Magazine Articles

Peyote Visions

Peyote Visions

| December 1979
"Meet the Huichol. The Huichol have been doing this from time out of mind, and here is some of their art. Time out of mind. In some of these yarn-images you will observe representations of the conquistadores of Coronado, who came among the Huichol 400 years ago and are still sung of in Huichol village myths. In others you will see Watakame, the farmer who survived a series of Job-like plagues and tribulations in the dark times long before even Coronado came, and whose body after death was dismembered, Osiris like, and rose up severally out of the earth as various medicine and drug plants. In still others you will see jet planes, anthropologists pith helmens, four-wheel-drive Toyotas, and - hey!- dope-seeking American hippies! Most of all, if you´ve ever done peyote, in these yarn panels you will see peyote."
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Portfolio The magazine of the visual arts

Sacred Colors of the Huichols

Fred Strebeight
| April 1979
"The images have the crude ferocity of ancient mythology: warriors brandish their weapons at fleeing victims; immense deities loom over their worshipers: otherworldly beats roam fantastic gardens.  Produced by pressing brightly colored yarn onto waxed wooden panels, these images indeed have their sources in centuries-old tradition. But the art in which they appear, practiced by a small group of México´s Huichol Indians and known as yarn painting, is in fact the product of a unique collaboration between the descendants of an ancient culture and the world of modern anthropology."
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Le courrier de l´unesco

Les huichols au Mexique parlent la langue des dieux

Juan Negrín
| 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. "
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Spirit of peyote

Special Color Issue on Huichols

| January 1986

In 1986, Shaman's Drum, dedicated an issue to Wixarika art and spirituality, featuring an archival article from Norwegian ethnologist, Carl Lumholtz, an interview with Wixarika mara'akame Ulu Temay, and a text written by U.S. anthropologist, Susan Valadez (née Eger).

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¿Estamos ya en pleno etnocidio?

Are we in a full ethnocide?: Traditional Indigenous Arts and Crafts Decline Precipitously

Samuel Correa Muñoz
| January 1987

Article written for Excelsior's magazine, Jueves, about the exhibit of Wixarika art at the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, 1987.

Read full Spanish-language article here:

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Ruz Buenfil for High Times

On the Peyote Trail in Mexico

Alberto Ruz Buenfil
| 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.

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Shaman's Drum ~ Spring 1990

The Peyote Plant and Ceremony

James Mooney
| 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.
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México Desconocido

Ritual Pilgrimage to Wirikuta, land of the peyote, home of all the Ancestors

Nicolás Triedo
| 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
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The man who drank honey

The Man Who Ate Honey. Kieri and the Calling of a Huichol Shaman

Jay C. Fikes
| December 2001

Article written by anthropologist Jay Courtney Fikes in conversation with Wixarika 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."

Read the full article here.

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American Indian Art Magazine

The Origins of Huichol Yarn Painting - Summer 2001

Hope MacLean
| January 2001
This article was written by Hope Mac Lean for The Origins of Huichol Yarn Painting in summer 2001. "The Huichol (wee-chol) Indians of Mexico produce brilliantly colored yarn paintings that depict myths and ceremonies from their traditional shamanic culture. The painthings` glowing colors and mystical symbolism are attracting the attention of growing numbers of coolectors around the world."
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