The celestial world “above” is where deities dwell and reveal themselves. It is linked to daytime, light, the dry season, masculinity, sacrifice, initiation, and shamanic knowledge. Within Huichol territory it corresponds to the eastern desert.
It first came into existence with the birth of Father Sun whose light illuminated the world and infused the ancestors with knowledge, turning them into deities.
It is an ephemeral world. It must be created again and again, renewed repeatedly through ritual continuity, fulfilling customs, pilgrimages to the sacred desert of Wirikuta, and deer and sacred peyote hunts. The peyoteros or pilgrims are those who create and dwell in the celestial world again through their visions, but each time is the first time.
Here, the people are purified; they obtain sacred knowledge and the vision of the dawn. It is the land where men are transformed into gods.
The world “in the middle” is where the ancient ancestors of the Huichols settled and established the first coamil or milpa (cornfield). In their territory it corresponds to the center, the place in the sierra that crosses it, in the heart of which the most traditional communities are situated.
Daily life and ritual take place here on the surface of the earth. Fields and houses coexist with temples and the intense life surrounding ceremonial centers. Pilgrimages to sacred spots begin here and return here to celebrate fiestas as a community.
From this center the Huichols move toward the world “below” to return to their origins and to the world “above” to establish communion with their deities.
The world “below” or the underworld is related to nighttime, darkness, water, the rainy season, femininity, fertility, and the uninitiated. In Huichol territory it corresponds to the west.
In mythical times this was the generalized state of the universe: water and darkness. The sea is the part of the world that has always existed and that was not created. From its waters the ancestors emerged and walked eastward in search of the first dawn.
The Sun passed through the underworld in its human form before it was born as a deity in the world “above”. Since that time, at each sundown, the Sun again sinks into the underworld to be reborn the next day in the east.
Here rise the pillars or trees that uphold the sky and separate the underworld from the world above.
The gourd from which all creatures were born and that holds the seeds of future life is also in this world of origins.
