Rediscovering Peyote at the Turn of the 20th Century

Peyote got the attention of Spanish ecclesiastical authorities in the 16^th century, was banned by the Spanish Inquisition in 1620, and was the subject of at least 80 Inquisitional trials. And then, much like the colonial state, peyote seemed to disappear. While the cactus continued to circulate in herbal markets, and doctors in some parts of the country used peyote as a part of their pharmacopoeia, until the end of the 19^th century one can find no trace of peyote in the public record. Only in the 1890s did peyote reappear, and this time in three settings. Peyotists come to light in the work of Carl Lumholtz, whose Mexico desconocido served as the final authority on peyotism in Mexico until the 1950s. North of the border, James Mooney also began a long engagement with peyotists. And for a brief moment at Mexico’s National University a researchers undertook an intensive investigation into the purported medicinal benefits of the cactus.

These interventions seemed a far cry from the hysteria of the Inquisition, but it was not long before peyote raised new anxieties. Peyote was outlawed in Mexico and the US, explained as a source of indigenous degeneration. The question that confronts this paper concerns the nature of this shift. Was there an opportunity for a re-imagining of peyote at the turn of the 20^th century, or did the logics that underpinned the colonial state’s project get simply re-produced as the Mexican state consolidated its approach to biopower in the early 20^th century? Moreover, did the celebratory tones in both Mooney and Lumholtz belie a similar differentiating practice, one that reinforced a larger desire to contain and control indigeneity through the designation of peyote as dangerous?