A small, spineless cactus native to Mexico that contains psychoactive compounds and has been used in Native American religious ceremonies.
From Nahuatl (Aztec) 'peyotl,' borrowed into Spanish and then English. The word traveled through colonial contact, preserving the indigenous name for a plant sacred to pre-Columbian cultures.
Peyote is one of the few Nahuatl words that colonizers didn't replace with European names—it survived because the plant was so alien to European experience that the indigenous word was the only one that made sense. Language preserved indigenous knowledge.
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