another peyote story

I remember waking up in the mornings to the sounds of Peyote music. I would sleep in the back room of Grandpa’s house on an air mattress that Travis had received for Christmas. I had to blow this mattress up every night for it had a hole in it.

On some mornings I would awaken to this music. They were recordings Grandpa had made of himself. I remember hearing the fast drum pulses and the fascination I had of the pitch changes in the drum before the songs would start. Before a song would start, the drummer would lower the pitch of the drum and slow the tempo a little, then bring tempo and pitch back up to its original fervor. I can’t recall if there was a rattle in these recordings. In fact, I don’t know where these recordings are today.

I would walk through Grandpa’s living room and into the kitchen where he would be leaning upon the back of his antique, wooden chair, smoking Camel straights. There was always a white, Hudson Bay blanket draped over the back of his chair and he rested his forearms on this.

Commonly he would burn cedar in his small, cast-iron skillet on the gas stove. He would just put the cedar (that we had gathered on the way) in the skillet and turn on the burner. In our initial meeting with Grandpa, he had told us to get him some of that “red-berried cedar” down in San Marcos. I had gone down there and looked for it, but had never found it.

I recall how comforting it was waking up to Peyote music and burnt cedar permeating the house. I was not so sure about Peyote religion, however, because I was very Christian in my thoughts and beliefs at that time, at least in the Southern-Baptist feel of the word “Christianity.” Travis and I would often read from the book of Matthew at nights before we went to sleep.

I was trying to learn how to sing Ponca music, specifically pow wow music, so I could take back what I learned to members of the Boys Scouts who often butchered this kind of music. While I was there, however, my purpose altered somehow. It became a reality that there was too much to learn and preserve and the information was too scarce and fast becoming extinct, right in my very lifetime. Too much was already gone, of course.

A note here – I wrote this in the mid-90’s. It is, today, Oct. 15, 2003, and although I agree with a majority of that last paragraph, I would argue today that the information is not that extinct. Grandpa used to say, “you might have all them tapes, but what good will they do you if you don’t have them in your head?” So, I have learned that there are countless recordings of this music everywhere, and there’s a vast catalogue of the language written down. It just takes time and energy to divest into it.

However, it is still true today that in and around White Eagle, OK, every old person that dies takes a piece of the old language and culture w/ them.

Now back to the story…

Grandpa had told me once that if I wanted to learn Ponca songs and ways, then I would have to learn the Peyote way. I was not too excited about this at the time.

I remember one Saturday in the fall of 1991 Grandpa told me that they were having a meeting for him, since he was sick. I had learned that the Ponca Peyote chapter held meetings for members of their community who were ailing. But there was also a dance that night down at the community center. So Grandpa and I went to the dance and when we got back home at about 11pm, he told me that he would wake me up at 3:30am to go out there to the meeting. Sure enough, at 3:30am, he rapped on my door, I got ready, and we drove off into the cold, OK night.

I was still driving the little, yellow Tercel at that time and he took me on many backroads, most of them hidden in fields of crops, unpaved and riveted. I would not have remembered the path the next day. That was one thing about Grandpa. He taught me how to be attentive while I drove and to learn to use the four directions and realize which way was north. Whenever we went somewhere unfamiliar to me, I would have to gaze at him peripherally while I drove because he would indicate the next direction with a hand signal or a pointing-of-the-lips.

So that night he directed me into the backwoods of the OK night. We finally came to a clearing with a few carts parked in the grass and a lone tipi. It was a cold, Autumn night. It was a scene to remember, with a fire in the tipi and shadows of the people within cast upon the canvas walls. And they were singing! Those same songs I would hear waking up sleepily in Grandpa’s house, along with the sweet aroma of cedar.

We pulled up next to the other cars and sat there for a little while. Grandpa identified one of the voices as Roland No Ear’s. I was cold for I had not brought a jacket. The songs would continue, one after another, and then someone would pray out loud, usually Don Patterson. Finally, Don walked out of the tipi and spoke to Grandpa, who was now standing outside my car, leaning on the passenger door. They spoke in low voices, then Don asked Grandpa if I was going in and he replied no. Then Grandpa gave me his wind breaker and went with Don in the tipi. It was strange, like he was entering some domain I could not comprehend. Some other world I could not perceive, when he disappeared inside the tent. Actually he sat in a metal folding chair at the entrance.

The meeting went on all night. I had to wrap myself up in an old, decorated rug that was really a floor mat to maintain some kind of warmth. I leaned the driver’s seat back and drifted in and out of sleep, allowing the songs to work their magic on me in my dreams. It was an experience enough just to be there.

By daybreak, they emerged from the tipi. They were all very friendly Poncas and I met many of them. For their breakfast they all ate pounded meat in small, plastic baggies. I was even offered some of this meal and was surprised to find that it was seasoned with sugar. “Just like cotton candy,” as Grandpa would say. We drove away from the site, and, of course, Grandpa had to give me directions back to the house.