Remembrance and Perseverance in History of the Native American Church in Oklahoma

Abstract

In this thesis, I examine the concepts of Native sovereignty, authenticity, (invented) tradition, indigeneity, and cultural heritage as these are applied to the context of the Native American Church (NAC, Peyotism, or the peyote religion) in Oklahoma, and in particular, to the context of the NAC centennial commemoration. These are the themes that have been devoted much attention in a variety of academic studies, including but not limited to anthropology, Native/indigenous/ethnic studies, folklore and performance studies, and law. Similarly, the studies of the peyote religion are abundant as well. There are always, however, some gaps. In particular, the studies of Native sovereignties, cultural heritage, and tradition tend to overlook Peyotism. The overwhelming majority of the existing studies of the peyote religion, in turn, unfortunately ignore these important discussions, instead focusing on the (ethno)history of Peyotism, its development and spread among different tribes, and description and comparative analysis of the variety of local forms of Peyotism. The main goal of this research is thus to connect the studies of Peyotism with the major discussions in the fields of anthropology and indigenous studies about sovereignty, indigeneity, tradition, and cultural heritage. Understanding the ways these phenomena are connected and, in particular, how the peyote religion, as a case study, fits in, will possibly contribute to the building of more integrated knowledge of social movements as such. Furthermore, it has a potential to supplement the aforementioned major discussions as well. The main ideas of the present work are reassessment of the concept of history, spatiality (localization and delocalization) of indigenous sovereignties, and using indigenous perspectives on time to expand cultural heritage theory.