History

Wixarika territory, courtesy of Taller de Operaciones Ambientales.

"It is loved and it is defended": Critical Solidarity Across Race and Space

Diana Negrín da Silva
| August 2018

Abstract: Since 2010, the Wixarika (Huichol) indigenous people of western Mexico have struggled against transnational mining activity in their sacred pilgrimage site of Wirikuta in the semi-desertic plateaus of San Luis Potosi. This struggle has been accompanied by a multitude of non-indigenous and largely urban actors who have joined the Wixarika, bringing with them their own cultural, political and geographic registers for understanding and mobilizing against mining in the region.

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Carl Lumholtz in Mexico 1892

An Introduction to Carl Lumholtz

Carl Sofus Lumholtz (23 April 1851 – 5 May 1922) was a Norwegian explorer and ethnographer, best known for his meticulous field research and ethnographic publications on indigenous cultures of Australia and Mexico. Born in Fåberg, Norway, Lumholtz graduated in theology in 1876 from the Royal Frederick University, now the University of Oslo.
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Taller de telares en la comunidad de Tuapurie

Apprentice and Philosopher: The Wixarika Archive of Juan Negrín

Diana Negrín da Silva
| May 2018
En 1982, un escritor francés, Jean-Paul Ribes, viajó a México para escribir un artículo para la revista Actuel1 sobre el chamanismo y los psicotrópicos, tomando a los wixaritari (huicholes) como ejemplo de uno de los últimos pueblos chamánicos vivos. Por entonces, mi padre, Juan Negrín Fetter, figuraba como uno de los principales estudiantes de la cultura y el arte wixárika, por lo cual le llegaban solicitudes por parte de académicos, funcionarios y psiconautas con la esperanza de que él les pudiera facilitar un vínculo con las comunidades wixaritari. Mi padre apenas llevaba unos diez años trabajando con artistas wixaritari en Jalisco y Nayarit, pero en ese lapso de tiempo había logrado crear amistades íntimas con varias familias, asesoró brevemente al Instituto Nacional Indigenista y había unido su interés por el arte con la defensoría territorial de los wixaritari ante la deforestación y otras amenazas contra la autonomía de este pueblo originario. 
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Fighting for Our Lives by Aukwe García Mijarez

La lucha de los indígenas que existen en nuestro país es llevada a cabo de manera diaria, por el simple hecho de ser, defienden sus creencias, culturas y territorios, el resultado de esta lucha es que aun las verdaderas etnias existen en nuestro país. Una manera fácil de acabar con estos grupos es la globalización que parece no poder detenerse. Un ejemplo de quien realiza esta lucha es la comunidad Wixárika que se encuentra en la provincia fisiográfica de la Sierra Madre Occidental, región integrada por cuatro comunidades que son San Andrés Cohamiata (Ta tei kie), Bancos de San Hipólito (Uweni Mu yewe), Santa Catarina Cuexcomatitlán (Tuapurie), San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán (Waut+a) y su anexo Tuxpan de Bolaños (Tutsipa) y otros poblados que pertenecen culturalmente a estas comunidades.
Fuegos, guías y raíces

Fires, Vines and Roots: Cosmological Structures and Historical Processes in Huichol Territoriality

Paul Liffman
| December 2005

The cultural process of legitimation ("registry") of Wixarika land tenancy is analyzed with relation to the historical expansion and contraction of their residency patterns. The focus is on the social practices and relationships implicated in the concepts of Tatewarí (ceremonial fire), nana (vine or climbing plant) and nanayari (rootedness). Said residency pattern is rooted in the rancherías (kite) dispersed but organized hierarchically based on the synecdoche surrounding 20 large native temples (tukite) across 5,000 square kilometers of the Western Sierra Madre.

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Antonio Hayuaneme García - Photograph ©Yvonne Negrín 2013 - 2018

Huichi, A Worthy Ambassador for the Wixarika People?

Hayuaneme García Mijarez
| December 2011
The 2011 Pan American Games, to be held in October in Guadalajara, Mexico, have three mascots. One of them is Huichi, a caricature of the sacred Huichol deer, and according to Emilio González, Jalisco state Governor, and the Games Organising Committee, a "worthy ambassador of the Huichol". However, far from being a “worthy ambassador”, for the Huicholes Huichi represents a sacrilegious misuse of sacred Huichol symbology. If the government had bothered asking beforehand – which it didn’t – it would have found that out. In another sleight, the Huicholes, whose artisanry is famous worldwide, formally proposed having a fixed space to sell their artisanry during the games, but this was rejected, all of this by which time Huichi had already been made public. 
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Cover page of Thesis Rodríguez Luis

Huicholes and Their Involuntary Relocation Due to the Aguamilpa Hydroelectric Project, Nayarit, with Some Particularities from the Ejidos of Colorado de la Mora and Playa Golondrinas

Eloy Rodríguez Luis
| January 1994
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Juan Negrín, Photo © Richard Whittaker 2001

Juan Negrín: A Life of Service to the Wixarika

Richard Whittaker
| August 2001
Juan Negrín was a top student at Yale in the late 1960s, but just before graduation he abandoned his studies to come to the Bay Area where a cultural revolution was in full swing. Negrín’s background is unusual. His grandfather was the Spanish President driven from power by Franco’s forces in 1939. His father married an American woman and Negrín was born in Mexico City. With an inherited bent for political action, Negrín was soon a participant in the Viet Nam protests in Berkeley and the volatile atmosphere of the 1960s. By 1970 Negrín had become discouraged by the spreading violence and drug use that had progressively altered the culture of protest. In a few short years, it had declined, as he put it, into “a sorry, directionless theater.”
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Le corps et la corde

Le corps et la corde: Le rite d’<<enlaçage>> des peyoteros Huichol (occident du Mexique)

Olivia Kindl
| July 2014

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”).

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Decorative Art of the Huichol Indians ~ Carl Lumholtz Vol. III

Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume III

Carl Lumholtz
III. Decorative Art of the Huichol Indians - It is the purpose of this memoir to show that all designs employed by the Huichol are derived from the animal and plant world, from objects important in the domestic economy and religious life of the tribe, and from natural phenomena familiar to the people.
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