The Shaman's Mirror

by Hope MacLean

  According to Negrĺn (1975, 27), Benĺtez’s style changed rapidly between 1972 and 1975.4 He began to completely fill the board with sinuous, interpenetrating figures. This style showed little massing of background color, unlike the older style, in which single design elements clearly stood out against a solid background. As a result, there was no longer a clear relation between figure and ground. Instead, the figures themselves became the background. It can be difficult to see what each figure represents or even where an image begins and ends. Color use became extremely varied in many of Benĺtez’s paintings, and the color combinations were sophisticated and complex. A variation of his style featured bands of jagged lines with blocks of different color within them. The jagged lines often move diagonally across the board, and so the figures are arranged in diagonal rows. That style was unique, and radically different from any used by other Huichol artists working during the 1970s.

  The Cosmological Map

  During the 1970s, Benĺtez seems to have originated another type of painting, which has also become a part of the yarn-painting repertoire. This painting might be characterized as a representation of supernatural cosmology, a form of supernatural “map” showing the world and the deities that inhabit it.

  An early, quite simple version of this painting is called The Womb of the World (Negrĺn 1979, 19). It uses the stick-figure style of Ramón Medina. The painting shows the world as the womb of the earth goddess, Tatei Yurianaka. Representations of the fire god, the sun god, the deer god, and the vulture god occupy the four directions, while the center is occupied by plants and animals placed there for people to eat. The world is surrounded with the water of the oceans, and four eagles guard the four corners of the earth.

  Subsequently, Benĺtez produced more elaborate versions of this cosmological description of the world and the deities that inhabit it. Negrĺn (1986) gives long, detailed descriptions of three yarn paintings by Benĺtez in an attempt to present the deeper philosophical underpinnings of Huichol cosmology. These descriptions are much longer than those usually attached to yarn paintings.

  One extremely complex painting is called Vista, Vida y Alma de la Tierra (The Vision, Life, and Soul of the Earth) (Negrĺn 1986, 48, 61–64).5 The lengthy explanation accompanying the painting sets out many concepts of Huichol cosmology, such as the idea of the earth goddess, Tatei Yurianaka, as a “patio” on which supernatural forces conduct their activities, and of kupuri, or life energy, as erupting in a continuously flowing fountain that feeds all living beings. A part of the long description of this painting gives an idea of its content.

  Our Mother the fertile Earth (Tatei Yurianaka) is the “patio” which the “gods,” our great-grandparents, occupy in this world. They built and established their sacred sites on her. Our Mother is like a huge bowl that nourishes the life of the world. Her boundaries extend as far as that place where the heart and thoughts (iyari) of our great-grandparents can be heard. In reality, our Mother is like a sacred disk of stone (nierika), which is the navel of the gods. The large white ring defines the circumference of the Fertile Earth: it is sown with symbols that represent vision (nierika, represented as little blue spheres) and the spiritual life (tukari, represented as little yellow flowers) of our collective Forefathers. The center [a blue circle] is the collective soul (kupuri), the only source of all life. (61–62, my translation)

  This painting is perhaps one of the most sophisticated expressions of Huichol cosmology to be published.

  The Five-Cardinal-Directions Composition

  During the 1970s, another basic composition entered the yarn-painting repertoire. By composition, I mean the arrangement of the figures in space and in relation to each other. This composition is based on the sacred directions: east, south, west, north, and the center, which represents the sky above and the earth below. For the Huichol, the five cardinal directions are an important religious concept. The directions refer to sacred sites in Mexico and also to deities who live there. The intercardinals, or intersecting diagonals, are also meaningful.

  The five-directions composition is a fundamental design in Huichol sacred offerings and decorative art. One of the earliest examples is a stone disk made for Lumholtz (1900, 31); its meaning was explicitly linked to the geographic directions. Kindl (1997, 75, 126ff) found that some ceremonial gourd bowls were maps of the sacred geography and depicted points in the directions. The composition is widely used in embroidery, such as the peyote flower motif, which is one of the most popular designs.

  The five directions also are the principle organizing the figures in some yarn paintings. The motif can be seen weakly in some paintings by Ramón and Lupe, but most of their paintings do not use it. It emerges strongly in paintings by other artists in the 1970s. This composition is a harmonious and balanced geometric figure. Even to Western eyes, the paintings appear balanced and aesthetically pleasing. The composition is also central to Huichol cosmology. Thus, one can say that in this basic composition, the Huichol are expressing their worldview.

  The 1980s

  Perhaps surprisingly, there has been less information published on the development of yarn paintings from the 1980s than on those from the preceding decades. Authors such as Furst, Myerhoff, Fernando Benĺtez, and Negrĺn comprehensively documented the work of early artists such as Ramón Medina and José Benĺtez Sánchez, and the first major exhibitions and museum collections featured these artists and a few others. However, a great many other artists have remained undocumented and almost unknown. My research turned up dozens of artists who worked steadily from the 1960s or 1970s until the present, yet their names do not appear in the public record or are known only from a few works in small exhibitions or private collections.

  The main artist who emerged as an influential figure during the 1980s was Mariano Valadez. Here I review his career and contributions.

  Mariano Valadez

  Mariano Valadez has become one of the best-known Huichol yarn painters in the United States. His paintings are widely reproduced on greeting cards and calendars, on a poster, and in the book Huichol Indian Sacred Rituals (Eger Valadez and Valadez 1992); in addition, he is featured in a children’s book on Native artists (Moore 1993). Mariano’s fame is due in part to his own excellence as an artist, but there is no doubt that it was also due to the promotional help of his energetic wife, the American Susana Eger Valadez. No other Huichol artist has come close to his level of market distribution and penetration, and it is not generally typical of how Huichol artists conduct business. Mariano Valadez is unique, and in describing his career, it is essential to keep in mind Susana’s role.

  I met Mariano and Susana Valadez at the Huichol Center in Santiago Ixcuintla, a town on the Santiago River in the flat, fertile coastal plains of Nayarit near the Pacific Ocean. This is the heart of tobacco-growing country, and the Huichol come down from the mountains every year to work as migrant laborers in the tobacco fields. Susana welcomed me and gave me a bed in a room set up as a dormitory for visiting workers. Mariano had agreed to do an interview, but I waited several days before he was able to speak to me. The 1994 Maya revolt in Chiapas was just then in the news, and Mariano and his Huichol friends were deeply concerned about the safety of their indigenous compatriots. He finally made time to speak to me early one morning. Mariano is a thoughtful man who chooses his words with care. His Spanish is more correct than that of most Huichol artists, and it was easy to translate his interview tapes into academic English prose.

  Mariano was born in 1953. His family came from Santa Catarina, where his father was a mara’akame. Every year, they travelled to Santiago Ixcuintla to work in the tobacco fields. When Mariano was about twelve, his father was killed in Santiago Ixcuintla. His mother, in a panic and with other children to care for, left Mariano with their patrónes, a mestizo family, and returned to the mountains. Mariano spent his early teenage years with this family in Santiago Ixcuintla, although he continued to visit his mother.

  As a young man in 1972, Mariano met a Huichol
named Tutukila, or Tiburcio Carrillo Sandoval. Mariano gave me the last name “Sandoval” for his teacher, but he hesitated and seemed uncertain as he said it. I suspect his mentor may have been Tiburcio Carrillo Carrillo (also known as Tutukila), whose paintings are included in Negrĺn’s catalogues. There is a strong resemblance between Tutukila’s designs and Mariano’s later paintings.

  Tutukila invited Mariano to come to Guadalajara to learn to make yarn paintings. Mariano said he learned little directly from Tutukila at that time. He found work filling in the fondo (Sp.: background, the solid colors behind the main designs in the yarn paintings). He did this work for about two years, gradually improving and beginning to receive commissions. Then Mariano moved to Tepic, where he took a job as a manual laborer, until he met Tutukila again. This time, Tutukila taught Mariano more about painting, and they worked together until about 1975.

  Subsequently, Mariano met the American dealer Peter Collings, who worked with Susana Eger in the community of San Andrés. Collings purchased art from Mariano, and Susana sold it in the United States. Mariano credited Collings with encouraging him to improve the quality of his paintings, mainly by asking for explanations of them. At that time, Mariano was making simple designs with little content. Collings encouraged him to make more elaborate paintings and to explain the meaning according to Huichol tradition. Mariano believed that this concern for meaning was an important way to preserve Huichol knowledge and traditions and to make others aware of these traditions. He saw the yarn paintings as having an important teaching function, both for the buyers and for the Huichol.

  Eventually, Susana and Mariano married. They lived for a time in the United States, then returned to Mexico. They founded a charitable organization called the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts in Santiago Ixcuintla. The center provided support services for Huichol workers, including food, clothing, a birthing room, and medical services. The Huichol were being poisoned by pesticides in the tobacco fields. The center documented this catastrophe, lobbied to improve conditions, and provided medical care for those who had been poisoned (Eger Valadez 1986b, 40; Dĺaz Romo 1993).

  The center was supported in part by the production and sale of arts and crafts. A number of Huichols worked there and learned the skills of beadwork and yarn painting. In this way, the center functioned as a school and helped preserve and transmit traditional skills. Finally, the center maintained a collection of traditional designs, and one of its goals was to become a museum of Huichol arts.

  In 1986, Susana and Mariano Valadez collaborated in a major exhibition of Huichol art at the San Diego Museum of Man, in California. The exhibition featured paintings by Mariano Valadez as well as traditional arts such as embroidery and weaving. Mirrors of the Gods (Bernstein 1989) is the proceedings of a symposium that accompanied the exhibition.

  In the 1990s, Susana Valadez and the Huichol Center became part of a boom market in Huichol beadwork jewelry and sculpture. Susana adapted many of the traditional Huichol beadwork patterns, using colors that were more appealing to North American buyers. For example, the Huichol prefer opaque beads in saturated colors such as red, blue and yellow. North Americans often prefer transparent or metallic beads in softer, more neutral colors or monotones. Susana began importing Japanese Delica Beads rather than the size 11 Czech seed beads sold in Mexico and used by most Huichol. The center began to mass-produce jewelry and beaded sculptures and to sell them through high-end Manhattan retail stores (Grady and Eger Valadez 2001) or mail-order catalogues such as the one put out by the Southwest Indian Foundation.

  Susana and Mariano Valadez undertook numerous tours and exhibitions in the United States. Often, they took Huichol families and apprentices with them to demonstrate art and dancing. I met several artists who participated in these tours and who said that they worked on Mariano’s paintings. Mariano taught a number of apprentices, who adopted elements of his style. Some apprentices frankly produce copies of his paintings. Generally, Mariano seems to have had the most influence on artists from San Andrés and Santa Catarina, his community of origin. I did not meet any yarn painters in the Tepic-Santiago region who had learned yarn painting from him, though some had learned beading at the center.

  Susana and Mariano have since separated. Susana opened a second Huichol Center in Huejuquilla el Alto, close to the Sierra communities. Mariano remained in Santiago Ixcuintla.

  The Movement toward Realism in Yarn Paintings

  One popular branch of European or Western art is what Anderson (1990, 202–208) calls the “mimetic” tradition. Mimetic art uses realism to imitate the perspectives, textures, and colors of objects almost as the human eye sees them. One way of imitating human vision is through the use of perspective. Perspective creates an illusion of depth, showing objects in relation to each other in space; for example, nearby objects are depicted as larger, and distant objects as smaller. Another way is to draw objects, animals, or people with detailed outlines and to fill them in with their natural colors.

  Early yarn paintings had little emphasis on realism. Most lacked perspective completely. The images were flat and one-dimensional. A human might stand on some squares representing rocks, as in Ramón’s Kieri painting, but might equally well float in space, with little regard for gravity. Most objects were more or less the same size regardless of where they were located in the painting. Only occasionally is there an effort to show perspective, as in this depiction of the Ceremony of the Bull Sacrifice (Fig. 7.1), which has a woman in the foreground, a bull in the middle, and a small temple in the distance.

  The style of representation in most yarn paintings ranged from stick-figure and cartoonlike images to somewhat realistic depictions. Plants, animals, and household objects were most likely to be rendered realistically. The painting of the bull sacrifice shows a fairly realistic piebald bull, modelled with volume, and a recognizable round jug catching the blood gushing from the bull’s neck.

  Fig. 7.1. Neukame, an early yarn painting of the ceremony of a bull sacrifice, c. 1975. 24” x 24” (60 x 60 cm). This image was painted in somewhat realistic style, using perspective. Photo credit: David E. Young.

  Traditionally, realism was not important to the Huichol. Few yarn painters tried to mimic human vision or to employ perspective. They used a vocabulary of symbols that grew out of the older ceremonial arts. The images were recognizable as people, animals, and objects, but a cartoonlike style was enough to depict the stories and important concepts.

  Mariano Valadez pioneered a shift toward realism. Mariano’s paintings are large, detailed, and elaborate. They depict scenes more realistically than earlier paintings do. Landscape elements such as rocks, trees, flowers, mountains, and caves are more fully sketched. Some of his paintings use perspective when showing scenes of ceremonies. His humans are not stick figures or geometric shapes with heads; they are rounded and modelled with volume, and they wear carefully drawn clothing showing details such as the embroidery so loved by the Huichol.

  In particular, Mariano seems to have originated realistic animal drawings, which are unlike earlier stick-figure animals. A painting of wolf-people uses a mixture of brown and white wool to imitate the natural texture of a wolf’s coat. A painting of eagles shows an effort to outline individual feathers. A painting of fish in the sea shows recognizable species, such as sharks or octopuses. His painting Takutsi Nakawe Giving Birth shows many recognizable animals, such as rhinoceroses, monkeys, turkeys, snails, lions, and mice (Eger Valadez and Valadez 1992, 20).

  I heard one dealer complain that Mariano’s animal paintings were not “traditional.” “Whoever heard of Huichols painting all those animals, such as elephants and rhinoceros?” he scoffed. However, when I compared Mariano’s paintings to traditional images, I realized that, conceptually, his paintings were solidly rooted in the designs of god disks that feature animals, such as those illustrated by Lumholtz. The most modern aspects are the somewhat realistic style of drawing and the portrayal of animals that the ancient Hui
chol never knew, such as elephants and rhinoceroses.

  Mariano also developed a new type of cosmological painting. Unlike Benĺtez’s cosmological paintings of supernatural geography, Mariano’s cosmological paintings tend to depict the physical earth as we know it—the sky, land, and sea. One of Mariano’s most important cosmological paintings is of the goddess Takutsi giving birth to all life (Eger Valadez and Valadez 1992, 20–21). It shows the goddess in the center with the birds and butterflies of the air above her, the animals of the land in the middle, and the fish of the ocean against a blue-green background below her. Two humans suckle at the goddess’ breasts, while two more children are being born.

  Like Benĺtez’s paintings of Tatei Yurianaka, Mariano’s painting depicts the Huichol goddess as the source of life, creating and feeding the creatures of the world. However, Mariano’s painting is much more representational than Benĺtez’s. The animals are drawn more realistically; and it is the animals themselves that are represented, rather than abstract concepts such as kupuri and tukari.

  Fig. 7.2. Unknown artist, yarn painting of a goddess giving birth to all the animals, 2005. 15 ¾” x 15 ¾” (40 x 40 cm). This is a variation on a famous painting by Mariano Valadez. Photo credit: Hope MacLean.

  Painting Subjects

  The major subject categories of yarn paintings are well established. They include:

  » portraits of deities

  » myths, legends, and stories; depictions of events happening in the world of the gods

  » ceremonies and pilgrimages; fairly explicit or naturalistic drawings of actual ceremonies and pilgrimages performed by the Huichol, often cataloguing the required offerings and activities; depictions of what the shamans, other human participants, and participating gods and spirits are doing in the ceremony