Carlos Castaneda and the fate of indigenous peoples

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s The Teachings of Don Juan introduced thousands of psychedelically-inclined readers to its mysterious sage, the deserts of Mexico were subsequently inundated with droves of ?Don Juan seekers? determined to find, and be enlightened by, the elusive sorcerer. Anthropologist Jane Holden Kelley reports the harassment of Pascuan Yaquis during the 1970s by ?long-haired hippies? in search of Castaneda?s muse. Seizing an opporunity, the crafty villagers played along, divesting the deluded youths of money, booze, and cigarettes before they realized they had been duped.[11]

It was not the Yaquis, however, but the Huichols who bore the brunt of the hippie influx throughout the seventies. As Fikes explains, the Yaquis ?offer relatively little to guru-seekers? since they do not use psychedelics and are somewhat ?more acculturated? than the peyote-ingesting Huichols. He relates accounts of traditional Huichols ?harassed, jailed, shot at, and almost murdered by guru-seekers? and offers an anecdote depicting the attempted stabbing of his Huichol ?father? by a gringo peyote hunter. These incidents grew more infrequent with time, but the lasting impact of The Teachings on Native Americans, asserts Fikes, lies in the marketing of the Don Juan archetype.

New Age ?shamans? modeled on Castaneda?s sorcerer exist in abundance in today?s society. Offering travel packages to psychedelic meccas, these pseudo-shamans profit from the misappropriation of rituals and liturgical objects sacred to Native American religions. While some operations offer legitimate and conscientious experiences of traditional shamanism, others are little more than opportunistic scams. As Fikes contends, such shameless exploitation trivializes ?Huichol, Yaqui, or any Native American culture by masking or ignoring its true genius.? Furthermore, these profiteers increase the Western fascination with psychedelic drugs such as peyote, bringing unwanted government attention to authentic Native American practices.

A New York Times article from July 23, 1970 describes the plight of Oaxacan Indians suffering from the flood of American ?mushroom addicts? and the subsequent crackdown by Mexican authorities; once considered a ?great medicine,? the fungi are now contraband in Oaxaca.[12] In the United States, similar legislative measures currently threaten Native Americans' religious freedom. The Smith vs. Oregon decision of the Supreme Court, for instance, banned the ritual use of peyote among members of the Native American Church from 1990 until its repeal in 1993. Within a ?War on Drugs? political climate, the mystique engendered by Don Juan and his imitators represents a real and direct threat to the ?special rights? Native American cultures have been granted in American society.

Most troublingly, the fallout from nearly four decades of Castaneda-inspired drug tourism in Mexico now threatens to wipe out some indigenous shamanic cultures entirely. According to a recent National Public Radio report, the rampant, unsustainable harvesting of peyote by foreigners and drug traffickers from the desert surrounding Real de Catorce has placed the slow-growing cactus in danger of vanishing from the region. The area is held sacred by the Huichol who regularly pass through the north Mexican desert on shamanic pilgrimages. Once thriving in abundance along their route, the peyote cactus has become increasingly scarce, prompting the Indians to lobby the government for protection of the holy site. If the peyote disappears, so does the unique knowledge system of one of Mexico's most vital remaining tribal cultures.[13]