“Desde que me acuerdo he vivido muchas ceremonias pero el recuerdo más viejo que tengo, era muy niña: iban llegando los peregrinos y mi papá masticó algo, lo escupió en el centro de mi cabeza, pensé que era hikuri pero era otra raíz sagrada porque traen muchas raíces, era para fortalecer mi energía;
A mesquite tree with its pods--Photograph by Yolitzma Rebollar 2023
From July 12th through July 14th, 2023, a third face-to-face meeting was held in the Las Margaritas ejido with the participation of various organizations and with the purpose of promoting the ecological, economic, and social well-being of the Altiplano Potosi, also known as Wirikuta to the Wixárika people.
After four years of struggle, the Wixárika community of San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán in Mezquitic, Jalisco, will directly receive federal resources to manage amongst themselves without the intervention of local officials or political parties. And they will do so with women at the table under an agreement of gender parity, a rarity among Indigenous governments and, indeed, governments in general.
Pine forests in San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán. Image courtesy of Agustín Castillo.
The Sierra Madre Occidental in northwestern Mexico boasts vast forests that are home to Indigenous communities such as the Wixárika people (or Huichols). Across the largest forest reserves in Jalisco, just three communities are spread across an area of more than 400,000 hectares (988,421 acres), equivalent to one-fifth the size of El Salvador. But this natural wealth is not reflected in the residents’ living conditions. Now, several stakeholders are coming together to help change this narrative.
Regenerative agriculture expert Gerardo Ruiz Smith, right, is passionate about bringing back keystone species like the giant mesquite that the group stood under as he shared stories and expertise. (Diana Negrín photo)
On the morning of July 31, 2021, a group of 40 people assembled in the hamlet of Las Margaritas in the sacred land of Wirikuta, in the high plateaus of the Chihuahuan Desert of north-central Mexico. Local farmers in cowboy hats and baseball caps gathered alongside young indigenous Wixárika women and men who had come from their communities in the western states of Jalisco and Nayarit. There were also a dozen non-local and foreign attendees who happened to be in Margaritas or who had put down roots and established homes and working relations in the region.
In this nierika we see how Our Elder Brother Tamatsi Kauyumarie, Deer of the Sun, appears in the East where Our Father Sun rises. Our Elder Brother knows the paths to the peaks of the ancestors that are drawn around the world (see the edges of this nierika) like triangles where nierikate appear.
This book was jointly published by the Secretary of Culture for the State of Jalisco, Mexico and the Wixárika Research Center in honor of the Year of Indigenous Languages and to celebrate the exhibit Grandes Maestros del Arte Wixárika: Acervo Negrín at the Museo Cabañas in Guadalajara (June 21, 2019 - January 12, 2020). This is a tri-lingual publication - Spanish, English and Wixárika.
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