by Hope MacLean
Yu muki
470C + 471C, chocolate browns
Kwiamauye
479 + 480C, light dove-grey browns
These colors are not what Western artists use as primary colors; that is, primary red, yellow, and blue. Eligio’s red is a shade closer to bluish pink. His yellow shades lean toward green or orange. There is no green, black, or white. There are several shades of blue, which lean toward black or violet and purple. The selection made here is not clearly related to a rainbow or the light spectrum, since it includes several shades of brown, such as chocolate brown and dove-grey brown.
Nor are these colors the same as those used in Plains tribes’ medicine wheels or in other popular versions of colors associated with the cardinal directions in Native American thought. In Canada, one often sees the medicine wheel depicted with primary red and yellow, black and white. In some versions, blue is substituted for black. However, Eligio’s version contains no black or white, and the reds and yellows are not primary colors.
Perhaps coincidentally, I received independent confirmation of Eligio’s color choice from another Huichol artist, Chavelo González de la Cruz. Chavelo lived in a village some distance from Eligio, and as far as I know, there was no direct communication between the two while Eligio was telling me about the colors. Chavelo is learning to become a shaman, and claims a certain amount of shamanic vision, but says he does not yet have the ability to heal.
I had asked Chavelo to make me some paintings, and he arrived with a painting of the sun god. It showed the sun as a face, with parallel lines of colors at the top. When I asked what the lines represented, he said they depicted the sacred words that come from the sun. The colors bear a remarkable similarity to the ones identified by Eligio, especially when one keeps in mind that Chavelo had to use colors of yarn that he could find commercially in the shops. In most cases, the shades are quite similar.
I had not told Chavelo about what Eligio had said on the subject of color, nor did I ask him to make a painting showing this. Thus, Chavelo’s painting is independent confirmation both of Eligio’s statement that colors are words that the gods use to communicate with, and of the actual colors used.
There are several terms for the sacred colors the gods use to talk with. Chavelo said his painting showed niwetari, which he defined in Spanish as palabras sagradas (Sp.: sacred words). Eligio offered several different Huichol words to refer to the sacred colors.
HOPE: How do you say “colors” in Huichol? Is there a word?
ELIGIO: “Colors” in Huichol? They say ukitsikatcha pu yeina. Tatei teima wa ukitsikatcha pu yeina . . . Or else, wa urrari also. It is more straightforward. Tatei teima wa urrari xi pu yeni.
Fig. 10.2. José Isabel (Chavelo) González de la Cruz, yarn painting, 2000. 12” x 12” (30 x 30 cm). The colored lines at the top represent the sacred words (niwetari) of the sun god. Their colors are remarkably similar to the Pantone colors selected by Eligio Carrillo. Photo credit: Adrienne Herron.
HOPE: And the word “uxa.”
ELIGIO: That means—didn’t you say it to me in Spanish? “Ukitsika” or “urrari.” It is the same.
HOPE: “Wa urrari” is the same as “uxa.” “Urra”? You say here “urra”?
ELIGIO: Yes, “urrari.”
Eligio speaks the San Andrés, or r, dialect of Huichol; thus, he uses “urra” (plural: urrari) for the word often written in the literature as “uxa” (pronounced “oo-sha” in the eastern dialect of Huichol). “Uxa” is usually used to refer to a yellow root that is used as a face paint during the pilgrimage to Wirikuta. However, while “uxa” alone may mean the root or paint or color, Eligio is using “Tatei teima wa urrari” to mean the sacred colors used by the gods to communicate. “Tatei teima” means “our Mothers,” the mother goddesses who are part of a constellation of deities the Huichol believe in.
Colors, Symbols, and Meaning
One of the first questions any anthropologist might ask is, Are the colors that Eligio identified symbolic in some way? That is, does Pantone color 150C mean one thing, while 151C means something else? Is there a symbolic equality between one meaning and one color? Or is meaning more complex? Perhaps there is a language of symbolic meanings that the shamans learn to understand?
As I delved into the meaning of colors, it quickly became apparent that the simple equating of color with meaning was not what Eligio was talking about. Instead, he said that the colors usually come as combinations, not singly. That is, one usually sees a group of colors together in a communication from the gods.
ELIGIO: [The colors come] combined. They don’t come alone, they come combined.
For example, the deer god often appears surrounded with blue. In a sense, blue is a sign of the powers of that deity. However, as soon as the deer god comes to a ceremony and makes contact with the fire, it is surrounded with other colors, such as red and orange, whose source is the fire. Therefore, when Eligio is making a painting, his goal is to try to represent the colors he sees as accurately as possible.
ELIGIO: Well, I am only using that [power or communication] that the color carries. . . . I make that [the painting] with these [same] colors.
HOPE: If you are making a god [in a painting, do] you make it with the color [you see] . . . ?
ELIGIO: That is combined [in the god]. That’s how I combine them.
HOPE: For example, if you see Tamatsi Kauyumari, with blue?
ELIGIO: Yes, you should see him with blue.
HOPE: And you will paint him with the same blue?
ELIGIO: Yes, with the same.
As the deer god contacts the fire god, other colors leap out.
ELIGIO: If I make Tamatsi Kauyumari, if he is . . . when the fire is there, [with] Tamatsi Kauyumari, I make it with blue, coffee color [brown], and blue, coffee around the outside . . . and red and orange. He is in contact with the sacred fire. Combined. Because the deer alone is only blue. But he carries part of Tatewari once he makes contact.
HOPE: When the deer is touching the fire, it carries the colors of the fire also?
ELIGIO: Yes, of the fire also.
The colors of the fire can be seen as colored lights shining around the deer spirit. (The Huichol artist Santos Daniel Carrillo Jiménez quite often depicts these red- and orange-colored lights surrounding the deer in his yarn paintings.)
HOPE: And it can be seen as light outside the deer?
ELIGIO: Like lights, like lights.
The blue deer (Hui.: Maxa yuawi) is a well-known image in Huichol art. Eligio was quite clear that the reason the deer is called “blue” is because that is how the shaman sees it. He added that the blue deer is a different deer from Tamatsi Kauyumari and comes from a different sacred site. Moreover, there are other deer spirits that can be identified by their colors. As each sacred deer makes its appearance, the shaman sees its color and hears specific sounds.
HOPE: That is the reason the Huichol say the blue deer, then?
ELIGIO: Yes . . . The blue deer comes from the ocean. And Tamatsi Kauyumari comes from Wirikuta.
HOPE: And does it have another color?
ELIGIO: There are other colors [of deer spirits]. There is a white deer. There is a yellow deer. And that one from the ocean is blue.
HOPE: And do they have other names?
ELIGIO: Yes, Mara türa is the name of the white deer. Wirü tara is the name of the yellow deer.
HOPE: Yellow? Then you know where the spirit comes from by its color?
Fig. 10.3. Santos Daniel Carrillo Jiménez, yarn painting, c. 1996. 15 ¾” x 15 ¾” (40 x 40 cm). Colored lights of the fire surround the deer god, Tamatsi Kauyumari. According to Eligio Carrillo, this is a visionary experience seen by shamans. Photo credit: Hope MacLean.
ELIGIO: And then a wind comes. It starts to make a “shhh” noise [makes sound of hissing] like an eagle when Kauyumari is going to come. When he arrives . . . When he touches. Until he arrives.
Clearly, Eligio is not using colors as symbols, which represent so
mething other than themselves. He is quite literally representing reality as he sees it through shamanic vision. That is, if he paints a deer spirit with blue, it is because that is how he sees it. If he surrounds it with red and yellows, it is because that is how he sees it when the power of the deer god combines with the power of the fire god.
The colors “mean” the powers of the gods. But they do not necessarily “mean” anything else. Nor are the colors a language in the sense of a set of symbols to be manipulated. They are a language that can be understood by the shamans, according to Eligio, but clearly he is not thinking of a language that can be learned and spoken by anyone, with or without shamanic ability.
Eligio himself said that the colors could not be understood intellectually as symbolism. He felt that the best way for those who are not shamans to understand is through the yarn paintings.
HOPE: In the university, many people have asked me what do the colors mean to the Huichol. But if I try to explain this, they are not going to understand me. They are looking for some kind of symbolism.
ELIGIO: Only this way, how they can understand, is through [yarn] painting. Just as I was painting what this means [in] the painting of the sun that I told you about. [Sacred Spring of Aariwameta shows] what colors it is made with, what colors you work with, what colors it can be translated with.
The Relationship of the Sacred Colors to the Fuerte-Bajito Color System
I tried to find out how the magical colors are related to the fuerte-bajito color system described by other artists. Eligio’s perspective again reflected his shamanic experience. He said the fuerte colors are the ones the gods use to talk with; thus, fuerte colors and magical colors were the same thing. Bajito colors were ones that had little or no magical power.
ELIGIO: Colors that don’t translate [communicate from the gods] are bajito colors, such as bajito blue or yellow combined with blue. Since they are bajito, they have less magical power. They don’t have as much power.
In contrast, fuerte colors can be used to send and receive messages from the sacred places where the gods live.
ELIGIO: Fuerte colors, such as when everything is blue, yellow, red, and pink mixed together, it is a fuerte color. This is capable of translating or communicating with the places that are sacred sites. And these colors also translate when the person receives these colors. It is as though [the shaman] can translate or communicate with the places of the sacred gods, which is where the gods send signals from.
I tried to establish whether there was a hierarchy of colors, from the most to the least fuerte. However, his answers again were much more complex than I had expected, and they did not point to a simple ranking system. The most fuerte color was blue, he said. Blue carried the power of the deer god and seemed to be one of the most common colors used by gods.
ELIGIO: Fuerte colors are blues. They are “mixed” with the place of the gods, where the magical power of the deer god is located, which the shaman uses to translate. These are colors of blue. Yes, blue is the most powerful.
However, when I asked him what followed blue, he said that it was the other colors in combination. Most colors appeared in combination. This seemed to be why he could not identify a single, linear hierarchy. The lack of hierarchy became even clearer as I questioned him about some specific colors. Each time, he answered mainly in relation to the role these colors played in ceremonies or in shamanic visions. For example, the shamans become able to see on a visionary level during the night. When everything is dark, they are able to translate messages from the gods or enter into direct communication with them. Eligio often uses the term “translating” to refer to the role of the shaman as an interpreter of a god’s messages. The deer god is the one who helps the shaman interpret.
ELIGIO: This color—black—is the time of the night. When the person [shaman] can translate. At night, when he sees [the gods] as though it were day. The shaman is seeing everything; he translates it; he is hearing the sounds. When he is singing, that is when a magical air comes to him and he hears it. It is at night when he does this, but at the same time, it seems like day. However, the person who doesn’t know anything [a non-shaman] won’t be able to see anything.
Black represents the night, when the shamans are able to see the signals being sent from the places where the gods live.
ELIGIO: The color black . . . it comes into being at night. During the night, this is called tukari ku, when the magical songs of the gods can be heard. That is when the deer god comes in [to the ceremony], in order to translate from the sacred places. So that these ones may have magical power, they only work during the night. In order that the sacred place may send signals to investigate the place. It is the place of the gods. That is the role [of the time] of the night.
Similarly, I tried to identify whether red was fuerte, but he answered by discussing how red appears during a ceremony.
HOPE: And is red a fuerte color?
ELIGIO: Red. Well, it appears combined with yellow or orange, and with pink and blue, more or less combined. But it is a part of one fiesta. It is used for the fiesta of the bull, when they kill the bull. During that [fiesta], which is for the spirits of the people. And also the magical blue comes in when it is time to enable the spirits to arrive [at] the place [of the fire], of the sacred circle of the shaman. Or at the sacred site of the gods, which is in Wirikuta. With these colors, [the spirits] come down.
I tried asking about several other colors. He identified pink and orange as the colors used by the gods in their face paintings.
HOPE: Pink or orange?
ELIGIO: Those mean the colors of the [face] painting of the gods. For that reason, the women do it also [paint their faces in ceremonies]. And they [women] make designs, but concentrate on the ones that belong to hikuli. They make paintings.
HOPE: And what others? What does green signify?
ELIGIO: Green means . . . we are accustomed to hold the fiesta of elote [corn on the cob]. That’s what green is. We call it Tatei Niwetsika; that is the corn, but in Huichol we call it Tatei Niwetsika. It [green] is the color of corn, and it also has the same meaning as peyote. Those two also change into each other.
I tried once again to establish a hierarchy of colors that are more or less fuerte, but Eligio answered from quite a different point of view.
HOPE: And are some colors more fuerte and are others less strong?
ELIGIO: Well, to be precise, it comes from using peyote. Among the colors of corn, there is yellow, there is white, there is red, there is blue, there is spotted. And from there, depending on the color that you use, that is the effect it will have on you. Not on everyone. Each thing has its own power. For example, if you eat the yellow corn, or this one, the peyote, it will have a lot of effect on you. It is as though you will wake up, that is to say, even though it is night, you will see many colors. That’s how it is.
Clearly, Eligio was thinking of something very different from a rank order of colors. I concluded that asking questions from the point of view of a Western researcher was not yielding the results I expected. It was more productive to listen closely to what Eligio was saying and to try to enter into the cultural and psychological framework he was describing.
Colors and Sacred Directions
The Huichol have a system of sacred sites around their territory. These sacred sites are considered to be homes of the deities, or places where their power is concentrated, and where humans may make contact with them. The sites include particular caves, springs, or rocks within bodies of water, such as a large white rock in the Pacific Ocean at San Blas (Tatei Haramara), as well as mountains and regions such as the peyote desert. The deities include powers located in the cardinal directions.
In Native American and Mesoamerican belief, particular colors are often associated with the cardinal directions. Contemporary Native peoples of Canada use the following colors for the medicine wheel: east is yellow; south is black; west is red; and north is white. The Aztecs, close relatives of the Huichol, used othe
r colors in a painting of their calendar wheel, recorded by Diego Durán (1971, 392, plate 35): east is green; south is blue; west is yellow; and north is red. According to Stacy Schaefer (personal communication), her Huichol consultants assigned colors to the directions that differed from those the Aztecs used.
From the women with whom I worked I learned the colors for the cardinal directions when I mistakenly bought the wrong colored ribbons to tie onto my votive candles. I was told that red = east, Wirikuta where the sun rises; black = west, Haramara where the sun sets and where the souls of the dead go; green = north, Ututavita—a sacred cave in Durango; blue = south, Chapala; yellow = center, the sierra where “we” live; and white = above, the clouds.
Schaefer added: “I know there must be a lot of variation, but it would be interesting to see if there are any patterns.” Tim Knab (1977, 84) noted that the Huichol of Santa Catarina associated the colors of kieli flowers with the cardinal directions. Kieli can have yellow, blue, white, or dark-violet flowers.
In an effort to confirm Schaefer’s research, I asked Eligio whether there was any particular color associated with the directions. To my surprise, he once again reversed the conceptual order of the question. Rather than making a simple association between color and direction, he said that what was important was that the directions—the sacred places—talked to the shaman in colors. There was no one color for each direction. Instead, the spirits of the directions used all the sacred colors to speak, and so did the shaman to reply.
HOPE: Are there colors that are linked with the sacred directions also? Is it like each sacred direction has a color?
ELIGIO: Well, the colors . . . these come forth when the shaman is using the powers of the sacred places of the gods. It is like an electricity. Those are the colors. Those colors arrive from the sacred places. They arrive at the sacred temple [that is, the fire lit during the ceremony] of the shaman.2 He is singing for them [the sacred places] to reach them. They come to the place [where the shaman is] and to the takwatsi. It is as though it were an image. You are calling it. With your spirit-mind [pensamiento], nothing else. With that. And then it comes.
