by Hope MacLean
The Huichol also carry out a regular cycle of ceremonies in family ranchos and in the main ceremonial centers. In Spanish, the ceremonies are called “fiestas,” but the purpose is much more serious than a party. A series of fiestas throughout the year are concerned with the planting and harvesting of the corn, bean, and squash crops and with maintaining the health and fertility of fields, animals, and people. Ceremonies are held when the fields are cleared, when the corn crop is sown, when the young corn is still green, when the corn is harvested, and when the corn is toasted, and prayers are said for the next year’s fertility.
The main ceremonial centers in the Sierra practice an additional round of ceremonies derived from the Spanish. These include Easter ceremonies such as Fiesta de Pachitas (Ash Wednesday), Lent, and Semana Santa as well as ceremonies such as Cambio de las Varas (Changing of the Rods of Power), which occurs during the changing of civil governors.
Huichol Shamanism
On my second visit to Lupe’s family, I met a Huichol shaman. Two men arrived in the middle of the night and bedded down with the ten other people sleeping in Marĺa’s one-room concrete-block house on the outskirts of Tepic. At first light, everyone got up and cleared a space around one of the two beds. Domingo, Marĺa’s father, was the first patient. He had coughed all night with a serious chest complaint.
The shaman was a short man, dressed like a rural mestizo, wearing a western shirt and pants and leather huaraches. Only his beautifully decorated Huichol bag marked him as Huichol rather than mestizo. He pulled a narrow, oblong, woven takwatsi (Hui.: shaman’s basket) out of his bag and took out a handful of shaman’s plumes, three or four wands decorated with feathers and mirrors hanging from them. He passed his feathers over the patient, shaking them lightly, and then peered into his mirror. He paused, went to the window, and stood there for a few minutes. He looked to the east and seemed to be listening for something. Then he went back to the bed and brushed his feathers around the patient as though gathering dust up in the body. Then he shook his feathers off out the window. He repeated this process a number of times. Finally, he pounced on the patient and, with loud hawking noises, sucked something out of his body, then went to the window and spat it out.
The shaman treated four people that way, including two babies. Afterward, he pulled up a chair and drew a hardbound notebook out of his bag. It had blank pages and a picture of a scuba diver on the front. It was his account book, and he noted down the names of the people he treated, the price of the healing, and whether they had paid. I looked over his shoulder and noticed many names, but few that had paid. The family said they would pay him later. He agreed, and left shortly after, with no small talk exchanged. The family said he came from far up in the mountains and that he would return in a few days to conduct another healing.
It was my first experience of healing by sucking, and I was amazed to discover that this ancient practice was still very much alive among the Huichol. I was struck by the incongruity between the pre-Colombian shamanism and the modern account book. Since then, I have attended many healing sessions and been a patient several times myself. My notes became much longer and fuller as I learned what to watch for and how to interpret what the shamans are doing. Yet I am still mystified by the process, in which the shamans seem to be carrying out operations on the body that only they understand.
Fig. 3.2. The shaman Tacho Pérez Robles brushing a patient with his shaman’s plumes (muwieri) while Guadalupe de la Cruz Rĺos watches, 1990. Photo credit: Hope MacLean.
The word for shaman is mara’akame (plural: mara’akate). In Spanish, the Huichol often call the shaman a cantador (Sp.: singer) rather than chamán. This translation reflects the mara’akame’s central role of chanting in ceremonies as well as of healing groups and individuals. Most mara’akate are men, although women may be mara’akate as well. In the past, this skill was widespread among the Huichol, and Lumholtz (1900, 6) commented that “every third person” was a mara’akame. One still encounters many Huichol mara’akate, both in the Sierra and in the cities.
Kawitero (plural: kawiterutsixi) is a second term used to refer to elders who supervise and guide ceremonies, but according to my consultants, kawiterutsixi are not necessarily shamans. The term is more comparable to “wise elder” and may be more commonly used in the Sierra comunidades. My Santiago consultants did not recognize the term at all; perhaps it is a term recently adopted into Huichol from Spanish or Mexicanero (Nahua) settlers.5
The term “shaman” originated in Siberia, and some scholars argue that it should be restricted to Siberian practitioners. However, I feel that it is widely recognized as a general anthropological term for practitioners who communicate with spirits, perform healings, and conduct ceremonies in their communities. As I will show, Huichol mara’akate also perform these functions, and so I use the terms “shaman” and “mara’akame” interchangeably.
People become mara’akate in Huichol culture by making vows to certain deities and fulfilling their obligations to the deities for a prescribed number of years. The words used in Spanish reflect the concept of payment. They refer to making a contract (Sp.: hacer un compromiso), making payment (Sp.: pagar la manda), and completing it (Sp.: cumplir). The idea of payment underlies the process of becoming a shaman, through arduous pilgrimages, fasting, offerings, and self-sacrifice. Until the vow is paid, the person is bound. Failing to complete the required sacrifices may bring illness or death, or the person may be diverted to the dark world of sorcery. A shaman is someone who has “completed,” or fulfilled, the vows, while a failed shaman has not been able to complete them. It is the spirits who finally decide whether a person will be granted shamanic power. An aspiring shaman can carry out all the prescribed rituals but still fail.
One way to become a mara’akame is by making a prescribed number of pilgrimages to Wirikuta. It has been reported in the literature that five pilgrimages to Wirikuta are required to become a shaman (P. Furst 1972, 144; Myerhoff 1968, 17). Lupe’s family requires six pilgrimages over a period of five to six years (with one pilgrimage at the beginning and one at the end of the fifth year). Later, they told me that six years is just a beginning and that it takes six years to “go up the staircase” (or climb to knowledge) and another six years to come down again. Some Huichol consultants have told me that up to ten or twelve years are required. The longest period I have heard is twenty-five years. The shortest period I have heard is three years, but this smaller requirement was to fulfill a pledge to a different place and deity—a kieri, or “Tree of the Wind.” Thus, there appears to be considerable variation in practice.
There is more than one way to become a mara’akame in Huichol culture. Besides making the pilgrimages to Wirikuta, one may also make vows to other sacred sites that are dotted around Huichol territory. Many sacred sites are said to give shamanic powers as well as specific artistic abilities, such as skill at painting, embroidery, or weaving.
Mara’akate perform a variety of roles. They undertake private healings within family settings. They officiate at ceremonies to remove the effects of sorcery. They conduct funeral ceremonies five days after death. They act as senior priests in community-wide ceremonies at the ceremonial centers, and they select and superintend governmental officials in the Huichol communities in the Sierra. The emphasis that the Huichol place on service to the family, the community, and the world is important. Becoming a mara’akame is not something a person should do for self alone.
Fig. 3.3. José Isabel (Chavelo) González de la Cruz, yarn painting, 2002. 12” x 12” (30 x 30 cm). The twelve colored lines represent the staircase to be climbed (the annual pilgrimages to make) in order to reach the altar of the deer god and thereby complete one’s journey to become a mara’akame. Photo credit: Adrienne Herron.
An essential qualification for becoming a mara’akame is visionary ability: the ability to see into the world of the gods, to communicate directly with gods and spirits, and to influence them through prayer and ritual. According to wha
t several Huichol have told me, shamans are able to:
» see colors and lights around people’s bodies, which help the mara’akate divine those persons’ spiritual development and the state of their health;
» see through people (and their clothes) as though they were transparent, like a bottle;
» see illness and its cause, inside a person (for example, seeing illness as a moth circling around in a person’s stomach);
» see gods or spirits who may be attending ceremonies or taking part in human activities;
» soar into the sky and see the world as though it were very small, and then focus in on activities taking place elsewhere;
» see into the ocean as though the water were lit up by a searchlight, and communicate with the underwater people who live there;
» communicate with powers located in the cardinal directions and sacred sites, see colors emanating from those sites, and understand them.
When I speak of “shamanic vision,” I mean these types of abilities.
Visionary ability is not limited to shamans. There seem to be variations in how much ability people have and in the forms that vision may take. Some people can see on a spiritual level as though with their eyes. Some can see only with the help of peyote, while others can see without it. Some can see all the time, and some only in certain circumstances, such as during a ceremony when the mara’akame helps by opening the door to the other world. Some can hear rather than see. Some perceive through other means, such as dreams or thought (thinking of an idea or image without actually seeing or hearing it).
Vision alone does not make a person a mara’akame, although it means that he or she has some talent that can be developed. I know of one man who was considered consistently visionary but who was not considered a shaman because he lacked the courage to act on what he saw. Benĺtez (1975, 84) also mentions an aspiring mara’akame who lacked the necessary boldness and self-confidence. Another aspiring shaman told me that he had developed the ability to see what was wrong with people, but the gods had not yet told him what to do about it. Therefore, he did not consider himself to be a mara’akame yet. Some people have certain visionary abilities and a limited ability to heal; however, even these people must complete themselves through a prescribed period of commitment before they are considered ready to be mara’akate. The ultimate test seems to be the consistent ability to control what is seen, to use the powers at will, and to show results when called on to heal or act.
A shaman who has success in curing develops a reputation, and people seek out him or her. Respected shamans are often called upon to sing at ceremonies. These marks of community respect and recognition are one way of distinguishing true shamans from aspiring ones. (Some Huichol claim to be shamans, and manage to persuade Western devotees of their abilities, but have little or no recognition within their own communities. To evaluate their claims, it is important to spend time within the community, watch what is happening, and talk to a number of Huichols with differing opinions. All of this takes time as well as linguistic fluency.)
These qualifications are important to understand in relation to Huichol shamanism and the discussion that follows. They indicate that shamanic ability and visionary ability are neither simple nor absolute—all-or-nothing—qualities in Huichol culture. There are degrees and shades of ability, which vary by person and over time. As I discuss different yarn painters, it will be seen that these degrees of ability come into play in their art, in their explanations, and in their careers.
4
gifts for the gods
I was sitting with Domingo González, Lupe’s brother-in-law, in his small house on the outskirts of Tepic. We were preparing offerings to leave at a sacred site along the Santiago River. Domingo was making a prayer arrow (Hui.: ürü) for his grandson. He cut a thin cane (Hui.: haka; Lat.: Arundo donax) and whittled a pointed tip of reddish-brown brazilwood (Lat.: Haematoxylum brasiletto). He mixed dark red and blue paints and drew zigzag lines down the sides of the cane. Then he cut a tiny pair of wrist guards (Hui.: matsuwa) and sandals from cardboard. He tied these to the cane with strings and added a tiny round netted deer snare (Hui.: nierika).
“He is making an arrow to pray that my son might become a shaman,” Marĺa explained. “So that he can find his nierika.”
Several years later, in the temple of San Andrés, I watched a woman decorate a carved wooden doll. She spread beeswax around the edge of the doll’s skirt and decorated the doll’s face, heart, and hem with beads. The doll was to be left in a field as an offering for abundant crops. The woman’s husband cut layers of brightly colored crepe paper to make paper flowers, which were then tied to the horns of a bull calf. Meanwhile the mara’akame prepared ceremonial candles by dribbling pale yellow native beeswax down a cord until the wax was thick enough that the candles could stand on their own.
Scenes such as this are an integral part of Huichol religion. Before every ceremony or pilgrimage, a Huichol family gathers together to make their offerings. Some Westerners might call these offerings “art,” but in Huichol culture, they have another purpose. Decorated objects are a visual prayer to the gods. As Lumholtz (1902, 2:200) explained, “The wishes of the supplicant are itemised in many ways, by coloring or carving or representation in or on textile fabrics, or else by attachment.” The Huichol often decorate their offerings with designs and symbols representing the deity or specific prayers. Some designs are painted. Others are made using beads and yarn, either alone or together. These are glued to the object with beeswax.
Offerings such as these, which are deeply rooted in Uto-Aztecan culture, probably represent a Proto-Uto-Aztecan substrate of belief. For example, the sixteenth-century Dominican Diego Durán (1971, 269) recorded that Aztec women made offerings to Chalchiuhcueye, goddess of springs and waters, by throwing jars, little pots, dolls, and countless baubles made of beads into streams and springs. Far to the north, early-twentieth-century Paiute continued to leave offerings of beads at a sacred site known as “doctor” rock (Wheat 1967, 20). Prayer arrows called pahos are an integral part of Hopi relations with their deities (Malotki and Gary 2001, 77, 101).
Lumholtz (1900) illustrates many types of Huichol offerings. A prayer arrow has tiny objects attached, such as a scrap of fabric embroidered with a deer or a person with arms upraised, a miniature wristband and sandals cut out of cardboard, or a circular netted deer snare. Each represents a particular prayer to the gods. The embroidered fabric may symbolize a woman’s desire to embroider well. A gourd-shell bowl (Hui.: xukuri, also pronounced as rukuri) may have tiny wax figures of people pressed into the side, their eyes and hearts sketched by a few dots of colored beads. These represent a prayer for health and good fortune for the family. Other offerings include flat wooden boards (Hui.: itari, also pronounced as itali) used as a base for bowls and statues, and statues of deities or animals, carved in wood or stone.
Fig. 4.1. An offering of prayer arrows and a gourd bowl with coins, given to the statue of Coatlicue in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Photo credit: Hope MacLean.
Yarn paintings are one kind of offering. Sacred yarn paintings were, and sometimes still are, made using a small piece of wood, roughly shaped in a circle or oval. They have fairly simple designs of a few symbols shaped in wax and outlined with yarn, beads, or both. The wax may be fully covered, but more often there are gaps between the yarn, and the wax shows through. Sometimes, both sides of the board are covered with symbols. The paintings are small, from a few inches or centimeters in diameter to about nine and a half inches (twenty-four centimeters).1 In the past, yarn paintings were small and light since the Huichol had to carry them on long pilgrimages, walking all the way.
According to Huichol mythology, yarn paintings have the power of bringing into creation whatever is painted on them. Once painted, things “simply came to life, and the world knew them as real things, plants, animals, and the santos” (Zingg 1938, 629). A myth describes how the culture hero Kauyumali made a yarn pain
ting to bring animals into the world after he got the wax to make candles:
When kauymáli [sic] finished making the candles, he took the wax that remained and used it to make a painted board itáli. The people asked him to come and sing for them. But he bade they wait until he had finished his painting. So they decided to wait because they were curious to know what he was painting.
Kauyumáli was painting prayers that he wished to be granted by the great gods. With beads and colored wool placed in the wax on the board, he painted a snake, a rattlesnake, a fish, a coyote, and a skunk . . . He also painted the opossum (iáuSu), lion, bear, deer, dog, horse, mule, burro, female burro, stud-jacks, male and female goats, male and female pigs. . . . He also created the royal eagle (double-headed Hapsburg symbol), hawk, parrot, parakeet . . . quail, ‘tiger,’ wolf, and a singing-shaman. All the animals, hens, turkeys, and everything else in all colors he painted. The colored rocks of the five points were represented in the painting. (629)
The images of many animals and colored rocks representing the five directions are often used in modern commercial yarn paintings.
The yarn itself has mythological significance. According to Schaefer (1989, 192), the Huichol associate yarn with the life force. Cotton, from which early yarns were made, is associated with life energy (Hui.: kupuri). When Takutsi Nakawe, the earth-creator goddess, spun the first thread, she spun her memory (Hui.: iyari, “heart-soul-memory”) into it, thus creating the world and life in the world. Thus, in a sense, the cotton yarn incorporates both kupuri and iyari, which are aspects of the soul.
Yarn paintings are related to other sacred objects. In particular, yarn paintings have their roots in the god disk (Hui.: tepari, also pronounced as tepali). God disks are round stone disks carved out of solidified volcanic ash (tuff). Designs are painted on the disk or incised into the stone. Often, the god disks have a hole in the center so that the eye of a god may look through the disk into the world of human beings. Sometimes a family will place a god disk on their altar in the small family temple, or god house, called a xiriki, one of several buildings in a rancho. Others embed a god disk in the wall of the xiriki over the door. A god disk is also buried in the floor of a community temple (tuki), and offerings for the gods are placed under the disk. A god disk may also be buried in a family’s fields and used for offerings (Stacy B. Schaefer, personal communication).
