PEYOTE MEETING, PRAYERS PREPARE CEREMONIAL GROUND

Southwest Intertribal Voice will host an open Native American Church
prayer ceremony Friday as part of its ongoing Native American Cultural
Preservation Project.

The space has already been cleared and plans drawn for the ceremonial
grounds, which will include a hogan, tipi area, kitchen and dining
room area six miles south of Cortez.

Douglas Wall of Towaoc will conduct the peyote meeting to offer
prayers for the development of a Native American ceremonial area to be
used by all tribes.

"The sweat lodge was the beginning of that and this is another step,"
said Southwest Intertribal Voice Director Art Neskahi. "It is
anticipated that various tribal groups will use the facilities for
different ceremonials throughout the year."

The sweat lodge, built earlier this summer, is open to people of all
races and is held at 5 p.m. the first and third Wednesday of each month.

Neskahi said the NAC prayer ceremony will begin around sundown, but
guests are welcome to come earlier in the evening of Friday, Sept. 3,
at 3900 U.S. Highway 160/491, between Cortez and Towaoc.

"There is no ceremonial ground in the area," he said. "Native people
own property and have it for their own family, but for community use
there is nothing."

Neskahi said that since federal law dictates peyote is only legal for
members of Native American tribal members, the ceremony for their
latest hogan and tipi is restricted to Native Americans - at least for
now. Later, Southwest Intertribal Voice plans to open the grounds for
secondary use by all for educational groups and wellness programs, he
said.

The Native American Church was officially incorporated in 1918, with
the help of a committee of Oklahoma federally recognized Native
American spiritual leaders and James Mooney, an anthropologist from
the Smithsonian Institution who wrote the NAC bylaws and testified in
their favor at congressional hearings.

According to The Legal Root, peyotists in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado
and Minnesota must be members of a bona fide religious organization,
like the Native American Church or the American Indian Church.

Neskahi said the different tribes and families he has contacted so far
have been in support of a community ceremonial ground.

"The Wall family say there is no community ceremonial ground in
Towaoc," he said. "A lot of the families are now living in government
housing, apartments or subdivisions that are closer together - on and
off the reservation - and some don't like the drums going all night."

Powwows took place on the approximately 20-acre site in the 1970s when
it was Neskahi's father's land and is already known by many Native
Americans for that purpose, he said.

Neskahi said he hopes the grounds will eventually be a setting for
cultural programs with teachings about the hogans and tipis.

"We're also trying to work with the wellness program out of Shiprock
(New Mexico)," he said.

For more information, call 739-7280.