Red Hoop Talk EP 74: PEYOTE & RELIGIOUS “FREEDOM” with CHRISTINE McCLEAVE & DAWN DAVIS

​The American Indian Religious Freedom Act as amended, protects citizens of federally-recognized Native Nations and members of the Native American Church in the use, possession, and transportation of Peyote for ceremonial purposes. Peyote use is the only legally secured religious practice for Native Americans, though the Native American Church is a more recent religion with elements based on Christianity. There are many complex issues surrounding this pan-Indian religion, its relationship to Christianity, cultural appropriation, the impacts of decriminalization of the plant, and retraumatization to Native Americans as part of the Psychedelic Renaissance. ​Our guest experts are CHRISTINE DIINDIINSI McCLEAVE is a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe Nation and DAWN D. DAVIS is Newe and a citizen of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes.

For the past 10 years, Christine has been working in Indian Country at the national level. Most recently as the former CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition where she advocated for truth, justice, and healing for the ongoing trauma from the genocidal policy of U.S. Indian Boarding Schools. She conducted her master’s thesis on the spectrum of spiritual practices between traditional Native American spirituality and Christianity and Indian Activism today. Christine is currently an independent consultant (www.christinemccleave.com) and a doctoral student pursuing her Ph.D. in Indigenous Studies at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her latest research will be focused on healing historical trauma with traditional psychedelic plant medicines through an Indigenous framework.

​Dawn resides on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho with her family. Dawn is the CEO of NativeSci LLC (http://nativesci.com/), co-editor of the Journal of Native Sciences, and a founding member of Source Research Foundation. As an Indigenous researcher and educator with a Ph.D. in natural and water resources, she has researched Peyote (Lophophora williamsii), its decline, and conservation efforts since 2006. Dawn has shared her research among Indigenous, academic, ethnobotanical, and psychedelic audiences nationally and internationally.

Written by 92.9 The Torch