Shamanism and Peyote Use Among the Apaches
of the Mescalero Indian Reservation
L. Bryce Boyer, Ruth M. Boyer,
and Harry W. Basehart
Taken 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 In

1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Hallucinogens and Sha-

manism symposium at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Asso-

ciation in 1968. The research which made this communication possible was sup-

ported 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 sha-

manism. L. Bryce Boyer is a practicing psychoanalyst in Berkeley, California, who in

his considerable field research: specializes in shamanism. Ruth M. Boyer is an anthro-

pologist 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.

this 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 subse-

quently have excluded the use of hallucinogens.2

The Apaches presently living on the reservation include mem-

bers 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 Chiri-

cahuas 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 Chiri-

cahuas in 1875 (Tones, 1899:95)1· and the Lipans in 1885 (Ha-

vard, 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 experimen-

tation by today's young people with marijuana and perhaps LSD,

2. The Apaches call peyote hoos. Almost no one remembers an aboriginal name,

xucladjin-dei (Castetter and Opler, 1936:61)·

the reservation Apaches are not known to have used any other

hallucinogenic drugs with the exception of alcohol. Modern in-

formants 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 un-

able 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 aban-

doned 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 accord-

ing the status of shaman to individuals, and shamanistic procedures

have been similar if not identical among the three tribes in re-

corded times (Boyer, 1964)· They conceive the world to be per-

meated 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 phe-

nomenon by means of a dream or other hallucinatory experience;

its acceptance is frequently accompanied by an ordeal. Ritual in-

struction 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. Obvi-

ously, 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 leader-

ship 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 cere-

monies 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 in-

volved 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 at-

tendants at ceremonies are subordinate. Religious ecstasy, visions,

and communications with supernaturals are the shaman's pre-

rogatives and validate his power and efficacy. The use of peyote

by other people at ceremonies made its psychological and physio-

logical effects common, and the uniqueness of the shaman's ex-

periences 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 be-

came 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 con-

finement 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 hos-

tilities which became overt during the meetings were ascribed to

the peyote. Since its use involved witchcraft practices, its in-

gestion 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 be-

lieve 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 fif-

teen 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 conse-

quence, 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 aban-

don the infant to the supervision of others, sometimes to children

of only four or five years of age, for hours or days while she en-

gages in narcissistic pursuits, commonly involving drinking. Ordi-

narily, a husband does not object to such treatment of small chil-

dren because his attention and regard are no more constant. Under

such conditions, the development of a sense of basic trust (Erik-

son, 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 chil-

dren.

In the aboriginal situation, other socialization practices were

reasonably effective in directing hostilities engendered by such

child-rearing practices, for example, those mentioned above to-

ward outsiders, witches, ghosts and other culturally defined ob-

jects. 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 con-

ditions, in the presence of feeble repression of interfamilial and

intragroup resentments, individuals' hatreds are generally dis-

charged 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 conduct-

ing 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 depend-

ent 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 cor-

responds with the Western psychiatric diagnosis of character dis-

order 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 re-

solved 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 charac-

teristics appear to be necessary for the successful practice of sha-

manism 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 thee-

retical 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 Deve-

reux's framework of the ideal psychological normal, they more

3· Subsequently, Boyer reviewed the relevant literature on shamanism and con-

cluded that, cross-culturally, shamans have personality configurations similar to those

exhibited by Apache practitioners (Boyer, 1964b).

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 po-

tential, and impoverished personalities. Klopfer concluded from

indirect data that the shamans were able to use imposture con-

vincingly whereas pseudoshamans could not.

COMMENT

Historical and modern data provide some partial and tentative

answers to the intriguing question of why the Mescaleros aban-

doned the use of peyote in shamanistic rituals and today forbid

its use.

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 autocul-

tural deviants, which is not true (Boyer, 1969).

Apache child-rearing practices engender much hostility. Ag-

gression 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 hallu-

cinogens, 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 sur-

rogates. 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 mag 1