Culture

In an agricultural ritual held in a family temple in a Wixárika community in western Mexico, an assemblage is created in an organized sequence of acts composed of heterogeneous elements: artifacts, parts of sacrificed animals, and people. This assemblage is attributed the identity of Our Mother Young Cornfield (Tatei Waxa ‘iimari). Anthropologist Regina Lira analyzes how each of its parts is created and manipulated throughout a ritual cycle within the interactions between humans in the ceremonial courtyard and between non-humans in the ritual chanting. This process establishes plural and contradictory relationships between people of the same sex, different sexes, and between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. We will show how this assemblage operates as an integrating node of the different registers of action, creating the conditions for coexistence between the human and non-human worlds in the creative act. Through this process, we reflect on Indigenous modes of transmission based on image, time, and the body.

The main objective of this article is to explain how the Wixaritari (or Huichol, singular Wixarika), an Indigenous group from western Mexico, understand the main rivers of their territory through mythology. At the same time, our exploration will serve to illustrate how the white man, the "mestizo" or teiwari—as the Wixaritari call non-Indigenous people—has left his mark on the collective memory of this Amerindian society. Furthermore, we will observe how modern interventions in the environment—in this case, hydroelectric dams—are reflected in their traditions, their adaptation to new contexts, and the development of a political or "cosmopolitical" discourse, as Isabelle Stengers would call it.

Article discusses contemporary Wixárika institutions, such as the school and the museum, may receive as parts of ritual landscape and how the community-based videos shot in the context of these institutions may increase our understanding of ritual landscapes in general. We discuss how ritual landscape can be researched using community-based documentary video art in a way that takes the ontological conceptions of the human and non-human relations of the community seriously. In this case, we understand community-based video art as artistic research in which the work is produced with the community for the com munity. The making of art, discussed in this article, is a bodily activity as it includes walking with a camera in the Wixárika ritual landscape, interviewing people for the camera, and documenting the work and rituals of the pupils, teachers, and the mara’akate (shaman-priests) planning the community-based museum.

Master Thesis on the topic of cultural conflicts generated by the state educational system in Wixarika communities based on field work in Waxieti (El Chalate), Tateikié.

Thesis by Xilonen Luna Ruiz that is based on an ethnography centered on aspects related to nocturnality, luminosity, and the feminine within a Wixarika kin-based ranch. Through the experiences of women, the study touches upon aspects of kinship, medical anthropology, territory, and ancestry; these elements weave together specific forms of experience that cut across—and intersect with—the modes of experience that are of particular interest to me. These modes relate to temporality, spatiality (*nanayari-Kirikuxata*: the gourd path), and agency—the intentionality of which is determined by the narratives, social dramas, and ritual actions that unfold within Wixarika collectives.

To attract tourists to western Mexico, the culture of its indigenous peoples is promoted, emphasizing its "authenticity" and "exoticism." This essay by French anthropologist Rozann Le Mûr explores how Wixáritari artists and artisans are aware of the image they must present to outsiders and have successfully developed their crafts and art in tandem with tourism.

The following article explores the interaction between the commercial uses of indigenous visual culture, philanthropy and profit in products that use features of Wixárika culture (also known as Huichol). I argue that the commercialization of Huichol goods is achieved through symbols that demarcate and commercialize otherness through visual languages that appeal to a global consumer public. In particular, I analyze how the boom in products inspired by Wixárika culture has intersected with the defense of Wirikuta, the sacred Wixárika pilgrimage route located in the state of San Luis Potosí, which has been the object of controversy due to several mining projects.

Poem by Chicano poet Juan Felipe Herrera's anthology Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream, 2015.

The Body and the Rope: The rite of “entwining” of the Huichol Peyoteros (Western Mexico)”, article written by Dr. Olivia Kindl for Ateliers d’anthropologie 40(2014) in their number titled “Représentations et mesures du corps humain en Mésoamérique” (“Representations and Measurements of the Human Body in Mesoamerica”).