Medicine Ceremony

It was around 7pm by the time we got on the road and our destination was about 3 hours away. The two friends that I was going with had both participated in a medicine ceremony before but this was going to be my first. We drove most of the way without a hitch but about an hour before our destination we hit heavy snow fall on the freeway and had to greatly reduce our speed making us even more late than we already were but at the same time providing a good excuse for our tardiness. We also had a hard time finding our destination, some 10 miles into the reservation land, as snow had made it hard to recognize the visual landmarks my two friends were looking for.

We finally got there perhaps two hours late but this was going to be an all night ceremony and after asking the medicine man's son we were told it was OK for us to join the ceremony as long as we wait by the Teepee for the drumming round to finish and then ask for the permission to enter.

We waited outside for a few short minutes in a beautiful 3 inch blanket of snow by the warm glow of the Teepee, it was a nice scene, and soon they let us inside and the people inside made room for us by rearranging their seating. My two friends sat together on one side and I sat alone on another side. The Teepee was full, thirty something people sitting knee to knee in a circle with a nice hearty fire burning in the middle.

Soon as we sat on our pillows, they passed us a tobacco pouch; we were to roll tobacco in what were square cuts of corn husk. I was told to only puff it and not inhale, and do it while sending prayers. The ceremony was a healing ceremony for an old and well respected medicine man, perhaps in his sixties, whom was suffering from some ailment. I puffed the smoke I hade made and the tobacco had a really good taste to it, nothing awful like store-bought cigarettes but rather sweet and tasty like the tobacco served with hookahs.

After the tobacco they passed on a metal bowl of the mashed peyote, the sacred cactus, or medicine as they called it. I was told to eat as much as I saw fit, so I had five spoons. The taste was slightly bitter, but nothing bad, it has a strong smell to it and it numbed my mouth like how mint or ginger does. Later they brought a metal bucket of peyote tea and once again one was supposed to drink as much as one seemed fit, I had two small cups, the taste was even less bitter. And lastly they passed a metal bowl that contained the real thing, fresh peyote cactus buttons. The buttons were the size of a person's big toe, or more or less size of a walnut, and they were chewy like cucumber, I had a couple of them.

The drumming resumed after that, and through the whole night, there would be half hour rounds of drumming and chanting, and half hour segments of the elders and relatives talking and praying for the man with the ailment. There were strong currents of wind outside making it difficult for the smoke to escape the open hatch on the top of the Teepee hence baring the heat and the smoke was challenging at some points through the night. There were 3 people in charge of the fire whom would bring in logs to burn, every time they'd open the door to get more wood a cool breeze would come in and would refresh and rejuvenate.

Having never digested anything like it before, my stomach was wrestling in turmoil the whole night and that's when I felt glad that I had fasted the 12 hour period prior to the ceremony. Between the churning stomach, enduring heat and massive amount of smoke while sitting for 12 hours, if there was one thing that I learnt that night was respect and patience. Respect for the medicine and for the people under that roof whom accepted having me there amongst them with an open heart, and patience for the nagging voice in my head asking "I wonder when the ceremony ends" to subside.

In the morning, around 10am, we were treated with a small yet great tasting breakfast of corn gruel, fruits and semi-dry shredded meat, and then later at noon there was a huge feast for lunch. And purpose of writing this? As an Iranian I feel very lucky and privileged for having experienced this event, I got to experience something that not many people of my creed gets a chance to, and that it was all worth it.