scholarly journals The Legality of the Religious Use of Peyote by the Native American Church: A Commentary on the Free Exercise, Equal Protection, and Establishment Issues Raised by the Peyote Way Church of God Case

1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 475
Author(s):  
John Thomas Bannon
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Equal Protection ◽  
Church Of God ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Native American Church

Native American Religions in the Twentieth Century

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Tarango
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Native American ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Traditionally White ◽  
American Indian Movement ◽  
Native American Church ◽  
Native American Religions ◽  
Indian New Deal ◽  
Sacred Land

This chapter discusses Native American religions in the twentieth century and major figures and themes including: the Pueblo Dance Controversy, the Indian New Deal, John Collier and the restructuring of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Native American Church, Native American Pentecostalism, the American Indian Movement, the work of Vine Deloria Jr., the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, issues surrounding sacred land, and the court case of Employment Division v. Smith. In recent years, the study of native religions shifted from being understood in white “Western” terms to something now studied from the native point of view. Scholarship has shifted toward privileging native understandings of sovereignty, political engagement, sexuality, space, land, time, and religious belief. Despite the fact that their religious freedoms were rarely protected, native peoples found new ways to defend against white encroachment on their sacred traditions and made their voices heard within traditionally white institutions of power.

scholarly journals The Cactus and the Anthropologist: The Evolution of Cultural Expertise on the Entheogenic Use of Peyote in the United States

Laws ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Aurelien Bouayad
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
The United States ◽  
Native American Church ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
American Legal System ◽  
Cultural Experts

This paper explores the complex evolution of the role anthropologists have played as cultural experts in the regulation of the entheogenic use of the peyote cactus throughout the 20th century. As experts of the “peyote cult”, anthropologists provided testimonies and cultural expertise in the regulatory debates in American legislative and judiciary arenas in order to counterbalance the demonization and prohibition of the medicinal and sacramental use of peyote by Native Americans through state and federal legislations. In the meantime, anthropologists have encouraged Peyotists to form a pan-tribal religious institution as a way to secure legal protection of their practice; in 1918, the Native American Church (NAC) was incorporated in Oklahoma, with its articles explicitly referring to the sacramental use of peyote. Operating as cultural experts, anthropologists have therefore assisted jurists in their understanding of the cultural and religious significance of peyote, and have at the same time counseled Native Americans in their interaction with the legal system and in the formatting of their claims in appropriate legal terms. This complex legal controversy therefore provides ample material for a general exploration of the use, evolution, and impact of cultural expertise in the American legal system, and of the various forms this expertise can take, thereby contributing to the contemporary efforts at surveying and theorizing cultural expertise. Through an historical and descriptive approach, the analysis notably demonstrates that the role of anthropologists as cultural experts has been marked by a practical and substantive evolution throughout the 20th century, and should therefore not be restrictively understood in relation to expert witnessing before courts. Rather, this paper underlines the transformative and multifaceted nature of cultural expertise, and highlights the problematic duality of the position that the two “generations” of anthropologists involved in this controversy have experienced, navigating between a supposedly impartial position as experts, and an arguably biased engagement as advocates for Native American religious rights.

scholarly journals Affirmative Action And The “Individual” Right To Equal Protection

2009 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Farrell
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Equal Protection ◽  
Action Program ◽  
Class Membership ◽  
Equal Protection Clause ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

When the Supreme Court, or one its Justices, writes an opinion invalidating a race-conscious affirmative action program, it is commonplace for the opinion to note that the rights protected by the Equal Protection Clause are “individual” or “personal,” and thus require the state to treat every person as an individual, not simply as a member of a class. This assertion about the nature of equal protection rights is assumed to be inconsistent with the classbased underpinning of affirmative action programs, and thus determinative of their invalidation. The problem with affirmative action programs, under this view, is that they ignore the individual characteristics of the persons affected and instead assign different treatment to persons based on their membership in a class. If, for example, the University of California Medical School at Davis assigns a certain number of seats in its entering class to black, Chicano, Asian, and Native-American applicants,2 it has made overly broad assumptions about the characteristics of the members of those classes, and then assigned a benefit on the basis of class membership without regard to individual merit or accomplishment.

scholarly journals Reflexiones sobre la expansión y legalidad del campo peyotero en México

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Mauricio Genet Guzmán ◽  
Beatriz Labate
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Drug Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Native American Church ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
Mexican Government

This paper presents a reflection on the implications of the use and trade of peyote (Lophophora williamsii) and the challenges associated with its conservation in a religious and binational (Mexico and the United States) context. Our main focus is on a controversy raised by the Native American Church before the Mexican government, via an application submitted to the General Directorate of Religious Associations of the Secretariat of the Interior, demanding the registration of organizations that use the cactus in their rituals. This case is unique because it represents a paradigmatic illustration of the drug policy and religious rights frameworks currently in place in Mexico.

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