Sacred Medicine: Use of Psychogenic Peyote within Ho-Chunk Healing
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64074/4c3h8f90Keywords:
Ho-Chunk, Native American Church, Peyote.Abstract
Current interest in the effectiveness of psychedelic-assisted recovery from trauma and other mental health conditions has been increasing. The Native American Church’s (NAC) use of the psychoactive plant peyote for over 100 years within sacred ritual has been a unique approach to religious expression and individual as well as collective healing, especially when addressing cultural trauma as well as individual experiences of PTSD, substance use, depression, and illness. Acceptance of the rite by some Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) at the turn of the 20th century is shown to be a form of both cultural resistance to settler colonial hegemony and a process of personal recovery from trauma.
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