Native American Church - Native American Church Movement

Native American Church Movement

Quanah Parker was an influence in the creation of the Native American Church. The movement started in the 1880s, and was formally incorporated in 1918 in Oklahoma. Parker adopted the peyote religion after being gored by a bull in South Texas and surviving the attack with the help of peyote. Parker was given strong peyote tea by a Coahuiltecan Native American curandera who healed him and showed him the proper way to run peyote ceremonies. Therefore, the genesis of modern NAC ceremonies have deep roots in Mexican Native American culture and ritual, due to the natural locality of peyote and the dissemination by Parker to the Comanche and other plains tribes located in Indian Territory.

Parker taught that the sacred peyote medicine was the sacrament given to all peoples by the creator, and was to be used with water when taking communion in some Native American Church medicine ceremonies. Parker learned the "half-moon" style of the peyote ceremony from the Lipan Apache leader Chiwat. The Lipan Apache learned the ceremony from the Carrizo Coahuilteco tribe of Southern Texas (Peyote Religion by Omer Stewart). The "cross fire" ceremony (originally called the "Big Moon" ceremony) later evolved in Oklahoma (initially among the Kiowa Native American) due to influences introduced by John Wilson, a Caddo Native American who traveled extensively around the same time as Parker during the early days of the Native American Church movement.