History

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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El Quemado, Anaroza Creative Commons

Wixarika People Won't Allow Ballot Boxes in Their Territory

| May 2018
The community of San Sebastian Teponahuaxtlan declared they will boycott this year's elections if the government doesn't return their ancestral lands to them. The Wixarika people of San Sebastian Teponahuaxtlan and Tuxpan, installed checkpoints around their communities to stop any candidate, politician or electoral authority to come into their territory until the Mexican government returns them the Huajimic ancestral lands that were seized by ranchers in 1952.
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The Wixaritari Cleansing Themselves during Easter - Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1979 - 2025

Notes on Wixarika History: Post-Hispanic History

Juan Negrín
| October 2017
The Huichol were distinguished as xurute, according to a geographical map published in 1579, in the Atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (reproduced in various sources: Rojas, Neurath). The term vizurita is used by Father Tello, in his Crónica Miscelánea, written in 1652. The first reference to the huicholes as guisoles appears in a briefing to the bishop Ruiz Colmenares (between 1640 and 1650). Father Antonio Arias y Saavedra used the terms xamucas and huitzolmes in his chronicle (1673), the first ethnological work on the Indians of this area of the Sierra Madre, according to historian Gutiérrez Contreras.
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Juventudes Indigenas 2017

University Voices: Trajectories, Gains and Challenges in Western Mexico

Lisbeth Bonilla, Ana García, Antonio García, Isaura García, Marina Carrillo, Tutupika Carrillo, Maximino Muñoz, Diana Negrín
| January 2017

Co-authored text for an anthology on the experiences of Indigenous university students in Mexico and Brazil. The text was coordinated by Diana Negrín da Silva and written with Lisbeth Kupuli Bonilla (Wixárika), Ana García (Ñuu savi), Antonio Hayuaneme García (Wixárika), Isaura García (Ñuu savi), Tukarima Carrillo (Wixárika), Tutupika Carrillo (Wixárika), and Maximino Muñoz (Wixárika). It was published by E-Files in Rio de Janeiro in the year 2017 and the anthology was edited by Assis da Costa Oliveira and Lucia Helena Rangel.

Download and read full chapter here.

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Defense of Sacred Ancestral Land

Wirikuta: Defense of the Ancestral Land of an Indigenous People

Frente en Defensa de Wirikuta Tamatsima Wahaa
| January 2013
El presente documento hace pública la opinión de los miembros de la Mesa Técnica Ambiental del Frente en Defensa de Wirikuta Tamatsima Wahaa y de un grupo de cientificos e investigadores asesores con gran trayectoria nacional e internacional, respecto a la posibilidad de que el lugar sagrado de Wirikuta sea declarada una Reserva Biósfera,publicado por el gobierno federal mexicano a través de la Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP),
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Evaluación Sociocultural

Sociocultural Evaluation for Investment Projects in Wixarika Communities

José G. Vargas-Hernández, Ernesto Guerra García, María Eugenia Meza Hernández
| January 2013

This paper analyzes aspects of the problem that occurs in the social evaluation of investment projects for Wixarika communities. A project in this context make particularly complex the evaluation. On the socio-economic perspective with which it is evaluated comes into play the incommensurability of social and intercultural issues that cannot be ignored. It is addressed the questions that have arisen in the development of this type of project and presents a theoretical framework for the methodological proposal of socio-cultural evaluation.

Read Spanish language article here.

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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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Chalio - Tatei Kie, Photograph ©Juan Negrín 1986

The Wixarika People

Juan Negrín
| May 2011
The Wixarika, known as Huicholes in Spanish, and as Wixaritari in their own language, are recognized as one of the Mexican native cultures most resilient to outside influences. Unlike most other Indians, they did not allow Catholic priests to perform mass within the three main communities in the Wixarika mountains, except sometimes on Wixarika terms just before Easter, and in one community, at a couple of boarding schools.
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Tuimuyau by Juan Negrín 1990

What is Wirikuta?

Florencia Podesta
| January 2011
Wirikuta is one of the most important natural sacred sites of the Wixárika (Huichol) indigenous people and the world. The Wixárika people live in the states of Jalisco, Nayarit and Durango and are recognized for having preserved their spiritual identity. They have continued to practice their cultural and religious traditions for thousands of years. Wirikuta is the birthplace of the sun and the territory where the different Wixárika communities make their pilgrimage, recreating the route taken by their spiritual ancestors to sustain the essence of life on this planet. In this desert springs the peyote or jicuri, the cactus that the Wixárika ritually ingest to receive the “gift of seeing”.
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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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