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The singer is always seated facing east. On
his right and left sit two assistant shamans who repeat in song
each phrase sung by the singer. One long, melodious chant goes from
dusk to sunup in this manner. Even the smallest chldren participate
and commit the songs' premises to memory. The singing is accompanied
by the thumping on a deerskin drum, the beat mimicking the
heartbeat of Mother-Earth.
The Huicholes draw their deities and their belief system from centuries
of total immersion in the natural world around them. They
believe a universal life force called "kupuri" flows through all
nature's creations -- the rocks, the trees, the wind, the animals,
man. Their god-spirits are part of their extended family.
The Huicholes celebrate a great intimacy with their gods and spend
most of their lives honoring them and petitioning them with offerings
of art, weaving and song.
Father-Sun, Grandfather-Fire, Young-Mother-Eagle, Great-Grandmother-Growth,
Great-Grandfather-Deer-Tail, these are among the nature-spirits
that form the pantheon of their eco-religious philosophy. According
to tradition, the gods brought votive offerings with them when they
emerged from the underworld in the west and set out toward the east.
The gods need these art objects for the maintenance of the world,
and it is up to the Huicholes to constantly replenish the tokens.
The Huicholes manifest their religious faith in the art offerings
they produce: backstrap weavings, beaded masks, prayer bowls,
bundles of arrows decorated with feathers which carry the petitioners'
prayers to the ears of the gods in the heavens, and the yarn paintings
recognized around the world and displayed in the finest museums
and galleries.
The yarn paintings evolved from early offerings made of stone.
Called "nierikas", these stone stone slabs were carved with designs,
then the raised ridges were painted with natural dyes made from
crushed plants, insects and seeds. The nierika is the opening
into the spirit world through which shamans pass in order to communicate
with the gods and return with messages for their people.
As outsiders realized the economic potential for sales of Huichol
art, they sought to adapt traditional pieces to forms were easily
transportable and faster to produce. The stone nierika were
replaced with ones made of wood. The wooden boards were spread
with beeswax, then left to warm in the sun. All materials
must be from the natural world. The artisan would scratch his design
into the wax with a sharpened stick. When the wax was warmed
and maleable, he would fill in the lines by patiently twisting and
coiling colored yarns to create his own cryptic message from the
gods which he received from dreams, or from peyote-induced visions
during religious episodes.
The animals, colors and symbols of the yarn paintings represent
the core of Huichol culture and religion. Each detail has
great significance and weaves into the totality of the paintings'
message. Eagle, snake, bird, jaguar, scorpion, turkey and
deer -- living creatures who, like the Huicholes, know the gods
and have a duty to perform.
Corn, flowers, peyote buttons, datura -- ephemeral, growing creations
of Great-Grandmother-Growth -- like man, have a short life on this
Earth during which they bear witness to the bounty of nature.
Colors are also significant. Red is the color of blood and
the rising sun in the east. Black is the represents death
and the darkness of the west when the sun sinks into the underworld.
Green, the color of growing things, is the vital life force of regeneration
of the northern light. Blue symbolizes the wisdom and knowledge
that eminates from the south. Yellow is the color of fire,
of the sun and the center of man's spirit. White, the color
of the sacred rain clouds that bring life-giving moisture from the
ocean, is also the color of the deer's tail, representative of Great-Grandfather-Deer-Tail.
The deer is the incarnation of the gods on earth, the symbol of
goodness. To follow the deer means to seek the meaning in
one's own life and follow the path to spiritual completion.
The following yarn paintings are wonderful examples of Huichol
storytelling. They come to us through the generosity of Professor
Joel Stein, California State University at San Bernandino, California:
KAUYUMARI
DREAMS by Jose Benitez Sanchez
"When Kauyumari, the Blue Deer Spirit, first came to this world
there was nothing. No sound, no birds, no people, nor wind nor sun,
nor rain. Kauyumari had a dream in which he rose to the sky and
saw that it was empty. So he began to form the creatures of the
earth and of the sky."
THE
GODS SLEEP by Jose Benitez Sanchez
"In the beginning of our world, there was no place for the gods
to sleep. Thus they transformed into birds and in this way they
found rest on top of plumed muwieri arrows. Grandfather-Fire
led the way, followed by Father-Sun and in back, Pariyat the dawn,
the East. Their beds were made of feathers."
THE
FLOOD MYTH by Jose Benitez Sanchez
"Our Great-Grandmother-Growth caused the flood in the early times.
She told Watakame, the first cultivator to build a canoe, to build
a canoe out of wood, and to put in the canoe some of the most important
objects and seeds, as well as to take with him a black dog, a black
bitch." Rains came and covered the earth. Great-Grandmother-
Growth sat atop the canoe and guided it to a mountaintop where it
lodged when the waters receded. The little black dog then
transformed into a woman,and she and the cultivator Watakame began
the line of man that became the Huichol people.
THE
BIRTH OF PEYOTE by Jose Benitez Sanchez
"The child who reigned in Watepuapa, this child became the peyote
and then disappeared in a place that has become sacred. The
peyote is the collective memory that Kauyumari is working from to
slowly bring things into this world from the collective past of
Watepuapa. The peyote appears at the very center of the yarn
painting, covered by the tails of the sacred hawks,
because it is hidden in a secret place, so that it is not
so easy to find." The four flowers represent the sacred collective
memory; the four hawks symbolize the four corners of the world.
Peyote visions are considered good luck and dispensed to those
deemed worthy by the god-spirits. Peyote, the Huicholes believe,
opens the mind to a new way of experiencing the world. For
centuries they have made an annual 300-mile pilgrimage to the deserts
of San Luis Potosi to harvest peyote and return with it for use
in their sacred rituals. It is the hallucinogenic aspect of
the plant which accounts for many of the highly stylized and colorful
yarn paintings.The Peyote Journey is just one aspect of Huichol
culture and tradition under siege by outside forces, forced which
threaten the very existence of this fragile people. Recently,
military and local authorities have jailed peyoteros and confiscated
the peyote they carried.
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