The Shaman's Mirror

by Hope MacLean

  HOPE: When you make your yarn paintings, do you paint things you have seen in ceremony, or from your imagination?

  MARIANO: I make yarn paintings in my own style, according to my imagination. But also, many times, the shamans give me ideas, because whenever they talk about the religion of the Huichols, I am thinking how it is, with my imagination. When I hear the myths or the song or the prayers or the stories, at the time I record in my memory, and afterward I have it. That’s how I am.

  He emphasized his respect for the sacredness of the tradition and for the work that the mara’akate do to understand and teach it. It was this fidelity to the tradition that he attempted to portray in his art.

  MARIANO: For me, the shamans and the Huichol religion, . . . for me, it deserves a great deal of respect because of the work that is done. And the myths of the shamans, all the offerings, are things belonging to the gods of the Huichol, all of them. They are pure, pure religion through and through, that is being recorded.

  A third source of yarn-painting imagery is the artists’ own imaginations or thoughts. Some artists used the Spanish words “memoria” or “mental” for this source of inspiration. Memoria is what we might commonly think of as intellectual or “thinking” processes, rather than subconscious or unconscious processes, such as dreams or visions. However, memoria is also linked to the heart, as I will explain in the next section.

  Most yarn paintings have more conventional origins. The symbols and designs, such as deer, eagles, peyote, or the sun, are widely known and used in other Huichol arts, such as embroidery and weaving. Some images are traditional, such as designs used in traditional offerings and god disks. Some images are more modern, such as the recent, somewhat realistic paintings of myths, sacred stories, or ceremonies. All these images can be learned or copied from other artists.

  Clearly, the evidence regarding the use of vision in yarn paintings is quite variable. Some artists are limited to their own imaginations or intellectual processes; some use dreams and visions of the supernatural plane. Moreover, some artists use their own dreams and visions, while others borrow the dreams and visions of mara’akate.

  The artists’ comments also shed new light on the theory that peyote is a major source of yarn-painting imagery. The statements of the artists I interviewed indicate that peyote itself is not a principal source of designs for yarn painting; as I have shown above, most yarn paintings use culturally derived designs, such as those from myths and ceremonies. Probably more accurate is Schaefer’s (1990, 245) cautious statement that only a few of the artists who are most mature in their religious careers are able to use vision as a source of design.

  A related question is whether the artists themselves are shamans. This can be determined with some confidence because Huichol culture has fairly specific criteria for becoming a shaman. An aspiring shaman makes a vow to certain deities and must complete a prescribed number of years of ceremony and fasting. Most artists I talked to did not claim to be “completed,” or practicing, shamans. A few had never tried to learn. Others were partway through the process and had developed varying degrees of shamanic and visionary ability. One artist, Eligio Carrillo, did claim a fairly advanced level of shamanic ability. Eligio’s statements were especially important in clarifying the relationship between an artist and spiritual sources of inspiration.

  Paintings Identified as Visionary

  Of the paintings that I photographed, only some were identified to me as the products of vision. For example, the artist Gonzálo Hernández had a collection of twelve paintings for sale when I met him; one of them represented a vision—a painting of a mountain in Wirikuta transforming into an eagle. Similarly, Fabian González Rĺos had five large paintings and a number of small ones when I interviewed him; he identified one as representing a vision he had had when he was young, of a bad spirit that appeared to him in a dream and offered him power.

  Fig. 11.2. Gonzálo Hernández, a yarn painting of his vision of the volcano Reunar being transformed into an eagle, 1993. 12” x 17.75” (30 x 45 cm). Photo credit: Adrienne Herron.

  The fact that the artists distinguish between visionary and nonvisionary paintings means that they are aware of the difference. Nor did they try to tell me that all their paintings were visionary in order to increase sales. On the contrary, most of their paintings were of myths, ceremonies, deities, or sacred sites. The artist who most explicitly used vision in his paintings was Eligio Carrillo. But even he claimed vision in only some of his paintings, not all.

  12

  the “deified heart”

  huichol soul concepts and shamanic art

  The relation of dreams and visions to art is more complex than the simple yesno debate presented in the early literature. As I talked to the artists, I began to feel that I was missing the point of what they were telling me. I was concentrating on the source of the image—whether it was a dream, a vision, peyote, personal experience, or traditional or culturally derived themes. The artists did not seem too concerned about which of these sources they used. What was important was the process of envisioning, of how vision and artistic inspiration occur. This process is less variable, being inherent in each artist. It is closely related to concepts that Westerners might call body, mind, and soul.

  The important question was whether the artist’s soul or spirit was open to the gods. If the soul was open, then ideas, images, and inspiration would flow in to the artist. The art could then be said to be shamanic or spiritually inspired, no matter what the artist painted. If the artist’s soul was not open, then the art was not particularly spiritual, no matter how well executed in its technique or drawing.

  There are hints in the ethnographic literature on Mesoamerica that soul concepts may play a part in the production of art. Evon Vogt (1969, 371) wrote of the Maya: “The ethnographer in Zinacantan soon learns that the most important interaction going on in the universe is not between persons nor between persons and material objects, but rather between souls inside these persons and material objects.” This statement suggests that religious art, a material representation, might somehow be linked to concepts of the soul.

  Another clue is provided by Richard Anderson (1990, 152–3), who wrote that the Aztec model of aesthetics was based on a “deified heart” and that “true art comes from the gods, and is manifest in the artist’s mystical revelation of sacred truth.” The spiritual blessings of art come only to the enlightened few who have learned to converse with their hearts. The Mexican scholar Alfredo López Austin (1988, 231–232) proposed that the heart in Aztec, or ancient Nahua, thought was a component of what is often called the soul in English, and that the heart may play an important role in the production of art.

  While Anderson regretted that the Aztec aesthetic tradition may not have survived the conquest, I began to wonder whether the Huichol might still retain some of this tradition. The Huichol language is related to Aztec and Nahuatl, and some terms appear similar, as I will show below. Could the soul somehow play a part in Huichol art? If so, how do the artists conceive of the soul, and what role do they think it plays in the making of art?

  Understanding what Huichol artists mean by the term “soul” or “spirit” is central to understanding the role that the soul plays in their art. Recent research by López Austin (1988) has provided a dramatic impetus to the understanding of soul concepts in Mesoamerica. In The Human Body and Ideology, he examined ancient Aztec and Nahua concepts of the body. He related the ancient Nahuas’ internal model of the human body to their concepts of the exterior world, the spiritual world, and the cosmos.

  López Austin (1988, 181–184) stated that “the words souls, spirits, animas all lack precision.” To refine these terms, he tried to locate them at points that he calls “animistic centers” in the body. These are the points of origin of the impulses for life, movement, and psychic functions; they may or may not correspond to particular organs. He drew an important distinction between animistic centers of the physical body, and animistic entiti
es that might be called souls or spirits and that may live on after death.

  According to López Austin (1988, 190–194), the heart was most important to the ancient Nahuas. It is mentioned most frequently in writings by and about them, and “it includes the attributes of vitality, knowledge, inclination, and feeling.” He adds that “references to memory, habit, affection, will, direction of action, and emotion belong exclusively to this organ.” Cua, the top of the head, is the seat of the mind. It is the intellectual process, the seat of memory and knowledge. López Austin proposed the following model:

  Consciousness and reason were located in the upper part of the head (cuaitl); all kinds of animistic processes were in the heart (yollotl); and in the liver (elli) the feelings and passions . . . a gradation that goes from the rational (above) to the passionate (below), with considerable emphasis on the center . . . where the most valuable functions of human life were located. The most elevated thoughts and the passions most related to the conservation of the human life were carried out in the heart, and not in the liver or head. (199)

  Fig. 12.1. Modesto Rivera Lemus, large cosmological yarn painting of the everyday world being interpenetrated by the spiritual world, 1994. 48” x 48” (120 x 120 cm). Photo credit: Hope MacLean.

  In ancient Nahua belief, the heart played a central role in artistic production. It was thought to receive some divine force. The person who was outstanding for brilliance in divination, art, and imagination had received divine fire in the heart, whereas a person who was a bad artist lacked it (López Austin 1988, 231–232).

  Since the Huichol language is related to Aztec and Nahuatl, I hypothesized that the Huichol might share similar conceptual categories. Two of the three main ancient Nahua animistic centers—the top of the head, called “cua,” and the heart, called “yol”—seemed very close to Huichol concepts kupuri and iyari.1 However, as will be shown below in my interviews with Eligio Carrillo, the functions of kupuri seem more like the Nahua word “tonal,” which López Austin defines as life force or an irradiation contained in the body.

  The most complete information on Huichol concepts of the soul in relation to the body comes from an article by Peter Furst (1967), which is based on interviews with Ramón Medina. Other authors, such as Zingg (1938, 161–173), Lumholtz (1902, 2:242-243), and Perrin (1996), also discuss soul concepts, but they write mainly about the soul after death rather than about its relation to the living body and its attributes. Here I will review the Huichol soul concepts as described by Ramón.

  Ramón located the soul—or, more accurately, the essential life force—in the top of the head or fontanelle. He called both the soul and the fontanelle kupuri in Huichol and alma in Spanish. A mother goddess, Tatei Niwetukame, places kupuri in a baby’s head just before birth. It is placed in the soft spot where the bones have not yet closed; this is its life, or soul. Kupuri is attached to the head by a fine thread, like spider’s silk (P. Furst 1967, 52).

  Myerhoff (1974, 154) added a few more details about kupuri, also based on information from Ramón: “A great many plants and animals and all people have this kupuri or soul-essence; it is ordinarily visible only to the mara’akame. Ramón has depicted it in his yarn paintings as multicolored wavy lines connecting a person’s head or the top of an object with a deity. Verbally he described kupuri as rays or fuzzy hairs.” When Ramón shot peyote with an arrow as part of the peyote hunt ceremony, he said that rays of color spurted upward like a rainbow; these rays are the kupuri, or lifeblood, of the peyote and the deer.

  Kupuri is needed to maintain life. When a person loses kupuri because of a blow, he or she feels ill and cannot think properly. The mara’akame is called. Because the person is still alive, the mara’akame knows “that the kupuri has not yet become permanently separated from its owner, that is, the metaphorical life between them has not yet been severed by a sorcerer or by an animal” (P. Furst 1967, 53). The mara’akame hunts for the soul and finds it by its whimpering; seeing the soul in the form of a tiny insect, he or she catches it with the shaman’s feathers, wraps it in a ball of cotton, and puts it in a hollow reed. The mara’akame brings the soul back and places it in the head. The cotton disappears into the head along with the soul. Then the person comes back to life (53–56).

  Occasionally, Ramón used the term “kupuri-iyari,” which Furst (1967, 80) translated as “heart and soul.” “Iyari” was also used in terms such as “he has a Huichol heart” or a “good heart.” Furst did not talk in any detail about iyari. He noted only that during a funeral ceremony held five days after death, the soul is called back and captured in the form of a luminous insect called xaipi’iyari (Hui.: “xaipi” meaning “fly” and “iyari” meaning “heart” or “essence”). When the soul takes the form of rock crystals, which incarnate the spirit of respected ancestors, the word “iyari” is also used; it is known as tewari (Hui.: grandfather), uquiyari (Hui.: guardian, protector, or chief), or ürü iyari (Hui.: arrow heart).

  Thus, whereas López Austin (1988) separated the ancient Nahua ideas related to kupuri and iyari, Furst’s analysis appeared to combine them. For example, Furst described kupuri as the soul that leaves the body, both during life and at death, and that returns to the family one last time during the funeral ceremony. However, the Huichol have two separate words for the ideas, which seem to correspond to the Aztec words in other ways.

  It is possible that Ramón himself did not make a clear distinction between kupuri and iyari, since Furst later said that he corrected himself on other points; or perhaps Furst did not identify a difference between the two words and their related concepts. For example, as noted above, in describing the soul that comes back after burial as a luminous fly or a rock crystal, Ramón apparently used the word “iyari,” not “kupuri.” Furst (1967, 80) noticed the change of name and commented on it, but did not identify iyari as a different entity. Therefore, Furst’s article described the soul as seated in the top of the head; and Furst gave the head greater importance in comparison with the ancient Nahua emphasis on the heart. Perrin (1996, 407–410) identified the confusion between kupuri and iyari, and tried to distinguish the capacities of the two. However, he did not make the link to animistic centers of the body, as I have done here.

  The usual translation given for the Huichol word “iyari” is “heart” (P. Furst 1967, 41), “heart-memory” (Schaefer 1990, 412), or “heart-soul-memory” (Fikes 1985, 339). I have also heard the Huichol translate “iyari” into Spanish as “corazón” (Sp.: heart) or “pensamiento” (Sp.: mind, personality), a Spanish word that they use broadly to refer to a person’s character, as in, for example, a person of buen pensamiento (Sp.: good character, good intentions). Peyote is the iyari of the deer and also of the gods (Fikes 1985, 187; Schaefer 1990, 342).

  There is little discussion of iyari in the literature. The fullest account is in Schaefer (1990, 244–246), whose Huichol weaving consultant, Utsima, explained that one’s iyari grows throughout life like a plant. When a person is young, he or she has a small heart, but it becomes much larger as the person grows. However, the iyari must be nourished to grow; eating peyote and following the religious path to completion allow one to develop this consciousness. At the highest level of mastery, the iyari is the source of designs used in weaving: “The designs she creates are a direct manifestation from deep within, from her heart, her thoughts, and her entire being. . . . Those inspired to weave iyari designs learn to view nature and the world about them in a different perspective, as living designs. When they tune into this mode of seeing their world, they tap into a wealth of design sources and consciously bring their imagination into visual form” (245). Weaving from the iyari is so difficult that many women never attempt it, preferring to copy designs all their life. Nonetheless, achieving this goal is the peak of Huichol artistic expression, and women who achieve it receive elevated status and are recognized for their designs (248).

  The Soul of the Artist

  On the basis of the importance of the iyari in wea
ving, it seemed to me that iyari might have considerable significance for the production of yarn paintings as well. Moreover, the general aesthetic significance that the heart had for the ancient Nahua suggested that its role in Huichol thought might have been neglected by scholars. Therefore, I asked the yarn painters what they understood iyari and kupuri to mean and what role they thought these entities played in their art.

  Young artists tended to give one-sentence answers to these questions, such as “iyari means life.” The Huichol artist Eligio Carrillo gave the fullest explanation of the meaning of iyari and kupuri, and their significance in art. Because his answers were so complete and form a connected whole, I quote him at length; what he said was consistent with my discussions with other artists.

  According to Eligio, iyari contains a number of ideas. Iyari is a form of power that comes from the gods. It is the breath of life, sent from the gods, as well as the person’s own life and breath.

  ELIGIO: Iyari, that means the breath [Sp.: resuello], the breath of the gods. . . . That god sends the power to continue living. To think. And it is what guides you. That is iyari. What makes you able to think. In every place you go, with that you walk around. It is what protects you. The iyari. It is the thought [Sp.: pensamiento] that gives you ideas and everything.

  The iyari includes the heart, but is more than the physical organ. I interpret what Eligio says here to mean that while iyari is seated in the heart, it has many meanings and pervades a person’s life. It is also a person’s being or identity, which we might call in English the unique personality or the person who knows and sees.

  ELIGIO: It is the heart, of the body. But it is the whole body, not just the heart, the iyari. It is as though it were a magical air. Magical air. That iyari. The iyari tries to translate from many directions [Sp.: traducir de muchas partes].