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The peyoteros remember a time a generation ago when Indians camped out and harvested their own peyote. "Back then, it was what we call open range," says Salvador Johnson, another peyotero. "You could harvest what you needed. At that time, ranchers were poorer than we were. They couldn't even afford feed for the cattle. Now those same ranchers are multimillionaires from oil and gas royalties."

Like many peyoteros, Johnson was a little mystified when peyote suddenly became trendy in the late 1960s and into the 1970s. It was during this time that the drug caught on among hippies and New Age folk, largely through the works of Carlos Castaneda, an anthropologist turned best-selling author.

Castaneda wrote a series of books about a shaman named Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian who took the anthropologist under his wing. Don Juan believed that "mescalito"—a code word for peyote—was a vehicle for self-knowledge. Through mescalito, Don Juan said, one could learn how to fly and see beings in liquid colors. Under Don Juan's tutelage, the rational academic learned how to become a sorcerer and warrior.

Castaneda's books were a phenomenon. The author, however, turned out to be a fraud. He was denounced by fellow anthropologists for trying to pass off a fictional character as an authentic source. In a cover story in Time in 1973, the magazine presented evidence that the author had lied about his background, including his nationality. None of this, however, stopped the influx of peyote-seekers in the one place in the nation where the plant grew wild.

Poachers started arriving, many of them Anglo hippies from the West Coast. One of those poachers was Frank Collum (not his real name), a hippie from Connecticut who had heard about the peyote gardens through some Indian friends in New Mexico. When he first started going to South Texas in the early 1970s, he would hop a fence and camp out for a week.

Now, he doesn't think it's worth the risk of getting caught for trespassing. Collum still goes down to South Texas, but his Indian wife buys dried peyote from Salvador Johnson. (In addition to belonging to the Native American Church, peyote buyers have to prove they are at least one-quarter related to a federally recognized Indian tribe.) Collum raised his son in the Church, going to meetings that would include all-night ceremonies in a teepee. Those days are gone.

"Peyote is in jeopardy," he says. "You hear stories about it coming from Mexico now. The ranchers in Texas have put up tall fences you can't jump. Then, there are all the wetbacks and Border Patrol. There's just too much heat.

"A lot of the Natives are real sensitive about the situation," Collum says. "The supply will not meet the demand unless you can convince the ranchers to cooperate. And the ranchers, they don't give a fuck about peyote."

Ranchers used to be friendly with the peyoteros, who paid them a small lease for access to their land. In recent years, as land prices have skyrocketed and Hispanic immigration has boomed, Anglo ranchers have come to view the peyoteros as a nuisance. According to Morales, many ranchers would rather plow their fields to plant grass for cattle feed than protect their native plants.

Salvador Johnson used to be a full-time peyotero, but now it's a part-time job. Rather than fight the ranchers, he's started helping them organize hunting trips. He also works as a general contractor around his hometown of Mirando City, a hamlet about half an hour east of Laredo.

"The big money is in deer hunting," says Johnson.

Mauro Morales remembers when it was possible to find massive clumps of peyote growing wild. "There was medicine just a couple miles from my home," he says. He grew up on the same street where he still lives in a ramshackle, two-story pink house with a dirt driveway. As a young man, he worked in the fields harvesting peyote for extra money. The matriarch of the peyote trade, a woman named Amada Cárdenas, first showed him peyote in 1950.

"Natives call the big ones 'chief,'" he says. "And when they find a chief, they get down and pray to it. Miss Cárdenas showed me my first chief."

Morales says that it's getting harder and harder to find chiefs. The only way to ensure the supply, he says, is greenhouse cultivation, something he's discussed with botanists from around the world, including a group from Germany that visited him in January.

But Johnson, the only remaining peyotero in the once-thriving area east of Laredo known as the Mirando Valley, doesn't believe cultivation will solve the peyoteros' problems.

"Even if we buy the land, we don't have control of peyote because God put it here," he says. "We don't know how it grows, how it multiplies. God will give us what we need, and that's it. He's the one who makes the rain. He's the one who makes the peyote."

Johnson says that the tipping point for the peyoteros was the mid-1970s. As ranchers struck oil and gas, seemingly worthless South Texas scrubland became expensive. Many peyoteros found more lucrative work in the oil fields. Others were getting old and retiring. Stringent requirements for a peyote license, which include a letter of recommendation from the local sheriff, stopped a lot of young people from becoming peyoteros.

Johnson had returned from the Vietnam War and wasn't sure he wanted to continue the family tradition. He quit selling for a while in 1976. "We were selling peyote and making a profit, but I had to make sure I was doing the right thing for my family," Johnson says. "In the late 1970s, there were so many drugs on the market we had never seen before—angel dust, PCP, reds, yellows, blues. Then, the DEA classified peyote as a Schedule I substance. There were a lot of landowners who started to think peyote was a dangerous drug."

Johnson, a 60-year-old with a white mustache who looks like a well-tanned Wilford Brimley, wasn't sure he wanted to be associated with a drug most people thought was harmful and addictive.

Write Your Comment show comments (6)

  1. I would like to express my support for the ranchers to continue to fence their land and destroy the peyote plant. The main threat to true native American culture is this evil thing. The only people that should be eating peyote are the people that live by it and can access it in the locality. For all other tribes, access, use and possession of peyote should be permanently banned. Not all tribes embrace peyote and as an Ojibwe Indian, it is forbidden in our tribe. Anyone that says otherwise is a liar. The Crees of Montana are ardent followers of the Native American Church. They are not legally descendants of a federally recognized tribe, so therefore, their use of this product is ILLEGAL!!! Any peyotero that is caught supplying these people can face prosecution. Please ranchers, help save the authentic cultures of Native America and destroy the peyote plant when you see it, deny access to peyoteros, its your Constitutional right of liberty and privacy over your property and eradicate this menace from American society. I am a traditional, drug free Native American. PLEASE STOP THE PEYOTE DRUG TRADE TO NORTHERN TRIBES, THIS IS NOT OUR ORIGINAL CULTURE.

    Comment by M GOPHER — February 14, 2008 @ 11:25PM

  2. I disagree "Ojibway", I am of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma & believe that peyote should continue to be used. It's been here for thounsands of years, & yes not all tribes used it so why don't you leave it alone & let the rest of the nations take part in it. You don't speak for all the Natives!

    Comment by Emarthle — February 15, 2008 @ 10:34AM

  3. TO Ojibewa, How can you claim to be a tradtional Native American, when you advocate for and approve of the eradication of peyote? One the beliefs, I as a proud Chippewa-Cree,Sioux-Assinoboine woman was taught, was to protect and respect the Mother Earth. That the Creator placed us on this earth to care and protect her, which also include all the plants and animals. For you to support and advocate that Peyote be eradicated is Wrong. I fully support your right to your beliefs. However, you DO NOT have the right to force your beliefs on myself or others. Whether or not you choose to believe that Peyote is a medicine and a blessing, is your choice and right. I, however, also have the same right and choice to believe otherwise. I have seen the blessing of Peyote. I have seen the wonderful blessings that come from using this medicine. Another thing, for you to "claim" that the Cree's from Montana are not members of a federally fecognized tribe. YOU ARE WRONG! before you try and tell people how they should believe, find out what being a traditional native means.
    To the ranchers. For you to fence and distroy Peyote is also wrong. I hope and pray, that you will never have anyone, bar you from your path, to the creator. That you will, never be persecuted, for you beliefs.
    How sad that we as a country will send our Men and Woman to die, in other countries,so that they can have the rights and freedoms that we supposedly do. That we will go to war so they get the right to choose however they want. when we won't stand up or speak out and protect the rights of the Native Americans who believe in using Peyote as a medicine. I thought that one of the founding principles of this country was the right to choose and believe the way you want and not be barred or persecuted for those beliefs. Wasn't that the reason given for the extrimination of millions of Native American people? How can we teach our young childern that each and every day? Yet, not protect members or followers of the Native American Church right to worship and believe in using Peyote?
    I hope and pray that the creator will open your eyes and your hearts, so that you would see the blessings he gives us in the plants he created for us to use. That the Creator will allow you to see that even though we may follow diffent paths to reach him. None of those ways are wrong, if we all end up in the same place in the end, its just we chose to take a different road, and he loves us regardless.
    Thank you for allowing me to express my thought and views on this matter, I hope it gives you a glimpse into seeing why protecting Peyote and the rights of others to believe the way they choose is important.

    Comment by Cheyenne — February 17, 2008 @ 03:53AM

  4. As the great French explorer and writer said after his trips to the United States in the 1830s with respect to the American Indian: Two cultures collided, the inferior culture lost. Enough with this stupid romanticization of the natural state of the American Indian. Worshipping nature a la Darwin is asinine. Nature is cruel, it kills the young, weak, and infirm. We as human beings stand outside nature in a sense. It is a huge farce that the Indians were "at one" with the environment. They were a tough and formidable foe, we respect them for that, but they lost. Let's quit playing the "noble savage" victim game and while we're at it, ditch La Raza and their delusions as well.

    Comment by Doug White Eye — February 18, 2008 @ 06:58AM

  5. As the great French explorer and writer De Tocqueville said after his trips to the United States in the 1830s with respect to the American Indian: Two cultures collided, the inferior culture lost. Enough with this stupid romanticization of the natural state of the American Indian. Peyote will make you crazy. Worshipping nature is hip now, but asinine. Nature is cruel, it kills the young, weak, and infirm, civilized human beings do not. We as human beings stand outside nature in a sense. It is a huge farce that the Indians were "at one" with the environment. They were a tough and formidable foe, and we respect them for that, but they lost. Let's quit playing the "noble savage" victim game and while we're at it, ditch La Raza and their delusions as well.

    Comment by Doug White Eye — February 18, 2008 @ 07:00AM

  6. In response to White Eyes: Being a life time traditionalist, I reject Christianity as superior to my culture. Christianity is what brought the scourge of peyote---as you can ask any peyote user, they believe in Jesus, just like you. Your racism is evident in your assumption that the inferior culture lost....Bear in mind the Vatican and organized Christian institutions have been and continue to be supported by military institutions and this has been the church-state modus operandi for centuries--it is the foundation of manifest destiny and the pillage and plunder of indigenous societies, wealth and culture. Native people are not vanquished people BUT FOR a constitutional government that barred African Americans the right to vote for almost 100 years after its founding, for women even longer, and citizenship to native people until 1924. One can hardly call that a true democracy. The doors to democracy were only opened after the plunder had been had.

    As for the Peyote followers: The Native American Church should be held to liability as to the long term effects of peyote. What scientific evidence exists that this is a safe drug to use? I only agree with White Eyes in that peyote will destroy a person's mental health. I have seen this happen first hand, it is as destructive and even more pervasively harmful to native people than the introduction of alcohol. Peyote is not aboriginal to most if not all northern tribes and its use should be banned.

    Comment by M Gopher — March 4, 2008 @ 06:36AM

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