"The Native American Church is a beautiful, humble way of life, and it is protected by federal law under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. As federally recognized Indigenous First Nations people of the United States, we are protected under federal law to utilize this holy, sacred sacrament: peyote. We exercise that right through singing, praying, and sitting up all night."

We have been utilizing this sacrament as Indigenous people since time immemorial. While scientists claim to have found evidence of this medicine and ceremonial settings in archaeological records dating back over 20,000 years on the North American continent, our people have our own histories. Our stories tell us that peyote has been here with us since the beginning. It helped bring us this far in life, from those ancient times all the way up to today. Its divine nature is healing. We are one with it, and it is one with us.

Every single tribe has its own way of addressing this holy sacrament. We have our own traditional names for this medicine, and various tribes have unique ways of speaking to it, interpreting it, and understanding it. But overall, we love, respect, and honor it in a beautifully good way. We strive to live our lives in accordance with its teachings — doing our best to remain drug- and alcohol-free, and keeping our minds, bodies, and spirits as clean as we possibly can.

It is not something we play around with or take lightly; it is the backbone of many families throughout Indian Country. It has helped us through so much, and it will continue to help us and be with us. We do our best to protect it, advocate for it, and promote it in a good light because of the truth of what we know about it. Some people may have negative things to say, but we pray for those relatives, too — that this medicine might bless them and their families as well.

The songs go hand-in-hand with the peyote medicine fireplace. This medicine works alongside a sacred fire inside the tipi, resting upon the earth with cedar, sweetgrass, and water. Through the fire, the air, the stars, Mother Earth, the vegetation, the animals, the holy sacred instruments and all of creation under the cosmos — we are all one.

NAC songs don't have titles — they never have. I've never heard my elders or relatives give a name to the songs they sing. A song is a song. It carries what it carries.

These are catalogued the way they came to me — in order, in time, as they were composed. More volumes are coming. The songs keep coming. They always have.