Huichol


The Wixárika or Huichol are an Indigenous people of Mexico living in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango, with considerable communities in the United States, in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. They are best known to the larger world as the Huichol, although they refer to themselves as Wixáritari in their Huichol language. The adjectival form of Wixáritari and name for their own language is Wixárika.
The Wixárika speak a language of the Wixarikan group that is closely related to the Nahuatl group. Furthermore, they have received Mesoamerican influences, which is reflected by the fact that Wixarika has features typical of the Mesoamerican language area.
Their spirituality traditionally involves collecting and consuming peyote, a cactus that possesses hallucinogenic effects due to its psychoactive alkaloids, such as mescaline.

Location

The Wixárika say that, for the most part, they originated in the state of San Luis Potosí, as well as in other parts of Mexico and the United States. Once yearly, some Wixárika journey back to San Luís, their ancestral homeland, to perform Mitote Peyote ceremonies.
The three main Wixárika communities belong to the municipality of Mezquitic, Jalisco and are called San Sebastián Teponohuastlan, Santa María Cuexcomatitlán and San Andrés Cohamiata .
Other Wixarika communities include Guadalupe Ocotán, and Santa Catarina and Tuxpán de Bolaños in Jalisco. Some 13,000 live in other places within Mexico and the United States. Still others live in La Sierra de La Yesca.

History

The Wixárika arrived in the Bolaños Canyon region after the arrival of the Tepehuanes. There are numerous theories among anthropologists and historians about the timing of the arrival of this ethnic group in the region, but according to Wixárika oral history, when they arrived in the region they currently consider home, the region was already inhabited by another ethnic group. Tepecano oral history also confirms that villages currently inhabited by Wixárika, such as Santa Catarina, were Tepecano villages in the past. In addition, there exists no story of conquest or domination of the Wixárika by the Tepecanos regarding the origin of Wixárika. All that is known currently is that they come from the region of San Luis Potosí and that before their migration to the Bolaños Canyon region, they considered themselves part of the Guachichil ethnic group. Central to the traditional religion of the Wixárika is the gathering of hikuri in the place that they call Wirikuta, located in the region of Real de Catorce in the state of San Luis Potosí. Hikuri does not grow in the region of Wixárika, but it is abundant in San Luis Potosí territory, which was at the center of the dominion of the Guachichiles before the arrival of the Spaniards. The Guachichiles were known to be bellicose and fiercely defensive of their territory. It is unlikely that the Guachichiles would have let the Wixárika pass peacefully through their territory to gather peyote unless they recognized them as part of their own ethnic group. This is confirmed by oral history of Wixárika, as well as the similarity between the language of Wixárika and the extinct language of the Guachichiles compared to their present neighbors, the Cora.
Historical documents indicate that during the 16th century, the Wixárika had already arrived in the region that is today northern Jalisco. The writings of Alonso Ponce, which date from the year 1587, indicate that the province of Tepeque was inhabited by an ethnic group who used to unite with the Guachichiles to carry out attacks and incursions on Spanish settlements and caravans. The Spaniards who explored the region that later became Jerez wrote that there were groups of Guachichiles in the region that had pushed out the Zacatecas that had previously resided there. Through this historical evidence one can postulate that the Wixárika arrived in the Bolaños Canyon region around the same time as the Spaniards. The arrival of the Spaniards in territories of the Guachichiles in Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí had certainly brought epidemics to the Indigenous communities whose members had no resistance to the diseases of Europe. In addition, those Natives who survived the epidemics suffered due to the concentrations and encomiendas carried out by the Spaniards in order to work the recently discovered mines of the region. These experiences are also documented in the oral history of Wixáritari.
The Wixárika arrived in the Bolaños Canyon region looking for refuge and settled among the established Tepecano settlements there. Some likely intermarried with the Tepecano and shared cultural practices, such as using chimales, or woods of oration, and the use of peyote as a sacrament. The two nations jointly defended themselves against Spanish incursions and rebelled against the Spanish colonial government. There is historical evidence of a rebellion mounted jointly by the Wixárika and Tepecano in El Teúl in 1592 and another one in Nostic in 1702.

Language

The Huichol language, Wixarika, is a Uto-Aztecan language related to Cora. Huichol words conform to four patterns according to their inflection: type I words, principally verbs, are inflected for person and mode, and type II words, principally nouns, are capable of being inflected for number and possession. Type III words include quantifiers and are inflected for case and optionally for gender and person. Type IV words are uninflected. Huichol major sentence types include transitive, intransitive, complemented transitive, and complemented. Complemented sentences contain object-like constituents, termed complements. True objects do not stand in cross reference with any affix in the verbal. Complements include quotative phrases and direct objects of double transitive sentences. Huichol minor sentence types are vocatives and exclamations.

Lifestyle

In summer, when the rain comes, they live on their ranchos in tiny rancherias and make cheese from the milk from their cattle, which they slaughter and eat usually only during celebrations. For the most part, their diet consists of tortillas, made from the Blue, Red, Yellow or White Sacred corn, beans, rice and pasta, the occasional chicken or pig, chili peppers, supplemented with wild fruits and vegetables of the region, such as colorines, a legume gathered from trees, or ciruelas and guayabas.
Marriages are arranged by the parents when the children are very young. Huichol usually marry between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. Extended Huichol families live together in rancho settlements. These small communities consist of individual houses which belong to a nuclear family. Each settlement has a communal kitchen and the family shrine, called a xiriki, which is dedicated to the ancestors of the rancho. The buildings surround a central patio. The individual houses are traditionally built of stone or adobe with grass-thatched roofs.
A district of related ranchos is known as a temple district. Temple districts are all members of a larger community district. Each community district is ruled by a council of kawiterutsixi, elder men who are usually also shamans.
Crafts of the Huichol include embroidery, Beadwork, sombreros, archery equipment, prayer arrows, and weaving, as well as cuchuries, woven or embroidered bags.
The Huichol seek autonomy in their land, but have two governments, one native to the Huichol and one answering to the Mexican Government through "Municipal Agents" in the larger settlements. The government has established schools without much success in the Huichol Zone during the last 40 years, both church and state. A private Junior High School has led to some friction between "Town" and "Gown" among members of the tribe. Friction also exists between converts to Christianity.
With the building of roads in the Huichol Zone in the last ten years, new influences are impacting the social fabric of the Huichol. Where mules, horses and burros used to be the main forms of transport, trucks are becoming more prominent, importing food, medicines, and beer. Although this of course can be beneficial, it was also degrading to the culture as a whole. In 1986, the Huichols continued to live isolated lives very traditionally in every aspect, but since this contact from within their own country, they have had to adapt and change to be more modern.

Religion and mythology

Their religion consists of four principal deities: the trinity of Corn, Blue Deer and Peyote, and the Eagle, all descended from their Sun God, Tao Jreeku. Most Huichols retain the traditional beliefs and are resistant to change.
  • The "Huichol think that two opposed cosmic forces exist in the world : an igneous one represented by Tayaupá, Our Father the Sun, and an aquatic one, represented by Nacawé, the Rain Goddess." "The eagle-stars, our Father's luminous creatures, hurl themselves into the lagoons and... Nacawé's water serpents... rise into the skies to shape the clouds".
  • "According to Huichol , the Sun created earthly beings with his saliva, which appeared in the shape of red foam on the surface of the ocean's waves." "New things are born from "hearts" or essences, which the Huichol see in the red sea foam that flowed from Our Father the Sun.... The Sun itself has a "heart" that is its forerunner. It adopts the shape of a bird, the tau kúkai. The bird came out of the underworld and placed a cross on the ocean. Father Sun was born, climbed up the cross,... in this way killing the world's darkness with his blows".
  • "Kacíwalí is... maize goddess. The wind carried her to the top of a mountain, which was given to her as a dwelling". "Kacíwalí's rain serpents are changed into fish".
  • "Komatéame is... goddess... of midwives. Both she and Otuanáka have tiny children in human shape, male and female". "Stuluwiákame has the responsibility to give humans children, and Na'alewáemi... gives animals their young".
  • Tatéi Kükurü 'Uimari... Our Mother Dove Girl, who was also mother of the boy who became the Sun.
  • Tatéi Wérika... associated with the Sun and often depicted as a two-headed eagle.
  • Tatéi Niwetükame... patroness of children, who determines the sex of a child before it is born and gives it its soul.