History:

 

From their arrival on the continent at least 15,000 years ago until their encounter with Europeans, the indigenous peoples of North America lived primarily as hunters and gatherers. Until the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago, the peoples of North America shared a common culture with other Arctic peoples. As the ice caps retreated and the ecosystems of North America began to take on their present characteristics.

 

 Indigenous peoples spread out across the continent and settled in various environmental niches. These groups established culture areas and adapted to their physical surroundings. Eventually, millions of people were living in kinship communities throughout North America, producing their own food, clothing, and shelter and developing their own religious forms. The first religious ceremonies held in the Americas were conducted by the Holy Men of the tribes that originally settled these lands as far back as 10,000 years ago -- perhaps even farther.

 

 The hundreds of tribal groups of North America maintained individual traditions that were adapted to their regional environments, although elements of these traditions were sometimes passed from one group to another through trade, migration, and intermarriage. Each community maintained its characteristic worldview, passed down its own myths, conducted its own rituals, and acted according to its own fundamental values.

 

 Because of this, the most distinctive aspect of American Indian religious traditions is the extent to which they are wholly community based and may have no real meaning outside of the specific community in which the acts and ceremonies are conducted. Unlike Euro-Americans, Indian people do not choose which tribal religious traditions they will practice. Rather each of them is born into a community and its particular ceremonial life.

 

 For most Native Americans there existed no institutionalized forms of social or political power -- no state, no bureaucracy, and no army. Native American societies, as a rule, were egalitarian, without the kinds of centralized authority and social hierarchy typical of modern societies. Custom and tradition rather than law and coercion regulated social life. While there were leaders, their influence was generally based on personal qualities and not on any formal or permanent status.

 

 Authority within a group derived from the ability to make useful suggestions and knowledge of tribal tradition and lore. The term "American Indian" is one that is veiled in controversy and sometimes even hostility. The term got its start when Christopher Columbus used the word "Indian" to describe the people he discovered on the islands of the Caribbean Sea.

 

  Unfortunately, Columbus’ discovery of this "New World" brought an abrupt and tragic end to the lifestyle of the American Indian. The new European settlers brought with them the concepts of materialism and land ownership and soon began claiming lands the native tribes had lived on for thousands of years. The settlers also brought smallpox and measles; diseases the indigenous peoples had never before seen.

 

 Their immune systems were not equipped to fend off these diseases, so epidemics followed the Europeans, killing off countless thousands of the tribal peoples. "In the 16th and 17th centuries, when the first European explorers and missionaries began to document the religious patterns of indigenous North America, they were confronted with cultures that had remained unaffected by developments in the civilizations of Europe and Asia.

 

 In particular, certain archaic religious characteristics were prevalent among the peoples of North America — namely, a preoccupation with the cycles of nature; a belief in the animate quality of all beings; the use of various techniques believed to control cosmic powers for personal and communal benefit; an emphasis on kinship as the metaphor for religious relations; a reliance on shamans...; and a unified view of physical and spiritual sustenance expressed in an equivalence between economics and religion."

 

  With the coming of these Europeans, Native Americans experienced a series of dislocations from which they are still struggling to recover. A large number of tribes migrated to the Western part of the country, mostly due to Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830. In the midst of these crises, as Native Americans turned to their own religious traditions to understand and ease their plight. At the same time, missionaries attempted to convert them from their traditional religions to Christianity.

 

  "Movements of nativism (the assertion of traditional values in the face of foreign encroachment) and revitalization (the revival of traditional culture)... have arisen, led by Native American prophets who claimed to have received revelation from the aboriginal deities, often in dreams and visions. These prophets have frequently shown evidence of Christian influence in their moral codes, their missionary zeal, and their concern for personal redemption and social improvement...

 

 The revivals of preachers such as the Iroquois Handsome Lake in 1799 and the Salish John Slocum in 1882 spawned new religions — part native, part Christian — that have endured in their respective communities to the present day."

 

  With roots in ancient tribal traditions, the Native American Church has evolved into a twentieth-century religion. It functions like other religions, offering spiritual guidance to its members, but it employs peyote as its sacrament. Anthropologists and archaeologists have documented tribal use of the peyote cactus ceremonially in pre-Columbian times in several tribes living along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the arid areas of northern Mexico.

 

  Legends describe peyote as a gift that first came to American Indians in peril. Some stories tell of the spirit Peyote speaking to a lone and despairing man or woman, advising the person to look under a nearby bush and eat a small cactus to be found there, after which the person would find renewed strength and the knowledge that would permit a return home. Suppression of the use of peyote began early in the contact of Indians with Europeans.

 

 The king of Spain issued an edict in 1620 against the use of peyote. Beginning in 1886, federal Indian agents requested prohibition of peyote, and congressmen attempted to pass the necessary national legislation. Indian agents lobbied the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature, which adopted a law (repealed in 1908) prohibiting peyote by name. "Peyote was accepted as a remedy and inspiration by members of many tribes. . .during an era of agonizing cultural disintegration, which reached a peak during the 1880s.

 

 By 1874, the Kiowa and Comanche, once proud warriors of the southern Plains, were confined to reservations in Oklahoma. The loss of liberty intrinsic to reservation life brought great pain and suffering to all Native Americans."

 

  Quanah Parker is credited as the founder of the Native American Church Movement, which started in the 1890s. Parker adopted the peyote religion after reportedly seeing a vision of Jesus Christ while suffering from a near fatal wound following a battle with Federal Troops. Peyote is reported to contain hordenine and tyramine, phenylethylamine alkaloids which act as potent natural antibiotics when taken in a combined form. Parker was given peyote by a Ute medicine man to cure the infections of his wounds.

 

 During the peyote experience, Parker claimed he heard the voice of Jesus Christ who then appeared to him, and told him in order to atone for his many killings and misdeeds; he must forsake a life of violence and take the peyote religion to the Indian Peoples. Parker's words and teachings comprise the core of the Native American Church doctrine and the "Peyote Road". Parker taught that the Sacred Peyote Medicine was the Sacrament given to all Peoples by the Creator, and was to be used with water when taking communion in some Native American Church medicine ceremonies.

 

 Healers and singers achieve a union with their Creator, as incarnated in Peyote; Peyote speaks through them. One such Tribe is the Huichol. Huichol religion parallels Christianity in that the Creator, out of compassion for his people, subjects himself to the limitations of this world. In Christianity he incarnates himself as a man who dies but is resurrected to save human beings; in Huichol they belief he dies and is reborn in the Peyote plant to give his people wisdom.

 

  The rituals of the Native American Church allow believers to experience a revelation of mystical knowledge from the Creator.

 

 When the Creator is acknowledged as the Christian God, the peyote ritual blends traditional native beliefs and Christianity. Perhaps because it provided a powerful alternative to both ancient tribal religions and missionary-controlled versions of Christianity, the Peyote religion spread like wildfire. "The Peyote meeting is a genuinely intertribal institution.

 

 Reservations established in Indian territory, which subsequently became the State of Oklahoma, containing tribes that had formerly been scattered across the country. In the early 1880s, after the railroads reached Laredo, Texas, in the heart of the area where peyote is gathered, the stage was set for rapid communication between Oklahoma tribes and all other Native Americans. The railroads made it easier for Native Americans to obtain their sacrament and share their religious traditions."

 

 The Peyote religion, allowed members to establish a new identity which combined native and Christian elements. Except for the secular pow-wow, Peyote meetings are now the most popular Native American gatherings. The rituals of the Native American Church spread rapidly in the years before World War II. Faced with the suppression of many traditional rituals, native people welcomed the advent of ceremonies that took place quietly and with some legal protection.

 

 Battling alcoholism and poverty, many followers were attracted to the church's strict avoidance of alcohol and its call for monogamy and hard work. Many older religious leaders among the Navajos and elsewhere opposed the new faith, but it continued to gain adherents. "The Indians bravely defended their religious freedom in their respective states and in Congress. One of the most eloquent of these defenders was Albert Hensley, a Winnebago educated at the Carlisle Indian School. By 1908, Hensley and the Winnebago had come to regard Peyote as both a Holy Medicine and a Christian sacrament.

 

 "To us it is a portion of the body of Christ," Hensley said, "even as the communion bread is believed to be a portion of Christ's body by other Christian denominations. Christ spoke of a Comforter who was to come. It never came to Indians until it was sent by God in the form of this Holy Medicine." --- Peyote Religion: A History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987" (2) Intense antagonism to the Peyote religion and to Indian religions in general, forced members of the Native American Church to organize formally to protect themselves.

 

 Accordingly, on October 10, 1918, the Native American Church incorporated itself in the state of Oklahoma. Led by Frank Eagle (Ponca), the group's first president, the church stated its intention to promote Christian religious belief using "the practices of the Peyote Sacrament" and to teach Christian morality and self-respect. The 1918 charter of the Native American Church was changed through amendments in 1944 and a new charter in 1950, further amended in 1955. Most of the changes reflected the expansion of the group from Oklahoma and Mexico to the Midwest, the Great Plains, the Southwest, and even into Canada.

 

 Peyotists chartered their churches in states where the religion became active. In addition, Peyotists gained the recognition of the Texas Department of Public Safety so that they could gather the cactus in that state, the only place in the United States where it grows. In August 1964 the California Supreme Court held that prohibiting their use of peyote was a violation of the First Amendment's ban on state infringement of religious freedom.

 

 As a result of this ruling, federal authorities thereafter generally protected the ceremonial use of peyote, even though several states continued to list the substance as a narcotic subject to state drug laws. To formally protect the Indian religion, Congress passed the Native American Religious Freedom Act of August 11, 1978 as an official expression of good will toward Native American spirituality. Though the law pledged that Indian people would enjoy the free exercise of religion, it contained no enforcement provision.

 

 In 1994, in the aftermath of conflicts between federal policy and state drug laws, Congress amended the 1978 law to include a new section that states, "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the use, possession, or transportation of peyote by an Indian who uses peyote in a traditional manner for bona fide ceremonial purposes in conjunction with the practice of a traditional Indian religion is lawful, and shall not be prohibited by the United States or any State." In the wake of this legislation, many religious practices once considered on the verge of disappearing were revived. These include Pipe Ceremonials, Sweat Lodges, Vision Quests, and Sun Dances. (See Special Doctrine) After years and years of struggle, American Indians are finally getting the much deserved respect that they should have received a long time ago.

 

 Museums have been erected all over the country showing tribute to this great people, and educating the public about their history and rich heritage. While the number of American Indians still living today is much fewer than it was centuries ago, their people still remain strong and proud of who they are and what they have become. Many mainline churches have begun to realize the harm that was done by their ancestors, and the long drawn-out period of negotiations for settlements and healing have had a profound impact on all those involved.

 

 An expression of the new understanding regarding the relationship of the Catholic missionaries with the First Nations peoples in the past can be found in the apology given by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate to the First Nations peoples at Lac-Ste-Anne, Alberta in July 1991: "We apologize for the part we played in the cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious imperialism that was part of the mentality with which the peoples of Europe first met the Aboriginal peoples and which consistently has lurked behind the way the Native peoples of Canada have been treated by civil governments and by the churches. We were, naively, part of this mentality and were, in fact, often a key player in its implementation.

 

 We recognize that this mentality has, from the beginning, and ever since, continually threatened the cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions of the Native peoples."

 

 Other church groups involved in operating residential schools have apologized to First Nations peoples as well and have endeavored to make amends in various ways for instances of abuse or general cultural damage, and to assist with the healing process. This part of the story of the relationship of the Christian churches with First Nations peoples, many of whom are devout and active Christians themselves, will continue to unfold in the coming years. Certainly, much has been learned by everyone, and the approach of the Christian community in spreading its gospel has changed, as respect for and solidarity with others of differing religious beliefs have become essential cornerstones of interfaith and intercultural relations.

 

 Native American Church of North America is one important place where Christianity and indigenous beliefs intersect, although some Native American Church chapters avoid Christian references and rely entirely on traditional tribal ways. "Tens of thousands of Native Americans now identify Christianity as their traditional religion. Their families have heard Christian stories, sung Christian hymns, seen Christian iconography, and received Christian sacraments for generations. In the mid-1990s, more than two-thirds of Native Americans characterized themselves at least nominally as Christians. Others have combined Christian beliefs and practices with their native religions or have practiced two faiths—Christian and native—side by side but separately.

 

 In many cases, Native Americans have reshaped Christianity, assimilating Jesus Christ as a cultural hero and interpreting Holy Communion as a medicine. In other cases, the forms of native religions have been retained while their contents have been thoroughly Christianized."

 

  The Native American Church of North America (NACNA) has tribal, regional, national, and two international organizations, with local churches, called chapters, in twenty-three states, Canada, and Mexico. The Church sponsors semiannual conferences as well as quarterly area meetings. Its Council of Elders, composed of past presidents, assists the organization. In addition, the presidents or chairmen of the Native American Church of North America, the Native American Church of Navajoland, Inc., and the Native American Church of the State of Oklahoma have formed a national council to provide leadership for the entire membership. With followers and practitioners across North America, the NACNA can rightfully claim to be the oldest traditional religious organization in the Western Hemisphere.

 

 "Today the Native American Church of North America has eighty chapters and members belonging to some seventy Native American Nations. In the continental United States, every state west of the Mississippi has at least one chapter. The steady proliferation of its membership among diverse North American tribes has made it Native America's largest religious organization."