated, and listened, and listened. Then I started my own attempts in singing the music. I found I could shake the rattle in half time and sing, but it was difficult to shake the rattle consistently and calmly, right in time with the drum. The old men on the recordings could do it, but I couldn't. Well, it depended… it seemed most singers had their own style of shaking the rattle.

I was honored that Dwight would suggest this. I asked how we would go about doing it. He said I should go speak with Roland No Ear, and take him some tobacco. So we did that.

I met Dwight down at the Ponca tribal building the night they were going to have a hand game. Roland was there. He was a rounded man, definitely overweight. His large face displayed pot marks and when he took off his shades, the beady eyes were practically hidden under the flesh. He always wore shades, even when it was dark. He knew my name. His speech, well…, it's hard to describe. His voice was always really low, and he spoke with a broken kind of english, a mumbled jumble, words rolling into each other, unnecessary articles skipped, and occasional long-winded grunts. Sometimes the talk would roll into emphasis, and heightened pitch. In conclusion, it was funny to listen to. He walked with a cane and did not get around well at all. And, in coincidence with his name, he was losing his hearing. To talk to him you had to shout into his face.

We sat there outside the tribal building, and a few came by, but not enough to hold the hand game, so we left. We drove to Dwight's house.

Can I tell you of the serenity of driving down a dirt road in north central Oklahoma? The roads are crisscrossed, running north-south, east-west. They go on for miles, with an occasional empty 24-pack box lying on the side. Sometimes they would dip and rise, but there was always farm land about, flat, stretching endlessly into the sky. It was good to stop the truck, and get out and walk into a field and just look out, out into the distance, so very far away. It was good to realize how much space there was! It was good to be out in the field and rotate your body about, feeling earth, wind, light, heat, space!

Dwight's relatives had been given this land. The house was old and in disrepair. But the yard! The grandest old trees, and well maintained. There was a place to set up the tipi-what they called a fireplace. There was a rack to place the wood to keep the fire burning all night, right outside the door of the tipi. There was a place to split the wood into the proper lengths. It was good to walk among the trees and breath the air heavily.

We sat on the porch and discussed the meeting. I gave the tobacco to Roland, and he told me what I needed to get. Food, mainly. He even listed the crackers by brand name. And a few gifts would be needed.

After all the preparation, there we were, sitting up all night, praying, and singing. I felt honored that they would pray for my throat. I was appreciative and humbled and quiet. Roland sat across from the father peyote. He was the roadman. There would be a break in singing, and we'd pass the medicine around, taking a handful of powdered peyote, and drinking it down with the peyote tea. I felt sick. I wanted to throw up, but couldn't. Sometimes during these breaks, there would be talk, but it was always subdued and in reverence. Sometimes Roland would get up and hobble over to me. He would doctor me with his own peyote, sometimes placing it into his mouth and rolling it into a ball before giving it to me. The next day they told me I ate a lot of peyote.

We passed the rattle and stick around. When it would come to me, I'd sing four of the eight or so songs I knew, and I don't believe I sang them well, but no one was really taking notes. Besides, that wasn't the issue. This was all for my throat.

I longed for the night to end. I looked up through the smoke hole to see stars, and wished that the light would come, wished that Jesus would return in all his glory.

Near the morning, Roland hobbled over to me and tried to drive the thing out of me that was within me. It didn't work this time.

When the morning came, we feasted on water, corn, candy and pounded meat. The sun did shine through the smoke hole! I had made it through the night, and now it was time to relax. They passed around the articles that had been used during the night. Every one touched them, and treated them with reverence-the rattle, the stick, the drum, the stones, the hide; everyone drank from the water drum.

I stayed in the tipi most of the time the next day. Roland came back inside the tipi once. We sat around and hummed old Ponca songs. We got to one song, what I had heard called as "No Ear's song."

Now, an old man, Harry Buffalohead, years ago had told me what this song was about. He said a party of Ponca warriors had routed these Sioux. There was only one of them left, so they lopped his head off, apparently in the Ponca fashion. His head was rolling on the ground. It rolled up to No Ear, a Ponca warrior, and No Ear looked down upon it. He must have thought those eyes blinked, for he jumped back in surprise, or so the story goes. Anyway, the other warriors saw No Ear's startled reaction and laughed at him. Then they made that song for him. So, although it was a big joke, it was still an honor that he had received a song, that his name would be called out through the ages, and that his family would dance with pride and vigor.

However, Roland put a different twist on this song. He complied that there was indeed only one Sioux warrior left, but the Ponca warriors had done something entirely different to him…

"They kind of took him and bent him over, like that…, "Roland said, making his hand into an L-formation. "Then they went up to him and went like this…" The moment Roland said that, he began to make pelvic, thrusting maneuvers with his body, as if he had just straddled his mate, doggy-style.

Now, if you can remember the way I described Roland, and picture him in the sacred tipi describing a good well... you know what..., perhaps you are now laughing as hard as I was then!