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For decades, Zulema “Julie” Morales has harvested peyote in Rio Grande City, along the southern border in Texas, the only region in the U.S. where it grows in the wild.
Morales recalled that during her childhood she would often ride in a pickup truck with her father and siblings along unpaved, dusty roads in search of peyote. “We’d go bumping, and by the time we got home, my mother would say, ‘Ay, your lashes are full of dirt,’ ” Morales added.
When her father, Mauro, died in 2022, Morales took over the business. Now, she balances roles that span traditional Western and Indigenous medical practices. During the day, she cares for patients as a full-time nurse at Starr County Nursing and Transitional Care. When she returns home, she cleans, dries and prepares peyote buttons as medicine for Native American Church (NAC) members.
Morales is a peyotera. She is one of just three people licensed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to sell peyote to NAC members, the only people in the U.S. who can legally use it.
Native Americans have consumed peyote for centuries as a sacramental medicine, a right they fought lawmakers to preserve after the U.S. government criminalized it. In 1994, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was amended, which made an exemption for NAC members to use peyote for religious purposes.
Keeping this tradition alive is a responsibility Morales doesn’t take lightly. “They've been brought up with this medicine as part of their way of life and their religion. It's very sacred for the natives,” she explained.
Morales employs a team of workers, including family members. On the days they pick peyote, she wakes up at 5 a.m. to make breakfast tacos for the team before they hit the road.
She said it was important to get an early start, because “when the sun is rising, you can see.”
Peyote doesn't grow in open fields, she explained. It blends into the dirt, grows under brush, alongside trees and taller cacti, where it has protection from harsh sunlight.
While searching, Morales’ pickers typically find peyote about the size of a quarter, which she estimates are three to five years old. Occasionally, they discover ones about the size of a fist. These larger ones, she said, take decades to grow.
Morales’ team harvests peyote by slicing the crowns, the top portion where the primary psychoactive compound, mescaline, is concentrated. But they always leave the root in the ground to give the plants a chance to regrow.
Many NAC members send Morales their used medicine, which contains seeds, so she can scatter them in places where she’s picked, supporting peyote’s regeneration.
Decline and preservation efforts
While the business remains a family affair, it is changing. Morales remembered her father would harvest between 1,000 to 2,000 peyote buttons per day. Now, she said she’s lucky if they find 300 or 500 buttons in a day.
Morales attributed peyote’s decline primarily to land development. More than 93% of Texas land is privately owned. Companies moving to the region often plow the land before installing oil rigs, solar panels, wind turbines, and other infrastructure. When Morales learns about development projects, she asks owners for permission to access their land before the plows do so she can try to save the medicine.
With more than 400,000 NAC members, Morales finds it difficult to keep up with demand. From November through January, she can’t pick peyote. That’s deer hunting season, when owners rent their land to hunters for a premium.
Beyond land issues, poachers have exacerbated shortages. “They take it with a root, which means it’s not going to grow within the natural habitat,” Morales added. “They take it and try to get their seeds and plant it somewhere else, like greenhouses.”
Recently, there have been efforts to preserve peyote.
In 2017, the National Council of Native American Churches, with support from the Riverstyx Foundation, purchased 605 acres of land in Hebbronville, part of what is known as the Peyote Gardens, to preserve the species.
The NAC of North America has also urged Congress to prevent further habitat destruction, and it lobbied lawmakers to exclude peyote from bills that would decriminalize the possession of a variety of psychedelics — to specifically discourage peyote poaching.
On days when Morales struggles to find peyote, she channels her dad’s advice. “He would always tell us, 'if you can't find any medicine, go sing for it and it will come out.' And we would go ‘Venadito, venadito, enseñame, dónde está el peyotito?' It means 'little deer, little deer, show me where the peyote is.' ”
Honoring a family legacy
In February, the NAC of North America moved its annual Mid-Year Meeting, typically held in Laredo, to Rio Grande City.
The organization hosted a memorial service in honor of Morales’ father, Mauro, and late brother, Rudy. And for decades, NAC members have made pilgrimages from throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico to visit the Morales’ family ranch and peyote gardens in Rio Grande City, where they pray for their ancestors and for the medicine itself.
“I feel proud and happy that I am able to offer this for them when they come throughout the years, and to be part of their way of life,” Morales explained.
Now the family matriarch, her endeavors were recognized in November as part of an exhibit at the International Museum of Art & Science in McAllen.
Artist Uriel Landeros, known as “Conquista,” painted colorful graffiti-style portraits, including one 10-feet tall of Morales surrounded by peyote, deer and imagery from Western and Indigenous medicine.
Morales’ portrait was displayed among those of other living leaders — including José Hernández, a Mexican American NASA astronaut — who are making important contributions today. The exhibit, “Rompiendo el cielo,” which means "breaking the sky," celebrated their achievements, including ways they are preserving the history and the practices of Indigenous communities.
