# Native American Church · The Canon · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow
Source: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/atlas/library/canon/native-american-church/ · The Congregation of Tomorrow · the Atlas · language: en
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The Canon · No. 108
Native American Church
Peyotism; the Peyote Road
1918 CE – present · Indigenous American · Living · United States, Canada, northern Mexico
VIII. POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY — 1945 – PRESENT
### How many
### Who began it
### What it is for
### What it worships
### What it holds
### What it does
### After death
### Its texts
### Its branches
### Of note
### Its timeline
- c.3700 BCE Peyote specimens from Shumla Cave, Texas — the oldest evidence of ritual use in North America.
- 1620 CE The Spanish Inquisition in Mexico bans peyote as diabolical.
- 1880s–1900s CE The ceremony spreads north across the Plains during the reservation period, at the same moment as the Ghost Dance and the suppression of the Sun Dance.
- 1890, 1918 CE Wounded Knee ends the Ghost Dance; the Native American Church incorporates in Oklahoma to secure First Amendment protection.
- 1918–1960s CE Repeated federal and state attempts at prohibition; the church survives them.
- 1978 CE American Indian Religious Freedom Act — a statement of policy without real enforcement power.
- 1990 CE Employment Division v. Smith. The US Supreme Court rules that Oregon may deny unemployment benefits to two men fired for sacramental peyote use, and in doing so sharply narrows free exercise protection for everyone. The decision provoked one of the broadest religious coalitions in American history.
- 1993 CE Congress responds with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed almost unanimously.
- 1994 CE The American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments specifically protect sacramental peyote use by members of federally recognised tribes.
- 2010s–present Peyote conservation becomes urgent. The cactus is slow-growing, its Texas habitat is shrinking, and demand from non-Native psychedelic tourism is a serious threat. The Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative has bought habitat land and asks non-Native seekers to use other plants.
### Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.
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