Culture

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| January 2002

Article written by Nayarit-born anthropologist and specialist in Naayeri culture, Jesús Jáuregui, for the magazine, Arqueología Mexicana.

Read full Spanish-language essay here.

| December 2001
Article written by anthropologist Jay Courtney Fikes in conversation with Wixárika mara’akame, Catarino Carrillo. "In 1996 I made my first visit to the Huichol community of Tuxpan de Bolaños. There I began developing rapport with an eighty year old shaman who we will call Catarino. Catarino has been kind enough to share many details about his life, including the explanation (below) of how he became a shaman."
| January 2000
"The Huichol are best known for their strikingly vivid, and colorful, yarn paintings and beadwork. However, few people know or understand the depth of this pre-Colombian culture. This book is just a brief overview of some answers to some of the questions I am asked of these interesting people." Peter Collings
| May 1998

This article was co-written by longtime intellectual collaborators, Juan Negrín and William Meyers, based on a journey they took together to Wixarika territory and ongoing conversations they shared about comparative spirituality, religion, and studies on shamanism. The article is illustrated with photographs taken by Juan Negrín and was published in New York City's long running Free Spirit magazine that Meyers served on.

| July 1996
Article written by Nicolás Triedo for Mexico Desconocido in July 1996. It recounts how the Wixárika prepare to pilgrimage to the sacred place of Wirikuta and the series of actions necessary to arrive clean to communicate and dialog with the gods."It all starts in the town of La Tristeza, Nayarit. The maráakame is Don Francisco, a man of great wisdom and simplicity. He is the spiritual guide of the community. Only he can see the blue deer, Kauyumari, the elder brother of the Huicholes, and representative of the gods. He is the teacher of the tradition, 'the custom,' who, along with his faithful companion Tatewari, Our Grandfather Fire, know the destiny of the Huicholes." Article is in Spanish
| December 1990

This article was written by Alberto Ruz Buenfil (11 September 1945– 7 December 2023) was a Mexican writer and activist whose work is dedicated to environmental sustainability, and the performing arts. He co-founded two international  theater groups as well as Mexico's first  ecovillage, known as Huehuecoyotl. This article was written for the U.S. based High Times magazine after Ruz Buenfil accompanied a camera crew from the Canadian Broadcast Corporation that was documenting a Wixarika pilgrimage to Wirikuta from the community of Tateikié.

| April 1990
From its early origins among the Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche, peyotism developed into a major religious movement during the 1880s and 1890s when it spread rapidly among the many tribes that had been relocated into Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Then, in a strange quirk of fate, the very government boarding schools that sought to destroy Indian culture became instrumental in disseminating this new nativistic Pan-Indian spiritual movement; they nourished new intertribal friendships and introduced a new intertribal language - English. Soon the new peyote rituals appeared on reservation after reservation across the country.
| February 1979
par Juan Negrín "CEUX qui vinrent au Mexique en quete d´or et d´ames a sauver, pour engendrer en fait l´actuelle race métisse, laissérent de coté un certain nombre d´indigénes qui allérent se replier au plus profond de leurs vallées montagneuses. Au Sud de la Sierra Madre Occidentale, dans les Etants mexicains de Jalisco et de Nayarit, vivent aujourd´hui 6,000 á 7000 de ces marginaux: les Huichols, lls habitent des contrées au relief accidenté, avec des ravins pouvant atteidre 500 métres et des sommets plus de 2 000 métres, au point que l´on ne peut y accéder qu´a pied. "
| January 1975

"The Huichol Indians have maintained their cultural traditions at a level of integrity far above most pre Columbian societies still existent in Mexico. Living in the rugged and remote hightlands of Jalisco and Nayarit, they have not had to cope over time with the same kind of inroads on their belief systems and daily living as did the linguistically related Indian groups living in the less remote and rugged highlands and lowlands in the same general area."

| January 1911

"Localisation, origine et etendue ancienne de la langue des indiens huichols, étymologie.-- Place occupeé par le huichol dans les langues mexicaines. -- Vocabulaire, affixes, pronoms, prépositions, adeverves, substantifs, metaphores, toponymie.-- Fragment de chant et son analyse.- Conclusion et verbes.

La langue huichole usitée aujourd´hui par une faible peuplade indienne de la sierra du Nayarit, représentée tout au plus par un chiffre de einq mille individus, était, s´il faut en croire la tradition indigene, un idiome assez répandu avant la coquete espagnole"