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In the Deserts of Texas, the Race Is on to Save Peyote from Extinction

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In the Deserts of Texas, the Race Is on to Save Peyote from Extinction 47 In the deserts of Texas, the race is on to save peyote from extinction. Words TESSA LOVE Photography PIA RIVEROLA Button Down 48 FLOWER VOLUME FIVE 49 The sun is just warming the winter chill out of the dry West Texas air when Dr. Martin Terry and I begin our ascent up the still-dark side of a rocky hillside, strewn with spindly shrubs, tawny grasses, and the occasional clutch of prick- ly pear. It’s early morning, two days after a snowstorm blew through this little corner of big-sky desert some 30 miles from the Mexican border, and every- thing seems to be taking its time to wake up. Except for Terry. An ethnobotanist and conservationist, Terry is bespectacled, white-haired, and stoop-shouldered, but he sails up the slope, carving a makeshift path by barreling through the thorned and barbed bushes, pausing to detail the sur- rounding flora. There’s the wax-producing plant that bees harvest and use to seal their hives shut, upsetting beekeepers. Or the grassy antisyphilitica, wishfully named by Spanish conquistadors. Or the corncob cactus, which looks like what it sounds like: a dried-up corncob, complete with tiny spiky clusters that cling to it like overgrown burrs. If you don’t live in the desert, it’s easy to forget that such mesmerizing and novel species call this arid and deceptively sparse landscape home. But that’s exactly why we’re here in the first place, scrambling to crest the peak where the brightening sun promises to illuminate an even more elusive form of flora, peppered across this ridge like stars: Lophophora williamsii. Peyote. Peyote, of course, needs no introduction. The unas- habitat in the U.S. It’s what led him in 2004 to found the Cac- suming bluish-green, button-like cactus is well-known as a tus Conservation Institute, which, despite its more compre- powerful psychedelic, capable of producing intense visions hensive title, is focused primarily on the preservation of the or journeys that are central to the religious practice of many psychedelic cactus. And it’s what led him to become the only Native Americans and other indigenous people. But these person in the country licensed by the DEA to cultivate peyote days, that sacred tradition, and the plant itself, are under for research purposes. It’s not just his passion, but his life’s threat. Against the backdrop of a complicated tangle of en- mission. And following him up this craggy ridge in a location vironmental, legal, and cultural settings, the past 20 years I’ve sworn to secrecy to protect, his enthusiasm for the plant have seen the United States’ peyote population drop by at is contagious. “Looking for peyote is like stargazing,” he tells least 30 percent, and it’s not regenerating fast enough to re- me. “Once you see one, suddenly they all come into view. And cover. Despite the best efforts of scientists, peyote could be they only show themselves to certain people.” on the path to extinction. Within a minute of reaching the top and turning our Terry is one of a handful of researchers trying to stop attention to the gray, graveled earth, I spot my first: it’s about this from happening. This is what led him to move to Alpine, the size of my palm, nearly perfectly round, and indeed some- Texas, on the edge of the 1,250 square miles in the Chihua- thing like a star. Then I see another and another, a constel- huan Desert that comprise the entirety of peyote’s natural lation crisscrossing this small mountain. But for how long? 50 FLOWER VOLUME FIVE 51 Though it’s not known for certain, archaeological also contains a hormone that stops the stem from sprout- emony where it came to me. I realized there was something For now, this involves education. She teaches tribal and historical threads suggest that peyote has been used by ing. When the button is removed, so is the hormone, and the happening with this plant,” she says. “And whether it was the members about peyote’s endangered status, helps them indigenous tribes in Mexico and the American Southwest for cone wakes up, shooting out baby buttons that will eventually plant or, as I’ve now come to realize, the habitat, something understand its biology, and encourages them to self-regu- anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 years. But in the last cen- lay down their own roots and begin the process again. was causing it to become endangered.” late when buying from peyoteros—don’t buy the immature tury, peyote’s use swept across the U.S., largely due to the Peyote growth is a slow process. A button two inches Now a doctoral candidate at the University of Idaho buttons and only take what you need. But she’s also recently rise of the Native American Church (NAC), a religion that wide can take five years to grow. It can take that long to pro- where she studies peyote conservation, Davis has spent the become a more staunch activist. When the organization De- weaves together elements of Christianity and Native rituals duce its first flower, too, which is its only other chance for past 14 years researching the issue, working with Native criminalize Oakland added peyote to its list of plant medi- and centers on the sacramental use of peyote. The NAC is propagation. Mature peyote produce pink-petaled blooms Americans, peyoteros, landowners, and policy-makers to cines that they wanted the city of Oakland to decriminalize, also known as Peyotism and Peyote Religion. In the ’60s and that send seeds to float and tumble precariously through the try to bring this Anthropocene crisis to light. “It’s all human- Davis fought back. “Peyote has already been decriminalized ’70s, the rise of New Age and hippie culture also contributed arid air in hopes of finding a place in the earth to call their own. caused,” she says. More specifically: it’s caused by colonial- for use by Native American people,” she says. “By decriminal- to the plant’s popularity. But out here, the chance of a peyote seed finding an amenable ism. “There’s been a disconnection between the users and izing peyote, it’s giving the false impression that it’s now legal The NAC—itself a remnant of the mostly failed colo- resting place is not guaranteed. “If you look at the substrate the plant for some time,” she says. “Even though the dealers for white people to partake in it. And that’s not true.” When nialist attempt to convert indigenous people to Christianity we’re standing on, there’s only so many places a plant can have provided a great service, they've also caused a huge dis- I ask if that means she’s against white people taking peyote —rose in prominence in the wake of the forced migration of grow,” Terry tells me atop the rocky limestone ridge. service to peyotists.” at all, she says simply, “I am.” eastern Native American tribes from their ancestral lands to These are important things to know when you’re har- In Texas, Terry told me that the first time he showed Like peyote itself, Davis often finds herself straddling territories west of the Mississippi River in the late 19th century. vesting peyote. If you take the buttons too young or clear a the peyote gardens to a group of Dené people—a First Nations the dissonant worlds of the spiritual, the scientific, and the Here they were introduced to western tribal traditions, includ- peyote garden bare, there are no seeds left to replenish it. tribe that has been dispersed throughout North America, bureaucratic, speaking for all sides as a translator between ing the use of peyote. With an estimated 250,000 members, Couple that with the removal of roots and the garden goes including in the Southwest—they wept. They hadn’t seen pey- realms—which is rarely comfortable and isn’t always effec- the NAC is now the most widespread religion among Native from bare to barren with no chance of resurrection. Peyoteros ote growing in the wild since their grandparents brought them tive. The scars of colonialism still run deep, and questions Americans in the United States. (The NAC remains contro- and poachers alike have been inadvertently making these mis- to the fields decades earlier. Though her grandfather used about who has the right to claim expertise and speak on be- versial among some Native American tribes who question takes for decades. To make matters worse, nearly 100 percent to travel to Texas to harvest the peyote himself, even Davis half of something so contentious remain open for debate. whether the religion has usurped tradition and reinforced of peyote’s natural habitat in the U.S. is privately owned, and didn’t see it in its natural habitat until she started fighting to Both Davis and Terry have found themselves in situations stereotypes about indigenous people.) much of it has been destroyed by root-plowing, a process that save it. “If we want the plant to survive,” she says, “we need where their expertise was called into question based on long- Despite ongoing efforts by the U.S. government to prepares land for cattle-ranching and that some landowners to recreate and reestablish that connection.” standing tensions between Native Americans and white stamp out peyote rituals, its use among the Native popula- have done purely to rid their property of peyote. To harvest Americans. On top of that, they’ve both also come up against tion was largely unregulated until the ’60s, and most of those the remaining shrinking growth, distributors strike agree- A scientist at heart, Terry’s fascination with saving the common Native belief system that Davis describes as, “if who used it would harvest it themselves.
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