History

Decorative Art of the Huichol Indians ~ Carl Lumholtz Vol. III

Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume III

Carl Lumholtz
III. Decorative Art of the Huichol Indians - It is the purpose of this memoir to show that all designs employed by the Huichol are derived from the animal and plant world, from objects important in the domestic economy and religious life of the tribe, and from natural phenomena familiar to the people.
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View of the Sierra Madre Occidental ~ Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1978 - 2025

Notes on Wixarika History: Early History

Juan Negrín
| December 2003
As archaeologist Phil Weigand puts it, the Wixarika and their Na'ayeri neighbors had deep roots in the area where they are now settled in a sequence that had begun by the Mesoamerican Classic period (ca. 200-700 A. D.). The Corachol branch of this Uto-Aztecan language family leads linguists like Valiñas, cited by Weigand to consider the relative antiquity of this language group in the area.
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The Wixaritari Cleansing Themselves during Easter - Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1979 - 2025

Notes on Wixarika History: Post-Hispanic History

Juan Negrín
| October 2017
The Huichol were distinguished as xurute, according to a geographical map published in 1579, in the Atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (reproduced in various sources: Rojas, Neurath). The term vizurita is used by Father Tello, in his Crónica Miscelánea, written in 1652. The first reference to the huicholes as guisoles appears in a briefing to the bishop Ruiz Colmenares (between 1640 and 1650). Father Antonio Arias y Saavedra used the terms xamucas and huitzolmes in his chronicle (1673), the first ethnological work on the Indians of this area of the Sierra Madre, according to historian Gutiérrez Contreras.
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Clandestine Sawmill, 1981 - Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1981

Notes on Wixarika History: Recent History

Juan Negrín
| December 2003
The government has found it very difficult to ‘civilize’ the Huichol and integrate them as a dependent productive working class in the mountains. After independence was achieved from Spain, the laws of the reform passed under Benito Juárez during the 1850’s, restrained the power of the Catholic Church, but they also stopped recognizing Indian colonial land rights. Soon the Huichol, Cora, Tepehuan and Mexicanero Indian groups of the Western Sierra Madre were further dispossessed of their territory by their mixed blood neighbors. They rebelled, eventually uniting under Manuel Lozada, who joined French invading forces until they were stopped at Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 1873. Many of their land holdings were disenfranchised thereafter.
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Clandestine Sawmill on the Outskirts of the Huichol Sierra ©Juan Negrín 1981 2025

Notes on Wixárika History: Recent History

Juan Negrín
| January 2003
After independence was achieved from Spain in 1810, the laws of the reform passed under Benito Juárez during the 1850’s, restrained the power of the Catholic Church, but they also stopped recognizing Indian colonial land rights. Soon the Huichol, Cora, Tepehuano and Mexicanero Indian groups of the Western Sierra Madre were further dispossessed of their territory by their mixed blood neighbors. They rebelled, eventually uniting under Manuel Lozada, who joined French invading forces until they were stopped at Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 1873.
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Map of Gran Nayar

Ritual and Historical Territoriality of the Cora (Náyari) and Huichol (Wixárika) Peoples

Paul M. Liffman and Philip E. Coyle
| January 2000

This special issue of the Journal of the Southwest concerns the indigenous Wixarika (Huichol) and Nayari (Cora) peoples of Jalisco, Nayarit, Zacatecas, and Durango in western Mexico, a region known since the colonial period as El Gran Nayar. It brings a new generation of researchers together with a senior master of the field. These authors share extensive fieldwork among the Wixaritari (Huichols) and Nayarite (Coras), as well as common interests in cosmology, ceremonialism, language, history, and sociopolitical structures.

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Te'ekata ~ Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1976 -2023

Sacred Sites by Juan Negrín

Juan Negrín
| January 2004
The Wixarika tradition is rendered by three different terms: the first refers to our heart/ memory, tayeiyari- the second to how we develop, tanuiwari- the third to our life, tatukari, is transmitted by families, reinforced by communal living on extended family ranches and through clans at ceremonial centers, tukite (tukipa, sing.). Three places serve as the headquarters for what appear to be distinct Wixarika subgroups, with ritual and dialectical variants.
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Evaluación Sociocultural

Sociocultural Evaluation for Investment Projects in Wixarika Communities

José G. Vargas-Hernández, Ernesto Guerra García, María Eugenia Meza Hernández
| January 2013

This paper analyzes aspects of the problem that occurs in the social evaluation of investment projects for Wixarika communities. A project in this context make particularly complex the evaluation. On the socio-economic perspective with which it is evaluated comes into play the incommensurability of social and intercultural issues that cannot be ignored. It is addressed the questions that have arisen in the development of this type of project and presents a theoretical framework for the methodological proposal of socio-cultural evaluation.

Read Spanish language article here.

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Photograph ©Peter Collings 2000

The Huichol of Mexico

Peter R. Collings
| 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
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The Wixárika: Preserving a way of life

The Huichol: Preserving a Way of Life

Juan Negrín
| September 1992

Draft of Juan Negrín's essay titled "The Wixarika: Preserving A Way of Life", September 1992.

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