Zitkála-Šá Peyote Testimony (1918)

[The testimony of Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkála-Šá) is printed in the hearing record under her married name. This record gathers her statement and cross-examination, her additional written statement, the documents she submitted, statements bearing her signature that others put into the record, and the two passages that answer her directly: James Mooney's reading of the Washington Times interview and Cleaver Warden's letter. Small-capital speaker labels are rendered in title case.]

[Pages 63–66. During his statement of February 21, 1918, James Mooney (1861–1921) of the Bureau of American Ethnology read into the record a Washington Times article on Bonnin's campaign. Bonnin answered him the next day.]

Mr. Mooney. […] Now, I should like to read one or two of the things that have been said about it, and comment upon them. Here is an article written upon this subject, which appeared in the Washington Times last Sunday, February 17, 1918, in connection with this matter. The article is accompanied by a picture of the author, who claims to be a Sioux woman, in Indian costume. The dress is a woman's dress from some southern tribe, as shown by the long fringes; the belt is a Navajo man's belt; the fan is a peyote man's fan, carried only by men, usually in the peyote ceremony. It says:

In order to secure its uninterrupted use, it has been claimed that its use is a sort of sacrament in the Indian religious ceremonies, but we know that in these feasts which last all night its use leads to the wildest intoxication and all kinds of orgies in which men, women, and even children take part, to the degredation of their minds.

INDIAN WOMAN IN CAPITAL TO FIGHT GROWING USE OF PEYOTE DRUG BY INDIANS—MRS. GERTRUDE BONNIN, CARLISLE GRADUATE, RELATIVE OF SITTING BULL, DESCRIBES EFFECTS OF MIND POISON.

Mrs. Gertrude Bonnin, relative of the great Sitting Bull, is in Washington to secure legislation forbidding the use of the peyote amongst the Indians.

While bullet and bomb are destroying the white men on the battlefields of the world, the American Indian is called upon to fight an enemy which is rapidly undermining his race and, strange to say, it is a tiny, mystic plant commonly known in the West as " peyote."

This is a species of cactus, often called mescal, and those who use it are afflicted with the wildest hallucinations, dreams, whose golden visions rival the delirious trances of opium. Yet it always results in mental and physical degeneracy.

GROWS IN SOUTHWEST.

This peyote, or mescal button, is a plant growing in southern Arizona and Mexico. It is botanically classified as Anhalonium Lewinii, but the Spanish friars called it "devil's root." So rapidly is the habit of using peyote growing among the Indians that the matter has been taken up before Congress and an active fight is being made by both sides.

Foremost in the work for legislation to prevent its use is Mrs. Bonnin, a highly educated Sioux, who is to testify before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Mrs. Bonnin graduated from Carlisle, and spent most of her life in social work among her race.

Seated in her cozy flat at 707 Twentieth street northwest, Mrs. Bonnin talked earnestly of the need the Indians had for protection. About her on the walls hung gayly-beaded moccasins and other souvenirs of the reservation. A fine photo of her husband, who is an officer in the Army, decorated the piano. Highly educated, speaking English fluently, she combined the simplicity and directness of her race with the polish of the college graduate.

TELLS HER STORY.

"I have come to Washington," she said, "as secretary of the Society of American Indians. I am now engaged in testifying before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in regard to the baneful effects of the use of peyote among the tribes. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars are to be appropriated to prevent the use of alcohol among the tribes, and it is our wish that the peyote be included in the legislation.

A few years ago it was comparatively little known, but of late its use has grown alarmingly till we find it far up in Wisconsin and the Dakotas. Its effects are most deadly on body and mind. Numberless physicians will testify to this. Yet many who are addicted to the habit are fighting to retain it as an article of commerce. Under its influence both men and women become lazy, their body and mind deteriorate, its intoxicating effects degenerate all users so that many deaths have resulted. The effect seems to be like an opiate, for under its sway all moral restrain is forgotten.

SIOUX FALL VICTIMS.

The Sioux are becoming addicts in large numbers. Its use is growing rapidly among the Cheyennes, the Osages, the Arapahoes, the Kiowas, the Comanches, the Omahas, the Kickapoos, Winnebagoes, and other tribes. The Indians cling to it in many cases as a gift of the deity—some thinking it will give them a sight of the deity himself—and all regard it as a great medicine and intoxicating stimulant. In order to secure its uninterrupted use, it has been claimed that it is used as a sort of sacrament in the Indian religious ceremonies, but we know that in these feasts, which last all night, its use leads to the wildest intoxication and all kinds of orgies in which men, women, and even the children take part to the degradation of their minds.

Experiments on animals have proved it to be a powerful narcotic poison. The famous Dr. Weir Mitchell, who experimented with the drug, says: "I predict a perilous reign of the habit when the agent becomes obtainable. The temptation to call again the enchanting magic will be too much for some men to resist after they have set foot in this land of fairy colors."

AGENTS SELL DRUG.

Conscienceless agents, who ship in the peyote from Mexico, are now going among the well-to-do Indians of the Utes and peddling the stuff, disguising their work under the cloak of promoting a religious organization. Feasts are gotten up and the peyote used to intoxicate all who attend. Many Indians believe that the peyote is a direct message from God—that it will give one the power to read secret thoughts and acquire without study superhuman knowledge. To them it is a cure-all for every ailment, and in attending weekly meetings in which its use is indulged in by the devotees, they neglect their homes and farms and rapidly degenerate. It has also been claimed that troops on the border are liable to run into those who will teach the use of peyote.

Peyote is the Spanish way of expressing the ancient Aztec word "Peyotl," meaning a caterpillar. This refers to the yellowish-white down which appears after the blossoms on the plant. The plant itself grows with a root in the ground and is used when dried either by chewing or making a solution. While common to Mexico, it is now shipped in bags to all the tribes in the West. The early Spanish missionaries spoke of the ceremonies which attended its use in Mexico centuries ago. Laws against its use were made in the time of Montezuma. The chief feast of the peyote among the Indians of northern Mexico was the Hikuli, which took place every October. This was a very elaborate ceremony, Indians all night dancing and drinking or eating the peyote. Remnants of this ancient ceremony are to-day preserved in the cult feasts which many of the Indians weekly attend, feasts which unfit them for their daily life.

DESCRIPTION OF THE FEAST.

In an account by Mrs. Brabant in 1909, we have a description of a feast of this kind at White Eagle, Okla. She said that the Indians had the peyote bean or button lying on a crescent-shaped altar, and that the worshippers present sang, beat tom-toms, and intoxicated themselves till they imagined that they saw visions of the Saviour. An Arapahoe Indian claimed that he sat gazing at the bean till he saw emerge from it a snake with heads, then a centipede, and that the snake came to him, making his own body feel as if covered with the skin of a snake.

Dr. Havelock Ellis has described his feelings after having eaten three of the peyote beans or "buttons" by way of an experiment. He says his first symptom was that of immense strength and wonderful intellectual power, but that later he felt faint with a very low pulse. A pale shadow seemed to hover over the book he read. Visions came, slowly, then rapidly. First, a vast field of golden jewels studded with red, crimson, and green stones—a wonderful perfume—a dull, rich glow and brilliant points—rare flowers—and iridescent fibrous wings, as of butterflies—then a hollow revolving cylinder lined with marvelous mother-of-pearl—profuse and various images—living arabesques. Then he saw waves of light, shadows flushed with violet. Once he visioned "floating white drapery" and "feathery forms."

"Thus it is easily to be seen that the use of the peyote induces the same mental and physical stimulation that habit-forming drugs generate, and it follows that the same mental and physical evils will result," said Mrs. Bonnin. "My work now is to prevent the destruction of my race by securing legislation forbidding the use of this injurious plant in the same way that alcohol is prohibited. Some have said that as the Indians claim the peyote is used as a sacrament it will prevent any legislation on the ground that such would be interference with religion. But the fact that it is used in a way which outrages decency and induces intoxication and degeneracy precludes any such plea. There is no true friend of the Indian that does not desire this curse to be wiped away. Yet those who profit by this vice, those who are addicted to it, will, of course, plead for its retention."

Mrs. Bonnin is an earnest worker for her people. She is of the opinion that much of the meat supply of the country could be benefited by teaching the Indians to raise cattle on their immense reservations so admirably adapted to grazing.

"White men come in, lease the lands, get money from banks with which they buy cattle," she said, "why can not the Indians, who really own and live on the land, be shown how to do this? Instead, he is made to lease and let the white man run the business and make the money. If the tribes now holding vast reservations could be set to raising cattle, the meat problem would be easily solved.

POLITICS BLAMED.

"The trouble is that the agents are so often political appointees, not selected for good character, but as a reward for party work—and the Indian is the helpless victim of the white man's cupidity. I am desirous of having women sent in the capacity of agents to the Indians, for I feel that in that case they would give the red men fairer treatment."

Mrs. Bonnin expects to remain in Washington for some time and devote her time to fighting peyote.

If that were true, of course, it would be a good thing to stamp out, but it is not true. […]

[Pages 106–107. Letter from Cleaver Warden, Arapaho, to James Mooney, printed in the record among the pro-peyote materials.]

CARLTON, OKLA., February 25, 1918.

Mr. JAMES MOONEY, Washington, D. C.

Sir: We saw in the Oklahoman paper Mrs. Gertrude Bonin's testimony before the Indian Committee against the peyote, containing therein many false statements for this reason: That in order that a person may be convinced of its harmful effects upon mind and body, there should be a fair test of it by attending the meeting and participating in the ceremonial rites.

You understand that we believe what we see, hear, etc., of the works of the Great Spirit, therefore we placed the tepee facing toward the sunrise. We carried out the vow or purposes of an individual who wishes and desires the presence of the divine power, by offerings of prayer in Indian religious doctrine. Just consider the Indians gathered in the tepee, having a fire blazing therein for the sole object of developing the spiritual temperaments in the race as well as obtaining physical strength. This is gotten by self-reliance and self-control. There is a justifiable reason for being a part or member of that Indian religious tepee. As far as obtaining chemical analysis of this herb or plant, or experimenting upon animals, it may seem possible, but a person must conscientiously go to it and then know the good of it. That Indian lady is not right but is instigated by wrong advice.

If you are to be called before the Indian Comittee again and should need any evidence, or rather true testimonials from us, write at once, as I understand that this fight is going on.

The party gives an account of an Arapahoe taking peyote and from its effects felt like a snake or something of that sort. Upon inquiry and by even there is no occurrence on record, so with this little information that contains herein is the present attitude of us Indians. We only ask a fair and impartial trial by reasonable white people, not half breeds who do not know a bit of their ancestors or kindred. A true Indian is one who helps for a race and not that secretary of the Society of American Indians. Our intentions are good but obstructed by such persons.

Yours, respectfully,

CLEAVER WARDEN.

(Cleaver Warden, fullblood, accredited council member and delegate from the Arapaho Tribe, Oklahoma.)

[Pages 122–131. Friday, February 22, 1918. Bonnin had been interpreting for Chester Arthur, an Assiniboine delegate from Fort Peck, Montana, who testified against peyote. Representative John N. Tillman (1859–1929) of Arkansas presided.]

Mrs. Bonnin. He says that he wants to be sure that I have described the thing that he was talking about, and I have shown him a sample of peyote, and he says that is it.

[…]

Mr. Tillman. Is there anybody else who wants to be heard except the lady who has been interpreting for us? Do any of you Indians want to be heard for or against this bill? If not, we will hear from Mrs. Bonnin.

STATEMENT OF MRS. GERTRUDE BONNIN.

Mr. Tillman. State your name, why you appear here, and all about yourself before you begin your statement. Also state the tribe of which you are a member.

Mrs. Bonnin. I am a member of the Sioux Tribe. I am secretary of the Society of Americans Indians. This society is nonpartisan and nonsectarian. I am not in any way connected with the Government work; that is, the Indian service work. The motto of our society is, "For the honor of the race and the good of the country."

I have lived among the Utes of Utah for 14 years and came to this city last spring. I am not receiving pay for this work. In this period of 14 years in one locality I am proud of one thing, and that is that I won the confidence of the Utes, and I am proud to say that in the Uintah Basin my signature to a statement or a check was honored by the banks and by the business men, who have known me for 14 years. That is one thing of which I am proud, because in 14 years people have an opportunity to find you out thoroughly, whether you speak the truth or not.

Yesterday one of the gentlemen, speaking in favor of peyote, referred to an article published by the Sunday Times about peyote, and he referred to that part which said:

In order to secure its uninterrupted use it has been claimed that it is used as a sort of sacrament in the Indian religious ceremonies, but we know that in these fêtes, which last all night, its use leads to the wildest intoxication and all kinds of orgies, in which men, women, and even the children take part, to the degradation of their minds.

That gentleman yesterday contradicted that statement and said he knew it was not true. I happen to be acquainted with the Indian who gave this information to the Times, and, Mr. Chairman, if you will observe the speaker you will see a striking resemblance to that Indian. However, I do feel that the speaker yesterday, in contradicting that statement, had no intention whatever of casting any reflection upon the veracity of the Indian who gave that information, because the speaker of yesterday has never met the Indian who gave that information, and therefore had no ground to stand on in forming that attitude of mind—that the person who gave that information did not know the truth. So I think it was not meant or intended to cast a reflection upon the veracity of the one who gave the information. However, as I listened to his speech I was led to believe that ethnologists who go out to visit these meetings can not stay there day after day, month after month, year after year, and when they make their visits those little meetings are prearranged. I have been a school-teacher too long not to know that when I have a class recite before a visitor that immediately the air is charged with a certain restraint. We know that is human nature, and in these Indian meetings that are visited, when the Indians know that an ethnologist intends to write it down, they naturally can not help feeling a sort of restraint, and I dare say that they do not do the things at those times that they are in the habit of doing.

I went out among the Utes to help the Indians, and while I attended college, and I love what civilization gives to man, the white man and Indian alike, I love my people. I did not expect that they would come to my house and ask me for what I had that I wanted to give them; I knew I must visit them in their tents and take it to them; that I must find them where they are. Therefore, during all of those 14 years I visited the Utes in their homes until I knew them all; I seemed to be related to them and seemed to be one of them.

When peyote was first introduced among them, during the last two years, I saw my friends victimized, and that hurt my heart. I did not know the technical term of peyote; I never say the thing grow, but common horse sense told me that the indiscriminate use of a powerful drug was dead wrong.

In speaking in behalf of the Indian race I must lay aside my own personal sense of modesty in order to tell you the truth. I had hoped I should not be obliged to read a statement here showing the immoral practices carried on there. This is only one statement; there are many of them that can be secured if it is necessary. I have here the thumb-marked statement of Sam Atchee, a Ute Indian, and signed by two witnesses. The statement is as follows:

DRAGON, UTAH, January 2, 1917.

Mrs. GERTRUDE BONNIN, Fort Duchesne, Utah.

MADAM: Herewith a signed statement by Sam Atchee, as requested, with two witnesses. Sam Atchee repeats the same statement you have written on opposite side and signs below his mark as to the correct correspondence and statement.

Yours, respectfully, T. M. McKEE.

January 2, 1917. SAM ATCHEE [his thumb mark].

Witnesses: T. M. McKEE, Dragon, Utah. THOMAS M. FULLER, Dragon, Utah.

My friends had come to me and told me about this thing, and it was a very delicate matter with me. I hated to go to Sam Atchee and talk to him about it, being a woman, and yet I knew it must be done. So I wrote to a woman and asked her about it. I said:

MY DEAR MRS. McKEE: I am writing to ask you to help me secure some data against peyote. I have it from a reliable source that Sam Atchee made a statement to the effect that he was opposed to peyote for its demoralizing effect upon the users.

He told how he tried it at the first introduction of it to the Utes, and how during a peyote meeting after the drug was taking effect he stepped out of doors for a few minutes and upon return came upon a scene of immoral practice.

Cactus Pete had taken one of the Ute women outside. Sam Atchee caught them in the act.

Sam evidently did not eat as much as the others, or it might be said he was under the influence of peyote and not responsible enough to give evidence. This is an undesirable subject, and yet it will be one of the strongest points against peyote if such a statement is signed by Atchee before two witnesses.

How can this be accomplished? Your husband will help you.

That was the appeal I made to that woman.

It will help secure legal protection for the Indian if Atchee will not be afraid to make this statement.

Please use your own judgment in the write-up. I know you will do what you can.

Very sincerely, GERTRUDE BONNIN, Secretary.

Those people took my letter and explained it to that Indian, and here is his thumb-marked statement before two witnesses, saying that that was true and that he was an eye witness to that.

There are at least 30 deaths that can be attributed to the use of peyote among the Utes. Of these Weecheget's death in the spring of 1916 is most horrible. He had taken an overdose. He became wild; tearing his clothing off he jumped into a deep mud hole. There before a crowd of onlookers of whites and Indians he dove into the soft mud; then he jumped up to his feet and wildly grabbed handsfull of the mud and smote himself with it. Before anyone could help him he died in a few minutes, before this crowd of eye witnesses. This happened in Dragon, Utah, in the spring of 1916.

Peyote does excite the baser passions as Sam Atchee's statement shows, and many other Indians have given this kind of information before and since this statement by Sam Atchee.

Money is gotten under false pretenses. In the year 1916 Peter Phelps, the peyote agent, whom the Utes have named Cactus Pete, took up $500 from the peyote users, telling them that he would send them a license to sell peyote. In 1917, a year afterwards, the license was not forthcoming. Weechits, a Ute, who was one from whom $30 had been extracted by a promise to furnish a license, wrote to a so-called peyote chief, Tom Morgan, Chadron, Nebr., demanding the return of his money. The money was not returned for months, while I was still in Utah, and although I have not made recent inquiry I am of the opinion it is still unreturned.

Now, as to graft upon the superstition of the Utes. Twenty small crosses of very inferior material, with glass sets, were sold by Peter Phelps, peyote agent, to these Utes at a dollar each. The victims were told to put the magic crosses away and not to wear them. Once in a while they were instructed to look at them. If the cross was tarnishing, as, of course, it was bound to do, it was an evil omen, and it was the sign of approaching death to the owner of the cross. The Utes were told that this tarnishing of the cross was to show each peyote user that he or she was not as faithful as he or she ought to be which, of course, meant more peyote must be eaten and that more peyote must be purchased. The peyote agent knew that the fear of approaching death would make the Indian willing to pay any price for peyote treatment or be willing to do anything at the bidding of the peyote agent, if by so doing his life could be insured and prolonged. Finally, the Utes were told that if they liked these magic crosses he, Cactus Pete, would bring 200 of them on his next visitation. These crosses could not have cost over 10 cents, and they were sold for a dollar each. So that the peyote agent was planning to make $180 on a $20 investment, to say nothing of playing upon their superstition. Cactus Pete took some of the Utes with him on a trip. While on this trip he went into a saloon and drank whisky. The Utes were amazed and asked why he had told them peyote cured the whisky habit and why he was drinking whisky. He told them that he was so far along in the peyote cult that he could do this, but to beginners, whisky was forbidden. The Utes told this.

Peter Phelps, commonly called Cactus Pete, had still another name under which he was enrolled, but for cattle stealing and other things he dare not enter his own reservation, for he would be arrested and headed for the penitentiary. He is the peyote agent that told the Utes who owned cattle that they need not trouble themselves to ride in the hills to watch their stock; that all they had to do was to stay at home and with the peyote in their hands ask about the cattle and that the peyote would tell them if anyone was trying to steal the cattle.

I had a kodak picture of a crowd in which was this Peter Phelps. A visiting Sioux from Pine Ridge, S. Dak., recognized him and at the time told his real name, but I do not now remember it. However, I know the Indian who can give that information, if it is necessary.

Now, I would like to read to you a statement from a Winnebago:

John Semans, a Winnebago, swears to the truth of the following: "They say that if you eat this bean it will cure you from drinking whisky or other intoxicants and it makes you saving and a better worker. I know that this is not true. There are a few who can't get drunk enough to suit them on peyote. I have been to Sioux City with many of the peyote society and got drunk with them. This is a comman thing for them to do. I think maybe when they first start to use peyote they give up whisky for a little while, but they soon want it again. They are also spending a great deal of money on these meetings and to make the society grow.

Many of the mescal or peyote eaters use from $60 to $100 a night and mortgage their things to get money to feed the meetings. I think the leaders spend most of the money for themselves. I could see very plainly that the Indian leaders of this peyote religion are making their living off the ignorant Indians, so I know that it does not make them thrifty, and, in fact, if they keep on the way they are doing it will not be very long until they are very poor. Another very bad thing that comes from eating this medicine, it makes you feel more, and so if anyone is passionate it makes them more so. The meetings are very immoral (I do not think I could tell all that I have seen in writing). With the young men this is a very bad thing, because they go to the meetings because the girls are there, and they are naturally led on to do evil things. I know that it affects a person this way because I have felt it myself."

I would like also to read what the daughter of Quanah Parker said about her father. Reference was made to the great Quanah Parker as being a peyote user. Here are the words of the oldest daughter of Quanah Parker as she gave them at our camp meetings and as they are quoted in Rev. Watermulder's Mohonk Conference address:

My father was the great chief of the Comanches. He ate mescal. He asked me to eat mescal. I did eat for a few years, but I gave it up. I followed a better road. I told my father to give it up. He would not. He became very sick. I got six doctors to examine him. They all said it is because he ate mescal. I again asked him to stop, but no, he would not. Two years he was sick. He became paralyzed. One day he said that he would go to a mescal meeting far away. He took a train. He attended this meeting. The next day, while coming home on the train, he died. Oh, friends, I ask you to stop that medicine, mescal.

And now, with reference to peyote as a medicine, I want to read a statement from a well-known medical laboratory in Detroit, Mich., as follows:

Our Kansas City branch forwarded us your letter under date of April 5 requesting us to forward you information relative to peyote.

There is no question whatever but that this is the same drug as anhalonium (mescal buttons).

We formerly put out a fluid extract of anhalonium but a few years ago decided to omit it from our catalogue.

We can inform you definitely that the importation of this drug into the United States has been absolutely prohibited. If an extract of the drug was administered internally it acted as a narcotic and represented one of the habit-forming drugs which we procured from Mexico.

That is from a letter dated April 11, 1916, written by Parke, Davis & Co., proprietors of the well-known medical laboratories in Detroit, Mich.

Now, in conclusion, I would like to say that humans are humans, and human nature is the same regardless of color. This habit of using peyote is not going to be limited to the red man alone. Yesterday we heard it said that it had a different effect on the white man, because the Indian was used to it. We know very well that Indians are of all kinds of temperaments and make-ups. There is just as much difference among Indians as there is among white people or any other people of any color. This habit is not going to be limited to the red man alone, and we already see it spreading out among the white men. Colorado mothers have been told that the soldiers on the Texas border are using peyote and have become alarmed, and I have heard of white people substituting for other habit-forming drugs the use of peyote, and they have said it was a good substitute; that is, when opium could not be secured.

Three Western States have passed laws against the use of peyote, because they realize that this peyote menace is a growing menace to all America, regardless of color. Colorado, Utah, and Nevada are the Western States that last year passed peyote laws. And to-day, in the face of national prohibition, this menace is going to spread, as that Indian said, like wildfire, and we need now to protect all the citizens of America by quenching that little spark, because it will be easier now than later.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Tillman. Where were you educated?

Mrs. Bonnin. I was educated in a Friends' school in Indiana.

Mr. Tillman. You are not a Carlisle graduate?

Mrs. Bonnin. I never attended a Government school.

Mr. Tillman. Are you married?

Mrs. Bonnin. I am married to a Sioux Indian, who is in the Army.

Mr. Tillman. How many people constitute your tribe? How many Sioux are there, approximately ?

Mrs. Bonnin. I could not say. Do you mean in my tribe or the whole Nation?

Mr. Tillman. The whole Nation.

Mrs. Bonnin. How many would you say, Dr. Eastman ?

Dr. Eastman. I think there are about 20,000 in the Sioux Nation, or at least pretty close to that.

Mr. Tillman. I think you said you are a Christian ?

Mrs. Bonnin. I am a Christian; yes.

Mr. Tillman. How do the bulk of the Christian people with whom you associate look upon peyote? Do they favor it or are they against it?

Mrs. Bonnin. I have not tried to talk with them about it, because at first they were told it was an Indian religion, and they thought it was just a religion, but I think the real thing is the evil results that they see in the use of it.

Mr. Tillman. The Christian people are generally against its use, are they not—the members of the Christian church ?

Mrs. Bonnin. I suppose that they would be on the ground that they would oppose anything that was demoralizing. I do not believe, Mr. Chairman, that this opposition can be represented as being made because of a difference in religions. It is not that, because even Indians who are Christians become addicted to the habit of using peyote right along.

Mr. Tillman. What do you think about its use as a religious secrament? Do you think that is in good faith or it it a sort of fake and subterfuge ?

Mrs. Bonnin. I had a letter that I submitted to the Senate Indian Committee, which they were to publish in the record. I wish I had that with me to-day. I can tell you, however, that that letter was from a Winnebago Indian, who was at one time the head of the mescal church, and he stated in that letter that in their meetings they were interrupted by the police coming in because they were on drunks, and in order to prevent interference by the police they sent to Sioux City and bought a Bible, and then they began to read out of it to make it a religion. That is about the substance of the letter which I submitted to the Senate committee for publication in the record.

Mr. Tillman. You are one of the most intelligent witnesses we have mad before us, and I wish you would state for the record, in order that those who are not present may know, how this drug is used, if you know or have heard.

Mrs. Bonnin. Well, I have heard among the Utes that they chew it, or they steep it and make tea of it and drink it, and as a tea they give it to the babies. I have heard also that it is ground up and put into little capsules. Those are the ways that I have heard about. School children and babies, of course, use it as well as adults, and that is the evil of it.

Mr. Tillman. From your investigations you have no doubt but that this drug is responsible for a great many improper and illicit sexual excesses ?

Mrs. Bonnin. I know of many such cases.

Mr. Tillman. As compared with whisky, which is the most harmful?

Mrs. Bonnin. Well, I think they are twin brothers.

Mr. Tillman. Is it true that the use of this peyote for a time destroys the taste for whisky ?

Mrs. Bonnin. That is the beginning of it, but they soon begin to use them together. As I have told you, the Utes were surprised to find their leader going into a saloon and drinking whisky; when they asked him for an explanation, he said, "I am so far along in the peyote cult that I can do this, but you, as beginners, can not do it." I suppose that meant they must use more peyote; that when they got far enough along in the cult they could use both.

Mr. Tillman. If it does destroy the desire for whisky it must be a very powerful and harmful drug.

Mrs. Bonnin. I believe it is.

Mr. Snyder. You said in your testimony that there were three States that had passed laws prohibiting the use of peyote?

Mrs. Bonnin. Yes, sir.

Mr. Snyder. What are the three States?

Mrs. Bonnin. Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. If I may add one word, these State laws do not operate on Indian territories, and that is why we need Federal action.

Mr. Snyder. That is the information I wanted, because I wanted to know why those laws were not being enforced in those States?

Mrs. Bonnin. Because Indian land is generally considered as Federal territory and the State feels the Government is looking after that territory.

Mr. Snyder. I think you have given us a splendid illustration of your knowledge of this matter, and quite convincing.

Mr. Hastings. What is your home address?

Mrs. Bonnin. My home address is 707 Twentieth Street NW., this city.

Mr. Hastings. I mean when you are out of Washington.

Mrs. Bonnin. When I am out of Washington—

Mr. Hastings (interposing). Where did you live before you came here?

Mrs. Bonnin. I spent 14 years at Fort Duchesne, Utah.

Mr. Hastings. Was that your home?

Mrs. Bonnin. That was my home for 14 years.

Mr. Hastings. Where were you born?

Mrs. Bonnin. I was born at the Yankton Agency, Greenwood, S. Dak. I am a member of the Sioux tribe, but my life work has been among the Utes.

Mr. Hastings. You have lived among them until recently when you came to Washington ?

Mrs. Bonnin. Yes, sir; I came here last April.

Mr. Hastings. But prior to that time you were among the Ute Indians.

Mrs. Bonnin. For 14 consecutive years I lived with those people.

Mr. Hastings. You taught school among them?

Mrs. Bonnin. Yes, sir. Then later I lived on my own farm, and then later—

Mr. Hastings (interposing). Where was your farm located?

Mrs. Bonnin. In the Uinta Basin. Later I became a community center worker under the auspices of the Society of American Indians. I tried to do community center work, which was not covered by the Government's work or by the missionaries' work.

Mr. Tillman. You are not employed by any agency or any society ?

Mrs. Bonnin. None whatsoever.

Mr. Tillman. And you are not receiving any compensation for the work you are doing?

Mrs. Bonnin. Not one cent.

Mr. Tillman. Are you a full blood?

Mrs. Bonnin. I am part Sioux and part French.

Mr. Hastings. How much Sioux?

Mrs. Bonnin. Half.

Mr. Tillman. Are you on good terms with your tribe?

Mrs. Bonnin. Yes; and I want to say that I am on good terms with those people about whom I have been talking, the Utes, those who have become victims of peyote. I love them; I do not hate them for anything that is harmful, but I want them saved, if possible. I am on good terms with my people and with the Utes, among whom I have lived for 14 years.

Mr. Tillman. And your purpose is to uplift your tribe and to assist them in any way you can, and in taking up this work you have that solely in view?

Mrs. Bonnin. Yes, sir; that is the sole purpose. Let me tell you one thing in that connection. I am solely interested in uplifting these people, and yet I have been warned many times by my friends among the Utes. They have said, "We are cautioned not to talk about peyote and what goes on in our meetings; they tell us we will be awfully punished if we do that way, and now you are talking about this thing, about this peyote, and some harm is going to come to you." I said, "What harm can come to me?" They say, "Well, you ought to be careful; you do not know; some one might bring harm to you." And I have said to my friends, "I would rather sacrifice one life, mine, than the whole of the Indian race."

Mr. Tillman. You never experimented with this drug yourself?

Mrs. Bonnin. No, sir.

Mr. Snyder. During all of the 14 years that you were among the Utes, you did not see or come in contact with the use of this peyote at all?

Mrs. Bonnin. It was not there until within the last two years; it is a little over two years now since it came there, but since it has been there it has done its undermining work—it has parted husband and wife and broken up happy homes.

Mr. Snyder. Then, of course, it is apparent that the information you have given here is from information that has come to you and not from your knowledge or contact with the drug itself?

Mrs. Bonnin. I have not used it myself; no, sir.

Mr. Snyder. I did not mean that. I meant that you have not been where the drug was being used ?

Mrs. Bonnin. Yes; I have lived there among the Utes themselves and it has been used there for over two years, and I have visited them in their meetings.

Mr. Snyder. That is exactly what I wanted to get at.

Mrs. Bonnin. I visited them in their meetings, and I tried to talk to my friends who owned cattle and sheep, trying to show them their danger.

STATE OF NEBRASKA, County of Thurston, ss:

I, Miss Etta Hannink, having been duly sworn, do hereby depose and say Miss Pearson and myself attended Eva Henry, a full-blood Winnebago girl, when she was sick with pneumonia. The mescal people tried to crowd into the sick room and feed her mescal or peyote. We forbade their feeding the mescal or peyote, but 35 of the mescal or peyote people crowded into the small room and sat all night drumming, singing, and eating the mescal or peyote. We stayed there all night to see that they did not feed the peyote, and we told her to be sure not to let them give her any. After we left in the early morning they tried to force her to take some of the mescal or peyote. The people were constantly going in and out of the room, hoping to force her to take the mescal or peyote, but she refused. I think that their practices with the sick are causing many of the deaths.

The women have no part in the mescal or peyote meetings only to eat the mescal or peyote. They lie around in the corner of the room like a lot of dogs, and it is a most revolting sight. There is a great deal of immorality at these meetings, I think, and it is a very serious situation that we have to meet, because it is destroying the character of the young people.

ETTA HANNINK.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 13th day of October, 1911.

JACOB STEBDEE, Notary Public.

UNITED STATES TARIFF COMMISSION, Washington, D. C., February 23, 1918.

Mrs. GERTRUDE BONNIN, 707 Twentieth Street NW., Washington, D. C.

DEAR MRS. BONNIN: Mrs. Costigan and I regretted the necessity of leaving your important and impressive hearing on the subject of peyote yesterday morning before the hearing was concluded. We were compelled to do so to meet another engagement.

Permit me to say that if the use of my name as one of those indorsing the legislation you seek will aid you I am glad to be of service in that way. My information as to the deleterious effects of the drug is based on hearsay, but the high class of testimony which was brought to my attention leaves no shadow of doubt in my mind.

It must be gratifying to you to recall that the Colorado bill was enacted into law following the recital of actual conditions, practically without dissent.

Very sincerely, E. P. COSTIGAN, Commissioner.

Mr. Snyder. Then you are familiar with exactly what is going on there and know the whole question?

Mrs. Bonnin. Yes, sir; I am familiar with that.

[…]

[Pages 133–135. Two statements bearing Bonnin's signature, printed within the Colorado legislative brief that Representative Carl Hayden (1877–1972) of Arizona inserted into the record.]

In a sworn statement of April 28, 1916, Paul Jones, a bishop, of Utah; Henry B. Lloyd, a Government physician; Albert H. Kneale, a Government officer in charge; and Gertrude Bonnin, secretary of the Society of American Indians and superintendent of the community center among the Utes, say:

"The Indians in increasing numbers are eating these peyote buttons under the leadership of a Sioux, known as Pete Phelps, who has introduced the practice within the last year. The peyote is shipped into Utah either by mail or express. At present about half the Indians connected with the Uintah and Ouray Agency are peyote users.

"In using it the Indians meet weekly at a night session and eat from 1 to 80 of the buttons, depending on their familiarity with it. It is also given to those who are in sickness, and sometimes administered in the form of tea.

"The effect of the peyote appears to be like that of an opiate. The users are stimulated to dreams and hallucinations in regard to themselves and others, and between times become sullen and uncommunicative. While under the influence moral restraints are forgotten.

"In connection with its use in sickness several deaths have been reported as due to its influence. The continued use of peyote on the health and character of the Indians appears to be so serious that we believe immediate steps should be taken by the Government to prevent its sale and distribution to them, and we would therefore ask you to bring this statement to the attention of the proper authorities to secure that action."

[…]

"Many Indians are appealing for leglislation restricting the importation and use of peyote. Mr. and Mrs. R. T. Bonnin, intelligent and educated Indians, located at the Uintah and Ouray Agency, have joined in a statement reciting the evil effects following the use of the drug. Rev. M. J. Hersey, missionary of the Episcopal Church, located within the reservation, vouches for and concurs in their statement, which follows:

FORT DUCHESNE, UTAH, October 12, 1916.

MY DEAR MR. BROSIUS: We, the undersigned Indians, make the following statements regarding the use of peyote among Indians, particularly the Utes, of Uintah and Ouray Reservation:

It excites the baser passions and is demoralizing—similar in its abnormal effects to that of opium, morphine, and cocaine.

It creates false notions in the minds of the users, preventing sound logic and rational thought with which to meet the problems of their daily lives. Believing that peyote is the comforter sent by God, they reject the teachings of the church. Believing that peyote reveals the secret thoughts of man and gives superhuman knowledge of the contents of books, they deprecate the necessity of schools. Believing peyote a cure-all for every human ailment, they ignore the advice and aid of physicians. Attending the weekly peyote meetings, they waste time, strength, and money, consequently neglecting their homes and farms.

3. It has spread with alarming rapidity within the last two years, and now has close to 50 per cent of the tribe.

4. It appears to have been the direct cause of the deaths of 25 percons among these Utes within the last two years.

5. After a careful study of the spread of peyote among the Utes, where we have labored some 14 years, it appears to us that an unscrupulous organization, through its agents, is promoting the peyote cult, under a religious guise, solely for the easy money gotten from their superstitious victims. From reliable sources we derive the information that large collections of money are taken up at the weekly meetings, and no accounting made whatever. The Utes, who had cattle, sheep, and horses, were the very ones first singled out by the shrewd peyote agent. It is the money from sale of stock, together with $15 subsistence checks, that is taken without any concern for the inevitable wreckage of body, mind, and soul of the pitiable victims.

6. Since the use of peyote is spreading rapidly and is undermining the uplift work of the churches and our benevolent Government; since it is an American principle to protect helpless, downtrodden people from the ruthless hand of the oppressor; to restrain the unscrupulous greed of those who traffic upon the ignorance and superstition of a people, we do implore all earnest citizens of America for a Federal law to protect us against the traffic in and the indiscriminate use of peyote.

Signed: GERTRUDE BONNIN, RAYMOND T. BONNIN.

I have read the above, relative to the use of peyote. I hereby vouch for the veracity of these statements and do concur with Mr. and Mrs. Bonnin in imploring some Federal action against this great evil, peyote.

Signed: M. J. HERSEY, Episcopal Missionary.

[…]

[Page 136. Bonnin interpreting for Joe Claymore, a Sioux delegate from Standing Rock Agency, who had recounted what a stockman told him about eating peyote.]

Mr. Hastings. I understood you to say that you had used it as many as three times yourself.

Mrs. Bonnin. He was telling about a conversation he had with a man who had used it.

[Pages 165–166. Printed at the close of the February hearings.]

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF MRS. GERTRUDE BONNIN.

PEYOTE CAUSES RACE SUICIDE.

Charley Wash, a splendid Ute, became a peyote user. Previous to the introduction of peyote among the Utes, Charley Wash was doing well. He had a home for his wife and family. He was happy with them and worked for them.

After becoming a peyote headman, he failed.

His home was wrecked by this peyote snare and delusion.

Peyote was administered indiscriminately when his wife was undergoing the greatest of human sacrifices, that of giving birth to a babe. Ute women who were there told me how the misguided friends doped the mother until she was unable to help herself; and how in their excitement and ignorance they applied fatal force; and a mutilated mother, mangled wee babe, dead in their hands, was the inevitable end. These innocent victims of peyote were buried together.

At once, when Charley Wash ceased his peyote worship and wept for his dead wife and babe, the peyote agent, together with those with whom he operated, sent for Charley Wash. Charley Wash lived at Randlette, Utah. The peyote agent stayed in Dragon, Utah.

Charley Wash went to them. There they kept him filled with peyote till the man could not grieve for his dead nor care even about himself.

I talked with the physician who lived at Randlette and whose services had not been called because peyote was preferred, and he told me that excessive indiscriminate use of peyote had the effect of deadening the muscular action, and that it was the most dangerous thing that they could have given in childbirth, especially without other proper aids at hand.

In behalf of the mothers of the human race I implore legal protection against peyote.

If Emma Goldman is condemned for propaganda on birth control, the peyote agent who introduces a pernicious peyote drug that kills both mother and child must be dealt with in like manner.

No matter what name the peyote wears as a guise, the use of it is harmful; therefore it must be prohibited.

Life is the greatest gift. I am pleading for the life of the Indian race. Mr. Chairman, were the life of your loved one threatened by a pernicious drug, would you care a straw what the ethnologists had written about the drug; how many years they had studied the drug? No; because the civilized man has studied for centuries other habit-forming drugs; but that study does not warrant anyone giving it to another in the name of religion to-day.

The other day a gentleman told us that peyote people pray also without peyote; that at a dinner the peyote man asked God to bless a glass of water. In view of the need of these times, to economize, as Mr. Hoover urges us, and also in the face of the national prohibition move, and because the Indian needs his rational mind to meet his fond hope for full citizenship, and remembering also that the highest authoritative statement upon drugs has condemned peyote—in view of all these things it must follow that the use of a glass of water at a dinner be encouraged to all Americans. In this instance may the great Congress of our land say, "Amen," to the glass of water, by prohibition of peyote, twin brother of alcohol, and first cousin to habit-forming drugs.