The Shaman's Mirror

by Hope MacLean

  While the concepts of fuerte and bajito seem to contain elements of the idea of shamanic equilibrium, I question whether they are exactly the same. Balance and equilibrium in and of themselves seem to be part of the idea of stillness that Chavelo González scorned. Dynamic equilibrium, a state of balance in motion, might better describe the Huichol aesthetic value.

  Myerhoff (1974, 74–75) touches on this concept when she says that in Huichol religion, the “notion of sacred . . . seems to embrace above all the concept of attaining wholeness and harmony . . . a dynamic condition of balance.” She goes on to illustrate this idea of dynamic balance with a reference to the dynamic tension between strong and weak woods used to make an uweni, the armchair used by the mara’akate. Her discussion suggests that the ideas of fuerte and bajito may pervade other Huichol manufactures as well.

  A second concept may also play a part in explaining the idea of complementary oppositions. This is the concept of rising and falling, or going up and coming down. So far, I have used the terms “fuerte” and “bajito,” and given “bajito” the translation of “low” or “soft.” However, “bajito” derives from the Spanish word “bajar,” meaning “to come down” as though descending a ladder or staircase. I noticed that artists frequently used a second word, “subedito,” either in place of or as a synonym for “fuerte.” “Subedito” derives from the Spanish word “subir,” meaning “to go up.” The combination of subedito and bajito suggests rising and falling.

  When I questioned Chavelo González about the meaning of fuerte/subedito and bajito, it became clear that this pair of words related to the idea of going up and coming down, a basic concept in Huichol religion. When a person begins the pilgrimages to become a mara’akame, the process is considered to be like climbing a staircase. Each year of pilgrimage represents one step on the stairs. In Lupe’s family, the first six years of pilgrimages are considered to be climbing the staircase. A person may end his or her commitment at this point. However, the family constantly stresses that to learn well, and to be fully capable as a mara’akame, a person should complete a second six years so that he or she can descend the staircase and finish well.

  Fig. 9.3. A Huichol armchair (uweni) whose design balances strong (fuerte) and weaker (bajito) woods. Credit: Carl Lumholtz, Symbolism of the Huichol Indians (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1900), 70.

  Other authors have noticed the idea of going up and coming down in Huichol thought. According to Lumholtz (1902, 2:204): “Life is a constant object of prayer with the Huichols; it is, in their conception, hanging somewhere above them, and must be reached out for.” Grimes suggests that to the Huichol, time is thought of like climbing a hill, always going upward. This distinction is marked within the grammar itself: “Progress through time is treated linguistically in much the same way as progress up a hill. The future is ‘higher’ than the speaker, the past ‘lower’. . . . The later of two events is . . . ‘uphill from’ the earlier, the earlier, . . . ‘downhill from’ the later” (1964, 29). Future linguistic research may reveal that the distinction between fuerte/subedito and bajito is deeply embedded within the Huichol language as well.

  One Huichol ceremonial object collected by Lumholtz (1900, 62) reflects the idea of going up and coming down. It is a miniature carved-stone staircase. Lumholtz was told that it represents travel, especially the travels of the gods, and that each step represents one stage of the journey. The Preuss collection in the Berlin Ethnological Museum has a version of such a staircase shaped more like a pyramid and painted in alternating stripes of red, yellow, and black (Valdovinos and Neurath 2007, 51).

  The ladder is inscribed in the landscape of sacred sites. Schaefer (1990, 352–355) was told that the sticks of the loom symbolize a ladder that marks pilgrimage sites and mountains from east to west. The top of the ladder begins in the east at a mountain lake, passes through the mountains of Reunar and Kauyumari in Wirikuta, then through the Huichol Sierra, after which it descends to the Pacific Coast at Haramara. This is conceptually similar to a map of sacred sites that Eligio drew for me. He placed the east, and Wirikuta, at the top of the page so that the pilgrims would be going upward as they travelled from the Pacific Ocean to Wirikuta.

  The staircase, a well-known theme in Mesoamerican thought, has wide implications. Jill Furst and Peter Furst (1980, 8) maintain that there were pan-Mesoamerican concepts that formed the foundation of indigenous aesthetic systems. Among these concepts were the ideas that the universe is multileveled and that the stepped pyramid, like a staircase, serves as a cosmic model of the sacred world. I have heard similar ideas expressed by Huichol.

  Thus, the Huichol describe colors as rising and descending or as strong and soft, and use colors to express these oppositions. Their use of colors may express deep-rooted traditional aesthetic concepts, even if current practices employ modern forms and materials.

  Color and Meaning

  Up to this point, I have been describing general patterns in color use or aesthetic principles that underlie the Huichol use of color. These principles guide artists’ color choices and the overall effects that the artists try to achieve. However, another aspect of color has significance for the understanding of yarn paintings. This is the meaning ascribed to individual colors and to combinations of colors.

  Art galleries sometimes give out little pamphlets on Huichol color symbolism. The dealers say they provide this information because Western buyers often ask what the colors and the symbols mean. The pamphlets seem to be compiled from interviews with passing Huichols and from anthropological texts such as Lumholtz’s (1900) classic work on symbolism. While the information contained in these pamphlets generally appears correct, it is very simplified and limited. For example, the pamphlets equate red with fire, yellow with the sun, and so on. These equivalences are generally true, but oversimplified, since Huichol symbols typically have multiple meanings that relate to and extend one another. For example, red is equated with fire, but also with blood; and since blood carries the life force, with life itself.

  Lumholtz (1900) catalogued the Huichol use of colors in art. He described in minute detail a wide range of ceremonial objects, the colors used to make them, and the meanings attributed to them by their makers. Nevertheless, Zingg (1938, 243–244) cautioned that contrary to the impression given by Lumholtz, there is no clear correspondence between colors and deities or directions, except a general association of blue and green with rain goddesses. Zingg’s warning seems justified when one reviews the colors and associated meanings described by Lumholtz (1900) in his index. While Lumholtz noted that there are certain general meanings for colors, such as an association of red with life, the rising sun, and fire, or of yellow with the setting sun, fire, and grandfather fire, other data he collected on the meaning of colors show that, in many cases, these associations do not apply strictly; for example, all of the following color combinations can represent rain: red and yellow lines; red and blue lines; white and yellow lines; white and blue lines; green, red, and blue lines (Lumholtz 1900, 221–222). In other words, most colors, including red and yellow, can also be used to depict rain.

  Some cultures do seem to have a clearly defined color symbolism, with meanings that are comparatively fixed and unvarying. One example is the colors in Navajo ceremonial sand painting. Each element in the design is a particular color, which must be replicated exactly. The symbolism of color is important, and there is a one-to-one correspondence between color and meaning.

  In my experience, the Huichol are more flexible and allow for significant variation. This is certainly true of commercial yarn painting. In many cases, the colors are personal choices or preferences of the painters, and are not necessarily symbolic in and of themselves. It would be oversimplifying to suggest that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the colors used in yarn paintings and their meanings, or that an analysis of the paintings can always be done based only on the colors. The artists often have pragmatic selection criteria for colors, as the foll
owing comments by artists show.

  Finding particular colors is one problem. The artists may just use whatever colors of yarn they happen to have on hand or that they were able to find in the shops. Mariano Valadez reflected on the difficulty he had in maintaining a supply of the colors he prefers.

  HOPE: And do you buy your yarn in Mexico or in the United States?

  Mariano: In Mexico, in the city of Mexico.

  HOPE: You can’t buy them here in Tepic?

  Mariano: No, because the material, every two or three years, is discontinued. They don’t have it.

  I watched one artist ask a person who was going to Mexico City to buy him a selection of yarn from the Diamante brand; he was not particular about which colors, saying he would take any colors the buyer liked.

  The artists are also constrained by a limited selection of colors within particular yarn brands. This restricted palette affects an artist’s choice of colors, as Santos Daniel explained. We discussed the change in yarn brands over time. He said that when the artists changed from using El Gato to a thinner yarn, Cristal, they had to adjust to much duller colors. El Gato had brighter colors. He usually works with Cristal, but it has few fuerte colors, mostly just red and green. The main reason he changed was that a dealer who complained of having trouble selling paintings made with the thicker yarn asked him, “Why not change yarns?” Now Santos uses several brands of yarn to get the color range he wants, including Diamante, Cristal, and Estilo. Which one he uses depends on the design he is doing. Now he finds El Gato a bit fuerte, and it looks a bit spongy. Cristal is more threadlike and harder. In general, he prefers to work in Diamante because it is a bit thicker. Estilo is very thin. He likes to work with three types together. That way he gets many colors. The Diamante and Estilo brands each have relatively few colors, and so the others complement them. He can get all the brands in Tepic, but at times the stores suddenly run out of stock.

  As this interview makes clear, the artists may be obliged to make up a full palette of the colors they prefer by using different brands of yarns. Moreover they are constrained by the limited color selection in each brand.

  The artist Modesto Rivera Lemus echoed Santos’s concerns. He told me that he preferred Diamante because it has more natural, or bajito, colors and that his own preference is to work in bajito. He likes the colors because they are very claro (Sp.: clear, light) and more natural. The other brands have brillante (Sp.: shiny) colors, and they are not very natural. Still, he likes to use a range of colors, including fuerte, bajito, and subedito. Diamante is the best for colors. He doesn’t like Estilo much because the colors aren’t pure. They are mixed colors, which he explains by showing me an example of Estilo in which two threads of different colors were plied together.

  Personal taste is an important factor in the artists’ choices of color. The artists are not in any way bound or obliged to use a certain color to express their meanings, although the small pamphlets imply that they are. Chavelo González explained that an artist can change the colors in a yarn painting without changing the meaning of the painting. The artist can use whatever colors he or she likes.

  Salability is also a factor in color choice. For example, in 1993–1994, José Benĺtez Sánchez produced a large quantity of paintings, all made in bright oranges and cobalt blues. According to the dealers, those colors sold particularly well. A Huichol artist commented that these are almost exclusively fuerte colors. Benĺtez’s repeated use of the same colors suggests that he discovered a color combination that strongly appeals to Western buyers.

  Artists can have many pragmatic reasons for their color choices that have nothing to do with deeper religious or symbolic meanings. So before drawing any conclusions about color and meaning, it is important to determine whether the artists chose certain colors just because they were readily available in the stores, appealed more strongly to buyers, or better suited their own personal tastes. Having pointed out these cautions, I will now explore how color and meaning may be linked.

  Eligio Carrillo declared that he would like to paint with pure color some day, without using any designs at all—just color. He did not seem to know that in Western society, many artists paint with color only and that it is called abstract art.

  HOPE: How do you decide which colors to use?

  ELIGIO: Well, this also comes with the learning. You have to know how to put the colors [together] with each other, because the colors speak also. . . . With colors, it [the meaning of the yarn painting] can be understood. There is this also. You have to know with which color I am going to speak, with which color I will be understood, with which color it is possible to speak. Also, with colors and nothing else, even if it doesn’t have this [a design], with colors it can still be understood.

  HOPE: The colors speak to the gods?

  ELIGIO: Yes, with that too. With pure color also.

  He went on to say that certain colors have meanings that can be understood by the gods or by a person who already has the abilities of a mara’akame. Such a person can look at the colors in a yarn painting and determine what it means, regardless of whether it has a design.

  ELIGIO: So I like colors. Without designs. With pure colors, like this. And I know what I am making. What I am going to make. What is in it, right? But I have never made one like this, with pure colors, even though I have it in my mind. To make a yarn painting with nothing but with pure colors, you can do it.

  HOPE: Have you made a yarn painting like this for yourself? Or if it is not to sell, have you made a yarn painting with just colors?

  ELIGIO: Yes, if it’s not to sell, it is possible.

  Fig. 9.4. Eligio Carrillo Vicente, a yarn painting of his vision of the deer god, 1994. 24” (60 cm) in diameter. During a nighttime ceremony, the deity hovers over a shaman, whose offerings are being blessed with copal incense, the food of the deer god. Photo credit: Hope MacLean.

  Eligio was concerned that if a painting did not have a design, no one might want to buy it. Therefore, he might make such a painting only for his personal use.

  He explained how a yarn painting could convey meaning through its colors, by using the painting Deer God at Night, a round painting of a deer spirit communicating with the mara’akame in a nighttime ceremony. He explained that this painting is done mainly in bajito colors. It has a black background all around the outside rim, with little spirit figures around the circumference. In the center is a huge head of a deer, with a comparatively small mara’akame beside it. Below is a bowl filled with fire and the smoke of copal incense. All the central figures are made in gold tones, with white light all around them, against a background of light burgundy red. Eligio explained how the colors in the painting reflected the meaning:

  ELIGIO: This [painting] is for the shaman, who translates [messages from the gods] better in the night. That is, this is at night, outside, and they [the shamans] light it up. With the power he has, it’s almost as though it was dawn, even though at that moment it is night. And here [points to the center of the painting], this could be by night, and it is as light as though it was day. That is what the color means in this one. And here it is by night that they are doing the ceremony. He presents himself to the deer, which is the power. At the same time, [it seems as though] it is midday, but it is really part of the night.

  HOPE: And he is doing the ceremony?

  ELIGIO: Yes. That is how we see it, as though it was in daylight. That is to say, he is translating it [the mara’akame is translating for the gods during the ceremony].

  In contrast, Eligio showed me a second yarn painting, Sun-God at Midday, that uses fuerte colors such as bright turquoise blue and hot pinks and reds. The design represents the sky, and the sun at its zenith transforming into a person; therefore, it shows the power of the sun to light up the sky in the daytime, just as the shaman did at night. The fuerte colors emphasize the theme of power.

  Because of the deeper levels of meaning that can be expressed by combinations of colors, Eligio emphasized that it was
important for artists to understand the significance of colors and to know what they are trying to express.

  ELIGIO: [The] artist should understand the knowledge, what I am going to make, what color I am going to put on, more or less, and know and understand what I am going to make. What can it indicate? How can I explain it? That is what there is [that is, the powers contained in the colors].

  Fig.9.5. Eligio Carrillo Vicente, yarn painting of the sun god, 1994. 24” (60 cm) in diameter. The deity appears as a human figure in the zenith of the blue sky at midday. The image is painted in fuerte colors, representing the strength of the sun. Photo credit: Hope MacLean.

  The conversation with Eligio demonstrates that color and meaning are associated; however, the associations may be more complex than a simple one-to-one correspondence between a single color and a single concept, such as “red equals fire.” Meaning may lie in the particular combinations of colors in the painting as a whole. The combinations may be more important than each color is individually. The combinations express complex concepts about ceremonies or spiritual properties, concepts not immediately apparent from looking at the painting. As Eligio said, although a mara’akame may understand the meaning simply by looking at a painting, the rest of us will need to ask for an explanation.

  10

  sacred colors and shamanic vision

  Eligio’s comments on color and meaning were intriguing. After completing my PhD fieldwork, I had a feeling that there was much more to be learned about what color really meant to the Huichol and that I was still only scratching the surface. A breakthrough came one day as I was talking to Eligio. He had used the phrase “the colors speak” before, but I thought it was just a reference to the colors having meanings of some sort. Suddenly, I realized that he was talking about something else: he was saying quite literally that color was a language used by the gods and spirits of sacred sites to communicate with a shaman. Color in yarn paintings can be a representation of the visionary language experienced by a shaman. This led to a whole series of questions about which gods use colors to speak, which colors they use, and how the communication is understood.