The Webb County Heritage Foundation will host a book-signing for Stacy B. Schaefer, author of Amada’s Blessings from the Peyote Gardens of South Texas, on Wednesday, April 27 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Villa Antigua Border Heritage Museum, 810 Zaragoza St. in Laredo. A presentation on the book by Dr. Schaefer will take place at 7 p.m.
Amada Cardenas, a Mexican-American woman from Los Ojuelos and Mirando City in South Texas, played a pivotal role in the little-known history of the peyote trade. She and her husband were the first federally licensed peyote dealers. They began harvesting and selling the sacramental plant to followers of the Native American Church (NAC) in the 1930s, and after her husband’s death, Mrs. Cardenas continued to befriend and help generations of NAC members until her death in 2005, just short of her 101st birthday. Author Stacey B. Schaefer, a close friend of Amada’s, spent 13 years doing fieldwork with this remarkable woman.
Books will be available for sale that evening.
For more information, please contact the Webb County Heritage Foundation at (956) 727-0977.
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Amada exiting tepee after a prayer meeting to honor her and her family. Courtesy of Stacy B. Schaefer.
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: Amada sitting on her front porch holding a pot of peyote, 1994. Courtesy of Stacy B. Schaefer.
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Amada standing with food for a prayer meeting on the tepee grounds of her property, February 1988. Courtesy of Linda Patchen.
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Peyote on Amada’s property where people have prayed and left offerings of coins and the remnants of a tobacco cigarettes smoked during prayer. Courtesy of Stacy B. Schaefer.
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Typical scene at Amada’s place during certain times of the year. Courtesy of Stacy B. Schaefer.
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Amada (right) and family in Rancho los Ojuelos, late 1910s. Courtesy of Claudio Cardenas Jr.
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Amada and Claudio Cardenas Sr. in December 1966. Courtesy of Claudio Cardenas Jr.