Culture

Nierika es un punto focal donde nuestros antepasados concentran sus energías para revelarse e instruir al devoto. Un nierika primordial es la trampa de lazos, winiyeri, en la que el venado se sacrificaba al cazador disciplinado que lo tendía por su vereda entre unos árboles, cuando era más abundante.

The Wixarika tradition is rendered by three different terms: the first refers to our heart/ memory, tayeiyari- the second to how we develop, tanuiwari- the third to our life, tatukari, is transmitted by families, reinforced by communal living on extended family ranches and through clans at ceremonial centers, tukite (tukipa, sing.). Three places serve as the headquarters for what appear to be distinct Wixarika subgroups, with ritual and dialectical variants.

Los huicholes hablan de su religión en español diciendo que siguen "el" costumbre, o sea que se abren un camino para seguir una tradición propia, yeiyari. Esta palabra deriva del verbo 'yeiya', ir, caminar, recorrer, y de la palabra 'iyari', el corazón que va agarrando forma y refleja toda clase de memorias al rastrear un camino marcado por las huellas de nuestros antepasados colectivos.

From its early origins among the Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche, peyotism developed into a major religious movement during the 1880s and 1890s when it spread rapidly among the many tribes that had been relocated into Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Then, in a strange quirk of fate, the very government boarding schools that sought to destroy Indian culture became instrumental in disseminating this new nativistic Pan-Indian spiritual movement; they nourished new intertribal friendships and introduced a new intertribal language - English. Soon the new peyote rituals appeared on reservation after reservation across the country.

"The Huichol Indians have maintained their cultural traditions at a level of integrity far above most pre Columbian societies still existent in Mexico. Living in the rugged and remote hightlands of Jalisco and Nayarit, they have not had to cope over time with the same kind of inroads on their belief systems and daily living as did the linguistically related Indian groups living in the less remote and rugged highlands and lowlands in the same general area."

"The Huichol are best known for their strikingly vivid, and colorful, yarn paintings and beadwork. However, few people know or understand the depth of this pre-Colombian culture. This book is just a brief overview of some answers to some of the questions I am asked of these interesting people." Peter Collings

"Los Huicholes se caracterizan por su extraordinario arte y muy coloridas artisanias, pero pocas personas conocen o entienden el fondo de su cultura precolombiana. Este libro es un pequeño reconocimiento y respuesta de algunos preguntas sobre esta cultura." Peter Collings

After independence was achieved from Spain in 1810, the laws of the reform passed under Benito Juárez during the 1850’s, restrained the power of the Catholic Church, but they also stopped recognizing Indian colonial land rights. Soon the Huichol, Cora, Tepehuano and Mexicanero Indian groups of the Western Sierra Madre were further dispossessed of their territory by their mixed blood neighbors. They rebelled, eventually uniting under Manuel Lozada, who joined French invading forces until they were stopped at Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 1873.