IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE BLUE DEER:
THE DIVINE ECSTASY OF HIKURI
A term paper for Native American Religions
by Delia Morgan
20 May 1998
Tiny and inconspicuous on the on the high desert floor, a round blue-green cactus is suddenly surrounded by an excited and colorfully garbed group of Indians. “We have found the footprint of the deer!” They watch with hushed intensity as the shaman, a mara’akame, slowly and cautiously approaches the cactus button, stalking it like a predator. Suddenly he draws back his bow and shoots the desert plant, impaling it in the center with an arrow, and immediately follows this up with another arrow at right angles; thus his quarry is unable to leap up and run away. A brilliant rainbow-colored stream of light shoots high up from its wound, but he gently and reverently strokes it with a sacred feather plume, coaxing it back into the plant. This is essential, for the cactus is actually a sacred deer, and the brilliant light is its blood, its very life-force, and it is for precisely this that they have traveled hundreds of miles to this barren place, fasting and praying and enduring freezing and sleepless nights: “To find our life.”
Clearly, this is no ordinary cactus. To botanists it is known as Lophophora williamsii, the peyote, noted for the psychoactive properties of its mescaline; but to the Huichol Indians of Mexico it is hikuri, and it is everything.
I. The Huichol
In a land overrun by modernity and by European cultural and
religious imports, the Huichol are remarkable for the proud tenacity with which
they have kept alive and intact the sacred ways of their ancestors. They have
maintained their pre-Christian religion, largely without the syncretic elements
which are readily found in other Indian groups; they still subsist mainly by
farming, and more recently, by the sale of their handcrafted artworks, which
have become deservedly world-famous. Numbering about 20,000 and living in the
mountainous regions of the
Ritual peyote use in Mesoamerica in historical times is
well-documented; in the sixteenth century Fray Bernadino de Sahagun wrote (in
book ten of the Florentine Codex) of how the Teochichimeca Indians would gather
in the desert and dance and sing “all night, all day” in honor of and under the
influence of the famous cactus[2].
Peyote is depicted on a 2000-year old funerary sculpture from
The history of the Huichol has been the subject of much speculation; one major theory is that they migrated to the Sierra centuries ago from the high desert near San Luis Potosi. This is the location of their holy land, Wirikuta, to which they make annual pilgrimages to hunt the peyote; they are quite familiar with the most minute features of its geography, which figure prominently in their own oral tradition of their history. The Spanish invasions in the sixteenth century had a tremendous impact on the Indians in the area near Guadalajara; thousands were slaughtered in rebellions, and many more died of starvation, disease, or forced work as slaves in the silver mines. Some survivors fled, many seeking refuge in the highlands of the Sierras; there was intensive mixing of different groups at this time, and new elements were incorporated into the Huichol culture and religion. Anthropologists have remarked upon the flexibility of the Huichols, and the ease with which they are able to respond to changes in their world; it is this quality which has largely enabled them to keep their culture intact, without sacrificing any of its essentials. Whether this will continue to be true in the future remains to be seen; each year brings more serious threats, the most disruptive of which is the continuing encroachment on Huichol land. Much of their traditional hunting grounds are now privately owned by Mestizos (whom the Huichols persist in referring to as ‘Spaniards’), and the new owners tend to regard the Huichols as poachers and trespassers; this has made it increasingly difficult to carry on their traditional deer hunt, another one of the key ceremonies in their yearly ritual cycle.
The Huichol population today is widely dispersed, and mostly organized into five loosely-knit communities, each one consisting of many extended families. There are some differences in cultural and religious practices, and even in the dialect of the Huichol language spoken, between the communities. The extended families are kinship groups living together in ranchos, a rancho being a communal land arrangement which includes a collection of living huts, religious buildings, and agricultural fields, with plots assigned to families. (The Mexican government has avowed intentions of privatizing the communally held land, which would seriously jeopardize the Huichol social system[4].) The society is largely egalitarian, guided by elders who are generally also religious leaders. There is a division of labor between men and women; deer hunting and heavy plowing activities are strictly limited to men, and women do most of the planting and weaving. But the labor of both sexes is valued and respected, and women may also become shamans and community leaders, although this is not particularly common.
Some Huichols speak Spanish, and some are literate; Huichol is a non-written language, although there have been various efforts to transcribe it. Most Huichols are home-educated, for fear that they will lose their culture if sent to mission or public schools. Intermarriage is usually within the extended family, and mating with non-Huichols is strongly discouraged, to the point of threats of a special torment in the afterlife for those who have mingled their pure Huichol blood with the ‘Spaniards[5].’ They are flexible and casual in their sexual relationships, and extramarital affairs are tolerated; such ‘illicit’ sex is forsworn for special religious purposes, such as the abstinence period before and during the peyote hunt, and one’s affairs are ‘confessed’ at purification ceremonies, which is to say they are acknowledged, but without any particular sense of guilt or remorse, but rather a ‘clearing of the air[6].’ (The idea of ‘confession’ seems so out of character with the rest of Huichol culture that one is tempted to wonder if it is a Christian importation.)
Children are regarded with great affection and tenderness, and in some ways are thought of as belonging to everyone; until very recently the infant mortality was quite high, with nearly fifty percent of the children dying before the age of five. Children participate in religious ceremonies, including the eating of peyote, and there are special festival events especially geared toward children; as part of the Drum and Calabash Festival (a first-fruits ceremony) the shaman turns the children into little birds and takes them on a mythical flying trip to Wirikuta, the holy land of peyote[7].
From the abundance of shamanic hunting motifs in their religion, anthropologists speculate that the Huichol were once a nomadic hunting culture, and this remains in their collective memory as a time of primordial paradise; with maize came agriculture and settlements, and the need for hard work and vigilance. Yet the universal human need to give sacred meaning to life has demanded that the maize also be sacralized; and here the Huichol are believed to have borrowed some ideas from other indigenous cultures. There exists an intricate set of relationships between the deer of their past and the maize of their present; this is emphasized in myth and ritual and facilitated by the agency of the peyote, which itself is considered to be of the timeless or primordial realm. Through this they achieve an integration of past, present and future which allows their lives in an ever-changing world to partake of the eternal and the ultimate.
II. The Religion
Huichol religion is not easily distinguished from other aspects of their life, since the Huichol do not draw any lines between the sacred and the mundane; everything they do is permeated with a sense of spirituality, and nothing is profane. Everything in their environment is alive; all things are sentient, filled with a life-force or soul, and capable of action[8]. What would be called mystical experience in our culture is common; encounters with deities and powers of nature is a frequent occurrence for the Huichol. All of this is seen as natural, and the concept of the supernatural, as something outside of nature, does not exist. The Huichols lay claim to a ‘heart memory’, iyari, which every Huichol is born with, and which encompasses all their experience, back to the primordial time of the beginning[9]. There is a sense of sacred space not only in the holy land of Wirikuta, but also in their homeland and in their old hunting grounds. Areas inhabited by the deer have ‘doors’ made of rocks on which are carved sun and peyote symbols[10]. Each rancho has its spiritual center in a xiriki or ‘god-house’ where offerings are left, and where the ancestors dwell in the form of rock crystals or colored stones. Many also have a tuki, a large round temple where communal ceremonies are performed.
The Huichol pantheon is crowded with gods and goddesses and sacred persons; one Huichol claimed that there are as many gods as there are Huichols[11]. However, some of these sacred beings do receive more attention than others. Among most Huichols the main masculine deity is Tatewari, Grandfather Fire; it is he who made civilization possible by bringing the warmth of the campfire and the hearth; he is the patron deity of shamans, who may be considered at times to personally embody the fire deity, and many rituals involve circling the fire, gazing into the fire for visions, or feeding the fire with offerings.
Father Sun, known as Tau or Tayaupa, is also important, but ambiguously regarded as both life-giving and dangerous; he is to be kept somewhat at a distance, lest the earth be scorched. The myth of the sun god has echoes of similar Aztec mythology, both involving self-immolation. According to the Huichol, the Sun was originally a young boy who threw himself into a sacrificial fire (or vat of water which boiled with his blood, in some versions); he then traveled through the underworld, and was reborn as the sun in a fiery eruption from a volcano called Re’unar[12]. When he began to sink to the earth and burn it with his heat, Tatewari protected the world by holding up the sky with five pillars, one in the center and one at each of the four directions (also a common Mesoamerican theme). The sun also dies and is reborn each day, traveling through the underworld at night; the entrance to the underworld is a tall rock spire to the west, offshore in the Pacific, and his daily birthplace is variously identified, but often taken to be the holy land of Wirikuta, which lies mostly to the east of the Huichol lands[13]. The sun is an eagle, which is also considered to be the animal attribute of the shaman.
Related to Tatewari is another major sacred person, Kauyumarie, Elder Brother Deer Tail. Kauyumarie is a culture hero, a trickster figure, companion of Tatewari, and a guide to the shaman. He is semidivine and magical; it is he who acts as an intermediary between humans and the divine, having supervised the construction of the first temple, and it is he who is credited for various acts related to the creation of the Huichol world. His legends are many, and some have speculated that there may have been a historical figure, a shaman who later merged with the Sacred Deer Person, and around whom the stories of Kauyumarie accreted. He is regarded with affection rather than awe, and has many human attributes, such as cleverness, laziness, humor and sexual dalliances; his name translates as ‘one who does not know himself’ or ‘one who makes others crazy[14]. He is related to another major deity, Tamatsi Maxa Kwaxi, a god of the deer hunt; often the name is appellated as Maxa Kwaxi-Kauyumarie or Tamatsi-Kauyumarie, and he is regarded as the same being[15]. There are a number of elder brother deer figures, which tend to merge into one another; they may appear as deer, as men with antlers, or as whirlwinds[16]. In a theme common in shamanic hunting societies, another is Paritsika, Lord of the Hunt or Lord of the Animals, the one who leads people to the game animals and originally offered himself up as a sacrifice, a common archetype in shamanic hunting societies[17].
Kauyumarie and other sacred deer persons are involved in much of Huichol mythology; though he did not create the world, Kauyumarie made life possible. He founded the second world, on which humans now live, after the first world was flooded; he lay below in the underworld where all life originates, and with his antlers (or ‘arrows’) on his head, he sensed the world above and projected his mind-memory upward. Thus his kupuri or spirit-soul went up as the center of the second world, and expanded so life could exist; he created a serpent-path from the first world below to the second world above, which others could follow[18]. In another second-world story, the earth was originally a woman who lived below in the first world; Kauyumarie asked if she would like to become a world alive with creatures, and a home for the gods; she said yes. By his power, she became a gourd-bowl, the matrix of the world, and he entered into her womb sexually, impregnating her with the seeds of all life[19]. In another myth Kauyumarie lifted the newborn sun up in his antlers, shining it upon the earth, and hence he is also linked to the solar deity[20].
Tamatsi Kauyumarie, the cosmic aspect of Elder Brother Deer Tail, is also known as the Blue Deer; he appears in various magical transformations in visions to those partaking of the peyote, inspiring songs: "The sea spoke to the gods/ Concerning the five cardinal points/ And out of the sea came the Blue Deer..."[21] The peyote is regarded as embodying the sacred deer, since it originally came from his body; he ate the peyote in his own antlers, so he could later give it as a gift to humans. (In another plant-animal connection, the maize plant was also originally a deer.) As a shamanic deity, Tamatsi Kauyumarie assumes an awesome, all-encompassing aspect: “His body is full of ‘words’ of all kinds, songs and prayers. He received all the words of the gods. He understands all that happens in this world; he alone has covered the earth. He does not have to study to gain the wisdom of shamans as it is bred from his very body.”[22]
Among the feminine deities the most important are those representing earth, water and maize. The main goddess is Nakawe, the earth or Grandmother Growth; she is a counterpart and partner to Tatewari. In alternate myth versions, it was she who remade the world after the flood, sending a macaw to scoop up the mountains, and then recreating all life with her magical staff[23]. Water is feminine; the Pacific ocean is a goddess, Haramara, and they also regard certain sacred ponds as ‘Our Mothers.’ The Huichols attribute rain to a number of rain goddesses, especially Nariwame in the east and Kewimuka in the west[24]. Rain goddesses and other water deities may also appear in the form of snakes. The Maize Mother, Utuanaka, is especially important, and has five daughters, the maize girls who are the five different colors of the life-giving grain.
Given the importance of the masculine sun god, one might expect a similar emphasis on a moon goddess; most writers did not report this, however, and there are distinct patriarchal echoes in Huichol myth and ritual; Myerhoff explicitly states that “the few moon and stellar deities are weakly developed.”[25] Schaefer, however, who has found a number of sun-moon correspondences in the sacred architecture of the tuki temple, reports that the moon is regarded as feminine, the sun’s partner, and the tuki is divided along these lines[26]. She also reports that in Huichol mythology the moon was actually the first sun, but was too cool to sustain life[27]. The moon, metsa, is connected with women’s menstrual cycles; a male shaman said the moon had no sacred name, but a female shaman, his mother, corrected him and said that the moon goddess is called Tukari[28]. It is connected with the spider; when the moon is dark, she is in the underworld as a death goddess, but she is life-giving when full. Schaefer also reports a missionary document from 1834 which related that the Huichols were at that time conducting regular full-moon ceremonies in the tuki; the church looked unkindly upon this, which may be part of the reason that they are not held in modern times[29].
Huichol cosmology and sacred space may be seen reflected in the tuki temple, just as it was in the ancient pyramids of Mesoamerica; each tuki is a round building containing the center of the universe, the navel from which life enters the world, and oriented to the four directions. They have a three-level conception of the world -- upper, middle and lower; the middle world, that of humans, is represented in the round floor of the tuki. It is connected to the underworld through openings dug into the dirt floor, just as it is with the Hopi and the Anasazi Indians. They dance on the dirt floor, stamping their feet to awaken the gods below so that they will come and participate in the rites. The middle world is connected to the upper world by two large logs which support the roof; one anthropologist has inferred from this and other temple geometry a male-female polarity and a moiety theme of wet versus dry season[30]. The dry season is connected with the masculine deities; the deer and the peyote, who are seen as the same, are both hunted during this season. The rainy season brings water and rain, feminine elements. Mutual nurturing connections also exist between the deer and the maize, however. The deer loses its antlers just as the maize is growing; it has given its life force so the maize may grow[31].The corn cannot be planted or harvested without an offering of deer blood or peyote juice, and when the deer is killed, it is offered both maize and peyote.
The symbolism of the quartered circle and its center, with connections to above and below, is also seen in the fires built to honor Tatewari. A pit is dug deep into the ground, a cavity or navel to the earth; this is filled with offerings and covered over with a stone disk. Then two cross pieces of wood are laid on top, aligned with north-south and east-west. When the fire is lit and fed by more offerings, the flames rise upward, carrying the prayers with them to the upper world. Among the most often repeated ritual gestures are the circling of the fire, which is always done in a clockwise direction, perhaps to follow the path of the sun; and the acknowledgement of the cardinal directions, by the shaman waving a ceremonial plume, or by the offering of food or water to the four quarters. They also make a cross gesture in the air or on the human body, as in the peyote hunt when the plant is held to the four directions on the body; often mistaken for a Christian gesture, it clearly has another meaning for the Huichols[32]. The symbolism of male-female polarity is seen in the two most common ritual implements among the Huichol: the muvieri, the feathered wand-arrow of the shaman, and the hollow gourd-bowl, which is filled with offerings for the deities or used to carry tobacco and other sacred substances. Each shaman keeps an assortment of muvieri for various purposes; in addition to the generally phallic shape, the connection to masculinity is reinforced by their identification with the ‘horns’ or antlers of Kauyumarie; they will sometimes wear these ‘staffs of power’ on the head to show a connection with Elder Brother Deer Tail, and ancestor spirits are also shown this way in Huichol sacred art. The gourd is explicitly identified with the womb, as in the myth of the womb of the world.
The shaman plays a central role in Huichol society, as both a religious and social leader. He fills the usual roles of healing, interceding with the deities, accompanying souls of the dead on their post-life journey, retrieval of lost souls, and leader of the peyote hunt (which may be seen as a kind of vision quest). In contrast to most shamanic traditions, however, he also acts as a priest, carrying out traditional and elaborate seasonal rituals. Fulfilling all his functions requires extraordinary leadership talents, powers of endurance and feats of memory, in addition to what may be presumed to be the usual charismatic powers of the shaman. As in other cultures, shamans are usually called by the deities, often after a life-threatening illness which will be cured only if the person agrees to become a shaman. They undergo no formal apprenticeship, but do undertake a lengthy training on their own, often lasting five to ten years, which includes leading at least five annual pilgrimages to Wirikuta, the holy land of peyote.
As mentioned above, at the heart of Huichol religion is a set of associations between the deer, the maize and the peyote; this is reflected as well in the annual cycle of seasonal celebrations. This sequence depends on the annual pilgrimage to Wirikuta, since the Huichol will not use peyote other than that brought back from the holy land. The pilgrimage takes place in the dry season, from October through March. Once the peyote has been obtained, and the ceremonial offerings brought back from Wirikuta, the ritual deer hunt may be held, and the deer sacrificed to the sun.
The deer, like the peyote, is delicado, very delicate, and one must be approach it with extreme prior purification. The hunt is preceded with prayers, candles, offerings of gourd-bowls and the sprinkling of sacred water; the shaman enters trance and asks for guidance from Kauyumarie, the Blue Deer. The deer was traditionally caught in a net, but today is often hunted with firearms, although the symbolism of the net remains on ceremonial objects associated with the deer hunt. The dead deer is addressed as brother; it is treated reverently, laid on a sacred cloth and is offered a meal of grass and maize. It is rubbed with peyote on its vital openings such as mouth, muzzle and horns; its power thus reinforces that of the peyote. Two buttons of peyote are then placed over its eyes, so its soul can free itself and travel toward the east, toward Wirikuta, and it will be reborn[33]. The shaman then draws the breath of the deer by placing his mouth over the muzzle and inhaling, taking in the power of Elder Brother deer. The meat is eaten, and the blood is saved for important ritual use. Pieces of deer meat are strung on agave cactus thread to dry, in the same manner as the peyote buttons are dried.
Significantly, while the deer was traditionally ‘gathered’ in a net, the peyote was ‘shot’ with arrows; this apparent reversal has the effect of further reinforcing the connection of peyote with deer. One might also see in these two sets of weapons another instance of masculine/feminine polarity; the arrow being a masculine object and the net being feminine, associated with weaving, which is done by women. The miniature deer snares used for ceremonial purposes look much spider webs, wound spirals with ribs radiating out from the center. If there is a sacred connection between the spider and the moon goddess, this would tend to reinforce the interpretation of the snare as feminine. And since it was usually women’s work to gather fruit (peyote, for example) and men’s work to hunt, the use of a gathering net for the deer and a phallic arrow to hunt the peyote would be another reversal. Language reversals are used to emphasize the identity of two supposedly different things (discussed below in the context of the peyote hunt); an action reversal of gathering versus hunting could then be said to emphasize the identity of deer with peyote.
The deer blood thus obtained was traditionally necessary for the spring planting of the maize. Peyote was necessary for the ceremony of Parching the Maize, which brings the rains needed to make the maize grow; the dried peyote is ground and mixed with water and taken in liquid form. The harvest festivals, especially the first fruits ceremony of the Drum and Calabash, is when the maize is cleansed and sanctified, and the children are told the story of the First Peyote Hunt[34]. It is only after this maize festival is complete that the pilgrimage to Wirikuta may begin, thus completing the round of ceremonies and beginning the next one. All of Huichol life depends on this interlocking set of sacred ceremonies; when one of them is interrupted, their entire way of life is disrupted, and their very survival is in jeopardy. In modern times deer have become scarce, so the Huichol sometimes must make do with a bull sacrifice; in this case it is still referred to as a deer, and the horns are antlers. There is no substitute for the peyote hunt, however, and when it is interfered with, as happened recently when the Mexican police arrested the returning pilgrims and confiscated their peyote and their ritual offerings, the entire ritual cycle is seriously disrupted[35].
III. Peyote: the Hunt
Peyote is used in a wide array of contexts in Huichol culture; it is taken socially for recreation, used medicinally as a panacea and an antidote for fatigue, and ceremonially for visions. Peyote does not grow in the mountainous regions where the Huichols live, although they do plant some of the cactus brought home from Wirikuta and may manage to keep it alive during the course year. They will not buy peyote, as they believe that the only ‘good’ peyote is that ritually gathered in Wirikuta with purification rites; other peyote, or even peyote gathered in Wirikuta if one is not pure of heart, will be ‘bad’ peyote and will give frightening visions. It is worth noting in this context that the Cora and Tarahumara do buy peyote, and are frightened of its power; but to the Huichol their own peyote is only good, beautiful and benevolent, and never causes sickness or fear. It is contrasted with kieri, the Datura or Solana plant, which was an evil enemy of Kauyumarie and defeated by him; kieri is a plant of sorcerers and causes madness[36].
A number of 20th century writers have described the peyote hunt; there are variations in details, which may be due to differences in community practices or individual shamans, but the overall outline is quite stable. Earlier writers garnered details from oral description given them by Huichols; more recently anthropologists and others have been allowed to participate in the pilgrimage and are able to give first-hand accounts, although their lack of cultural background admittedly would be a handicap when it comes to noticing small but significant details. Those writers who participated directly include anthropologists Barbara Myerhoff, Peter Furst, and Stacy Schaefer, and Mexican journalist Fernando Benitez; the description here given is greatly condensed, taken primarily from Myerhoff’s journey in 1968, as described in the book ‘Peyote Hunt.’ (see bibliography). Her guides during this experience were renowned shaman and artist Ramon Medina Silva and his wife Guadalupe.
In any given year, there will be a number of parties of pilgrims setting out for Wirikuta, any time between October and March, from various communities and ranchos; the size of the groups varies, from a few to perhaps a few dozen. Many make the trip every year if they can afford it; others live their entire lives without ever seeing Wirikuta, but even for them it is an important part of the mythology, related each year by family and friends. Preparations for the peyote hunt are costly and extensive, especially for the mara’akame who will lead the peyoteros. In earlier times, the entire 300-mile journey was made on foot, and took a total of about forty-five days; nowadays many travel by bus or car, but still stop at all the important sacred sites along the way, and still make the final part of the journey by foot, leaving all vehicles outside the holy land. They do not consider that the manner of travel really matters much, but ‘walking is more beautiful.’
Preparations for the pilgrimage are costly and extensive, especially for the shaman leading the hunt, who begins fasting and going without sleep a few days prior. The group of people participating in the rite includes not only those who actually travel to Wirikuta, but also those who stay behind; their job is to tend the ritual fire of Tatewari which gives power to the shaman all during his journey, and to follow their loved ones in visions and dreams. Both the travelers and those ‘holding down the fort’ undergo a number of privations before and during the hunt; these include abstaining from food, water, salt, sex and sleep. Magnificent new clothes are in order for the holy journey, finely decorated with sacred symbols, even if the only cloth one can afford comes from flour sacks. Ritual implements require several days to make or gather, including decorated gourds filled with offerings, tobacco bags and most important, the horns of Kauyumarie, a pair of deer antlers elaborately decorated with yarn, feathers, and arrows. These are carried by the mara’akame as he leads the procession, since Kauyumarie is the sacred guide on the journey; in the 1968 trip by camper, shaman Ramon Silva, after careful consideration, tied the antlers on the front of the camper during the driving portion of the journey.
During the pilgrimage the participants will take on the names and identities of Huichol deities. It is the shaman’s great responsibility to dream which people will have which names; the naming affects to some extent the ranking of the pilgrims, who preserve the same order all during the procession, even while riding in vehicles. The shaman himself always assumes the identity of Tatewari, the all-important fire god and patron of shamans. After all the sewing, rehearsing, naming and preparation of offerings, there is a ‘last meal’ of tortillas and water, with offerings of the same to the four directions and to the central fire of Tatewari. The next day all the pilgrims gather fuel to feed Tatewari during their absence; the shaman constructs the ritual fire pit, filling its center cavity with offerings before covering it with the stone disc nieriki (a geometric portal of access to a divine being), and he lays down the logs pointing at the four cardinal directions. The pilgrims gather around the fire chanting and praying, and begin to circle the fire. Then the purification ceremony began, with each person ‘confessing’ their sexual liaisons; the air is cleared, there is joking and teasing, and all resentments are forgiven. The shaman then brushes each person in turn with his sacred plume, shaking any impurities into the fire.
Then the shaman began twanging on his deerskin bow, a sound signaling to Tatewari the imminent departure of pilgrims to Wirikuta. A cactus fiber cord was passed around all the pilgrims and saved, to be knotted later, symbolic of the union of the group in Wirikuta. The fire was kept lit all night and at dawn they gathered once more around it, praying, and lit candles, carrying them as they departed to the sound of the bow. The journey is considered dangerous, especially for first-timers, primeros, and so they are blindfolded along the way before reaching the sacred sites. The first of these places is called ‘the vagina’ and is the passage into the Place of Beginning. (Other writers related that the danger here is that of crashing rocks or clouds which threaten to close off the entryway into the holy land, and one must slip through them without harm.) Another stopping place was where the Ancient Ones had dropped out of the First Peyote Hunt from hunger and fatigue; offerings were left there. Camped for the night, the pilgrims kept an all-night vigil of praying and singing around the fire, without sleeping.
Continuing on, they arranged to arrive at dawn at Tatei Matinieri the place of the Sacred Water, very near to Wirikuta. Here everyone was prayed over, sprinkled with sacred water, and given some of the water to drink. Now properly purified, the danger for the primeros was lessened, and the shaman then removed their blindfolds, encouraging them to look around at the sacred ancestral lands for the first time. This was a highly emotional moment for those who had heard of this place all their lives, and there were tears of joy and rapture. Sacred offerings brought on the journey were then displayed for the deities, and prayers made for success in their quest. The sacred waters were also used to anoint all the offerings, to empower them and make them acceptable to the gods. Then maize from a tortilla was mixed with sacred water, and fed to each of the pilgrims; this was the sacred food of the First People. Now the people were of ‘one heart’, and from this point on, the mood changed from weeping and praying to laughter and shouting as the pilgrims, now deities, glimpsed their sacred homeland.
Along the way, not only do the pilgrims assume the identities of deities, but the sense of ordinary reality is also turned upside-down through a set of language reversals; things must be called by the opposite of what they are, or if there is no opposite, then by another name entirely, as directed by the mara’akame. Thus the sun becomes a moon, cold is hot, morning is night, the nose is a penis, old men are babies, and women are men. Similar customs of reversal can also be seen among the clown practices of some North American tribes; clowns known as ‘contraries’ not only use language reversals, but also employ action reversals, such as walking backwards. In the peyote hunt the speech reversals are strictly observed, and errors painstakingly corrected. Considering that much of our usual sense of the world is constructed out of language, through concepts, reversals can have an interesting effect. On the surface they might seem to lend a sense of unreality or ‘otherness’ to the experience; but the paradoxes can work at a deeper level to obliterate the dualistic either/or thinking that permeates much of our daily thought, and return it to a state of inclusive both/and thinking. The actions contrary clowns have been interpreted as signaling a return to primordial chaos, where all distinctions are blurred, and this interpretation can also hold for the Huichols.
The shaman Ramon Medina explains this subtler understanding of reversals when he describes ‘how the names of things are changed’ on the way back to Wirikuta; it is a return to a time and place of primordial unity, where there are ‘no differences.’ This is appropriate, because the pilgrims have become the ancestor gods of long ago, returning to the time and place of their beginning. Significantly, Wirikuta is not only the primal unity of beginning, but also the state of things ‘when the world ends.’ Thus the return to the holy land is not only a reenactment of a past event, but a rehearsal for a sacred future. On an individual level, the souls of Huichols also travel to Wirikuta upon death. On a cosmic level, when the world ends, “all will be different, the opposite of what it is now...there will be no more difference. No more man and woman...the old man, the tiny baby, they are the same.”[37]
To continue with the itinerary of the peyote hunt: the pilgrims are not yet at Wirikuta, but are getting close. During another sleepless night around the fire, the sacred cactus fiber cord which was passed around before departure is brought out and the pilgrims are bound together in unity, by tying a knot in the cord for each peyotero, so that they are all ‘of one heart.’ The next morning before dawn they continued, passing the ‘Burnt Mountain Where the Sun Was Born.’ A few hours later they arrived at the perimeter of the sacred land of Wirikuta, and made camp. They lit the fire, brought out the offerings, and began walking east, seeking the hikuri. They fanned out, examining the ground closely for the ‘deer tracks’; peyote is said to spring up in the footprints left by Kauyumarie. Finally they found the first peyote, the cactus that is the deer; the shaman killed it with his two arrows and stroked it with a sacred plume to preserve its colored rays of kupuri, its soul or life-blood.
The pilgrims gathered around the plant in a spirit of reverence; all peyote is honored, but the first peyote is especially venerated. They ringed the plant with lighted candles, gourds of sacred water and abundant ceremonial offerings, including antlers, yarn paintings, beads, decorated coins and miniature deer snares. They wept and chanted the names of the deities, kneeling in a circle as the shaman took his muvieri, feather wands, and dipped the tips into the ‘deer-blood’ of the peyote. After anointing everyone present, he dug the peyote out, leaving part of the root in the ground, so that the deer would be reborn from its bones. There was a token sharing of the first peyote, an intensely emotional moment of communion.
The hole where the peyote had been was completely covered with offerings, and the party set out in search of more peyote, to fill the baskets they would bring home. Each peyote was lifted and touched to the forehead, eyes throat and held to the heart before being placed in the basket. When the baskets were full, it was time to leave; there is no lingering in Wirikuta, and the pilgrims literally ran out of the holy place, as if there would be great danger in remaining. In fact, Wirikuta is seen as a dangerous place, because it is so sacred, and perhaps also because it is an experience of immersion into primordial unity or chaos. First-time pilgrims are in particular jeopardy, and may lose their souls while in Wirikuta.
Back at camp, after all the peyote has been gathered, it is sorted through and special plants admired and selected for their shape or color. That night after all the sorting and packing is done, it is finally time for visions; now the peyote is eaten in large quantities, with people gathered around the fire. The peyote brings on beautiful and brilliantly colored visions -- bright dancing geometric forms and creatures of all kinds. In Myerhoff’s account, there was no ‘meaning’ to the visions for most people; it was an experience of pure aesthetic beauty and delight, the bliss of paradise. But the shaman has important responsibilities; he gazes into the fire and converses with Tatewari, and in his visions meets with other sacred beings and brings back essential information from these encounters. The shaman therefore may share what he learned from his visions, but others are discouraged from doing so; it is a highly personal experience.
Later authors (Shaefer and Furst) did not make this distinction; they gathered accounts of peyote visions from various types of people, and from this concluded that there are basically two types or phases of vision. In the first phase, accessible to anyone, there are bright geometric forms in motion and transformation. In the second phase, which occurs with some people if peyote is eaten in large quantities, there are visions of sacred persons and other creatures who speak or sing and bring messages; some people have come out of the peyote trance with entire songs which were dictated to them by these beings, which they then must share with the group. People are also encouraged to share their visions through artistic depictions, particularly the colorful yarn paintings for which the Huichol are famous, in which complex scenes of sacred beings seem animate and vibrant with power.
After the hunt is ended and the pilgrims return to the rancho, there are more ceremonies. The Tatewari fire at the camp, which has been burning the entire time, is circled; there are more chants and prayers of gratitude, and the reversals are changed back. Offerings, food and tobacco brought back from Wirikuta, are offered to Tatewari in the fire, sacred water is used to anoint the participants who stayed behind, and the knotted cord signifying their unity is untied. Peyote is shared with all. Then a pinch of salt, forbidden during the entire pilgrimage, is placed in the mouth of everyone present, and with this the rite is ended.
IV. Meanings
As can be seen from the above description, the primary purpose of the peyote hunt seems not to eat the peyote, but to bring the sacred plant back to where they live, and with it the sacred power of the holy land of Wirikuta and its guardian, Kauyumarie the Deer. Thereby their rituals, their maize and their lives are invested with its kupuri, its soul, its blood. Nevertheless, the peyote visions experienced during the pilgrimage are deeply important; they have returned to Wirikuta to ‘find our life’ and the sheer beauty of the visions in some way marks the climax of this experience. Shaefer categorized the two kinds of peyote vision into the purely esthetic and those in which there were encounters with beings and information obtained. Myerhoff interprets the peyote pilgrimage as the mythical return to paradise, the Huichol version of the Garden of Eden, and the overall experience as one of primal unity, a complete reimmersion into the timeless and primordial realms of the divine. She compares the experience with states of being found in both eastern and western mysticism, a sacred and condition in which all subject-object duality is obliterated, all sense of self and time and space is transcended, and one is absorbed into an ecstatic rapture of the infinite and eternal.
Following Schaefer’s model, we might categorize this as a third type of peyote experience; whether it is available to all the Huichols who eat the sacred plant is unknown, but certainly the accounts of shamans and others would seem to support the idea of a total unitive experience. In the unitive experience the distinctions between the mortal and the divine are erased, and one attains the status of divinity; in the peyote hunt this is marked by the taking on of the names and identities of the sacred persons. The hunt is seen as a return of these holy ancestors to the place of their beginning, another theme which would indicate the primordial. The identity of deer, maize and peyote also partakes of the unitive experience; Ramon Medina Silva explains “They are a unity, they are one, they are ourselves.”[38]
This return to the sacred unity is seen as absolutely necessary if life is to go on. Silva describes the return to Wirikuta thus: “All this is necessary to understand, to comprehend, to have one’s life...that is when we understand...when we find life over there.”[39] Another Huichol, presumably criticizing an anthropologist’s emphasis, said: “You people...come with us on the pilgrimage and even partake of the peyote. But you never ask ‘why’ to the peyote. You never ask. Well, I’m going to tell you: Peyote is everything, it is the crossing of the souls, it is everything that is. Without peyote nothing would exist, but you people never ask why.”[40] He continued: “What these people don’t understand is that we do not have these ceremonies just for ourselves alone. We have them to ask the gods to care for all the people, everywhere, so that the world will keep going, so that life will continue to exist.”[41] As the Huichol also say, “ It is beautiful. It is beautiful because it is right.”
Thus, the peyote is everything. There is a significance in all this to the role played by Kauyumarie, Elder Brother Deer Tail, the sacred deer person who is also peyote. In primordial unity, the deer and the peyote are one. He is the bridge between human and divine, partaking of both of these realms; dwelling in the holy land and yet traveling through this world and all the realms, he is a guide on the sacred journey back to Wirikuta, which is the soul’s path to the divine. To ‘find our life’ ultimately means to reconnect the mundane with the sacred, to infuse life here-and-now with life eternal, and this is the power of Kauyumarie. All life ultimately comes from the timeless and returns to it, and in between draws its sustenance from this wellspring. Tamatsi Kauyumarie, the Blue Deer, has given his flesh for the people to live, his blood for magical power, his antlers for the peyote visions in which one meets the gods. It was he who made a place in this world above for creatures and people to live, and he who gave them a path to reach it. The Blue Deer is the sacred power of life that sacrifices itself so that the tribe may go on, and so one seeks out his sacred footsteps, to follow in those tender imprints where hidden magic springs forth into radiant manifestation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS:
Aberle, David F. (1966) The Peyote Religion Among the Navajo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
Anderson, Edward F. Peyote, the Divine Cactus. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1980.
Benitez, Fernando. In the Magic Land of Peyote. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975.
Berrin, Kathleen., ed. Art of the Huichol Indians. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1978.
La Barre, Westin (1959). The Peyote Cult. Archon Books, 1975.
Myerhoff, Barbara G. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974.
Negrin, Juan. The Huichol Creation of the World, Clisby, Roger D., ed.. Sacramento: E.B. Crocker Art Gallery, 1975.
Petrullo, Vincenzo (1934). The Diabolic Root. New York: Octagon Books, 1975.
Schaefer, Stacy B. and Furst, Peter T., eds. People of the Peyote: Huichol Indian History, Religion & Survival. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Slotkin, James Sidney (1956). The Peyote Religion. New York: Octagon Books, 1975.
Steinmetz, Paul B. Pipe, Bible and Peyote Among the Oglala Lakota: A Study in Religious Identity. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990.
Stewart, Omer C. Peyote Religion. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
BIBLIOGRAPHY,
continued
ARTICLES:
Schaefer, Stacy B. and Furst, Peter T. “Introduction.” Chapter 1 in People of the Peyote. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Furst, Peter T. “Myth as History, History as Myth: A New Look at Some Old Problems in Huichol Origins.” Chapter 2 in People of the Peyote. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Schaefer, Stacy B. “The Crossing of the Souls: Peyote, Perception, and Meaning among the Huichol Indians.” Chapter 5 in People of the Peyote. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Silva, Ramon Medina. “How One Goes Being Huichol...” Chapter 6 in People of the Peyote. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Lemaistre, Denis. (Karin Simoneau, trans.) “The Deer That Is Peyote and the Deer That Is Maize: The Hunt in the Huichol ‘Trinity’” Chapter 10 in People of the Peyote. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Schaefer, Stacy B. “The Cosmos Contained: The Temple Where Sun and Moon Meet.” Chapter 11 in People of the Peyote. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Silva, Ramon Medina.
“A Huichol Soul Travels to the Land of the Dead.” Chapter 13 in People of the Peyote. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
1996.
BIBLIOGRAPHY, continued
INTERNET SITES & ARTICLES:
Valadez, Susana. (Director, Centro Indigena Huichol, uejuquilla El Alto, Jalisco, Mexico) “Huichol Religious Pilgrims Jailed for Possession of Peyote” Update: March 30, 1998. At www.nierica.com/wakan/huichols/Huichol Support.htm. (accessed 16 May 1998)
“Update” (on the recent arrest of Huichol Peyote pilgrims), author unknown. At www.lycaeum.org/enews/mar98-huicholup.htm.
“The Huichol Page” At www.gaia.org/farm/charities/huichol.htm.
“Mexico Connect: The Huichol of Mexico, Their Culture, Symbolism and Art” At www.mexconnect.com/mex_/huichol/huicholindex.htm. (A sizeable collection of articles on culture, religion and art.)
Hunt, Allyn. “The Huichol Indians” Article reprint from The News (Mexico City), Sunday, November 26, 1995. At www.hypermex.com/html/abt_ht~1.htm.
OTHER RESOURCES:
Centro Cultural Huichol, A.C.
20 De Noviembre 452
Santiago Ixcuintria, Nayarit, Mexico
Phone: 011-52-323-5-11-71
Fax: 011-52-323-5-10-06
Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts
801 2d Ave. Su 1400
Seattle, Washington 98104 USA
Phone: 206-622-4067
Fax: 206-622-0646
[1] Schaefer, Stacy B. and Furst, Peter T. "Introduction." Chapter 1 in People of the Peyote. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996, 23.
[2] Furst, Peter T. "Myth as History, History as Myth: A New Look at Some Old Problems in Huichol Origins." Chapter 2 in People of the Peyote, 26.
[3] Schaefer, "The Crossing of the Souls: Peyote, Perception, and Meaning among the Huichol Indians." Chapter 5 in People of the Peyote, 141.
[4] Schaefer and Furst, 12.
[5] Myerhoff, Barbara G. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974, 68.
[6] Myerhoff, 132.
[7] Ibid., 115.
[8] Schaefer and Furst, 12.
[9] Ibid., 24.
[10] Lemaistre, Denis. (Karin Simoneau, trans.) "The Deer That Is Peyote and the Deer That Is Maize: The Hunt in the Huichol 'Trinity.'" Chapter 10 in People of the Peyote, 314.
[11] Schaefer and Furst, 12.
[12] Ibid., 14.
[13] Ibid., 6.
[14] Myerhoff, 85.
[15] Ibid., 85.
[16] Benitez, Fernando. In the Magic Land of Peyote. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974, 91.
[17] Ibid., 91.
[18] Negrin, Juan in The Huichol Creation of the World, Clisby, Roger D., ed. Sacramento: E.B. Crocker Art Gallery, 1975, 71.
[19] Ibid., 82.
[20] Benitez, 90.
[21] Ibid., 76.
[22] Negrin, 122.
[23] Myerhoff, 89.
[24] Schaefer, Stacy B. "The Cosmos Contained: The Temple Where Sun and Moon Meet." Chapter 11 in People of the Peyote, 347.
[25] Meyerhoff, 90.
[26] Schaefer, 358.
[27] Ibid., 359.
[28] Ibid., 360.
[29] Ibid., 368.
[30] Ibid., 351-357.
[31] Lemaistre, 310.
[32] Myerhoff, 105.
[33] Lemaistre, 322.
[34] Myerhoff, 115.
[35] Valadez, Susana. (Director, Centro Indigena Huichol, uejuquilla El Alto, Jalisco, Mexico) "Huichol Religious Pilgrims Jailed for Possession of Peyote" Update: March 30, 1998. At www.nierica.com/wakan/huichols/Huichol_Support.htm. (accessed 16 May 1998).
[36] Myerhoff, 202.
[37] Myerhoff, 255.
[38] Ibid., 121.
[39] Myerhoff, Art of the Huichol Indians, 61
[40] Schaefer and Furst, Ch. 5, 138
[41] Iibid., 166.