Moved by Another Life: Altered Sentience and Historical Poiesis in the Peyote Craze
American Literature September 1, 2023 Sylvie Boulette
The article examines how peyote, an entheogen that alters mood and perception, spread among Native peoples under colonial occupation around the turn of the twentieth century, tracing its movement through the episodic narration of Sam Blowsnake's autobiography. Settler governance viewed the Peyote movement as a "craze" and intensified efforts to constrain intoxication through Native bodies. Government agents, reformers, and sensationalist press campaigned against "peyote worship" by exploiting revulsion and fascination to target it as a "mind poison" for prohibition. Beneath projected images of psychotoxicity and sexual disorder, the article argues, a struggle over property and personhood under the settler-capitalist regime of allotment occurred. In peyote meetings, altered sentience could unbind the reproduction of property-bearing personhood, composing a historical moment of refusal against allotment's drives for individuation.