Magic is Mexico’s superpower. Here, the ordinary and the sacred intertwine like smoke and spirit. The sacred still whispers, and its relevance is ever-present to those willing to listen to its wisdom. Alongside colorful towns and festive celebrations runs a steady stream of healing rituals, sacred medicines, and ancestral wisdom that restore body, mind, and spirit. What follows is an exploration of these ancient healing traditions that continue to bridge the seen and unseen worlds in Mexico even today.

Ceremony, Song, and the San Isidro Mushroom

“Tonight’s medicine is Psilocybe cubensis,” our curandero Marito Teonanacatl explained. “Commonly called the San Isidro mushroom, these wild fungi emerge only with the season’s first rains, and only where conditions are just right.” Despite the unexpectedly large gathering of nearly 70 people, he moved with serene composure. “You will not sleep tonight,” he repeated. “You will not sleep.”

We gathered on a chinampa—an ancient floating garden in Xochimilco’s waterways. A single, unadorned trajinera carried participants slowly through the canals, the soft lapping of water and the scent of damp earth surrounding us. Under a simple open tent, equipped with a trio of small bathrooms, we found ourselves in a space stripped of all distractions – nothing but the essential elements needed for the night’s journey ahead that wasn’t due to end until the next morning.

In pre-Hispanic times, the sacred mushrooms were called teonanácatl—a Náhuatl term meaning “flesh of the gods”—honoring their divine essence. Today, the Mazatec people know them as niños santos, or “holy children,” a name that speaks to their innocence and gentle yet profound guidance. Both names recognize these mushrooms as sacred allies carrying the wisdom to heal.For centuries, the Mazatec people of Oaxaca have used these mushrooms to commune with the spirit world where they are tools to diagnose illness, resolve conflicts, and seek guidance from the unseen.

Growing wild in the highlands after seasonal rains, the mushrooms are gathered with prayers, consumed in small, deliberate amounts, and accompanied by chanting or singing to guide visions. As curandera María Sabina once said, “With the mushrooms, you see and you speak to God.”

In the days before the ceremony, I prepared my intentions through meditation, focusing on specific questions. But the journey unfolded differently, offering an insight I hadn’t realized I needed. The guidance came gently, like a quiet presence settling beside me, offering reassurance and wisdom about something urgent my soul needed, though my conscious mind hadn’t known to ask.

Throughout the night, we gazed into the flames as Marito and his assistant wove music around us with strings, drums, and gongs. His voice carried haunting folk melodies – songs of flowing water, tender parent-child moments, love, and the miracle of existence. The music moved like medicine: rhythms lifted some into spontaneous dance, and softer passages opened floodgates of tears for others. At one point, my friend and I dissolved into uncontrollable laughter, caught in pure joy that seemed to rise from the earth.

In ceremony, psilocybin mushrooms are living teachers. Participants release burdens, reconnect with ancestral wisdom, or receive visions for life’s challenges. The journey cleanses the spirit—harmonizing heart, mind, and soul—while revealing archetypal symbols, ancestors, or universal patterns that feel both intimate and cosmic.

In recent decades, psychedelic tourism has reshaped this tradition. Some visitors approach the mushrooms with medicinal reverence,while others treat it as a recreational experience. This evolution has intensified discussions around cultural appropriation, environmental degradation, and the critical role of Indigenous leadership in protecting these practices.

Marito spoke passionately about preservation and his experience with the medicine. “For 15 years, I’ve been working with the support of the sacred mushroom medicine teonanácatl—the niños santos. Together with my family, we offer assisted therapies that include mushroom gathering, re-connection with ourselves, and integration,” he shared. His advice for newcomers was elegantly simple: “Enjoy.”

Contemporary research is examining psilocybin as a treatment for depression, anxiety, and PTSD, with studies demonstrating its ability to disrupt harmful thought cycles, enhance psychological openness, and foster enduring wellness. Marito himself works successfully with U.S. veterans who journey to Mexico seeking PTSD treatment after conventional therapies have proven ineffective.

Yet for the Mazatec people, these mushrooms are more than medicine—they are sacred allies. As one elder cautions, “If you do not come with respect, they will not open their world to you,” reminding us that healing is as much about intention and reverence as it is about science.

For more information about Marito’s work, he can be reached through his Facebook page.

Peyote and the Blue Deer

“My dad was heavily involved with peyote,” my friend said matter-of-factly as we sat in a cafe. I frowned into my matcha latte, debating whether I should learn to like this tea or just admit it wasn’t for me. She went on, “Our family thought of him as sort of a druggie because of it. He was featured pretty prominently in a book about peyote,” she explained. The book had become her only keepsake of him—the worn pages representing all that remained of their connection.

Right away, I knew I had to get my hands on that book. El Venado Azul (The Blue Deer) by Víctor Blanco Labra is a vivid, first-person account of traveling with the Huichol (Wixárika) people on their sacred peyote pilgrimage. The Wixárika are an Indigenous Mexican people known for their intricate beadwork, vibrant yarn art, and enduring spiritual traditions, with peyote (hikuri) at the center of their cosmology.

My friend’s father appears throughout El Venado Azul as “El Doctor,” a trusted guide and recurring voice in the story. He offered direction, context, and grounding during the intense spiritual work of the journey. His presence threads through the narrative like a compass, shaping the reader’s sense of what it means to walk the path of the peyote pilgrim.

In Wixárika tradition, peyote is not simply a plant—it is the embodiment of the Blue Deer deity, a divine messenger between humans and the gods. According to legend, the first peyote emerged from the footprint of this mystical deer, who led the ancestors to the desert. Its blue hue is linked to water, rain, and the divine realm.

Peyote itself is a small, spineless cactus (Lophophora williamsii), bluish-green and divided into ribbed sections called “buttons.” Harvesting is done carefully, cutting above the root so the plant can regenerate—a reflection of the ecological respect embedded in the tradition. The fresh buttons are usually eaten raw during ceremonies. Labra captures the reverence in a single line:

“Holding the hikuri in my hand, I felt its weight was not of this world—it was as if I carried a fragment of the desert’s own heart.”

Ceremonies are rich with song, prayer, and confession. Led by a marakame (shaman), pilgrims seek healing, guidance, and balance. Labra emphasizes that it is not indulgence or escape, but an ancient technology for restoring harmony within both individual and community.For the Wixárika, peyote is a living spirit that restores balance. Those who walk with it speak of feeling their strength return, of illness lifting, and of the heart becoming lighter. It heals the body, the memory and the spirit—reminding them of who they are.

Yet these medicines have faced centuries of persecution. Spanish colonizers in the 16th century sought to replace Indigenous spirituality with Catholicism, condemning peyote and forcing ceremonies into hiding. Colonial prohibitions evolved into selective acceptance, and today Mexican law criminalizes peyote for outsiders while protecting it as Indigenous cultural heritage.

Thumbing through El Venado Azul proved challenging as it’s only available in Spanish, yet I could feel the connection between personal memory and Indigenous history. El Doctor wasn’t just a character—he was a keeper of medicine traditions that survived centuries of colonization and persecution.

Though he’s no longer alive, I like to imagine inviting him to one of our café conversations, watching father and daughter reconnect as I sip my matcha latte. Maybe then, finally, it would taste just right.

Smoke, Herbs And The Magic of Limpias

Mexico is a deeply spiritual country where cleansing rituals or “limpias” are woven into daily life. Rooted in ancient Mesoamerican beliefs about the interconnectedness of body and soul, these practices use eggs, copal smoke, or fresh herbs to release and renew energy. Families still turn to curanderos for protection, to clear spiritual imbalances, and invite harmony—opening a doorway between the visible and invisible worlds.

Many times, I’ve followed the scent of copal and the sound of ceremonial drums to find elaborately dressed sahumadores, or keepers of the copal. Witnessing the sacred Dance of the Concheros in Mexico City always presents an opportunity for a mystical copal cleansing. The aromatic resin, whose smoke is believed to purify the spirit, is ever-present in Mexico. It drifts through markets, sacred spaces, and homes—including my own—anchoring protection, grounding, and continuity with the ancestors.

One of my most powerful experiences took place in a small temple in Mexico City. Equipped with a bouquet of fragrant herbs, 2 eggs, 2 limes, 4 peppers and a bag of course salt, I received both an herbal and an egg cleansing. Inside a dimly lit room with charred walls, a perfect circle of salt was prepared on the floor. The curandero swept the herbs across my body while chanting prayers “a Dios”. The eggs were pressed into my skin, and the peppers brushed over me. The ritual grew more intense as flames were introduced – and yes, the salt ring was lit. Prayers were spoken over me as he worked, and by the end, I was left raw and washed anew.

Limpias reflect the cultural importance of communal healing. The relationship between healer and participant creates a dialogue of trust and provides sacred moments of stillness amid daily chaos.

Rebirth in the Temazcal

“A temazcal will transform you, I promise – and without plant medicine,” said Amaya Martínez trying to convince me to attend an upcoming ceremony. “It’s super Mexican, we need to goooooo!”

Stepping into a temazcal feels like crossing a threshold into another world. The low, rounded stone chamber is dark and womb-like, a return to Mother Earth herself. As the heated volcanic stones—the abuelitas, or “grandmothers”—are carried inside while their glow holds the memory of the earth. Soon, water infused with herbs is poured over them, and the space fills with thick, fragrant steam that clings to your skin.

“When you enter the temazcal, you return to the womb of the earth,” the guide explains. “It is a space of purification. It reminds us of who we are.”

The guide begins with prayers and songs, calling in the four directions. You sit in silence, sweating, listening, more sweating, breathing and sweating through the heat that seems at first overwhelming.

In the early moments of the temazcal, the gentle heat begins by cleansing the skin, leaving it refreshed and radiant. As the temperature rises, the warmth penetrates deeper into the muscles, releasing built-up acids that often cause contractions and stiffness. These impurities are carried into the bloodstream, where the body works to eliminate them. With this release, the muscles, tendons, and even the bone structure begin to relax and realign, allowing the body to settle into a natural state of balance. At its peak, the heat reaches the organs, drawing out accumulated toxins, taking heavy emotions (and your resolve) with them.

Many participants describe the detox effect as a physical, emotional and energetic purification. First, the fire begins to burn away what no longer serves you, then the rising steam carries your intentions upward. Finally, the body releases its weight through sweat, leaving you lighter, emptied out, and renewed. In the stillness that follows, you are both cradled and remade by the earth, returned to wholeness.

As The Smoke Dwindles…

Rooted in Indigenous wisdom, Mexico’s ancestral healing unites body, spirit, and nature. Medicines, rituals—copal, cacao, and many others—carry traditions forward, evolving yet safeguarding their sacred power.

Related articles on MexConnect

• The temascal: Traditional sweat bath
• Comprehending shamanism in the Huichol world
• Ecotourism in Mexico: Arroyo Guacamaya, Ixtlan and the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca
• Beliefs of Mexico’s Huichol people: Responsible Ecstasy

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Higher Education for Indigenous Communities in Mexico

More than 8 million people in Mexico, about 6% of the total population, speak one or more of the country’s 68 original (indigenous) languages. [1]

Najo’obiñ’eje, Welcome, bienvenidos, in Mazahua.

Pjiekak’joo, “We speak”, the name of the critically endangered Tlahuica language.

Despite an official proclamation following the Mexican Revolution of the elimination of racial prejudice against original peoples (accompanied by arguments for the superiority of original peoples, as enshrined in indigenismo), the proportion of the population speaking an original language has dropped sharply since 1910. According to the census that year, about 13% of the Mexican population was monolingual in an indigenous language. However, some historians and anthropologists have suggested the actual figure was closer to a third, or based on culture, more than half the population was indigenous, but that the numbers were suppressed due to institutional racism and the centuries of miscegenation that had greatly eroded the neat racial categories of the early colonial period. [2]

As Latin American historian Alan Knight has pointed out, prejudice remained alive and well even after the official proclamation (1990). This was not only expressed in attitudes, but in paternalistic public policies such as the one language policy of the Federal Department of Education (SEP, its acronym in Spanish).

The Intercultural Universities (UIs) have emerged in just the last two decades and are intended to help change the endemic discrimination suffered by native peoples in Mexico by directly supporting their languages and cultures.The IUs are a relatively new educational paradigm in Mexico. This new model for schooling represents a redress of the centuries-old practice of privileging Spanish and stigmatizing original languages. During the nearly 200 years of Mexican federal educational policy, Mexico has not been at the forefront of linguistic rights. Navarrete and Alcántara note that even today half of indigenous people in Mexico have not completed primary education. [3] This violates article 26 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which Mexico signed in 1948 as an original signatory, and which begins “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory.” [4] Of course, Mexico is not the only country to have failed to comply with that goal. [5]

The Intercultural Universities

The term “intercultural” is an attempt to place all cultures and languages on a completely equal footing and was chosen over “indigenous” in order to avoid the connotation of segregation.[6]

There are twelve IUs in Mexico (map). The two universities featured here are the Universidad Intercultural del Estado de México (UIEM), located in San Felipe del Progreso, Mexico State, a couple of hours northwest of Mexico City, and the Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (UVIH), located in Ixhuatlán de Madero, a very isolated campus in the Huasteca Veracruzana in the state of Veracruz.

UIEM was the very first one to be founded, it opened in a strip mall in 2004 due to the campus still being under construction. Today, UIEM has about 1,400 students compared to the traditional autonomous university in Toluca, UAEM, which has about 80,000 students.

UIEM was created by a deal between then-candidate and populist Vicente Fox and Mazahua activists in exchange for political support. [7] During that time in the 1990s, Fox was claiming he could solve the Zapatista “problem” in Chiapas in 15 minutes. In the area of UIEM there are five original languages spoken. The principal one being Mazahua with about a hundred thousand speakers, followed by Otomí, Matlatzinca, Tlahuica, and Nahuatl.

At UVIH, the majority of students are native speakers of Nahuatl. About 1.4 million people in central Mexico speak Nahuatl. Some students speak Otomí, Tepehua (a Maya language, no one is sure how the Maya got that far north), and Totonaco (spoken by La Malinche, mistress to Hernán Cortéz). UVIH is about 100 km. from the city of Poza Rica, although the condition of the roads is such that it is about 3 hours by car.

The mission and vision of the IUs is to directly support regional languages and cultures by being placed in areas that serve these communities. Needless to say, these same communities have traditionally been severely underserved.The IUs generally offer bachelor=s degrees in nursing, intercultural health, language and culture, intercultural law, and sustainable development. At UIEM students take four years of English and four years of an original language, about 70% study Mazahua. At UVIH students are required to take one year of English. At both schools, there is a heavy participation in the community through academic investigation and, at UIEM, community nursing.

The IUs are treading a fine line between offering a heterodox understanding of knowledges, putting scientific knowledge and indigenous knowledge on an equal footing, while at the same time trying to create a community of professionals that mitigate out-migration. The regions often suffer out-migration and young creation of families. In the case of UIEM, a community issue is young people who work in Mexico City and come home on the weekends only to spend their income on alcohol and drugs. The mission of UIEM is to provide a route to higher education and a profession in order to mitigate these issues in the community.

Are the Intercultural Universities a success?

It remains to be seen if the IUs can contribute on a regional scale, with a community focus and presence, to the strengthening of local languages and cultures. In this the IUs are distinctly different from the traditional indigenous institutions, represented by organizations such as Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas  (INALI) and the prestigious an highly respected Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia  (INAH), or even the older Instituto Nacional Indigenista  (INI, founded 1948) which metamorphosed into the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI) in 2003, during a time when President Fox was trying to “fix” indigenous issues. The traditional institutions suffer from a lack of community involvement and have a disinterested, ivory tower orientation projected from Mexico City, except possibly in the case of the CDI which is oriented toward physical infrastructure projects such as potable water, but, nonetheless, is scantily involved in cultural or educational development. The grassroots and originally activist-oriented IUs were created to bring language support directly to the communities in a non-paternalistic manner and currently have an important physical presence in the communities and are actively trying to support original languages and culture.

As noted by interviewee Adelina, in her hometown in the Mazahua region, the sixty-year-old Mazahua couple who helped her with her studies could not believe there was a university (UIEM) that supported the Mazahua language, harking back to the one language policy of the paternalistic SEP. One has to ask where have INALI (and its predecessors) and INAH been over the last 50 years. Adelina, who worked a few years at INAH in Mexico City, related how some of her co-workers assumed she was from INAH itself or the prestigious UNAM national autonomous university. According to Adelina, when her co-workers found out she was from UIEM and spoke Mazahua, they just sort of sat there dumbstruck for a few moments. Future research is needed to continue to monitor the experiment that are the IUs in order to gauge their influence in original language support, especially at a national level, which is particularly important and which is part of their missions.

Conclusion

The woeful lack of a supporting educational ecosystem is a significant threat to the long-term viability of the IUs, or at least a threat to their missions and visions. The almost complete lack of meaningful bilingual primary schools and the lack of language support in secondary and high schools is a serious threat and forms the basis of the abject impotence of the IUs to promote or preserve the presence of native or bilingual speakers of original languages. Among the interview participants, Griselda came from a town predominately of Nahuatl speakers, and yet, shockingly, there is no bilingual school in her town. On the other hand, Adelina, who was the director of an Otomí bilingual preschool, described a bilingual school where Otomí was mostly used to communicate with parents, not with students, wherein the academic program was designed to rapidly induct the students into the Spanish-language mainstream.

It is challenging to reconcile the stratospheric official federal policy of making all schools intercultural with the reality of a lack of educational infrastructure to provide linguistic support and rights to original language speakers. This lack of a bilingual infrastructure at all educational levels short of higher education is a serious systemic challenge that astronomically impedes the IUs’ attainment of their missions of strengthening regional languages. In the future, the federal authorities need to procure funding and implement a coherent bilingual educational policy, which is no small task, neither financially nor societally. This dire situation needs to be researched in order to determine its causes and its remedies by means of reforms and to propose major changes in program architecture.

• Want to read this article in Spanish?

About the Author

I was extremely fortunate in that two university administrations gave me permission to be on-campus doing research and teaching. This article is based on the work that I did to complete a PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. My field is linguistics, specifically sociolinguistics. I dedicated my dissertation to the indigenous languages and peoples of the Mexican states of el Estado Libre y Soberano de México and el Estado de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave. That work was a token of my commitment to them, their beautiful cultures and languages, and my concern for their welfare.

Many academic studies of indigenous languages revolve around language documentation, which of course is a valid scientific pursuit. My dissertation, however, explored language attitudes (ideologies) in a higher education setting and the influence of the Mexican intercultural universities (IUs) on language attitudes towards indigenous languages in students and in the surrounding communities, while holding that indigenous languages and cultures are part of world heritage as stated by UNESCO. [8]

References and bibliography

[1]  INEGI, 2009.
[2] Gamio, 2010, p. 27; Knight, 1990, p. 74.
[3] Navarrete and Alcántara 2015, p. 152.
[4] Declaration, 2015.
[5] Human Rights Ignored, 2018.
[6] Casillas & Santini, 2009, p. 135.
[7]  Gorman, 2016, pp. 29, 57.
[8] UNESCO, 2015.

• Casillas Muñoz, M. de L., & Santini Villar, L. (2009). Universidad intercultural: Modelo educativo (Segunda edición). SEP, Secretaría de Educación Pública, CGEIB, Coordinación General de Educación Intercultural y Bilingüe.
• Gamio, M. (2010). Forjando patria: Pro-nacionalismo = Forging a nation (F. Armstrong-Fumero, Trans.; original 1916). University Press of Colorado.
• Gorman, T. G. (2016). Partial democracy and compromised multiculturalism: The fate of the intercultural universities in Mexico [Doctoral dissertation Political Science, Indiana University (Proquest No. 10196175).
• Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI). (2009). Perfil sociodemográfico de la población que habla lengua indígena. Mexico City, Mexico: INEGI.
• Knight, A. (1990). “Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910-1940.” In R. Graham (Ed.), The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870 B 1940. University of Texas Press.
• Navarrete-Cazales, Z., & Alcántara Santuario, A. (2015). “Universidades interculturales e indígenas en México: Desafíos académicos e institucionales.” Revista Lusófona de Educação, 31, 145B160.
• UNESCO. (2001). Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. United Nations.
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (2015, October 6).
• World Watch Monitor. 70 years since universal declaration, human rights “ignored and abused all over the world.” (2018, December 7).

Published or Updated on: September 21, 2021 by James Musselman © 2021

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La educación superior para comunidades indígenas mexicanas

Más de 8 millones de personas en México, aproximadamente el 6% de la población total, hablan una de las 68 lenguas indígenas originales del país. [1]

Najo’obiñ‘eje, Bienvenidos, in Mazahua.

Pjiekak’joo, “Hablamos”, el nombre de la lengua Tlahuica que está en peligro crítico de extinción

A pesar de, una proclamación oficial posterior a la Revolución mexicana de la eliminación de los prejuicios raciales contra los pueblos originarios, acompañadocon argumentos a favor de la superioridad de los pueblos originarios, consagrado en el indigenismo, la proporción de la población que habla un idioma original ha disminuido drásticamente desde 1910. Según el censo de ese año, alrededor del 13% de la población mexicana era monolingüe en una lengua indígena. Sin embargo, algunos historiadores y antropólogos han sugerido que la cifra verdadera estaba más cerca de un tercio, o basado en la cultura, más de la mitad de la población era indígena, es decir, los números fueron suprimidos debido al racismo institucional y los siglos de mestizaje que habían erosionado enormemente la categorías raciales del periodo colonial temprano. [2]

Como ha señalado, el historiador latinoamericano Alan Knight, el prejuicio se mantuvo vivo y bien incluso después de la proclamación oficial (1990). Esto no solo se expresó en actitudes, sino en políticas públicas paternalistas como la política de un solo idioma de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP).

Las Universidades Interculturales (UIs) han surgido en solo las últimas dos décadas y están destinadas a ayudar a cambiar la discriminación endémica que sufren los pueblos originarios en México al apoyar directamente sus idiomas y culturas.Las UIs son un paradigma educativo relativamente nuevo en México. Este nuevo modelo de escolarización representa una reparación de la práctica centenaria de privilegiar el español y estigmatizar las lenguas originales. Durante los casi 200 años de política educativa federal mexicana, México no ha estado a la vanguardia de los derechos lingüísticos. Navarrete y Alcántara señalan que aún hoy la mitad de los indígenas en México no han completado la educación primaria [3] esto viola el artículo 26 de la Declaración de Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas, que México firmó en 1948 como signatario original, y que comienza “Toda persona tiene derecho a la educación. La educación será gratuita, al menos en las etapas elementales y fundamentales. La educación primaria será obligatoria.” [4] Naturalmente, México no es el único país que no ha cumplido con ese objetivo. [5]

Las universidades interculturales

El término intercultural es un intento de colocar a todas las culturas y lenguas en un plano de total igualdad y la SEP decidió que las UIs no iban a tener la palabra indígenaen sus nombrespara evitar la connotación de segregación. [6]

Hay doce UIs en México (mapa arriba). Las dos universidades que se presentan aquí son la Universidad Intercultural del Estado de México (UIEM), ubicada en San Felipe del Progreso, Estado de México, un par de horas al noroeste de la Ciudad de México, y la Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (UVIH), ubicada en Ixhuatlán de Madero, una sede muy aislada en la Huasteca Veracruzana en el estado de Veracruz.

La UIEM fue la primera en ser fundada, abrió en un centro comercial en 2004 debido a que el campus aún estaba en construcción. Hoy, la UIEM tiene alrededor de 1,400 estudiantes en comparación con la tradicional universidad autónoma en Toluca, UAEM, que tiene alrededor de 80,000 estudiantes.

La UIEM fue creada por un trato entre el entonces candidato y populista Vicente Fox y activistas mazahuas a cambio de apoyo político. [7]

Durante ese tiempo en la década de 1990, Fox afirmaba que podía resolver el “problema” zapatista en Chiapas en 15 minutos. En el área de la UIEM se hablan cinco idiomas originales. El principal idioma es el mazahua con cerca de cien mil hablantes, seguido del otomí, matlatzinca, tlahuica y náhuatl.

En el área de la UVIH se habla náhuatl (hay alrededor de 1.4 millones dehablantes en toda la zona de México central), y también otomí, tepehua (una lengua maya, nadie sabe cómo los mayas llegaron tan al norte) y totonaco (La Malinche, la amante de Hernán Cortéz, hablaba totonaco). La UVIH está a unos 100 km. de la ciudad de Poza Rica, aunque las condiciones de los caminos son tales que el viaje dura unas tres horas en carro.

La misión y la visión de las UIs son el apoyo directo a las lenguas y las culturas regionales por están ubicadas en áreas que sirven a las comunidades. No hace falta decir que estas mismas comunidades tradicionalmente han sido gravemente desatendidas. En general, las UIs ofrecen licenciaturas en enfermería, salud intercultural, lengua y cultura, derecho intercultural y desarrollo sostenible. En la UIEM, los estudiantes estudian inglés cuatro años y una lengua original cuatro años, un 70% solo mazahua. Por otra parte, en la UVIH la mayoría de los estudiantes son nativos en náhuatl y es un requisito estudiar un año de inglés. En ambas escuelas, hay mucha participación en la comunidad a través de investigaciones y, en la UIEM, la enfermería comunitaria.

Las UIs se sitúan en una línea delgada entre la oferta de un entendimiento heterodoxo de saberes, poniendo el saber científico e indígena en un plano de igualdad, por ello creanuna comunidad de profesionistas que mitigan la emigración a las ciudades. Con frecuencia, las regiones sufren de emigración y la creación joven de familias. En el caso de la UIEM, un asunto comunitario es que jóvenes trabajan in la Ciudad de México y regresan a sus pueblos los fines de semana y gastan sus ingresos solamente en alcohol y drogas. La misión de la UIEM es proveer una ruta a la educación superior y una profesión para mitigar estos asuntos en la comunidad.

¿Son las Universidades Interculturales un éxito?

Queda por verse, si las UIs pueden aportar, de una escala regional, con una presencia y un enfoque comunitario, al fortalecimiento de lenguas y culturas locales. En esto, las UIs son claramente distintas de las instituciones indígenas tradicionales, como el Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI) y el prestigioso y respectado Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), o el aún más antiguo Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI, fundado en 1948), que se metamorfoseó en la Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI) en 2003, durante un tiempo cuando el presidente Fox intentaba “reparar” problemas indígenas. Las instituciones tradicionales padecen de una falta de participación comunitaria y, es más, tienen una disposición desinteresada, de una torre de marfil en la Ciudad de México, con la posible excepción de la CDI, que tiene una orientación hacia la infraestructura física como agua potable, sin embargo, tiene escasamente intervenciones en las culturas y en el desarrollo de la educación. Las UIs de base y originales de orientación activista, fueron creadas para proveer apoyo a las lenguas, directo a las comunidades sin paternalismo y que en este momento tienen una importante presencia física en las comunidades y están tratando de cumplir con esta misión.

Como lo señaló la entrevistada Adelina, en su pueblo natal en la zona mazahua, el matrimonio con la edad de sesenta años que la ayudó con sus estudios de mazahua, no pudo creer que existe una universidad (UIEM) que apoya a la lengua mazahua, remontándose a la política de la SEP paternalista. Nos tenemos que preguntar dónde han estado el INALI y el INAH durante los últimos 50 años. Adelina, quien trabajaba unos años en el INAH en la Ciudad de México, relató como algunos de sus compañeros de trabajo asumieron que ella era del INAH mismo o de la prestigiosa UNAM. Según ella, cuando sus compañeros se enteraron que ella era de la UIEM y habla mazahua, se quedaron pasmados por unos momentos. Las futuras investigaciones son necesarias para continuar de monitorizar al experimento que son las UIs para medir su influencia en el apoyo de lenguas originales, especialmente a un nivel nacional, que es importante y es parte de sus misiones.

Conclusión

Lamentablemente, la falta de un ecosistema de apoyo a la educación representa una amenaza a la viabilidad a largo plazo de la UIs, o por lo menos, una amenaza a sus misiones y visiones. La falta de escuelas bilingües efectivas y de programas en las secundarias y media superior lleva un peligro serio para las UIs porque sin una infraestructura será difícil mantener nativos en lenguas indígenas en las comunidades. Entre los entrevistados, Griselda es de un pueblo en el que la mayoría habla náhuatl, sin embargo, no hay escuelas bilingües en su pueblo.

Por otro lado, Adelina fue directora de una prescolar otomí, donde la lengua otomí era la manera de comunicarse con los padres, no con estudiantes, mientras que el programa académico fue deseñado para introducir rápidamente a los niños a la corriente principal de español.

Es un desafío reconciliar la estratosférica política federal oficial de hacer que todas las escuelas sean interculturales con la realidad de la falta de infraestructura educativa para brindar apoyo lingüístico y derechos a los hablantes de idiomas originales. La falta de una infraestructura bilingüe excepto en las UIs es un reto sistémico que desmesuradamente impide las UIs en lograr sus misiones de fortalecimiento de lenguas regionales. En el futuro, las autoridades federales necesitarán procurar fondos e implementar una política educativa bilingüe que es coherente, que no es una tarea pequeña, no financieramente y no en términos de la sociedad. Es necesario investigar esta situación horripilante para determinar sus causas y remedios mediante reformas y proponer cambios importantes en la arquitectura del programa.

• ¿Prefieres leer este artículo en inglés?

Sobre el autor

Tuve mucha suerte de que dos administraciones universitarias me dieran permiso para que estuviera en el campus haciendo investigación y docencia. Este artículo está basado en el trabajo que hice para completar un doctorado en Lenguas y Literaturas Hispanas. Mi campo es la lingüística, específicamente la sociolingüística y dediqué mi tesis a las lenguas y pueblos indígenas de los estados mexicanos el Estado Libre y Soberano de México y el Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave. Ese trabajo fue una muestra de mi compromiso con ellos, sus hermosas culturas e idiomas y mi preocupación por su bienestar.

Muchos estudios académicos de lenguas indígenas giran en torno a la documentación lingüística, lo que por supuesto es una búsqueda científica válida, sin embargo, mi tesis exploró las actitudes lingüísticas o ideológicas en un entorno de educación superior y la influencia de las UIs en las actitudes lingüísticas hacia las lenguas indígenas en los estudiantes y en las comunidades circundantes, al tiempo que sostenía que las lenguas y culturas indígenas son parte del patrimonio mundial según lo declarado por la UNESCO. [8]

References and bibliography

[1]  INEGI, 2009.
[2] Gamio, 2010, p. 27; Knight, 1990, p. 74.
[3] Navarrete and Alcántara 2015, p. 152.
[4] Declaration, 2015.
[5] Human Rights Ignored, 2018.
[6] Casillas & Santini, 2009, p. 135.
[7]  Gorman, 2016, pp. 29, 57.
[8] UNESCO, 2015.

• Casillas Muñoz, M. de L., & Santini Villar, L. (2009). Universidad intercultural: Modelo educativo (Segunda edición). SEP, Secretaría de Educación Pública, CGEIB, Coordinación General de Educación Intercultural y Bilingüe.
• Gamio, M. (2010). Forjando patria: Pro-nacionalismo = Forging a nation (F. Armstrong-Fumero, Trans.; original 1916). University Press of Colorado.
• Gorman, T. G. (2016). Partial democracy and compromised multiculturalism: The fate of the intercultural universities in Mexico [Doctoral dissertation Political Science, Indiana University (Proquest No. 10196175).
• Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI). (2009). Perfil sociodemográfico de la población que habla lengua indígena. Mexico City, Mexico: INEGI.
• Knight, A. (1990). “Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910-1940.” In R. Graham (Ed.), The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870 B 1940. University of Texas Press.
• Navarrete-Cazales, Z., & Alcántara Santuario, A. (2015). “Universidades interculturales e indígenas en México: Desafíos académicos e institucionales.” Revista Lusófona de Educação, 31, 145B160.
• UNESCO. (2001). Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. United Nations.
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (2015, October 6).
• World Watch Monitor. 70 years since universal declaration, human rights “ignored and abused all over the world.” (2018, December 7).

Translation by James Musselman and Diana Mirelle Castillo Acevedo. © 2021

Published or Updated on: September 21, 2021 by James Musselman © 2021

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Susana Eger Valadez traveled to Mexico about 20 years ago while working on her Master of Arts Degree in Latin American Studies. She completed the degree from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In the process of studying the Huichol people, her life was changed forever.

In 1981, Susana Eger and her Huichol husband, Mariano Valadez, co-founded the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts, a non-profit, 501(c) 3 organization located in Nayarit, Mexico with an office in Seattle, Washington.

The Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts, a U.S., non-profit corporation (known in Mexico as the “Centro Cultural Huichol”) has been working for the past 13 years to empower the Huichols with the strategic thinking they need in order to understand what is happening in the world around them, and how to be successful within it, without compromising the integrity of their core belief system.

The premise of the Huichol Center is that it is entirely possible to provide the Huichols with the opportunities, techinical skills, and problem solving abilities they need in order to interface with the world around them while at the same time protecting their traditional culture and way of life.

The Huichol Center logo stresses the importance of “sustaining cultural identity through trade and tribal wisdom.” Center projects have brought together a network of tribal leaders, religious practitioners, healers, artists, naturalists and others who have joined in a concerted effort to solve problems with creative solutions generated from within the Huichol belief system. The focus is on creating projects within three major categories: environmentally sustainable projects that promote a self-sufficient economic base, educational programs that foster Huichol values, and a holistic health program that integrates Western medicine with traditional healing. For example, one of the projects dealing with environmeental sustainability is the ongoing Sustainable Futures program. This cross-cultural, educational project has provided an opportunity for several Huichols to come to the U.S. to learn about ecological retoration techniques, organic gardening, and how to creatively utilize their numerous renewable resources. The program is a joint project of the Huichol Center and the Sol y Sombra Foundation, Permaculture Drylands Institute, and the Center for the Study of Community in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Other Center projects which contribute to the economic and cultural stability of the Huichol homeland include the documentation of tribal wisdom, literacy development, skill training in traditional arts, and principles of trade and marketing. In the area of health care, the Huichol Center provides a range of services including a primary care medical clinic with tuberculosis treatment facilities, a birthing center, and a soup kitchen. Huichol public awareness activities include museum exhibits and cross-cultural tribal interchange with other tribes of the Americas.

It is the Huichol Center’s experience that communities which derive a sense of security based on group pride are the ones best prepared to make the hard choices the future demands of them.

While teaching people to value themselves so that they can play a valuable part in the world in which they live, the Huichol Center promotes an integrated problem-solving strategy that combines economic development, cultural preservation, and a health care system. Our goal is to build a sturdy bridge between tradition and the future – a bridge that allows traditional wisdom to enter the 21st century without destroying the people who carry its spirit and substance.

All Huichol Center projects are supported by the sale of Huichol art created at the Center and contributions to our non-profit corporations in Mexico and the U.S.

For More Information Contact:

Our email

Our Internet Site

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Deer. Maize. Peyote These are the most important symbols for the Huichol. They represent a culture in transition from hunting and gathering strategies to that of a sedentary agrarian lifestyle.

The deer holds the intimate role of symbolizing the Huichol people. The character of the Huichol as a group tends to be light, flexible, and humorous. They have avoided open warfare, neither fighting against the Spanish nor for the Mexican government, but have always maintained their traditions and freedoms. They call themselves Wixalika, which means prophets or healers.

The Peyote cactus is the centerpiece of their sacred ritualism. It is the vehicle by which they obtain their mystical union with the gods. It has been revered for centuries by the Huichol for its curative properties and its ability to “enlighten” the one who partakes of it.

The Huichol do not have a word which corresponds to what we of the Western tradition have called hallucination. Our definition of the word would be unthinkable for a Huichol who knows nothing of such foolish terms concocted by a paranoid establishment and its “paid for” psychologists. The flow of sacred imaging through the mind’s eye is always present within the individual as can be seen by the various ways of accessing it around the world through shamanic, religious, meditative and various forms of physical manipulation and chemical means. The Huichol have practised this way of seeing beyond the normal physical realm for eons and live in communal balance long before the Europeans arrived with their chains.

The peyoteros, as they are called, perform a pilgrimage yearly to obtain the magic cactus, as pictured here, from the scorching desert of San Luis Potosi. This sacred place they call Wirikuta or the “Field of Flowers” is hundreds of miles from their traditional homeland.

The cactus is eaten by young and old alike. With the direction of the shaman and the support of the group, each peyotero is free to transcend the limitations of their ordinary sensory perceptions and see with the mind’s eye, the heart of the great spirit, the interconnectedness of all things seen and unseen.

The Images expressed in their artwork are always representing stories, legends of their mythology that organize every aspect of their world and lives. The basis of their rituals are the songs of the shamans (marakame) and the main one says :”If you have been made of corn (eekoo) and you eat the peyote (heekoori) — the cactus that is the real core of the corn — you become the jaguar (maye) that hunts your deer (maxra) — that is your own spirit — and listen to the song of the oldest and biggest deer (Tamatz Kauyumari) — who gives you the power — and scorpion (Terooka) and the feather sticks (moowieri) to heal, sing and dance”.

The geometric intricacy of their art reflects the patterns of primordial archetypes present within each of us. Their art is a literal physical translation of imagery seen during their expanded state of awareness, induced by their sacred cactus. This art is a tangible manifestation of their experience in the realm of the gods for each of us to see, touch, and commune with, becoming vehicles for our own contemplation and transformation.

The post The Huichol people of Mexico and their symbols appeared first on MexConnect.

The Huichols are a hearty and enduring people numbering about 18,000, most of which live in the Jalisco and Nayarit, two rugged and mountainous states in North Central Mexico.
They are descendents of the Aztecs and are related to their Uto-Aztecan speaking cousin, the Hopi of Arizona. They are representatives of a pre-Columbian shamanic tradition which is still functioning according to the ceremonies of their remote past. Having withstood the Spanish Invasion, they are still striving to keep their culture alive and viable, despite the ever increasing physical and cultural encroachment of their Mexican neighbors.

The Huichol romanticize their past, when game was plentiful and they were free to roam the vast mountain ranges and deserts of their homeland. This was a time of freedom for them, before they became tethered to the growing of maize.

Agriculture in their mountainous homeland is very difficult and crops can fail easily. They seek assistance from the forces of nature through an elaborate cycle of ceremonies to ensure their crops success and their own survival.

The ceremony to bring rain for the maize is performed by anointing the maize with deer blood, however the deer can only be sacrificed after eating peyote. The peyote must first be obtained by the pilgrimage to Wirikuta . Each ceremony is rooted in a previous one in a yearly cycle.

This yearly round of ceremonies reflects the universal symbol of a snake eating its tail. The eternal order of progression. One sacred act cannot be performed without first being qualified by a previous sacred act in a circular spiral that extends far back into the hoary depths of time.

By Robert Otey and adapted here with his kind permission.

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Amid the reconstructed pyramids of Monte Alban, a pageant is performed commemorating ancient legends of how the sun and the moon and the Earth were born, and were set free to roam the heavens. Designed with help from the Dragon Theater of Maine, and performed by local singers, dancers and musicians, “Sol y Luna” will, hopefully, become an annual event.

“Curar”: to cure; thus Curandera(o): one who cures. Curanderas are “white witches”: practitioners of a medical system older than Hippocrates and as new as megavitamins and herbal teas sold at Safeway or Cub Foods. Many Mexicans (and others) believe that curanderas are at least as good as medical doctors, and it is not unusual for someone to consult both.

Last month, a new friend E-mailed me from the States, looking for a curandera. My friend, who suffers from a chronic, painful, but not fatal ailment, works as a health care provider. Because of her own combination of fear (am I going to be in the hands of a charlatan, or a “black” witch?) and skepticism (how can this be real?), she wanted to interview her practitioner before turning herself over for treatment. Her search piqued my interest, and I agreed to help.

Before you can use a curandera, you have to find her. Curanderas don’t hang out their shingle, especially not in a Catholic country, where claiming to have “powers” comes fairly close to heresy. Nonetheless, they are not hard to find. I asked my friend Yolanda, a bilingual Mixtec woman from a nearby village, to find me a curandera of high reputation. She immediately came up with three, in her village alone.

Her first choice was an “anciana” (old one); a woman with so extensive a reputation that people come to her from as far away as San Francisco, California. Her office hours are from noon until eight at night, and no-one may join the queue after 4 pm. Her business is so brisk that her husband acts as her business manager, controlling all aspects of her practice outside the consultorio. Although it had been set up for weeks, hubby decided at the last minute that while a treatment would be ok, an interview would not.

Second choice was a woman who had been practicing for “only” forty years, with a reputation that at this point extends only to Mexico City. She has no office hours, treating people as they come to her. Her husband is a farmer and leaves her business to her. It was to their house that Yolanda led us one February morning.

“Maria” (not her name) lives with her husband and children in a cement and adobe structure, on a side street in a small village not far from Oaxaca. The street is barely graded, and unpaved. There are at least eight dogs playing in the yard, along with three children. The consultorio is at the far end of a row of rooms along one side of the structure. When we arrive, the room is full of smoke from burning incense. One wall is decorated from floor to ceiling with images from the Catholic religion, tending toward illustrations of the Virgin Mary and the bleeding heart of Jesus. On the table (altar?) set against this wall are figurines and reliquaries. Some appear to represent deities more ancient than those brought by the Spanish. There is a table and two chairs for patient and curandera, and a bench for guests.

Maria is in her forties, plump, sparkle-eyed, relaxed. Like almost all village people I have encountered, she is open, generous and without guile. She answers our questions like she has done this thousands of times, yet she probably has never been interviewed before. She tells us she manifested her gift from earliest childhood, when her mother saw “a light” in her bedroom, which no-one else in the family could see (her great grandmother was said to have the gift, her grandmother not at all, and her mother only this small insight). She does not remember when she performed her first healing, but her mother told her she was around 6 years old. Her father disapproved of her gift, and warned her that people would think she was crazy and would be afraid of her. She understands now that he was just expressing his own fears, which ended when she cured him of cancer last year.

As we interview Maria, I keep an eye on my friend. Her body language is changing: from sitting back with her legs together and her hands folded in her lap, she is leaning forward, arms open, barely perched on the bench. There is a yearning in her eyes. She is ready to be cleansed. If it wasn’t for my own curiosity, the interview would have been terminated much sooner (more of Maria’s story another time).

My friend asks Maria if she will cleanse her (“limpia”, a cleaning, is the traditional word for the healing process, the theory being that sickness comes from a “bad wind” that enters the body and must be cleaned out). Maria agrees and asks me and Yolanda to leave. We go out to the courtyard, where Maria’s husband is shucking corn for tortillas, and chat about the weather.

About twenty minutes later, my friend emerges. She tells us that “something” took place which she can’t explain, but it left her feeling “giddy”. She is to return the next day. Yolanda agrees to accompany her. We part company, each to his or her own concerns. Through happenstance and error, my friend does not return to complete her treatments. I am allowed, therefore, to retire from the experience with my skepticism intact.

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A Message From Susana Eger Valadez, Director,
The Huichol Center For Cultural Survival And Traditional Arts

Dear Friends on the Internet:

Thank you for your clicking on us to find out about the important work of the Huichol Center For Cultural Survival And Traditional Arts. I’m Susana, the Center’s founder and director and I’d like to share with you some of the things I’ve learned after living and working among the Huichols for almost half my lifetime now, for the last twenty two years. As an outsider to their culture who married in, I have acquired a deep love of the Huichol people and non-ending admiration of their traditional way of life. Unfortunately, due to the effects of what I call “the modern day conquest” (missionaries, land invasion, tourism, loss of autonomy, poverty, disease, social ills, etc.) the Huichols are teetering on the ledge of cultural extinction, and losing ground fast. I’d hate to think that one day in the future some Huichol friend or relative of mine might wind up in an anthropological journal featured as the next Ishi (the last living person of a now extinct California native tribe).

Thus, for many years now I have worked hard and gone through many trials, errors, and tribulations to discover some common sense measures to help insure that the Huichol culture remains viable in the face of tumultuous social change. Perhaps my personal experiences will provide inspiration to others who might wish to rise to the challenge of assisting the Huichols and other “first nations” cultures like them to prevail in their struggle for survival and autonomy in today’s world.

We have much to learn from a native culture that has survived against all odds into modern times, and by helping them survive, we are also helping ourselves in the long run. My experiences with the Huichols have definitely broadened my horizons and changed my attitude about what is important in life. For example, living with the Huichols has taught me to get real about my relationship to nature, which is something that a lot of us need to be reminded of. I used to be a city gal from Chicago who as a child thought food was grown in the back room of the supermarket, and that the water came from the faucet on the Sparklett’s truck. I was so disconnected from nature that I remember not believing my mother when she told me that corn was grown by planting the seed kernels in the ground, one at a time. I thought that to get corn someone had to glue the kernels onto a wooden stick and then plant the whole ear of corn into the earth. I never really acknowledged the vital role of rain either. On the contrary, I used to get mad when it rained, because our sports would be canceled or my hairdo would be ruined. As a city dweller, the intricate workings of the “invisible world” had little relevance to my life.

Things are quite the reverse now, thanks to what I’ve learned from the Huichol farmers and their shaman practitioners. Through planting corn with them and working in agricultural endeavors, I not only discovered how to work with nature on the physical plane, but an “otherworldly” system for planting corn, making rain, controlling winds, and fertilizing their crops as well. I refer to this system as “sacred permaculture.” The Huichols have developed psychic abilities which they use to shift between the sacred and mundane realms, and to communicate with the spirits of plants and animals (a technique known in the literature as “inter-species communication”) This has resulted in their extraordinary powers to manipulate the invisible forces, on “grand intelligence of nature” to their benefit. It is a spiritual component of Huichol farming that is missing in most non-Huichol modern day agricultural endeavors, but is as valid a part of Huichol farming practices as reading weather reports and planting by the moon are in our own. The personification of natural forces and the creation of relationships of reciprocity between human souls and immortal nature Spirits have sustained Huichol survival in their severe environment for centuries. What can we learn from this?

Obviously, there is a huge difference between agribusiness and Huichol style sustainable agriculture. The symbiotic relationship between Huichol farmers, and the spirits of the maize, sun, rain, and topsoil working in a system where plant, human, and nature consciousness are interwoven to guarantee a successful yield, presents us with a prime example of humans living in equilibrium with nature. This is a far cry beyond the image we have of Mr. Farmer in his Oshkosh overalls riding around on his tractor, thinking of how he will pay back his bank loans at harvest time. The ruling principle among the Huichols is very basic: the survival of the corn depends on the Huichols, and the survival of the Huichols depends on corn. The gods feed the people because the people feed the gods. An ear of corn won’t grow if it falls to the ground. It requires human intervention to remove each seed kernel from the ear, place it into a hole in the earth, and care for it physically and spiritually. In the Huichol belief system, humans, like the corn, are one in the same because both carry the seed for the future, and both require the intervention of the deities to grow and flourish. As one shaman friend of mine put it, “just like people take their babies to the church to be anointed with holy water, we take the souls of our baby corn plants to our gods and goddesses to receive their blessings.”

Thus when traditional Huichol farmers place corn seed into the ground, they are entering into a sacred bond with the plants and every vital force of nature that contributes to their growth. The terms of the agreement require the petitioners to faithfully comply with the rules and regulations set out by the divinities, who stipulate their firm conditions to the shamans in ceremonies and in their dreams. These conditions oblige the Huichols to carry out sacred obligations which may include: embarking on the mystical deer hunt in order to ritually anoint or “feed” the baby corn plants the blood of the divine animal; to create numerous votive objects that will be sanctified in ceremonies and deposited as “payment” to the deities in various distant sacred locations; caring for the plants as if they were Huichol children (spoiling them with constant affection and endearing them with gift offerings) and through the performance of numerous ceremonies throughout the year to thank and acknowledge the natural forces for keeping up their part of the bargain. This give-and-take method has provided them with healthy organically grown crops that have fed masses of their people throughout the ages.

The lessons from the Huichols and the corn emerge from one basic idea: humans work for nature, nature works for humanity. In a world where people of all races and places are trying to make it through these trying times, the Huichol approach to life can assist us in adjusting our attitudes toward nature to create better future scenarios. The prevailing pessimistic future trends, i.e., strange weather patterns, over-population, polluted water sources, mass starvation, horrific diseases, terrorist bombers, etc., are symptoms of a sick global community that has snagged the common thread that binds us all together. When thinking about solutions to the mess we humans have created for ourselves resulting from our spiritless relationship with nature, a good place to begin to reweave our connections with the web of life is through the Huichol example of opening the dialogue with the spirit world, and starting the bargaining process. Not only do we enhance our yields by establishing partnerships with nature, but in the process we two-legged “bags of water” discover the meaning of life on our little blue planet, and validate our existence in this world.

Does this mean that we should go out and hunt the deer, mimic Huichol shamans, or copy Huichol ceremonies in order to obtain the desired results? My personal opinion is that non-Huichols need not “go native” in order to revive lost communications with nature. Let’s draw from our own culture, history, folk legends, and diverse spiritual traditions to spark our imaginations and tune-up our instincts. Through the eyes of our own backgrounds we may bring to light a multitude of approaches to integrate nature’s vast mysteries into our daily lives in meaningful ways. Rather than impersonating Huichol spiritual practitioners, whose cultural legacies provide them with all the background and preparation they need to practice their highly refined skills within their cultural tradition, we can look to the Huichol model for inspiration. The Huichol example of “inter-species communication” provides us with a vivid archetype of how humans and nature spirits may work together to sustain the earth, and instills in us an appreciation of an ecological ideal that is worth striving for.

A Huichol friend of mine was commenting to me the other day about how busy he and his family are in trying to keep up with all of the demands of the ritual agricultural calendar. “You know”, He said,” non-Huichols have no idea about how hard we work to insure that not only Huichol corn will grow, but your corn and other food as well. The deals we strike with the gods are for the benefit of all, which is why we work so hard at it. The day we stop honoring our corn plants, making ceremonies to call the rain clouds from the ocean, and leaving offerings in the fields to calm the winds, will be the day that many on earth go hungry. We Huichols were born to be the caretakers. This is our reason for being. It’s hard on us, especially since our youth are being swayed away from our traditions, but we realize the importance of doing this and will continue as long as we can.”

During this difficult period of cultural transition, it is imperative that people throughout the world work together to facilitate the “caretakers” so they may sustain their traditional beliefs in healthy communities that support the Huichol way of life in the future. In doing so we not only insure the endurance of one of the world’s most remarkable ancient cultures, but we also create opportunities for Huichol people to perpetuate their age old wisdom and provocative ecological archetypes to a global audience. The Huichol Center For Cultural Survival And Traditional Arts was founded on this premise in 1981, and has been working hard ever since to:

• Support the continuance of Huichol native traditions by fortifying their culture with community based economic solutions that promote self sufficiency.
• Promote and respect the Huichol peoples’ birthright to self-determination.
• Care for the physical health and well being of the Huichol people.
• Document the ancient traditions and native knowledge for safekeeping.
• Assist ecological conservation and sustainable agriculture in the homeland.
• Provide educational opportunities that strengthen the Huichol belief system.
• Create opportunities for cultural interchanges between Huichols and other native groups.

The Huichol Center empowers participants from many different Huichol communities to preserve their spiritual, artistic, and cultural heritage by preparing them to interact with the outside world on their own terms. We believe that with careful planning the Huichol people can participate and thrive in the modern world without sacrificing their native traditions. There is no way to stop the flood gates of change, but there are definitely ways to assist the Huichols to navigate the currents so that they wind up where they want to be. Thus, the cultural, economic, and health solutions we have implemented in our grass-roots, non-governmental and non-denominational projects are compatible with Huichol lifestyle, and do not conflict with the core belief system. Our projects are supported by the sale of products created by the Huichol participants, and by tax deductible donations, They are based around the following goals:

Conservation of Traditions: Many of the ancient rituals and traditions are being lost or forgotten as the elders die off and the Huichol children are influenced in the schools to give up their traditions. The Huichol Center Ethnographic Archive contains documented knowledge from shamans who have recorded this valuable wisdom before it disappears, safeguarding examples of their art, material culture, and knowledge for future generations. Photographs, music, artwork, drawings, and taped interviews are contained in this archive. Another collection, the Design Archive, is composed of hundreds of traditional artwork patterns in all mediums that have been recorded and are distributed to Huichol school children, to apprentice Huichol artists, and to the Huichol populace.

Health Care: Due to the encroachment of civilization, the devastating effects of poverty, and the migration of Huichols to the cities where they are exposed to the effects of insecticide poisoning, malnutrition, parasitic diseases, and infectious diseases (ie., measles, whooping cough, and tuberculosis), the Huichols are dying off in huge numbers. The state and federal programs for the poor do not adequately provide for these isolated people. Therefore medical attention is provided free of charge at the Huichol Center, where treatment is administered by traditional shamans and local medical doctors. The services provided in our clinics include: emergency and out-patient care medical transport; lab work; rural health maintenance care; TB recovery facilities; pre-natal care; birthing; nutritional counseling, and alcohol counseling.

Economic Self Sufficiency: The Huichol Center “Handicrafts, Not Handouts” Project creates culturally relevant jobs for Huichols in their home communities by “transforming field hands to creative hands.” Their other option for jobs is to work as migrant field laborers outside of their homelands, where they suffer devastating health risks. The skills the artisans learn from our project, enable them to generate income at home, thus reducing the mass migrations of those seeking employment outside, some of whom never return home.

Sustainable Agriculture and Elimination of Hunger: The Huichol homeland is rich with renewable resources that the Huichols would like to develop in order to create sources of food and income in their impoverished communities, without destroying their environment. The Huichol Center teaches permaculture, organic gardening, beekeeping, seed banking, and other skills to help the Huichols take advantage of the many trade goods and products they can bring to the international marketplace.

Cross Cultural Tribal Exchange and Museum Exhibits: The Huichol Center considers it of vital importance that the isolated Huichol people re-establish relations (trade, ceremonial, and friendships) with fellow first nations peoples throughout the Americas. Over the years, our “Huichol Ambassador” program has sponsored numerous Huichol delegations on good will trips to the US Southwest and Canada to meet with their northern “relatives”. The Huichol Center has also sponsored several major museum exhibits that have traveled across the world.

Aid to The Impoverished: The Huichol Center feeds and shelters hundreds of Huichols each year who find themselves temporarily in urban environments without adequate resource in addition, widowed and abandoned women are taken in and taught skills to help them support their families.

Aid to Huichol Religious Practitioners: An important part of the Huichol ceremonial cycle is the annual journey made by the religious leaders to their distant ancestral lands. In times past, the practitioners made these journeys by foot, but now the trails have been blocked off by barbed wire fences, forcing their groups of thirty to forty people to use expensive modern transportation. The Huichol Center provides economic aid to the traditional religious pilgrims so that they may rent vehicles and drivers to transport them to their distant sacred destinations without economic hardship.

Educational Opportunities: Huichol school children have no place in the homeland to continue their studies after the sixth grade. The Huichol Center sponsors a few young people each year so that they may attend schools in urban areas close to home. At the same time, these youngsters are given the opportunity to participate in Huichol Center programs, which rounds out their education. The Huichol Center’s “crafts curriculum” is currently being taught in the community schools.

Your purchase of our artwork and agricultural products, and tax-deductible donations support our projects… In addition to much needed funding, your kind assistance is also greatly appreciated in the donation of medical supplies, school supplies, computers, agricultural and irrigation supplies, beekeeping supplies, vehicles (for farm work, transportation of Huichol patients to far off hospitals, and transportation of Huichol travelers), air-fare discounts, publishing discounts (for brochures, catalogs, and PR), and other useful things. Please contact our U.S. or Mexican Office to discuss any ideas you might have to help us out, or for more information about our products.
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The post The Huichols: a culture in transition appeared first on MexConnect.

Mexican Kitchen

Beginning in mid-October, and lasting for a month, a five-hundred-year-old ritual encompassing history, tradition and cuisine takes place in the valley of Tehuacan, in the Mixteca Poblana region of southern Puebla.

Traveling through this rocky, hardscrabble land, one wonders how the inhabitants have sustained themselves for thousands of years and marvels at the fact that this part of Mexico is the place where corn was first cultivated from a wild grain that grew in the valleys between steep, cactus-strewn mountainsides. For these hardy agricultural people, the Mexican culinary triumvirate of corn, beans and squash made up the basis of their diet for centuries. Not until the arrival of the Spaniards were bovine and wool-bearing animals introduced, and one look at this rugged countryside is enough to realize that one of the few capable of surviving here is the goat.

The annual twenty-day long event known as La Matanza – the killing of the goats – is not only the culmination of a year of hard work but an event that sums up much of the region’s history and gastronomy. October’s matanza has been called a manifestation of Mixteca folklore syncretized in religious observance, cuisine and dance. Today it is a civic as well as a ritual occasion, with municipal officials, reporters, and thousands of visitors flocking to Tehuacan to eat the famous mole de caderas, a stew made with the meaty hind quarters of the goat and flavored with local seasonal ingredients such as costeño chiles, avocado leaves and guajes, pods born of the tree of the same name (and for which the southern state of Oaxaca, bordering on the Mixteca Poblana, was named.) However, hundreds of years before becoming an event that attracts gourmets and tourists from many parts of Mexico, La Matanza was crucial to the region’s economy.

After the Spanish conquest, a system known as the encomienda was established in Mexico, with the objective of repartitioning the indigenous land and its inhabitants. The new “owner,” or encomendero, had to provide religious instruction in exchange for work that was assigned to the inhabitants. In the case of the Mixteca region, the instructors were Dominican friars and the work assigned to the people was the raising of goats to clear the land.

So successful were they in their new occupation that by the end of the 16th century the Mixtecas were able to pay for religious festivals and buy European products from Spanish merchants in exchange for the derivative products of the goat slaughter: coarse wool for clothing, tallow for candles, and skins for leather goods.

The cebadores – “fatteners”- and matanceros – slaughterers – became central figures in the local economy. The arrieros, or herders, led the animals to the coast during the dry season and back to the Mixteca when the rainy season made grass plentiful, a route still followed today by the descendents of those herders. (The family of Don Iñigo Garcia of Tehuacan has been carrying on the tradition of raising goats according to the strictest nutritional and gastronomic standards for more than two hundred years.)

In the mid-1700s, to give thanks for the bounty provided by the goats, these people began to gather for a ritual sacrifice of the animals. The first to be slaughtered was adorned with flowers, and a prayer was offered as the matancero began his work, accompanied by song, dance, incense and lapo, a regional alcoholic beverage.

Nowadays, the Matanza is a much more public occasion, with the participation of dancers carrying flor de muertos and baskets of a local bread called pan de burro because it was transported by burros in times past. As the tourists and “foodies” begin to descend upon Tehuacan’s restaurants, the ex-haciendas where the slaughter takes place become the centers of activity for the makers of chito – goat meat jerky – as well as for buyers of hides for shoe factories in Leon and makers of buttons and knife handles carved from bone.

During this time, many of the region’s culinary specialties, in addition to mole de caderas, are showcased in markets and restaurants. The corn produced during the just-ended rainy season goes into a thick corn and meat stew called elopozole. The famous garlic of San Gabriel Chilac is the basis for sopa de ajos, or garlic soup, and the region’s abundant amaranth crop is promoted in a kiosk in Tehuacan’s main plaza, where leaflets containing recipes using amaranth are distributed. The red beans peculiar to this area are used to make the dish called frijol de arriero – herder’s beans (sometimes translated as mule driver’s beans) – perhaps named in honor of the goat herders. Plums and zapotes are made into fruit desserts, and pineapples are featured in both volteado – similar to upside-down cake – and tepache, a fermented beverage that adds to the festive atmosphere.

The Matanza ceases for the last day in October and first of November in order to observe Day of the Dead, when the Mixteca home altars will hold flowers, candles, bread, beverages, and bowls of – what else? – mole de caderas.

The following recipes from Tehuacan and nearby towns in the Mixteca region reflect a style of cooking that makes creative use of every ingredient nature has to offer, each one considered a blessing in this spare, and at times harsh, environment. Perhaps the recipe for mole de caderas will inspire some to visit Tehuacan and try one of the most exquisite regional specialties in Mexico.

• Goat and vegetable mole: Mole de caderas
• Garlic soup from San Gabriel Chilac: Sopa de ajo de San Gabriel Chilac
• Fresh corn pozole from southern Puebla: Elopozole de Tierra Caliente
  

The post A yearly culinary ritual: La matanza appeared first on MexConnect.

Mexican Kitchen

Mention vanilla, and people are apt to think of the ice-cream flavor they select when confronted with a mind-boggling choice involving everything from chirimoya to cheesecake: “just plain vanilla.” What started out as one of the most exotic flavors to be introduced to the European palate has come to be equated with blandness. Even more astonishing, a plant once considered an aphrodisiac has, in recent years, become a label for less-than-exotic lifestyles, as evidenced by the disparaging use of the word “vanilla” by the self-proclaimed avant-garde. Just the sight of this tropical yellow-flowered orchid wrapping its vines around its neighbors would be enough to dispel this notion once and for all.

The use of this Mexican native plant by the Aztecs was first recorded by the faithful chronicler of the 1520’s Spanish expedition to central Mexico, Bernal Diaz. Ever observant of domestic details, Diaz made extensive notes on the culinary customs of the New World, especially those of the emperor Moctezuma’s court, where ground vanilla beans flavored the royal chocolatl beverage. Called tlilxochital, meaning in this case “black pod”, the plant was one of the rarer tributes paid from outlying parts of the empire, most notably by the Totonacs of the tropical highlands of Veracruz.

So jealously guarded were the Totonac’s secrets for curing the vanilla pods that they were said to have sworn terrible oaths to discourage outsiders from obtaining knowledge of the subject. Nevertheless, the Spaniards imported the already-cured pods to Spain in the early days of the conquest. (The word vanilla is derived from the Spanish vainilla, meaning “little pod.”) It was not until the 18th century, however, that the cultivation and curing process was taken up by Europeans, not the Spanish but the French.

The French colonists in the state of Veracruz began by cultivating vanilla in its native soil, but were deterred by the fact that the plant’s natural pollinators, meliponid bees, were not the most efficient, and slowed production considerably. It was not until the French began to grow vanilla in climate controlled greenhouses in France that experiments in artificial fertilization yielded a much greater crop production. The French, who then began to use this method in Veracruz, were accused by the Totonacs of stealing their crop and were forced to share their new and improved technology. Thus gave rise to the fascinating story of the Totonac vanilla barons.

The Totonacs, with their ancient knowledge of the plant, along with the new fertilization methods, became wealthy exporting vanilla pods. One of the first things they did with their new-found riches was to travel to France. Chartering transatlantic ships for themselves, they arrived in Paris, accompanied by French-Totonac translators, and enjoyed the best the city had to offer, including architects who designed fabulous mansions for them. To this day, one of these buildings stands on the Rue Saint Germain, with Totonac motifs incorporated into its facade.

The Totonacs’ curing methods were many and varied, and several are still used today, including sun-drying, drying over wood fires, and “sweating” to release the plant’s natural enzymes. Although Mexican vanilla is considered by connoisseurs to be the most fragrant in the world, the pods do not have their distinguishing fragrance when plucked from the flower. It is only the cured product which releases this delicious aroma.

While now cultivated in other parts of the world, including the former colonies which made up French Polynesia, it is in Mexico where vanilla’s ancient secrets are best kept. Among these is the fact that, when allowed to over ripen so that the pods split, the flavor of vanilla is at its finest. While unsuitable for a large export market, these pods are carefully harvested and sold to gourmets the world over, willing to special-order them direct from the source.

The Gaya family of Papantla Veracruz are among those who cater to this select clientele. Travelers to Papantla may buy them from the family. This particular journey is not as far afield as one might imagine, because the charming town of Papantla is the closest place to stay when visiting the impressive pre-Colombian site of El Tajin, famous for its many-windowed pyramids. This month, in fact, is the time when the indigenous people celebrate their precious crop with the annual Festival de Vainilla. The fair features local culinary specialties, as well as the “flying dancers” called voladores, who execute their ritual performance from poles as high as fifty feet off the ground. Intricate figures woven from vanilla pods are also for sale here, and make unique, one-of-a-kind gifts, to be used as sachets.

The following recipes reflect the ingenuity of the regional culinary uses of vanilla. In addition to its use in flan and other sweets, vanilla is a wonderful flavoring for chicken, shellfish and vegetable dishes. While this revelation may be startling for most home cooks, the fact is that vanilla has long been an ingredient in some of the finest French dishes, including lobster served in a vanilla and chive sauce, a descendant of the wonderful culinary exchange that took place between the French and the Totonacs. (The indigenous word for “fork”, a utensil introduced to the area by the French, is a delightful example of this exchange – the French fourchette became, and still is, fourchetl to the region’s locals.)

Those interested in obtaining the aromatic split vanilla pods may contact the Gaya family at Avenida Hidalgo #56, Gutierrez Zamora, Veracruz.

• Mexican braised chicken with vanilla: Pollo al vainilla
• Papantla style shrimp: Camarones xanath
• Mexican steamed carrots with vanilla: Zanahorias al vapor con vainilla
• Mexican vanilla flan: Flan de vainilla
• Mexican plantains with vanilla cream: Postre de plátano con vainilla

The post Vanilla: a Mexican native regains its reputation appeared first on MexConnect.