When does a tradition cease to be a tradition? Conversely, at what point in time and under what circumstances does a tradition begin? “Tradition” may be defined as “a statement, belief, or practice transmitted (especially orally) from one generation to another.”In general a “tradition” lasts a long time, but all traditions have to begin some time, somewhere. There are perhaps two ways of looking at Indian tribal art in general: traditional and generic. Traditionally, patterns and methods are handed down from parents to children but the particular stylistic expression may change over time with the introduction of new materials and changing concepts. In this sense there is no “traditional” Indian art. Generically, however, the altered or new form of the art is still part of the tradition. Once a tradition ceases to adapt to changing conditions it becomes a mere museum exhibit.

Traditional art among many North American Indian tribes was influenced both by the environment and the materials available to the artist. Among eastern and northern woodland Indians, floral designs copied from the natural sylvan surroundings prevailed. Among the plains Indians, geometric patterns reflected more accurately the generally flat terrain of the Great Plains. Before the arrival of the European traders, the woodland peoples in particular used dyed porcupine quills to weave intricate designs on tobacco pouches, headbands, and baskets. When traders introduced the small Italian-manufactured coloured glass beads, native artists quickly adapted to the new medim and continued to produce increasingly elaborate variations of the original decorative designs and religious symbolism. The use of commercial or manufactured products, such as glass beads, in place of porcupine quills or other strictly indigenous materials, does not thereby nullify the authenticity of the artistic production. Few people would argue that Indian beadwork is not authentic simply because it is made of imported European trade goods.

The authenticity of Huichol art on the market today becomes of some importance when called into question by no less an authority on the Indians of Mexico than the famous Mexican historian and anthropologist Fernando Benítez, who once described the popular Huichol yarn paintings as “…a falsification and an industry.” Benítez was referring to one of the original yarn paintings which depicted the spirits or souls of deceased persons as disembodied floating heads. He argued that the Huichol did not traditionally represent the dead in this manner and that the whole concept smacked rather of a Walt Disney fantasy than authentic Huichol religious art. The Huichol, of course, have an entirely different concept of the meaning and purpose of their art.

There is always more than one side to every story, and the history of Huichol art is no exception. In the 1960s, a Huichol by the name of Ramón Medina Silva was living in what was then the outskirts of Guadalajara. Padre Ernesto Loera Ochoa, a Franciscan priest sympathetic to Huichol culture, founded a Huichol museum at the Basilica of Zapopan in the northern part of Guadalajara. Father Ochoa bought Ramón’s artwork and encouraged the production and sale of Huichol art. Then Peter Furst, an American anthropologist, suggested to Ramón that he represent the traditions and beliefs of his people by pressing coloured yarn into a wax-covered baseboard to form designs. Beginning with the nearika (also spelled neali’ka or nierika), a traditional Huichol representation of the deified face of the sun, the Giver of Life, Ramón began to produce these yarn paintings. About twenty of them were put on display at the Casa de Cultura in Guadalajara. Soon copies and imitations of the originals began to appear. I have several in my own collection. In the intervening years, more Huichol artisans took up the challenge. The designs became increasingly elaborate and colourful while retaining much of their symbolic religious meaning.

Like their North American Indian counterparts, Huichol artisans began to use commercial or store-bought materials, when available, to produce their art. More recently, some Huichols have begun using beads in place of yarn. Moreover, the idea of yarn painting has expanded to include large beaded figures, such as jaguar heads, masks of the sun and moon, and various animal forms. Is this “authentic” Huichol art? Perhaps in the end it depends mainly on your point of view. When I was a boy, I made Sioux Indian war bonnets out of genuine eagle feathers using traditional materials in the traditional way just as a Sioux warrior would have done. In fact, I was a Sioux warrior, in my imagination at least. Some years later at the Calgary Stampede, I saw a real Sioux Indian with a war bonnet made of white turkey feathers with the fluffy down feathers died blue. I decided that if a real Indian chief could make do with turkey feathers instead of the traditional Golden Eagle feathers, I could do the same. So I made one exactly the same and still have it today. Are my war bonnets less “real” or “authentic” because I made them? I have seen Indians from woodland tribes which had no connection whatsoever with the plains Indians or the tradition of the feathered war bonnet wearing commercial-looking war bonnets at ceremonies, because that is what the whites expected of them. Is a work of art authentic or real because of the person who made it or because of the spirit with which it is imbued?

So too for Huichol art

Thanks to the Norwegian explorer and ethnographer, Carl Lumholtz, we know a great deal about traditional Huichol art. Lumholtz spent a total of five years between 1890 and 1898 in northwestern Mexico recording, among other things, the material culture of the Huichols, especially their traditional religious art forms. A complete survey of the symbolic and decorative art of the Huichol is beyond the scope of this present article. However, it included woven belts, sashes, side bags, nearikas (originally small square or round tablets, usually made of native wool), masks (for magical purposes or to frighten enemies in battle), arrows (as prayer offerings of different types), prayer bowls (to catch the blood of animal sacrifices), sombreros (different designs and purposes), and even sculpture (stone carvings in sacred caves and statues of the deity Nakawe), to name only a few items.

Originally most, if not all, Huichol designs had a particular religious or symbolic meaning. Plant and animal motifs are still common. The toto, a small five-petalled white flower that grows in the rainy season, is worked into embroidered patterns with different petals, according to the taste of the individual artist. Designs on sashes and belts imitate the variegated markings on the backs of real snakes, which the Huichol associate with rain, good crops, health, and long life. A scorpion pattern may be used as a charm against the bite of the venomous creature. Like their predecessors, the classical Aztecs, the Huichol still have an extensive pantheon of deities. Takutzi Nakawe, the ancient goddess, mother of all the gods, creatress and destroyer of all that exists, is represented in religious art, such as statues or yarn paintings. Today even the most decorative designs usually retain a certain religious or symbolic meaning.

One of my yarn paintings is by my friend Ignacio Montoya (“Nacho” — Huichols seldom divulge their Indian names to outsiders), a marakame (shaman-priest) from Las Guayabas in the Huichol Sierra. Here is how he interpreted it for me. In the centre is Tau, the deified face of the Sun, Giver of Life. Various symbolic designs are woven in around the edges of the sun’s rays, such as peyote flowers and buds, stalks of maize, lizard, deer, scorpion, and offerings of prayer arrows. Lizards with flowers on their backs eat the peyote flowers but they are also the guardians of the peyote, the Dios Hikuri, or Peyote God. At the bottom of the yarn painting reclines the human-like figure of Nakawe, the Goddess or Mistress of the Rain. The entire scene represents Wirikuta, where the Indians go each year to gather the peyote they use in their ceremonies. The symbols are traditional and represent the religious beliefs and customs of the Huichol. The design, however, is Nacho’s own artistic creation and is based on a dream he had about Wirikuta, the sacred land of peyote in the desert of San Luis Potosí.

Contrary to dire predictions, the Huichol are not dying out, at least not yet. Their evolving art forms bear witness to the resilient nature of the people. Every art form has its own intrinsic aesthetic value but may also represent a common thread of meaning running through all cultures. Traditional Huichol art reveals some of these connections and opens a window on the past which enables us to see not only where we have been but where we are now and may be in what we choose to call the future. Science notwithstanding, there is more than one “reality” in the world. What we commonly call mythology is really someone else’s religion. The Huichol belief in spirits and supernatural realms, which we tend to regard as mere superstition, may in fact reflect the true state of our inner minds. The Huichol are attempting to survive in today’s impersonal market economy by commercializing their art. But while money is important to the Huichol, as it is to most of us, it is the spirit of the artwork that ultimately counts, not its monetary value.

The post Huichol art: Religious or secular? appeared first on MexConnect.

Según cuentan las personas que viven en Teotitlán del Valle, Crecencio llegó a vivir a Teotitlán como un mozo* que ayudaba a criar ganado y animales domesticados en esta comunidad. Pasaron los años y el arduo trabajo de esa época obligaba a las personas a recolectar cáscaras de los árboles para curtir la piel. En aquellos tiempos este tipo de trabajo era muy valorado. Crecencio iba a recolectar estas cáscaras junto con el dueño de la casa que le dio trabajo y hospedaje.

Pasaron los años y un día Crecencio decidió ir solo a las montañas a buscar las cáscaras. Entonces algo extraño sucedió, porque antes de partir preparó un machete y un tipo de lanza de palo, como si se estuviera preparando para pelear contra alguien. Nadie entendía. ¿Por qué hizo esto?

Entonces Crecencio partió a las montañas, y ahí se enfrentó en una increíble batalla con un jaguar que quería atacar y comerlo. Este salvaje animal peleó con Crecencio, pero él con su habilidad logró matarlo, cortándole con el machete sus patas, su cabeza, y clavando la lanza que llevaba en el corazón de este feroz jaguar. Es así como logró derrotarlo y fue algo increíble.

En ese momento una misteriosa fuerza descendió sobre Crecencio dándole un poder sobrenatural, autoridad y la fuerza del viento, hasta convertirse en un águila. Al suceder tan extraño acontecimiento, llegaran más jaguares a este lugar, pero con gran respeto miraron a Crecencio, puesto que había matado al rey de estos animales. Crecencio tomó la cabeza de este jaguar y se la colocó en la cabeza como muestra de que el era el nuevo rey de estos animales.

Pasado todo esto, él regresó a Teotitlán, en el lugar donde trabajaba pero ya no era el mismo mozo que ellos habían conocido. Crecencio llegó con una autoridad de mando y no veían al Crecencio común que conocía el dueño del lugar donde vivía. Crecencio contó lo que había pasado en las montañas y todos se sorprendieron de esa gran lucha contra un animal feroz.

Poco después, Crecencio abandonó el lugar donde vivía, para estar en las montañas. En esa época el Gobierno de la Ciudad de México mandaba dinero al Gobierno de Oaxaca, el cual era transportado en mulas acompañadas por soldados para proteger la carga que llevaban con destino a la Ciudad de Oaxaca.

Al ver la pobreza de la gente que vivía en Teotitlán, Crecencio decidió ayudar a las personas robando a los soldados el dinero del Gobierno.

Con su nuevo poder de convertirse en águila, Crecencio vigilaba cuándo y a qué hora pasaban los soldados por algún lugar ya seleccionado, que condujera a la Ciudad de Oaxaca, para así poder hacer el robo donde se corriera el menor riesgo. Un día Crecencio y sus amigos al ver pasar estas mulas cerca de donde estaban decidieron atacar. Crecencio provocó un fuerte torbellino. El viento levantaba el polvo hasta no dejar ver nada. Entonces en ese momento sus amigos entraban en acción al tomar las mulas y esconderlas para robar el dinero que llevaban.

Después de pasar el torbellino, los soldados llenos de polvo y los ojos rojos, no sabían qué había pasado. ¿Por qué sus mulas no estaban? No había nada ni nadie alrededor. Ellos se quedaron sorprendidos de lo que había pasado. Se preguntaban dónde estaba el dinero que ellos tenían que entregar al Gobierno de Oaxaca, y lo más sorprendente para ellos es que no tenían a nadie a quien culpar de lo que pasó porque todo fue muy rápido y muy confuso.

Gracias a los poderes sobrenaturales de Crecencio, él logró robar a estos soldados de una manera mágica y siempre por sorpresa, sin dar ni una pista de quién o quiénes fueron. Así en repetidas ocasiones continuó con sus robos y el dinero que obtenía lo regalaba a las personas necesitadas de esta comunidad, y por supuesto con los cómplices que lo seguían para formar este grupo de ladrones de dinero.

Algo curioso es que cuando alguien ya no quería acompañar a Crecencio en este sucio trabajo tenía que morir y ser enterrado en las montañas, con un barril lleno de dinero de plata obtenido de sus múltiples robos. Sobre este barril ponían el cuerpo del compañero que habían matado, como muestra de agradecimiento a su cooperación en el trabajo. También servía para que el alma del difunto cuidara del botín. Nadie tenía derecho de ir a sacar el barril lleno de dinero, ya que además de esta encomienda, se protegía cada barril ocultando yerbas extrañas adentro de cada uno, para que aquel que quisiera sacarlo muriera a consecuencia de haberlas olido o tocado.

Todo aquel que pertenecía al grupo de ladrones de Crecencio se tenía que cumplir esta estricta ley de abandono y morir al querer retirarse y llevarse la encomienda de proteger desde el más allá parte del dinero que ayudó a robar.

Este grupo de ladrones dirigidos por Crecencio y sus poderes sobrenaturales estuvo trabajando por muchos años, hasta que uno de ellos traicionó y asesinó a Crecencio con la ayuda de soldados de Oaxaca y de la Ciudad de México, para que ya no robara más el dinero del Gobierno.

Ese fue el final de este asombroso hombre llamado Crecencio que tuvo el don de tener poderes sobrenaturales. Hoy en día en muchos lugares de Teotitlán del Valle se han encontrado barriles llenos de dinero de plata y todavía hay muchos que están escondidos en algun lugar de esta comunidad.

*Mozo: persona que desempeña trabajos modestos que no requieren conocimientos especiales

The post Leyendas e historias de Oaxaca: un hombre llamado Crecencio appeared first on MexConnect.

A most unusual museum crowns the top of Trozado Hill in Guanajuato, Mexico. Its collection of objects – mummified human corpses – serves to provide funds for social assistance in the city, and as a powerful memento mori.

The most famous tourist attraction of this part of the country, the museum is located above the municipal cemetery of Santa Paula. Visitors enter along a row of shops selling all types of tourist trinkets; wandering vendors smilingly offer candy mummies. Ghoulishly, children munch these sugary “recuerdos” (souvenirs) as they wait for admittance. A halloween atmosphere with a delicious anticipation of fright prevails. Long lines of tourists queue up for the visit.

Inside, a guide begins an interesting spiel in Spanish as the group passes by the glass cases containing 118 mummies whose bodies were exhumed between the years of 1865 and 1979.

“Here you see the smallest mummy in the world,” the guide says, as he points to the tiniest of the museum’s inhabitants. “This lady was found sitting with her newborn child; this medical doctor is the first of the mummies. Not all the mummies have come from our cemetery; some have been brought from Celaya.”

As round-eyed children and anxious adults follow him, gazing face to face with these powerful reminders of life and death, the guide continues telling the traditions and legends of Guanajuato through the stories of the mummies. These frame a fantastic world in our imagination. He tells of the virtuous baker’s wife found hanging. Her brutish husband, arrested and executed for the crime, protested his innocence to the end. No one knows the truth; the only marks on the body were those of the rope. The story of the unfaithful woman buried alive fascinates everyone. The most recently discovered mummy is half mummy, half bones. The faces of some of the adult tourists begin to pale. They seem grateful to spy the free restrooms near the exit.

With the exception of one who appears to be laughing, most of the mummies have their mouths open as if they were screaming. The guide carefully explains that this is caused from a natural muscle movement during the process of rigor in an unembalmed body. The observers give credence to his silent words. The mummies seem to have a black scream frozen in their mouths, telling of the obscurity of death and recording their trip among the fleshless ones.

Several times, through signs and the words of the guide, visitors are reminded that the mummies are working hard for the children of Guanajuato. All the proceeds from admissions and from the sale of postcards, t-shirts, and booklets in the museum gift shop, go to the city’s poor children through the medium of municipal social works. Somehow, this makes things seem better, less gruesome. After all, these mummies are just doing a job.

In their glass enclosures, most of the mummies recline with a soft pillow under their heads. Some are sitting or standing, and others bear signs that speak a philosophical message. One corpse is shown in its coffin. The thought- provoking inscription reads: “This is how you see my life; this is how I see the truth.”

Wall displays between the glass cases call forth contemplation and amusement. One set of photographs vividly displays “Los Angelitos” (the Little Angels.) When a young child dies in Mexico, there are certain rituals connected with his death and burial. Many people believe that the souls of these innocent little ones immediately join the angels in Heaven. The child is dressed as a little angel or saint, crowned with a crown of flowers and laid on a beautifully decorated bier. A painting or photograph is then made which the family keeps on its home altar in remembrance of its own little “angelito.”

Next to this display is a case of some of the smallest of the mummies. One is dressed as Saint Martin de Porras. Another wears a well-preserved crown of flowers.

Another wall causes visitors to laugh, breaking the horrible tension that has been building. The calaveras of the famous artist Guadalupe Posada evoke humor. A second look calls forth contemplation from some observers. Posada’s lithographs are now famous world-wide. His laughing, dancing skeletons are among his most famous works of art. The calaveras are engravings showing smiling skeletons wearing clothing and cavorting about in all manner of poses. Each is completed with a funny, usually sarcastic poem. Deep thoughts are often hidden in the humor of the words. During the festivities of Dia de Muertos (all soul’s day), the people exchange these calaveras much as Americans exchange Valentines in February.

The municipal cemetery of Santa Paula was built in 1853 when the previous cemetery was filled. In 1865, the new cemetery was extended. The body of Remigio Leroy, a French- born doctor, was exhumed. To the surprise of the cemetery workers, the body was found to be naturally mummified.

Because of the enormous number of burials, the cemetery followed the old European custom of exhuming and cremating bodies after five years. Fees could be paid to insure that a family member stayed buried, but most people did not, or could not, afford to pay them. During subsequent exhumations, a number of mummified corpses were found, and these began to be exhibited as a tourist attraction after the year 1870.

Mummies, of course, have existed since long before the Christian era. The Egyptian mummies were carefully embalmed in order to preserve the bodies for a future life. The exact causes for natural mummification such as those of Guanajuato have never been completely explained by science. Natural mummies have been found in many parts of the world. Some mummies which were not embalmed have been found in the hot, dry desert of Egypt; the cold dry climate in other parts of the world has its share of these scientific oddities.

Excavations near Bordeaux, France turned up hideous mummies which were displayed in several places toward the end of the Middle Ages. Science has never successfully answered the question, “Why do some bodies remain incorrupt when others rapidly disintegrate in the natural process of putrefaction?”

Scientists acknowledge that most natural mummification is produced in the absence of water and in the presence of soil that is salty, or rich in nitrates and aluminum. These conditions are present in parts of the cemeteries of Celaya and Guanajuato where the majority of the museum’s denizens were found. The rapid dehydration makes the bodies less susceptible to microorganisms and insect larvae. The anatomical external parts are usually preserved while the interiors often dissolve. Natural mummies are fragile and break with only the slightest pressure.

Memento mori – remember, man, that you are going to die. The medieval Christian became fascinated with the physical properties of death and forgot to contemplate the happy Christian message of the Resurrection. The medieval outlook on the vanity of earthly things exerted great influence on the world’s literature and art.

The mummies of Guanajuato speak to today’s Christian in a powerful voice – a compelling memento mori. They scream forth, too, a plea for our remembrance of our faithful departed.

“Remember also, O Lord, your servants who have gone before us with the sign of faith, and rest in the sleep of peace. To them, O Lord, and to all who rest in Christ, we entreat you to grant a place of comfort, of light, and peace.”
[Roman Canon, Eucharistic Prayer I]

Oddly, these silent orators also speak of life. Life is affirmed through death; death is not the negation of life but rather its affirmation. The mummies of Guanajuato speak to the Christian of the joyful affirmation of the very heart of our religion – life everlasting. The pain of death is combined with our joy at the hope of life everlasting. Our loved ones do not die; they live again in God. It is through the crucifixion that we see the bountiful promise of the resurrection. Because He lives, we too shall live.

The post The Mummies of Guanajuato: Powerful Memento Mori appeared first on MexConnect.

Mexican History

When does a tradition cease to be a tradition? Conversely, at what point in time and under what circumstances does a tradition begin? “Tradition” may be defined as “a statement, belief, or practice transmitted (especially orally) from one generation to another.”In general a “tradition” lasts a long time, but all traditions have to begin some time, somewhere. There are perhaps two ways of looking at Indian tribal art in general: traditional and generic. Traditionally, patterns and methods are handed down from parents to children but the particular stylistic expression may change over time with the introduction of new materials and changing concepts. In this sense there is no “traditional” Indian art. Generically, however, the altered or new form of the art is still part of the tradition. Once a tradition ceases to adapt to changing conditions it becomes a mere museum exhibit.

Traditional art among many North American Indian tribes was influenced both by the environment and the materials available to the artist. Among eastern and northern woodland Indians, floral designs copied from the natural sylvan surroundings prevailed. Among the plains Indians, geometric patterns reflected more accurately the generally flat terrain of the Great Plains. Before the arrival of the European traders, the woodland peoples in particular used dyed porcupine quills to weave intricate designs on tobacco pouches, headbands, and baskets. When traders introduced the small Italian-manufactured coloured glass beads, native artists quickly adapted to the new medim and continued to produce increasingly elaborate variations of the original decorative designs and religious symbolism. The use of commercial or manufactured products, such as glass beads, in place of porcupine quills or other strictly indigenous materials, does not thereby nullify the authenticity of the artistic production. Few people would argue that Indian beadwork is not authentic simply because it is made of imported European trade goods.

The authenticity of Huichol art on the market today becomes of some importance when called into question by no less an authority on the Indians of Mexico than the famous Mexican historian and anthropologist Fernando Benítez, who once described the popular Huichol yarn paintings as “…a falsification and an industry.” Benítez was referring to one of the original yarn paintings which depicted the spirits or souls of deceased persons as disembodied floating heads. He argued that the Huichol did not traditionally represent the dead in this manner and that the whole concept smacked rather of a Walt Disney fantasy than authentic Huichol religious art. The Huichol, of course, have an entirely different concept of the meaning and purpose of their art.

There is always more than one side to every story, and the history of Huichol art is no exception. In the 1960s, a Huichol by the name of Ramón Medina Silva was living in what was then the outskirts of Guadalajara. Padre Ernesto Loera Ochoa, a Franciscan priest sympathetic to Huichol culture, founded a Huichol museum at the Basilica of Zapopan in the northern part of Guadalajara. Father Ochoa bought Ramón’s artwork and encouraged the production and sale of Huichol art. Then Peter Furst, an American anthropologist, suggested to Ramón that he represent the traditions and beliefs of his people by pressing coloured yarn into a wax-covered baseboard to form designs. Beginning with the nearika (also spelled neali’ka or nierika), a traditional Huichol representation of the deified face of the sun, the Giver of Life, Ramón began to produce these yarn paintings. About twenty of them were put on display at the Casa de Cultura in Guadalajara. Soon copies and imitations of the originals began to appear. I have several in my own collection. In the intervening years, more Huichol artisans took up the challenge. The designs became increasingly elaborate and colourful while retaining much of their symbolic religious meaning.

Like their North American Indian counterparts, Huichol artisans began to use commercial or store-bought materials, when available, to produce their art. More recently, some Huichols have begun using beads in place of yarn. Moreover, the idea of yarn painting has expanded to include large beaded figures, such as jaguar heads, masks of the sun and moon, and various animal forms. Is this “authentic” Huichol art? Perhaps in the end it depends mainly on your point of view. When I was a boy, I made Sioux Indian war bonnets out of genuine eagle feathers using traditional materials in the traditional way just as a Sioux warrior would have done. In fact, I was a Sioux warrior, in my imagination at least. Some years later at the Calgary Stampede, I saw a real Sioux Indian with a war bonnet made of white turkey feathers with the fluffy down feathers died blue. I decided that if a real Indian chief could make do with turkey feathers instead of the traditional Golden Eagle feathers, I could do the same. So I made one exactly the same and still have it today. Are my war bonnets less “real” or “authentic” because I made them? I have seen Indians from woodland tribes which had no connection whatsoever with the plains Indians or the tradition of the feathered war bonnet wearing commercial-looking war bonnets at ceremonies, because that is what the whites expected of them. Is a work of art authentic or real because of the person who made it or because of the spirit with which it is imbued?

So too for Huichol art

Thanks to the Norwegian explorer and ethnographer, Carl Lumholtz, we know a great deal about traditional Huichol art. Lumholtz spent a total of five years between 1890 and 1898 in northwestern Mexico recording, among other things, the material culture of the Huichols, especially their traditional religious art forms. A complete survey of the symbolic and decorative art of the Huichol is beyond the scope of this present article. However, it included woven belts, sashes, side bags, nearikas (originally small square or round tablets, usually made of native wool), masks (for magical purposes or to frighten enemies in battle), arrows (as prayer offerings of different types), prayer bowls (to catch the blood of animal sacrifices), sombreros (different designs and purposes), and even sculpture (stone carvings in sacred caves and statues of the deity Nakawe), to name only a few items.

Originally most, if not all, Huichol designs had a particular religious or symbolic meaning. Plant and animal motifs are still common. The toto, a small five-petalled white flower that grows in the rainy season, is worked into embroidered patterns with different petals, according to the taste of the individual artist. Designs on sashes and belts imitate the variegated markings on the backs of real snakes, which the Huichol associate with rain, good crops, health, and long life. A scorpion pattern may be used as a charm against the bite of the venomous creature. Like their predecessors, the classical Aztecs, the Huichol still have an extensive pantheon of deities. Takutzi Nakawe, the ancient goddess, mother of all the gods, creatress and destroyer of all that exists, is represented in religious art, such as statues or yarn paintings. Today even the most decorative designs usually retain a certain religious or symbolic meaning.

One of my yarn paintings is by my friend Ignacio Montoya (“Nacho” — Huichols seldom divulge their Indian names to outsiders), a marakame (shaman-priest) from Las Guayabas in the Huichol Sierra. Here is how he interpreted it for me. In the centre is Tau, the deified face of the Sun, Giver of Life. Various symbolic designs are woven in around the edges of the sun’s rays, such as peyote flowers and buds, stalks of maize, lizard, deer, scorpion, and offerings of prayer arrows. Lizards with flowers on their backs eat the peyote flowers but they are also the guardians of the peyote, the Dios Hikuri, or Peyote God. At the bottom of the yarn painting reclines the human-like figure of Nakawe, the Goddess or Mistress of the Rain. The entire scene represents Wirikuta, where the Indians go each year to gather the peyote they use in their ceremonies. The symbols are traditional and represent the religious beliefs and customs of the Huichol. The design, however, is Nacho’s own artistic creation and is based on a dream he had about Wirikuta, the sacred land of peyote in the desert of San Luis Potosí.

Contrary to dire predictions, the Huichol are not dying out, at least not yet. Their evolving art forms bear witness to the resilient nature of the people. Every art form has its own intrinsic aesthetic value but may also represent a common thread of meaning running through all cultures. Traditional Huichol art reveals some of these connections and opens a window on the past which enables us to see not only where we have been but where we are now and may be in what we choose to call the future. Science notwithstanding, there is more than one “reality” in the world. What we commonly call mythology is really someone else’s religion. The Huichol belief in spirits and supernatural realms, which we tend to regard as mere superstition, may in fact reflect the true state of our inner minds. The Huichol are attempting to survive in today’s impersonal market economy by commercializing their art. But while money is important to the Huichol, as it is to most of us, it is the spirit of the artwork that ultimately counts, not its monetary value.

• Huichol art, a matter of survival II: authenticity and commercialization
• Huichol art, a matter of survival III: motifs and symbolism
• Huichol art, a matter of survival IV: an art in evolution

The post Huichol art, a matter of survival I: Origins appeared first on MexConnect.

Mexican History

In Part One, we looked briefly at the origins of Huichol religious and commercial art, in particular the yarn or bead paintings. The Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Carl Lumholtz left us detailed descriptions of Huichol art as he found it between 1890 and 1898. We are thus able to compare original Huichol symbolic and decorative art with what we see on the market today. Comparison of his descriptions with current Huichol art shows that the Huichol artisans are even more prolific and diverse now than they were in Lumholtz’s day.

For years, many people have been predicting the ultimate demise of the Huichol (wii-zaari-taari) as a linguistic and cultural entity. This has not happened. They were first contacted by the Spaniards around 1530. After several uprisings and clashes with the Spaniards, they withdrew farther into the remote Sierras in the northern part of Jalisco, touching on Zacatecas, Durango, and Jalisco, Although many live near main community and religious centres, such as San Andres, Santa Catarina, and San Sebastian, most live in hundreds of small ranchos scattered throughout the Sierras.

A few years ago I attended a peyote fiesta in Las Guyabas. Afterwards, I flew out of San Andres in a light aircraft and had an opportunity to view the Huichol sierra from the air. The plane was so small I could look out both side windows at the same time. From this vantage point I could see small ranchos, some deep down in valleys, others perched precariously on mountain crests. The “Conquistadores” never conquered the Huichol because the terrain was too difficult and there was nothing there the Spaniards wanted. At one point in the flight, the pilot landed at a Huichol rancho located high on a mountain ridge where there was barely enough room to land and take off. The plane continued to taxi on the rough gravel runway while one Huichol passenger jumped out and two more took his place. In a matter of minutes we were back in the air over the high Sierras.

To understand the significance of Huichol art, one must understand the environment that has enabled the majority of Huichols to survive centuries of European oppression and still continue to produce their art. Traditional Huichol art forms were handed down from generation to generation, but they have changed in stylistic expression with the introduction of new materials, such as glass beads, metal, and commercial dyes. The early Huichol artisans used materials available from nature, such as clay, stone, and vegetable dyes. With the introduction of commercial or manufactured goods, they have been able to produce more elaborate designs and brighter colours, along with greater expansion and flexibility in artistic concepts and execution. However, Huichol art can still be considered traditional or “authentic.”

Huichol beadwork, for example, did not begin with the importation of manufactured glass beads. The technique was in place long before the arrival of the Spaniards. Originally artisans used beads made of bone, clay, stone, coral, turquoise, pyrite, jade, and seeds. In 1898, Lumholtz described Huichol earrings, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. made by intertwining strings of beads. Current bead paintings are a simply a new stylistic development, an extension of the original art forms.

As comprehensive and as accurate as Lumholtz was in his description of early Huichol art, his labelling of certain items has caused some confusion. He named certain round ceremonial objects “frontal shields ” (Escudos Frontales, Neali’ka) and diamond-shaped or rectangular figures “the eyes” (Los Ojos, Si’kuli). The Nearika (Neali’ka is a dialectal variation), however, was in part the inspiration for the later yarn paintings, what the Huichols call nearikas. Originally they were small rectangular or round tablets, usually made of native wood, which were placed in shrines and sacred places as offerings. Originally scratched onto disks or made of bamboo splints, they represent the face of a person, sun, earth, etc. Today many traditional yarn paintings still show the round face of Tau, the Sun, in the middle. Further, by classifying the nearikas as “Los Ojos (Si’kuli),” Lumholtz popularized an incorrect name for the well-known so-called “Eyes of God,” the Huichol cross, usually with four small woven pieces at the cardinal points and one in the centre. The term si’kuli actually refers to the entire cross, which is a complex symbol with many meanings, spanning both the living and the dead. Lumholtz, however, was correct in identifying the use of the “eye” in the Fiesta of the Green Calabashes as a sacred symbol to protect the children.

The commercial or monetary value of Huichol art depends on whether you are a Huichol, a customer, or an entrepreneur. One internet listing describes a “Huichol Eye of God~Ojo de Dios, Jalisco, Mexico (Rare)” as a “pre-1980 item” (the significance of the date escapes me). This particular “original Huichol cross” is said to have been bought from a “Shamanistic family from the Highlands of Jalisco, etc.” It is listed at $1,500 at a New York address! I can imagine how much the “Shamanistic family” got for it.

Exploitation of native peoples is of course nothing new. It has been going on for centuries and shows little sign of abating in certain quarters. For example, some time ago an American came to me with a beaded bracelet he had bought from a fashionable shop in Ajijic (which I shall refrain from naming) and wanted to know the value of it. He paid hundreds of pesos for the bracelet at the store but then discovered the same thing at the local tianguis (weekly market) for a few pesos. When I investigated the shop in question, the owner assured me that the beads used to make that particular bracelet were a special Italian brand. When I pointed out that Jose Luis, a Huichol friend of mine, made similar bracelets out of the same beads using the same patterns, the shop owner and I got into a heated discussion about Huichol art and designs. The irate proprietor threatened to “sue” the Huichols for stealing these supposedly “unique” designs — as if one could patent a symbolic or decorative design that originated with the Indians! The discussion became so heated I had to leave the shop in a hurry. Later investigation revealed that another “middleman” was involved in obtaining Huichol art at a very low price and selling it abroad for highly inflated prices. At that time Huichol art was just beginning to be more widely known and sold for thousands of dollars in expensive boutiques in major cities, such as New York, London, and Paris. The Huichols of course never saw any of these profits. I never again attempted any personal investigation of the exploiters or their methods.

On one occasion a Huichol friend visited me at my home. I showed him some very early photos from Lumholtz’s Unknown Mexico. When we came to a photo of some Huichols whom Lumholtz had photographed during his visit over a century ago, my friend identified his great-grandfather. The contrast between the way the Huichols dressed back then compared with the way Huichol men dress today was more than obvious to both of us.

In 1992 my friend Gregorio (now deceased), a marakame (shaman-priest) from San Andres, delivered a speech in front of the calihuey (god house) of San Andres Cohamiata during the time of the Peyote Fiesta and the celebration of 500 years of indigenous survival since the so-called “discovery” of the New World by Columbus in 1492. This is part of his speech, which I translated from the Spanish version taken from the original Huichol.

“Our ancient ancestors carried out our traditions most completely. They painted themselves with natural pigments, with copal, and with ground up avocados. They painted their faces black with the soot and smoke from the comal, with that they painted themselves. They used nopal, cactus, and cotton. Our ancestors left us with various things. The clothes they wore were made of wool. They did not wear pants, only long woolen shirts. Nowadays there are many more materials available and we dress much more elegantly. But everything remains as it was.”

The continuation and development of Huichol art today is a symbol of the survival of the Huichol in the modern world of crass commercialization and lost values. In the next issue we shall continue our survey of Huichol symbolic and decorative art.

• Huichol art, a matter of survival I: Origins
• Huichol art, a matter of survival III: motifs and symbolism
• Huichol art, a matter of survival IV: an art in evolution

The post Huichol art, a matter of survival II: Authenticity and commercialization appeared first on MexConnect.

Mexican History

In Parts One and Two, we looked at certain aspects of Huichol art as it is found on the market today, especially the question of its “authenticity” and the commercialization of traditional Huichol religious symbolism and decorative art. We touched on some of the better known artistic creations, such as the colourful yarn or bead paintings and the Huichol cross or “Eyes of God,” as it is popularly, if not entirely correctly, known. As mentioned previously, Huichol art is even more prolific today than it was during the years 1890 to 1898 when Carl Lumholtz, the Norwegian explorer and ethnographer, first visited the Huichol and recorded their symbolic and decorative art in such remarkable detail that we are able to make direct comparisons between Huichol art then and now. The major difference is that today Huichol artisans have a much greater variety of imported and commercial materials with which to work, but many traditional designs and functions have been preserved to the present day.

Huichol decorative art includes graphic representations of nature, animals, and ritual objects, such as candles used in offerings, usually with some religious connotation. The butterfly motif is reminiscent of Itzpapalotl (the Obsidian Butterfly), a principal deity of the classical Aztecs, whom the Huichols claim as their ancestors. The eagle symbol is particularly important. Traditionally, there were seven eagles represented in Huichol religion. Werika Wimari, the mother eagle, resides in the centre of the sky or in the region of the dead. She and the eagles Tusha and Ralú together form a trilogy in the centre of the sky. Four other eagles occupy the four cardinal points. The eagles are important because their feathers impart special powers to the shaman. The eagle (or the hawk) flies high and so sees everything. Without the muwieries (sacred prayer arrows) of eagle or hawk feathers, the shaman has no power. Other motifs include sun and moon, often shown as a double face, sun and moon facing each other (on ceramics, etc.), and other natural objects. One original yarn painting shows the shaman on his pathway upwards to the Otherworld beset by lightning bolts and other obstacles as he goes in search of the crystal spirit of a departed shaman. Such religious symbolism is found on embroidered costumes, side bags, and in yarn paintings, especially the deer, the maize, and the peyote motifs.

The deer motif is quite common. Traditionally, deer deities are very numerous and very significant. Tamatz Kayaumari (“Our Elder Brother Deer Tail”) is the chief deer, lord of the animals. He has two brothers. The elder, Ushikuikame, sits at his right side, the younger, Watemukame, on the left. The trilogy of the three deer brothers is paralleled in real life by the presence of the mara’akame flanked by his two assistants. A few years ago I attended a curing ceremony at Canacinta near Ajijic, which reflected this motif. The chief mara’akame (shaman-priest) sat in his shaman’s chair holding the muwieris and chanting, while his assistants took up the chorus when he rested or ate some peyote. During the ceremony, the assistant mara’akame explained to us (in Spanish) that the head shaman was reading the book of life of the patient, searching for the cause of the illness and its cure.

Maize or native corn for tortillas is of primary importance as a major food supply but it is also central to Huichol religious belief, for it was Watakame (a deer deity), the sower or clearer of the fields, who first taught agricultural methods to the Huichol. The maize is thought of as having a nature or “essence” of its own, like that of a human being. It is therefore a source of much metaphysical and speculative thought amongst Huichol shamans and wise men. It is also a common motif in yarn paintings.

Peyote is represented as round peyote buds on yarn paintings. The sacred cactus, which is gathered annually in the deserts of San Luis Potosí, is the magical elixir that binds together the deer, the maize, and peyote. Peyote is both plant and animal, and so transcends all boundaries. Through its use, the mara’akame receives his visions, which he passes on to the people in his songs and chants. The deer-maize-peyote complex symbolizes the entire life cycle of the Huichol people; it represents the continuity of life on all its historical, cultural, and religious levels. Each symbol within the Trinity is an aspect of the other, so that the maize requires deer blood in order to grow, the deer cannot be sacrificed until after the peyote hunt, which in turn leads to the most important event in the Huichol religious calendar, the Hikuri Neirra or Peyote Fiesta. Peyote is to the Huichol religion what coffee is to Islam, tea is to Buddhism, and wine is to the Eucharist of the Catholic church. For the Huichol, Dios Hikuri — the Peyote God — is beyond time and space, free of sex or gender, existing only in and for itself. Long ago, the Huichol discovered for themselves that we humans need a strong sense of the past, meaningful work or activity in the present, and a means of release or escape into a world beyond time and space in order to preserve our sanity. This is the essential meaning of the deer-maize-peyote complex.

Lumholtz left us not only detailed descriptions of the clothes the Huichol wore at the end of the 19th century, but also photos of these ancestors of the modern Huichol. In those days, Huichol men dressed more simply and less ornately than now. In place of the pantalones of today, the men wore long shirts made of coarse cotton cloth or woven from wool, often decorated with embroidery, the legs left bare. The shirt was held in place by long artistically woven wool or cotton waistbands. Richer ones wore two or more one on top of the other. A small shawl or neckerchief of cotton cloth, richly embroidered with red and blue thread and a wide band of red flannel at the lower edge was thrown over the shoulders. As today, the men wore pouches made of cotton or wool, worked in various elaborate designs. Two or three such bags hung from the shoulders with one special pouch suspended in front of and below the waistband for tobacco, flint and steel for striking fire, etc. Other small, strictly ornamental pouches were worn in front of the waistband. Generally only the men wore handmade straw hats. Today Huichol men cover their legs with loose-fitting pantalones, often very elaborately embroidered. They still carry the intricately woven pouches but not the small frontal pouch for flint and steel that Lumholtz described. They use matches like the rest of us. The women wore short skirts and cotton cloth tunics, sometimes nicely embroidered. Huichol women today dress much as they did in Lumholtz’s day, except they have more colourful commercial cloth and yarn available with which to work their designs.

I can do no better here than repeat my friend Gregorio’s words delivered in front of the calihuey (god house) in 1992: “Our ancestors left us with various things. The clothes they wore were made of wool. They did not wear pants, only long woolen shirts. Nowadays there are many more materials available and we dress much more elegantly. But everything remains as it was.”

In Part Four we shall conclude our survey of Huichol symbolic and decorative art and offer a personal assessment of the chances of the survival of the Huichol language, religion and culture in the modern world.

• Huichol art, a matter of survival I: Origins
• Huichol art, a matter of survival II: authenticity and commercialization
• Huichol art, a matter of survival IV: an art in evolution

The post Huichol art, a matter of survival III: Motifs and symbolism appeared first on MexConnect.

Mexican History

Huichol art has come a long way since Carl Lumholtz first recorded it in the late 19th century. In previous articles, we looked at some of the changes that have taken place over the years in the form and function of Huichol art, particularly the transformation from a strictly religious function to a commercialized folk art. Here we shall conclude with a few more samples of Huichol art.

Originally masks were used for magical purposes or to frighten enemies in battle. While such masks are no longer made or used for this purpose, you may come across beaded or painted masks for sale. Today they are a relic of early Christian teaching used by the Huichol in ceremonies, for example, during Semana Santa (the week preceding Easter) to represent Europeans or foreigners.

But this does not mean they are not “authentic;” rather they represent a stylistic variation in the tradition and a syncretism between Huichol (Mesoamerican) religion and Christianity. The Huichol take an eclectic view of religion based on their experience with Conquistadores and later foreign invaders of their land and culture. Obviously the alien gods were powerful enough to conquer Mexico. Therefore it only makes sense to incorporate foreign gods (Catholic saints) into the Huichol pantheon. The more powerful deities you have on your side, the better.

I witnessed something similar among the Yukon Indians. We spent summers in the fishing camp at Klukshu Lake north of Whitehorse where we lived. One Sunday, my Indian friend Frank Smith told me they were expecting missionaries from three different religious denominations: a Protestant minister, a Catholic priest, and their own evangelical preacher. Frank saw nothing strange about this. He said: “We gonna be good people. First, the English man comes, then the Catholic man, then our Reverend Lee. We don’t have money to give them, so we give them dried fish.”

Associated with masks is the custom of facial painting. Lumholtz recorded a wide variety of facial markings used in ceremonies and associated with various deities. The earlier patterns were very elaborate.

A Huichol peyote festival

I attended a peyote fiesta in Las Guyabas in the Huichol sierra a few years ago. During a late evening ceremony, I sat off to one side of the gathering feeling rather isolated, until an unusually tall Huichol woman, who seemed to exercise considerable authority, came over to me and offered me tejuino, the local brew. Her face was painted with yellow dots, which I recognized as peyote symbols. Not as elaborate as in Lumholtz’s day but impressive. After that gesture, she invited me into the circle for food and drink with the rest.

The Huichol used two types of jícaras,or bowls made from one half of a hollowed-out gourd, one for ordinary household use and the other for ceremonial purposes. Today small beaded bowls are made for sale. But traditionally the designs inside the bowls represented different deities in the Huichol pantheon.

At the peyote fiesta, I observed the sacrifice of the bull inside the calihuey (Huichol temple) and the ceremonial use of the prayer bowl. A woman performed the sacrifice by slowly inserting a knife in the bull’s throat as it lay tethered on the floor of the calihuey. As the blood oozed out, she held out the bowl to catch the blood. There were several shamans present in full ceremonial regalia. When the bowl was full, one anointed the foreheads of the other shamans with smears of blood and then scattered blood at various places around the calihuey as protection against evil.

In previous articles, I referred to my late friend Gregorio’s comments on the elaborate clothing worn by Huichol men today. This, of course, is made possible by the skill and artistry of the Huichol women in embroidery.

Motifs in Huichol art

Traditionally most designs or patterns were not made simply for the sake of decoration but rather for religious or symbolic purposes. Even the decorations embroidered on belts and clothing based on nature and natural objects in the plant and animal world have significant meaning. For example, woven belts, sashes, and ribbons represent rain-serpents.

The Huichol tend to see snakes or their representations in many natural objects. This is perhaps not too surprising given the importance of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, in the religion of the Aztecs, whom, incidentally, the Huichol claim as their ancestors. In Lumholtz’s day snakes for the Huichol represented prayers for good crops, health, and long life.

The designs may become so conventionalized that they are unrecognizable to all but the original artist. But even if the original meaning is forgotten, they are still thought to have magical powers. Typically there is great variety in designs, although some women copy from others, with slight changes.

With regard to copying designs, I used to have two books containing photographs of Huichol yarn paintings. I no longer have them. Guess who borrowed them and never returned them? Why, my Huichol artist friends who wished to copy some of the patterns. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll go back to the Huichol sierra and find my books again.

The last item a Huichol abandons if he exchanges his traditional clothing for modern western garb is the ubiquitous embroidered pouch or side bag. They are woven in one piece and then folded over and sown up the sides. A common motif is the double water-gourd design, also woven into belts, where it gives the impression of snake skins. Another favourite design is the double-headed Royal Eagle, a symbol which has nothing to do with the double-eagle heraldic devices of Europe. However, some critics have pointed out that sometimes the eagle is shown wearing a crown, which, they say, indicates European influence. Possibly this is associated with the Catholic version of the Virgin Mary with which the Huichol would have been familiar.

Here we shall touch on only one more traditional item, sculpture. On one of his exploratory expeditions, Lumholtz visited the sacred cave of Te-akata, birthplace of Tatewari, the God of Fire. Near the entrance to the god-house, he observed the statue of the old god made of solidified volcanic ash. In 1983, I attended an exhibition at the Regional Museum of Guadalajara put on by La Sociedad de Amigos del Museo to reaffirm, rescue, revive, and spread abroad the ancestral culture of Jalisco. Featured was the work of Pablo Taizán de la Cruz, a Huichol mara’akame (shaman) from Tuxpan de Bolaños, Jalisco, who displayed his large stone sculptures of various Huichol deities. It was a gala affair attended by politicians and local dignitaries. Pablo was the man of the hour, but I wonder how much of the show was mere lip service (just my opinion).

Tatewarí (“Grandfather Fire”) and Nakawé (“Our Grandmother Creator”) are still two very important deities often represented in stone and other media, as well as in the yarn paintings. Tatewarí is a very ancient Mesoamerican god, the god of fire, or the god of the centre. He is one of the deities of the Dry Season. Nakawé is the principal goddess and the most ancient. As mother of the gods, the creator and destroyer of all that exists, she is one of the deities of the Wet Season. The Huichol may be highly religious, but they are also very practical and have no compunction whatsoever in selling representations of their deities, which is really no different than the sale of religious icons at a Catholic cathedral. I once tried to sell a beaded statue of Nakawé for a Huichol friend. Unfortunately sometimes these statues are misrepresented as Huichol “dolls.”

An art in evolution

The artistic tradition remains much the same, but the particular forms and the stylistic expression have changed dramatically since the days of Lumholtz. However, as I have tried to show, the adoption of commercially produced media, such as glass beads and coloured yarn, and changes or developments in stylistic expression do not necessarily detract from the authenticity of an art object. The main purpose in commercial Huichol art is to enable at least some of the people to retain their language, religion, and customs by continuing and expanding traditional art forms as an alternative to wage-slavery in the outside world. However, the extent to which a tradition can change and still be regarded as such is perhaps debatable. On one of those extremely rare visits from our relatives in Canada, my sister-in-law, unimpressed by the religious and symbolic meaning of the Huichol art in my own personal museum, asked me why the Huichols didn’t make something useful, like a beaded piggy bank. Half jokingly, I mentioned this to a Huichol friend. Surprise, surprise! I now own a beaded piggy bank.

Some items of Huichol art are definitely non-traditional, such as beaded eggs intended for Christmas decorations; others, such as masks of the sun and moon, are borderline traditional. Beaded Jaguar heads are an important symbol in Mesoamerican religion and by no means confined to the Huichol. The bead and yarn paintings are becoming more and more complex, with some risk of becoming more decorative than symbolic or religious. Yarn paintings depicting aeroplanes and skyscrapers may perhaps safely be deemed non-traditional.

Survival of the Huichol language and culture does not, of course, depend solely on the commercial viability of Huichol art. Although most Huichols are artisans of one kind or another, relatively few can make a living from this source alone. Besides, there are too many middlemen to rake off the profits. While the young people need to understand the world around them in order to protect their own interests, they also need more books in Huichol about their own culture in order to foster and preserve the best of their traditional world. This is not unrealistic or over-optimistic.

Surival of an ancient culture

On my last visit to Canada, we visited a Mennonite community in southwestern Ontario. The people range from very liberal to extremely conservative. The Old Order Mennonites still drive a horse and buggy and work their farms using “old-time” implements. Some refuse to use electricity or other modern “conveniences.” They are excellent craftsmen and produce fine furniture for sale. While they maintain their own beliefs and lifestyle, they are also coordinated with the outside world and thus avoid conflict.

I like to think the Huichol can survive in a somewhat similar manner. To some extent, they are protected by the remote rugged mountain terrain in which they live, although even there they are still under siege from outside exploiters and land developers.

Only time will tell.

• Huichol art, a matter of survival I: Origins
• Huichol art, a matter of survival II: authenticity and commercialization
• Huichol art, a matter of survival III: motifs and symbolism

The post Huichol art, a matter of survival IV: An art in evolution appeared first on MexConnect.

Mexican History

Some years ago, my parents and I lived at Ana Capri between Tuxcueca and Mismaloya on the south shore of Lake Chapala. Ana Capri was built as a motel but never saw any business because of its difficult location, so we rented it from the owners.

There I met Salvador Cardenas, the gardener and caretaker, and his family. Salvador was not a professional curandero, but he knew a great deal about herbs and herbal remedies. We gathered some forty herbs in the mountains just behind Ana Capri. I still have the dried specimens. This sparked my interest in traditional or alternative medicine and, in 1996, I attended the Fiesta de las Plantas Medicinales held that year in San Martin de los Piramides not far from the famous archaeological site of Teotihuacan with its pyramids of the Sun and the Moon.

We arrived in the early morning (September, Friday 13!) and a large group of participants in the Fiesta went to the archaeological site. At first, we were refused admittance. Our leaders finally convinced the guards we were not ordinary tourists and they let us in. In Mesoamerican religion, Teotihuacan is considered the most powerful sacred place in Mexico and so a visit there was deemed essential before the start of the Fiesta.

As we proceeded we picked up tourists on the way and I found myself delivering an impromptu lecture on the site. My friend Katuza, the temascalero from Ajijic, translated for the Spanish-speaking visitors.

We began pitching our tents in an open field near the village, but it rained so hard we had to give up. The Huichols in our party thought it was a great joke. Hundreds of us ended up sleeping on the cement floor of a large warehouse. Sleeping bags, blankets, bodies everywhere, but somehow there was order and meaning in the midst of apparent confusion.

The rain eased off the next day and we were able to pitch our tents. I shared a large pup tent with the Huichol marákame (shaman) Daniel, who was also a guest of honour at the Fiesta, his twelve year old daughter, Rosita, and Katuza. When I went to bed, the shaman was fast asleep, sitting bolt upright. Perhaps he was in some transcendental state or other. Anyway he remained that way until morning.

The demonstrations and curaciones (free traditional medical treatments) were scheduled to be held in a large auditorium, but the Huichols and the various curanderos set up shop wherever they found potential patients. The Huichol shamans attracted much attention.

Marákame Daniel began business almost immediately as people passed by our tent and saw him in all his colourful finery. One well-dressed sophisticated lady asked me if I thought the shamans could cure her sore leg by magic. The doctors had given up on her. I was not a PR man for the Huichol, but I had seen and experienced some strange things in Mexico and was not prepared to gainsay the shamans. I told her the only way to find out was to try the treatment. The shamans went through a modified form of the curing ceremony with the magic prayer arrows. I never found out what happened to the woman.

The idea of curing through “magical” means is not as preposterous as it sounds. The interactive relationship between mind and body in the treatment of certain illnesses is well established. Psychosomatic illness is real and can lead to serious physical illnesses.

In a traditional society like the Huichol, disease means the separation of the mind or “spirit” from body or physical aspect resulting in lack of ease (dis-ease). The purpose of the shaman is to restore equilibrium to the patient by easing his or her mind and bringing it back into synchronization with the body or physical being. When the shaman wafts his sacred arrows over the patient, he is helping the patient restore the balance between mind and body. If the patient believes sincerely enough in the procedure, it can produce a positive attitude which aids in the healing process. Of course not all illnesses can be dealt with in this way. But then modern medical science still cannot cure many serious illnesses even with the best of equipment and technique. When it comes to traditional or alternative medicine and unorthodox forms of treatment in Mexico, I try to keep an open mind.

On the final day of the Fiesta, we were scheduled to hold the closing ceremony in the main tianguis (street market) square of the town. It is against the law to hold public events inside the site of Teotihuacan without special government permission, and the organizers did not have government permit or authorization from local officials to hold the final event inside the archaeological zone. However, it was decided that, since Teotihuacan was a religious shrine for all of Mesoamerica, it was only proper that the final ceremony be held there.

We assembled at the tianguis, and several hundred of us marched through town towards Teotihuacan led by the Aztec dancers, dancing all the way, ostrich plume headdresses waving, shell anklets jangling, all to the accompaniment of the haunting air and incessant beat of the ancient flute and tambour.

We reached the gates to the entrance and were confronted by the guards on duty. But as we approached the guards gave way, opened the gates, and let us pass without a word. There was a feeling of great spiritual power in the air that day.

The closing ceremony was held in one of the ancient dance plazas with the pyramid of the Sun in the background. The chief guest of honour, the marákame Daniel, and Katuza, stood in the concentric circle of dancers. Katuza wore the long blue shirt of the Oglala Sioux Sun Dancers, while Daniel wore a plain white Huichol style outfit. As part of the general 500th anniversary celebration of native survival in the Americas, we had many native participants in attendance, from Eskimos to South American Indians.

Rituals were performed in the center of the circle, and then the dancing began. I stood on the sidelines until I was pulled into the circle by some of my friends. I didn’t know the dance steps but the throbbing beat of the huehuetl, the ceremonial Aztec drum, produced a hypnotic effect and before I knew it I was dancing with the rest. After a while, we were unconscious of the time or space. Afterwards, we were told we had been dancing in the blazing hot noonday sun for many hours.

The dancing stopped and we saw that hundreds of spectators had gathered on the stone steps overlooking the dance square. Whether they were part of the Fiesta or simply tourists who had wandered on to the scene, I do not know, but long lines formed aligned to the four directions as many people came forward to receive a blessing of copal incense and a bunch of ceremonial sage from the shaman-priests.

Then we formed a long line led by the Aztec dancers as we headed for the exit gates. The marákame Daniel disappeared for a few moments then reappeared from behind a mound. When asked where he had been he said he had been to the moon. It is believed that shamans can leave the body at will and travel to the spirit world. Anyway, Daniel’s story was accepted at face value as he rejoined the procession and we left the grounds.

Different religions have different accounts to explain why we are here and what life is all about.

The Huichol marákame or shaman combines the roles of priest, healer, and tradition-bearer. Shamans often come from a long line of family shamans and learn the chants, rituals, and the religious and philosophical traditions from the elders. As a priest and healer, the shaman practices the art of healing mainly through magical means, although the Huichols have knowledge of herbs and herbal remedies. As a guardian of the “costumbres” (customs or traditions), the shaman presides over the many rituals and ceremonies in which he chants or sings the long narrative songs containing the traditional history and religious concepts of the Huichol people. Traditionally, the full-fledged shaman must have completed at least five consecutive pilgrimages to Wirikuta in search of the Dios Hikuri.

From what I have observed during my years in Mexico, I regard shamanism as simply another form of religion. The Huichol have preserved more of their pre-Hispanic world outlook than most other indigenous peoples in the Americas, and some of their beliefs and practices may seem odd to outsiders but are no more strange than many of the ideas of the missionaries who try to convert them.

Part 4 of a seven part series

• Personal reminiscences of Mexico’s Huichol people I: a disappearing way of life?
• Personal reminiscences of Mexico’s Huichol people II: fiesta of medicinal plants
• Personal reminiscences of Mexico’s Huichol people III: the shaman
• Personal reminiscences of Mexico’s Huichol people IV: ritual dance
• Personal reminiscences of Mexico’s Huichol people V: journey to the sierra
• Personal reminiscences of Mexico’s Huichol people VI: Peyote Fiesta
• Personal reminiscences of Mexico’s Huichol people VII: return from the Huichol sierra

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At Home in Talpa de Allende, Jalisco

There was an Indian mound near my home when I was growing up. We knew we were not supposed to play near the mound, and we knew it was an ancient burial spot, but we didn’t know it might have been a “power place.”

My older brothers had shoeboxes full of flint arrowheads collected from our fields. In fact, their collection was used as a bartering tool in school the same way some kids used baseball cards.

I have read about special places in Hawaii that are considered power places. Some describe how if you look at a mountain or hillside and can see what looks to be a hollowed out area, you probably are looking at a power spot. This is a spot where, supposedly, deeper meditation can be attained, and you truly feel at one with the earth.

According to researchers, these power spots are found all over the world, and that makes good sense to me. Not all are where hollowed out spots appear. It seems there are many such places that are mountains or mounds, such as my hometown mound. Who can visit the Grand Canyon and not be in breathless awe?

It has probably been fifteen years since we visited the Southwest, and I was introduced to a Native American medicine wheel in Sedona. Early one morning, we took our thermos, sausage, biscuits and binoculars to the red hills. While we meandered through the rocks, cactus and an occasional lavender or red flower peeping from the dry soil, we came upon a bunch of stones laid out in a circle, which was divided by more stones into what seemed to be a pie-shaped design on the ground. We stood and mused about what the significance of this could possibly be. Along came a couple of Park Rangers, and one kicked the circle apart with his boot. I asked, “What is this supposed to mean?”

He replied, “This is a Native American medicine wheel. We don’t allow them in this area. We destroy one when we see it, but they’ll just come back and build another one. You can’t destroy their beliefs.”

Lilly, the daughter of my friend, Judith Ewing Morlan, a talented and prominent painter in Puerto Vallarta, married a Native American Indian. She explains the medicine wheel as a belief that our lives are circles, and must be completed before we are finally at home.

Lilly writes: “The most famous medicine wheels are in Montana and Canada. Although they do exist in other places, most are built as a tourist attraction. Park Rangers destroy them because most parks do not allow people to destroy the natural habitat, and there is a hefty fine if caught.

Traditionally, Native Americans believe their entire lives are guided by the path of the stars and earth. In the Southwest there is a song, sung mostly at funerals, called “The Salt Song Trail.” The Native American medicine wheel is created with footprints around the body, and it encourages the spirit to complete the journey, and then rise to the stars or Heaven, whichever you prefer to believe. Without this ritual, they believe the spirit is lost on the journey and can’t find the way to the starts. The song starts at sunset, the dancing starts exactly at midnight, and it ends at dawn as the body is lowered into the ground.

A Miracle Work Site

Quite by accident, I recently ran across a website that lists Talpa de Allende as a sacred power place.

I have corresponded with the owner of the website, Martin Gray, and his is a fascinating story. He is the son of a U.S. diplomat, and had the opportunity to travel the world widely. When he was twelve years old, the family was posted to India for four years. One of his father’s hobbies was photography; his mother had a strong interest in music and ancient culture. While in India, Gray made pilgrimages to temples, mosques and sacred caves – with camera in hand, I suspect.

Martin’s father was reposted and he came back to the United States. Gray attended college in Arizona, but the call of India sent him back. He lived a nomadic life for ten years, visiting and photographing every place he heard was a sacred site, and then he came home again, but only to roam some more. He has spent twenty-five years in his pilgrimages, and one of them brought him to Mexico where he visited Mazatlan, San Juan de los Lagos, San Miguel de Allende, Zapopan, and Talpa, among others.

Apparently, there are different types of sacred sites. Martin classifies Talpa as “miracle-work site.”

Earth Goddesses

Many archaeologists and anthropologists agree that the name given to an energy worshiped in Mesoamerica was Mother Tonatzin, who represented the Earth Mother Gatlaxepeuh, a Náhuatl word, the language spoken in this part of the world before the Spaniards came. Legend has it that when Saint Juan Diego, whose Náhuatl name was Cuahtlatohuac, was asked by the Spanish bishop what was the name of the woman who wanted her temple reconstructed, he responded, “Coatlaxepeuh.” The bishop couldn’t speak Náhuatl any better than I can, and he thought he heard Guadalupe. The patron saint of Mexico and the Americas is the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Apparently, the icon in our temple in Talpa represents that ancient Earth Mother, but through a long line of evolution. That could be true. We have to remember our ancestors worshiped something or somebody long before the Europeans explorers reached the North American continent. It is innate in us.

Gray, and others, find that some of our pagan customs had reason behind them. In the case of Talpa, it is believed this power place once paid homage to an Earth Goddess named Cohuacoatl.

That’s alright. I can’t pronounce it either. Knowing how names can be mixed up by different languages, I think Cohuacoatl may be a play on Coatlaxepeuh.

I believe it only fitting to share with you a bit about the young man who painted the illustration accompanying this article. Guy Garber Guerrero is eighteen years old, about to graduate from the American School in Puerto Vallarta. He plans to study architecture in San Diego and he has never had an art lesson. In 1983 his mother came to be my assistant at the U.S. Consular Agency. Many times Jacqueline and I would be working on special cases, and to keep little Guy quiet, she gave him a drawing pad and a pencil. He drew ships he had never seen and churches that would never be built. Nobody knows where this talent comes from.

If you are interested in checking out your nearest power spot, click on Gray’s webpage – it is fascinating. His picture of the church in Talpa, although superimposed so that it appears the mountains are touching it, is haunting.

(Longtime Mexico resident Jenny McGill and her husband moved to Puerto Vallarta in 1973, where she served as the U.S. Consular agent for 14 years. Her book, Drama and Diplomacy in Sultry Puerto Vallarta, is a poignant, riotous read describing the town, its people and her own resourcefulness when people needed her help. It is a portrait of a simple Mexican beach town and a quieter time, gone forever.)

Published or Updated on: April 5, 2009 by Jenny McGill © 2009

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Did You Know…?

Quetzal Dancers in Puebla, Mexico

The Quetzal Dance is one of the most colorful folkloric dances anywhere in the country. It is also thought to be one of the most ancient. Both the dance and the spectacular headdresses worn by those taking part are thought to pre-date the Conquest, perhaps by hundreds of years.

The headdresses represent the extravagant colors of the quetzal bird, a sacred bird of the Maya. The resplendent quetzal, as it is called by ornithologists, sports long green tail plumes that grow up to four feet (1.2 meters) in length. These feathers were highly prized by many ancient peoples, especially the Aztecs of central Mexico, who demanded quetzal feathers from some villages as part of their tribute payments.

Today, the bird can be seen in the wild only in the forested highlands extending from the state of Chiapas, in the extreme south of Mexico, to the north of Costa Rica. This region includes Guatemala, where the quetzal features prominently on national symbols and gives its name to the unit of currency. There are not many quetzal birds left today, with most hopes for the bird’s long term survival pinned on the Quetzal Reserve in Guatemala, where a large area of cloud forest has been set aside for research and conservation efforts.

In pre-Conquest times, it was considered a serious offence to kill a quetzal, so catching a specimen to remove its tail feathers developed into an art form. Oral testimonies suggest that quetzales were trapped where they landed to eat or drink, and that great precautions were taken to avoid touching the desired feathers with the hands. Only tail feathers were taken. At some point, it seems to have occurred to some budding entrepreneur that it might be profitable to keep a few of the birds in captivity, thereby guaranteeing a steady supply of feathers. The feathers would eventually find their way to the suppliers of the elaborate headdresses of upper class citizens in far-away Tenochtitlan, the capital of the powerful Aztec Empire. Perhaps the finest of all these headdresses ( penachos) was the Feather Crown belonging to Emperor Moctezuma (1466-1520) that now resides in a museum in Vienna, Austria. It has been the subject of repeated requests for repatriation made by Mexico’s cultural authorities and indigenous groups. A replica is displayed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.

The quetzal’s significance was such that it gave rise to the important Meso-American deity “Quetzalcoatl”, the feathered serpent.

Described by many ornithologists as “the most spectacular bird in the New World”, the resplendent quetzal ( Pharomachrus mocinno) was first reported in the scientific literature in the nineteenth century. Not long after the first specimens arrived in Europe, milliners there began a craze for the feathers, leading to widespread hunting of quetzales, to collect plumes for export. As a scientific curiosity, modern electron microscope examination of quetzal feathers, usually thought of as being highly colored, shows that they are actually a boring brown in color. However, the spots of pigment are so small that they break up sunlight into the emerald green, azure blues and shiny gold seen by birders.

Despite the fact that the only surviving quetzal habitat in Mexico is in Chiapas, the Quetzal Dance is restricted to a small area much further north: a few villages in the lowlands of the state of Veracruz and in the nearby mountains of Puebla. One of the most photogenic locations where it is still performed is the appropriately-named village of Cuetzalan (= “place of the quetzales”) in northern Puebla, a Totonac Indian settlement.

Cuetzalan is a fascinating village for lots of reasons, and hit the news headlines early in 2004 when several British cavers had to be rescued after becoming trapped by rising water deep underground. The mishap became a diplomatic incident after it emerged that the cavers were members of the British armed forces.

I’ve been lucky enough to see the dance on several occasions in Cuetzalan during the village’s major festivities in early October, and have to agree with Frances Toor’s description in her Treasury of Mexican Folkways that it is both “primitive and beautiful”. Toor describes the “costumes of vivid colors, red predominating” at some length, and then turns her attention to the “huge wheel, over five feet in diameter, with colored paper or silk ribbons interlaced through a network of slender reeds with a border of lovely feathers. This brilliant wheel, justly called a splendor, is attached to a conical cap on the head of the dancer, held by a ribbon or kerchief tied under the chin.” This is the spendiferous headdress of the Quetzal Dance.

Not all the splendors are five feet (1.5 meters) in diameter. As the accompanying photos show, younger participants are usually only entrusted with much smaller headdresses than their experienced elders.

The dance itself is not very elaborate, though precise execution is necessary to avoid collisions between headdresses. The dancers, usually in a group of about a dozen or so, form two ranks and then, in response to simple melodies played on a small drum ( nenetl) and reed flute ( flauta), wind around to form a series of crosses (believed to represent the cardinal points) and circles (interpreted as either the passage of stars or of the sun). The dancers carry rattles ( sonajas) and shake them to the rhythms of the dance. All the musical instruments used date back to pre-Hispanic times.

It is thought that the Quetzal Dance may have been common in this area of Puebla for many centuries before the Conquest, presumably at a time when the quetzal could still be found in the local forests. Perhaps the dance developed because the local Indians had to pay quetzal feathers as tribute to their Aztec overlords, or perhaps it was their way of apologizing to the birds for having to sacrifice some of them in the interests of meeting their tribute demand?

If you’re unable to see the Quetzal Dance in its original setting in Cuetzalan, then look for it next time you attend a performance by the Ballet Folclórico Nacional, Ballet Folclórico de Guadalajara, or any other modern troupe, all of which periodically include it in their shows.

Copyright 2004 by Tony Burton. All rights reserved.

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