The Body and the Chord: The Ritual of Tying of the Huichol Peyoteros (Mexican West)

The ritual of the “tying” (*amarrada*) performed by peyoteros—carried out within the context of the pilgrimage to Wirikuta undertaken by the Wixaritari of western Mexico—goes virtually unnoticed in specialized scholarly literature. Nevertheless, it stands as a classic example of a rite of passage: a process that, in this instance, is vividly materialized by a rope. Two primary actions are performed using this ritual instrument: binding and measuring. These actions reveal how concrete relationships are woven between the body, the cosmos, and the person. The ritual uses of ropes also shed light on the ways in which the Wixarika engage with their social organization, thereby fostering the strengthening of intracommunity bonds. Consequently, the gestures performed with these ropes prove crucial—particularly for connecting these itinerant bodies to the surrounding world—within the framework of specific spatial and temporal coordinates. Thus, the transformation of bodies is facilitated by ritual procedures involving ropes; this, in turn, precipitates transformations in social status, shifts in perspective, and changes in scale. All these aspects point to broader anthropological issues concerning the ritual memory of bodies in motion and a specific, ritualized praxis of the body.

Read the article in French here.