SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT FOR SOME, CASH FOR OTHERS

Indian Religion Depends on South Texas for Peyote

MIRANDO CITY -- The South Texas sun beats on the landscape here like an
anvil, turkey vultures circle overhead, and the scent of distant gas wells
drifts across desolate plains of mesquite chaparral and sunburned cactus.
This is harsh country, but also a land, some say, that offers spiritual
enlightenment.

To nearly 250,000 members of the Native American Church, the tangled brush
land from Mirando City to the Rio Grande represents a kind of Eden: the
only place in the United States where peyote -- a sacrament in their eyes
- -- grows in the wild.

"This is sacred ground to a lot of Native American tribes," said Salvador
Johnson, one of only six people licensed by the state and federal
governments to harvest peyote legally. "To some, the land here is very holy
because it is home to the sacred peyote."

Peyote also grows in the Sierra del Madre Occidental in Mexico, but its
northern range in the United States extends to only a few miles north of
here. Thousands of American Indians make a pilgrimage each year to Mirando
City, 30 miles east of Laredo, in search of the bitter peyote buttons that
are eaten in religious ceremonies.

"The people around here have been trading peyote with the Indians for
hundreds of years, so this is nothing new to us," Johnson said. "We can't
cultivate it, that's against the law, but what God produces, we cut."

The cactus, ranging from the size of a quarter to several inches across,
contains the powerful hallucinogenic drug mescaline. Although peyote use is
restricted by state law and the federal Controlled Substances Act, there is
rarely an enforcement issue locally, Johnson said.

"Most law enforcement agencies around Mirando know why the Native Americans
come to South Texas, and they just leave them alone," he said. "It's part
of the Indian culture, and they understand that."

William Glaspy, now a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in
Washington, once was an agent in South Texas. He agreed with Johnson's
assessment.

"Federal law allows Native Americans to possess peyote for their personal
use in religious ceremonies," Glaspy said. "If we found someone in
possession of peyote in personal-use quantities and they could prove that
they were a Native American, we kicked them loose."

Johnson, 55, has harvested peyote (he pronounces the word "PAY-oat," in the
manner of American Indians) for more than 40 years, after learning the
trade from his father. At one time, 28 people were licensed in Texas to
collect the buttons, but time and the complexities of the business have
weeded out most harvesters, he said.

"This is not a business that is easy," said Johnson, who supplements his
income by building houses. "It's not like going to the grocery store."

The problems of a peyotero, he said, include the difficulty of finding
ranches willing to lease their lands for harvesting, errant deer rifles in
hunting season, rattlesnakes the size of logs and the continuing flux of
laws governing peyote.

Until last year, a buyer in Texas had to be at least 25 percent American
Indian or a member of a tribe to buy the cactus legally. But after state
officials received some requests involving unknown tribes, the Texas
Department of Public Safety began enforcing rules that permit only
federally recognized tribes to obtain peyote, said Tela Mange, a
spokeswoman for the agency.

The federal government recognizes only about 550 of at least 1,000 known
Indian tribes, Johnson said, and the law does not cover Canadian or Mexican
tribes.

"That's a shame, because those Canadians have been coming down here for
hundreds of years to pick or buy peyote," Johnson said. "We can't sell to
the Canadian tribes until the law gets worked out." Mexican tribes can
still obtain the cactus from peyoteros there, he said.

Five other peyote harvesters are in nearby communities like Roma and Rio
Grande City, but Johnson says he is probably the largest legal dealer in
Texas. "I move between 300,000 to 500,000 buttons a year out of a total
production for the state of about 2 million buttons," he said.

Peyote is always in demand, Johnson said, because it is central to some
tribes' religious ceremonies.

"To them, it is a way to get closer to their creator, to see what they call
'the clear light,' " he said. "It's just a portion of their religion, but
it is key to their rituals. Their mission is not to get high but to seek
enlightenment."

Several mornings a week, Johnson picks the peyote buttons from leased
ranchland, then dries them for days behind his home on wooden racks
enclosed in a locked wire-mesh cage, according to federal regulations.

On one day recently, his customers included a 74-year-old Navajo who had
driven all night from Shiprock, N.M., to Mirando City. After checking
documents that certified the man as an American Indian, Johnson collected a
bucketful of buds and poured them into a burlap bag. He issued a receipt
for the peyote and collected $125. "That's all there is to it," he said of
the transaction.

"The rest is up to him," he added, as the man drove away.