Arapaho Music - Peyote Songs

Peyote Songs

Peyote is a cactus found natively in Mexico. The buttons of the cactus, when chewed, act as a hallucinogen used in the ancient Aztec religion and continued by area tribes to the present. Peyote ceremonies spread north and east, reaching the Apache tribes in the 18th century and then spreading to most every tribe in North America, along with some Apache music and Plains-Pueblo characteristics. Peyote songs accompany the peyote ceremonies, and are mostly the same throughout the area of peyote's entheogenic use. These songs are most similar to traditional songs of the Plains area, but are characterzed by a rapid rhythm composed of two note values, transcribed as quarter and eighth notes. Vocables, or non-lexical syllables are used, as are cadential and closing formulas.