2006. évi 1. szám - Jura - Pécsi Tudományegyetem

Kitti Maros: Research on peyotism from a legal anthropological aspect
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dwells” (Boyd). Moreover, the Messenger Bird is
also considered as the integrated part of the Messenger
Power, “who is the unifying force between...
the Spirit Powers,..the Earth and Spirit Power and
Sun Power “ (Boyd).
In the postmeridian, the participants tend to
“smoke the sacred pipe or cigarettes, sings and prays,
and drops into euphoric contemplation” (Boyd), as
“only four songs have to be sung at fixed times: the
Opening Song, The Midnight Water Call, the Morning
Water Call, and the Closing Song” (Stewart). It
is the time of individual communion with the Spirit
Powers whence “the door beauty opens, and the
member passes trough; an inanimate plant may become
suddenly alive, writhing in colorful greens...
supernatural power fills the lodge as twisting figures
ride with the smoke of the fire” (Boyd). Humphry
Osmond gives an account of a peyote night narrating
“there was a ghost of brilliant color in my eye
grounds when I closed my lips, I felt remote and
slightly depressed, the roof flap fluttered like a lost
soul, the teepee is the microcosm, a tiny mirror of the
universe” (Osmond). Havelock Ellis claims to experience
similar visions induced by peyote ingestion in
a non-ritual peyote rite, moreover, describes if so
“the mescal produces exactly the same conditions of
visual hyperesthesia, or rather exhaustion, as may be
produced on the artist by the influence of prolonged
visual attention” (Ellis).
Reports on extra-carnal experience were collected:
“more than once during a ceremony I suddenly felt
as though I had left my body, passing into a person
sitting across from me and looking through his eyes
at me” (Morgan). Moreover, it is interesting to note
inasmuch as a non-native uses peyote within the
context of non-ritual peyote ceremony, the perceived
auditory and visual hallucinations are strongly related
to Indian symbolism (Nagy-Lovass ).
The next phase of the ritual commences at midnight;
the ritual is suspended for a short period of
time, the Water Woman is called and “after receiving
a prayer of blessing from the Priest, she walks
counterclockwise to serve water, first to the Priest
and then to the other participants” (Boyd), immediately
followed by “the Midnight Song...and prayers
are offered through four puffs of smoke” (Stewart).
The rest of the night is dedicated to further
prayers and ingestion of more peyote buttons, and
in some ceremonies, namely the Kiowa, the worshippers
may perform a war dance in the deepest
reverence (Boyd ). The morning prayer is chanted at
sunrise, and finally the chief calls the Water Woman
in for additional supply of water; the chief and the
Fire Chief leaves the tipi indicating the termination
of the ritual; eventually “women...bring food to the
celebrants and a joyous reunion with the family
members occurs at breakfast” (Boyd).
III. Consciousness Alteration
and the Smith Case
1. Abstract of Calabrese’s paper
Calabrese’s work examined the Native American
Church, which is an illustrative example in the political
anthropology of consciousness. Specific attention
is paid to the Supreme Court’s ignoring of accepted
research on the sacramental use of the peyote, in the
case of Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith.
Peyote, as used in the Native American Church, is
recognized as safe and therapeutic. It is also argued
that the Supreme Court’s rationale for denying
Peyotist religious freedom is not supported by the
ethnographic findings nor by legal precedent. The
ritual use of peyote is not only the right of the Native
Indians, this is a matter of freedom of religion, it
also involves other “rights such as the right to raise
one’s children in one’s own culture and the right to
be treated using a culturally relevant therapeutic
modality”.
Calabrese alludes to the paradox, which characterized
the research on consciousness. On the one
hand, consciousness alteration practices are viewed
by many contemporary anthropologists, as too exotic
to be taken seriously. But this sort of dismissal
ignores the fact that we live in such an age, in which
the most intimate aspects of our privacy (sexuality,
morality, and consciousness) have become matters
of political debate and disruptive intrusion of the
state.Thus, paradoxically, even though it is dismissed
as too frivolous a topic for serious scholarship,
consciousness alteration is actually one of the most
important and divisive issues of the world.
The political and social significance of consciousness
alteration is manifest in many fields. For example
in the United States hundreds of nonviolent drug
offenders crowd prisons for the victimless crimes
of wanting to explore some control over their own
boundaries of state of consciousness. As a result,
the „Land of the Free” is now a world leader in the
imprisonment of its own population. Over a million
Americans are imprisoned for nonviolent crimes.
Nonviolent drug offenders can be considered political
prisoners, especially when one realizes that ethnic
minorities have been targeted for imprisonment
by the dominant white culture. A critical remark:
if you are a poor black substance abuser, you can
spend your life in prison; if you are a rich white
JURA 2006/1.