Nierika is the “gift of sight,” accessing the “vision of ancestral gods” and reaching initiation. After arduous preparation following customs, going on a pilgrimage, and through fasting, sacrifices, and rituals of purification, a path that culminates in the ritual ingestion of the sacred peyote, nierika is achieved by knowing the hidden, permanent, authentic state of things and beings. Thus, the mythical, timeless world of the ancestors is created and experienced.
Nierika also refers to diverse objects, “devices for seeing,” that help one achieve the state of being equated to that of the gods. They can be small mirrors that show things as they are. They can be round or woven rhomboids that serve as shields defending the true gaze and power of the deities, of the nierika itself. However, these symbols, also known as “god’s eyes,” are a representation of the ritual landscape, of the sacred territory with its five cardinal directions. Some have a small opening in the center to “see the other side,” the world reserved for initiates.
The term nierika also refers to a mirror, portrait, face, eye, and cheek.
All these similar ideas, each with a different nuance, are materialized in the notion of nierika, a key concept in their worldview: as essential, polyvalent, and dynamic as Wixarika culture. This yarn painting is, thus, an enormous nierika.
Peyote or hikuri is one of the most sacred elements in Wixarika culture.
This spineless cactus (Lophophora williamsi) grows in semidesert areas in northern Mexico.
Peyote was born when the deer Tamatsi, Our Elder Brother, the first to reach the east, obtained the “gift of sight” or nierika. At that moment, his heart (iyari) was transformed into peyote as he gave himself to the first hunters. They ate him and also reached nierika.
From the tracks left by this first deer in the sacred desert of Wirikuta were born all the other peyote plants and they reproduced thanks to the deer’s self-sacrifice.
The relationship of the Huichols with peyote is ancient, intimate, and ritual. They prepare for their pilgrimage to Wirikuta with sacrifices and austerity, fasting and depriving themselves of sleep for several days. When they arrive, they purify themselves in the spring of Tatei Matinieri (Mother Goddess of the eastern rain) and they prepare to hunt the deer and peyote. Only after this arduous preparation is it that hikuri is ingested so the initiates can reach nierika.
Thus they become deer-gods and peyote itself. With the gift of sight they are given, they see the world full of light and they receive the dawn. That is why Father Sun is born in Wirikuta.
Also through peyote the peyoteros or initiates have visions and dream of the rain serpents, which is essential for bringing rains and fertility to their communities.
The deer is regarded as the “elder brother” (Tamatsi) of the Huichols. The fact he sacrificed himself in mythical times when he was killed by the first hunters transformed him into a god, the sacred peyote. Therefore, all initiates are figuratively deer, Tamatsime.
Many of the figures in the yarn painting wear deer attributes on their heads or other parts of their bodies. Depending on where these details appear, they can be antlers (awa) or tails (maxakwaxi from maxa: deer and kwaxi: tail), which as sacred devices are comparable to prayer sticks (muwieri).
This symbol indicates the character has power; he or she has been initiated and has become a shaman (mara’akame). He or she is identified as a deity, which is why all of them have deer attributes.
The muwieri or prayer stick is a key tool for the shaman (mara’akame).
It is a stick with feathers, which can be from the red-tailed hawk, golden eagle, parrot, or in other cases deer tails (maxakwaxi) and small bells. The fire god Tatewari, Our Grandfather, who is regarded as the first shaman, has a deer tail as a muwieri.
As the mara’akame chants, his prayer stick is his “means of communication with the gods” and at the same time, it is a deity in itself that is the intercessor between the gods and the chanter. Through his muwieri he establishes contact with the five cardinal directions, sacred spaces and deities.
The muwierite are also used by the mara’akate in curing and purification rites.
The takwatsi is a small long woven case made from sotol plant (tsai) that is used to keep magic objects.
There shamans (mara’akate) generally put their three sacred instruments: their prayer stick (muwieri), a rock crystal (which is the elder brother god Tamatsi), and a small mirror that serves as a “device for seeing” (nierika). In other cases the community members who participate in the pilgrimage to the desert of Wirikuta, the peyoteros, also use the takwatsi to keep their ritual objects that cannot be placed directly on the ground.
For the Huichols the world was born from a gourd.
Fertility, the female womb, and the earth as the container of all living things are concepts materialized in the Huichol gourd. Some of them also serve as seats for the gods on altars.
Therefore, as a symbolic and ritual object, the gourd is an instrument that produces fertility and is used for drinking water and resting.
It also serves as an offering and a messenger carrying prayers. The blood of sacrificial animals is served in it to feed the gods, as beads, coins, and wax figures adorning them are the message addressed to them.
The gourds in the ceremonial center (tukipa) are the personification of each of the ancestors who dwell there. Each of them has an attendant or jicarero who protects them and who personifies the same ancestor. When initiation is carried out, the jicarero will be born from this gourd like that ancestor who became a deity.
A symbolic and ritual object, the arrow is a weapon to hunt deer and shoot the monsters of darkness that are the Sun’s enemies.
It also serves as an offering and carries prayers. It is smeared with the blood of sacrificed animals to feed the gods and designs representing prayers to the gods are drawn on them.
This is why the Huichols “shoot arrows” at their deities to send them their petitions, at the same time they feed them and give them weapons, inviting them to sacrifice themselves for the good of the community.
On the yarn painting the presence of arrows refers to the veneration of ancestors as “arrow-people.” Initiates “are now like ancestors” or deities and they return to the world in the form of a small piece of quartz (irikame) tied to ritual arrows. These arrows are people; they are specific ancestors who received nierika: the gods’ vision.
The serpent is a divine animal for the Huichols.
It is associated with the aquatic world “below,” the west, darkness, femininity, and fertility. An enormous two-headed serpent lives in the sea surrounding the earth. Darkness reigned until the Morning Star shot this great sea monster with an arrow and Father Sun rose victorious in the east. But at each sunset, he is devoured by the serpent when he reaches the west, again giving rise to night. In a never-ending cosmic battle the alternation of day and night is the contrast of the Sun and the dry season with the great sea serpent and the fertility of the rainy season (witarita).
This explains why mother rain goddesses are serpents that are also related to the world “above.” On their pilgrimage to the east, initiates dream of rain serpents that are formed there in the dust rising from the desert; they too are transformed into rain serpents and as such they parade to their communities to take them the cloud serpent (haikuterixi) to begin the rainy season and to ensure fertility for them.
As the deer surrenders to the hunter, the serpents offer themselves as rain. Their birth at the moment of obtaining nierika, at dawn, turns them into deities.
Their representation refers to words, paths, channels of communication, lightning, rain, life, and initiation.
The pilgrims who reach Wirikuta gather the root of the uxa plant (Berberis trifoliata) that grows near the sacred springs of Tui Maye'u. They extract its yellow pulp and paint the vision of dawn on their faces.
The drawings vary and are mainly related to a mythical ancestor. They can be lines, dots, elaborate geometric designs, or animals. Although it is called face paint, it can also be applied to objects and offerings such as musical instruments or deer horns. It becomes body paint when it is applied to peyote or to the blue wooden serpent, the protagonist in the rain dance.
In sum, uxa painting sets the initiates apart. It is a reflection of the Sun, the sign of the gods' vision, and in itself, it is nierika.
In José Benítez’s work, of all the colors he uses, the yellow lines outline all the figures. The yarn painting itself is also a great uxa painting. Therefore, it is a nierika, a device for seeing, eyes, a mirror, and a face illuminated with the lines of the Sun that reveal, to whoever looks at them straight on, the mosaic of the sacred universes that form Huichol culture.
Right in the center of the top of the yarn painting is a round, joyous face with deer features and an outline that suggests the appearance of the Sun. It is Tatutsi Xuweri Timaiweme, Our Great-Grandfather, an ancient deified ancestor.
The work’s title suggests everything in it is the vision of the universe revealed by this ancestor. At the same time it is a huge portrait of this character, composed of the two prominent colorful circles of his eyes and the union of several figures in the lower part forming his smiling mouth. In this way the ancestor appears as a part at the same time as the whole. He wears the prominent yellow face paint that forms the work. His face is illuminated and in this way, so is the universe that is revealed in the image. It is, thus, a world inhabited by deities.
His eyes are two nierikas, devices for sight, a sign that he possesses the gods’ vision.
He serves as a bridge in this work, the path that shows the sacred world and reveals it.
The world is upheld thanks to the haurite: the pines, resinous ocote pines and candles that hold up the sky and rise from the 5 corners of the universe. Therefore, offering katirate or candles is to renew the cosmic trees supporting the celestial dome to prevent it from falling.
In the yarn painting the haurite are represented by Tatutsi Maxakwaxi and Tatutsi Tawikuni, Our Great-Grandfathers. Both appear with a skeletal torso outlined in yellow. As deities they wear deer attributes: the one on the right, deer antlers (awate); the one on the left, deer tails. These tails identify him as Tatutsi Maxakwaxi, Our Great-Grandfather Deer Tail (from maxa: deer and kwaxi: tail). He is the principal deer god.
The deer’s tail is also used as a muwieri or prayer stick, and Tatutsi Maxakwaxi is the muwieri that Tatewari, the fire god, uses. Therefore, Maxakwaxi is the shaman or mara’akame who is the interlocutor and representative for Tatewari. He is the channel of communication and as such his tail is transformed into a serpent.
Tatutsi Maxakwaxi also appears as a small figure left of the central character Tatutsi Xuweri Timaiweme. He serves as his interlocutor and representative, because he stands on a serpentine line that seems to be the path of his words. Like in a muwieri, from this path hang feathers to transport his message.
Tatewari, Our Grandfather the fire god is one of the preeminent deities in the Huichol pantheon.
Before the Sun existed, the Young Morning Star shot an arrow at some incandescent red and blue rocks that cast sparks and looked like an old man. He “knocked them down” and gathered them in a bonfire. This is how Tatewari was born; he was also the first shaman or mara’akame.
As a newborn, it was difficult to stop him from setting the whole world on fire until he was domesticated after being stolen by an opossum.
Te’akata, the “place of the oven,” is where Tatewari was born and where he dwells. It is the center of the Huichol universe and one of the most sacred places. This is why the fire god is always at the center of all homesteads (kie), temples (tuki), ceremonial centers (tukipa), and rituals, and his representative and interlocutor is the mara’akame.
His favorite food is oak firewood (kiye) and ground maize (tumari). In the yarn painting fire appears “below” in the underworld as Nairi, the god of the “rain of fire,” his avatar as incandescent rocks before being domesticated. He also appears as Tatewari in the celestial world “above.” The serpentine line issuing from his hand shows the path of his wisdom; the line from his mouth is a sign of his sacred chanting.
Tayau or Tawewiekame, Our Father the Sun is a sign of the world “above.”
Dawn came from the sacrifice of a “lopsided” child, lame and blind in one eye but a fine hunter who threw himself into the fire. After a journey through the underworld he was reborn as Father Sun in the east at the peak of Cerro Paritekia, the hill “of dawn.” There, a turkey (aru) named him Tayau.
When the Sun was born the land was illuminated and “dried,” putting an end to mythical time and the primordial state of darkness and water. And so the world as we know it today came into being.
The first dawn took place at the same time and place as the first deer hunt and the deer’s transformation into peyote; the Sun is also a sign of nierika, initiation and the “gods’ vision.”
In the yarn painting the Sun god appears in the world “above” as a head in the form of Cerro Paritekia or Burnt Hill (Reu’unari). He holds his muwierite or feathered prayer sticks and takwatsi or baskets to keep sacred instruments. Tayau emerges from the summit. The Sun’s rays stick out of his head like hair. The peyote buttons and serpents in his body are a sign of initiation and the gods’ revelation.
In addition to being “above,” the Sun also appears “below” in the underworld. The spark inside his head indicates his solar essence and imminent rebirth as Father Sun. He is the “lopsided” child after leaping into the fire in his passage through the underworld.
The hero twins are mythical figures personifying the planet Venus and its dual essence as the Morning Star and the Evening Star. They are Xurawe Temai, the Young Morning Star and his brother, the Evening Star. From the sky and with their arrows, they unleash a cosmic battle against the beings of the night and the world “below,” whether the ancient monster Takutsi Nakawe, a destructive and cruel female entity from mythical times, or against the mighty two-headed serpent that dwells in the waters of the underworld and devours the Sun in the afternoon, submerging him in its waters. Before dawn, Xurawe Temai shoots this serpent with an arrow so the Sun may rise again in the east.
He also shot an arrow at Nairi, the great cloud of sparks that was fire in its primordial state before it was domesticated.
The shooting stars in the night sky are the arrows that this planet shoots at the creatures of darkness.
In the yarn painting the twins hold candles and a gourd, which might contain ground maize or tobacco. They heed Tatewari’s message, a sign of Father Sun’s victory.
This pair of figures with their offerings are positioned on the path that emerges from Tatei Haramara, Our Mother the Sea, and that goes toward the great nierika or initiation, therefore they also embody the ancestors who undertook the first journey to the east and by extension the pilgrims who eternally walk to Wirikuta to receive the gods’ vision and to continue to ensure the coming of dawn.
Tatei Haramara is the mother goddess of the Sea, the source of fertility par excellence and the source of all water in the world. When she crashes against the beach and the rocks, she rises as mist to form clouds; and through the “veins of the earth” she feeds all natural pools, springs, and lakes in Huichol territory.
Her place of veneration is the white rock that rises from the waters off the coast of San Blas, Nayarit, the western-most place in the world “below.” This spot is also the point of origin where all beings come from.
In ancient times it was believed to be inhabited by the giant hewiixi, but they were defeated by “beings from above,” the stars.
The coast, with its rocks, swamps, and estuaries, is what remained from the aquatic world of mythical times that dried once the Sun rose.
This world related to darkness, the rainy season, and unbridled fertility is the underworld, the place inhabited by many of the dead, transgressors of customs who came to this place of eternal celebration and drunkenness.
The coast is also known as Kamikita or the place of wolf people. For their loyalty and skill in hunting, the Huichols also regard wolves as their predecessors.
Generally Tatei Haramara is represented as the great two-headed serpent that dwells in the waters of the underworld and that devours the Sun at dusk and frees him in the east the following day after its defeat.
In the yarn painting the mother goddess of the Sea takes the form of a large bird that has a pair of deer horns (awate). Inside and around her are numerous beings and elements that accompany her as she is the starting point of diverse characters and stories.
On her right, in addition to being a clear reference to fire, the triangular element might be the rock of San Blas. The white color surrounding it evokes the foam that forms on the sea’s surface as it pounds the shore and rises into the sky as mist.
Our Grandmother Takutsi is the female fertility deity and the most ancient being in the universe. Her male counterpart is the ancient god of fire Tatewari.
In mythic times, this ancient woman in her monstrous manifestation as Takutsi Nakawe, “old flesh” or “rotten flesh,” reigned over the universe when it was inhabited by hewiixi, a race of giant cannibals. As a predecessor of Tatewari, she sang chants, but she stopped fulfilling her duty and was cruel, violent, and got drunk on tejuino (a fermented corn beverage). The Young Morning Star killed the monster Nakawe with his arrows and turned her into Takutsi, the goddess of fertility. All sorts of plants and animals arose from the remains of the monster Nakawe. The tree that identifies her is the “chalate de lluvia” or fig tree. She carries and is depicted with a miraculous stick that makes seeds sprout and that ensures fertility. When the rainy season arrives, she regains her monstrous guise as Nakawe as a return to mythical times. As Nakawe, her partner is Nairi, or the primordial fire before he was domesticated. Nakawe, the monster of unlimited fertility, and Nairi, the rain of fire, thus form the original first couple.
In the yarn painting Takutsi stands on the gourd that gave rise to the world and that, like her, is the sign of fertility.
Watakame, also known as Tuamuxawi, is the first cultivator.
He was the sole survivor of the flood announced by Our Grandmother Takutsi that destroyed the world. When he ran aground, he married the first woman and together they formed the first human couple; the Huichols are their descendants. The first couple established the first kie (homestead) and the coamil (cornfield).
At the same time, Watakame is the first cultivator because he married the five maize goddesses, who represent the five corn varieties cultivated in Huichol territory. Sowing is thus the alliance between the farmer and the seeds that ensure sustenance and life.
Several figures in the yarn painting seem to be this character. The most prominent example is beside the five mothers of rain. It seems that Watakame visits all the stories told in the underworld and on the earth’s surface, emphasizing his role as ancestor, progenitor, planter, and link with the deities.
In the underworld he can be identified as one of the creatures in the interior of Our Mother the Sea, Tatei Haramara, and also emerging from Our Mother the Earth, Tatei Yurianaka, to be submerged in the sea’s foam, referring to his journey in the waters of the flood and the pilgrimages the Huichols still carry out today to Haramara to honor their origins. Watakame is the bridge between the earth, where seeds are sown, and the waters that make seeds germinate. In addition, he stands in the center on the primordial gourd beside Our Grandmother Takutsi; and once again under the large nierika, “gods’ vision,” on the right side. He wears a deer antler (awa), a deity attribute. Behind the serpent on which he walks is his wife, the first woman.
However, his most obvious presence is on the surface of the earth. There, amidst shrines and mountains, Watakame carries the cornfield on his back.
The Tateiteime, mother goddesses of rain, wives of the Father Sun, Tayau, were born from the dust of the sacred desert of Wirikuta in the east as “cloud serpents” (haikuterixi) and they fall on earth as rain (witari) at the end of the dry season.
At birth, the first rain serpent, Tatei Nia'ariwame, traveled to the five directions of the universe and gave rise to its five divisions or the five Tateiteime Nia’ariwamete or mother goddesses of rain associated with each direction. They are Tatei Kiewimuka of the west; Tatei Haitsi Kipuri, “Our Mother Hair of Mist” of the north; Tatei Xapawiyeme “Our Mother, the chalate [fig tree] of rain” of the south; Tatei Aitsarika of the center; and Tatei Matinieri, the sacred spring of the east where pilgrims purify themselves on their way to Wirikuta.
From the world “above” the Tateiteime are sacred beings that emerge at the moment of initiation. At the same time, the start of the rainy season (witarita) is also a return to mythical times and to the moisture and fertility of the world “below.”
In the yarn painting the Tateiteime appear repeatedly in the three levels of the universe.
In the underworld, in the left corner, they appear linked to the sea. Inside Tatei Haramara, aquatic beings that evoke those of the Tateiteime are seen between her wings and hanging from her beak.
Two of them can be seen between the underworld and the surface of the earth, one inside the other. Associated with the flood that Watakame survived, they are identified with Tatei Xapawiyeme, rain of the south (green color), and within her, Tatei Haitsi Kipuri, rain of the north (in gray and blue).
In its phase as a newborn and small rain serpent, Tatei Nia’ariwame (mother of all rains) is in the lower right corner and she rises from the surface of the earth toward the celestial world.
Now in the world “above” she appears as Tatei Matinieri, the rain goddess of the east, with a deer antler (awa) and face.
Our Mother Tatei Yurianaka is the earth goddess.
As a being of fertility and “germinated seed” (kutsi), Our Grandmother Takutsi gave birth to the earth, where she makes all plants grow with her miraculous stick.
She is related to the world below because that is where all fertility is consolidated. At the same time, she is also the surface of the landscape. In addition to receiving water from the mother goddesses of rain, the Huichols feed her offerings, the blood of sacrificed animals, and at some fiestas, in rituals with dried deer meat.
In the yarn painting Tatei Yurianaka appears on the level of the terrestrial surface. She floats on the underworld and spreads to the foam on the sea’s waters referring to her indissoluble link with water. She wears deer tails and antlers that identify her as a deity and on her body signs of her fertility are drawn on her breasts.
The first woman in existence was wed to Watakame, the first cultivator. They are the original human couple, founders and progenitors of the Huichol communities.
Before becoming a woman, she was a little black dog that jumped onto the boat where Watakame worked to survive the flood announced by Our Grandmother Takutsi. When they finally ran aground, Watakame discovered the little dog removed her skin and became a woman. He took the skin and burned it and she became a woman forever. Together they procreated the serpent girl of rain and squash boy. She, then, is also related to the goddess of maize, mother of the five maize girls, wives of the first cultivator.
In the yarn painting the little black dog appears in a small house in the underworld. She is the first woman in her primordial state. Her presence in the world “below” also refers to the fact this animal is responsible for leading the dead on their journey on the underground sea.
The first woman is also present as the mother of the girl Nia’ariwame, rain serpent. She is seen full length, standing on her own head.
The deer gods are the Tamatsime or Elder Brothers, children of Father Sun and the mother goddesses Tateiteime. The way to build a bond with these deities is through hunting.
They were the first to become deities when they were sacrificed to the first five hunters (awatamete). Their hearts (iyari) were transformed into peyote (hikuri) so the awatamete would eat them and have the vision of dawn. That is why almost all deities resemble deer or have their attributes.
In the yarn painting, directly below the nierika on the left, the first deer emerge from the sea in the underworld and walk on the surface of the earth toward a trap to hunt deer, where the hikuri appears as a sign.
In the celestial world, above the nierika on the right, appears Maxa Yuawi, the Blue Deer, the deer’s most sacred state of all. It has just been turned into hikuri, which in turn grows from this deer's tracks left on the desert. The intense, vibrant blue deer with antlers (awa) and large body is now a deity. The serpentine line from its horns is related to the rains and the formation of cloud serpents in the desert at initiation. As the first deer, it is Tamatsi Parietsika, “he who walks at dawn.”
Also in the celestial world under Our Grandfather Tatewari, the fire god, is Tamatsi Kauyumari, “he who does not know his name,” god of the word. This is the deer god with the most ambiguous and mischievous personality. He is the shaman’s interlocutor with other deities and he often “utters” jokes, contradictions, or refuses to participate. In the yarn painting, serpents issue from his head as a sign he is the messenger of the gods.
Kieri, also known as “tree of the wind,” crazy tree or jimson weed, is a plant (Solandra brevicalyx) that grows in steep zones of the sierra, generally in hard-to-reach spots.
In myth it comes before hikuri or peyote. It is said that Takutsi Nakawe, Our Grandmother “the old flesh” consumed it during her despotic rule in the era of the giants or hewiixi. Among the Huichols it has been used since ancient times to communicate with the gods through the hallucinogenic qualities of its pollen.
The veneration of kieri is ideally only for the most experienced shamans, because its effects are extremely potent and difficult to control. The commitment to strict devotion is necessary, because any deviation from one’s vows can have fatal consequences.
Unlike the hikuri whose essence is collective ritual practice, the veneration of kieri is an individual quest to obtain personal goods or artistic inspiration, especially among musicians. Some mara’akate turn to it to obtain a special gift that transcends the powers of the hikuri. Even though hikuri will always be more important and sacred, given its ritual essence, the effects of kieri are much more powerful, as well as destructive.
In the yarn painting, if one traces the path that emerges from the earth goddess to the Hill of Dawn, the kieri appears to be midway along the path. It is a large flower hanging in the celestial world from a branch with deer tails. Yellow pollen-covered threads hang from it alongside serpents that carry peyote in the middle of their bodies, elements that emphasize its enormous power as an alternate path to initiation for those who honor its character as a demanding god.
Right in the center, “below” the underworld, rests a green gourd. It is the sign of the origin of the world at the same time as the world itself, contained in it as a microcosm.
As myth would have it, the universe arose from a primordial gourd that, like the fertile womb of the earth, gave rise to the first living beings. In its interior, the red dots refer to the seeds of future life; seeds like those that were once all creatures and ancestors; seeds like those sowed in the land today so that plants germinate and provide food to ensure future life.
A flower seems to sprout from this gourd, a symbol of the fertility that creates and renews the universe. The flower, which can also be read as a nierika or “device for seeing,” evokes the world, because it was ultimately created from the “vision of the gods.” Therefore, this flower or nierika reaches Our Great-Grandfather Tatutsi Xuweri Timaiweme, the deity in the middle of the yarn painting, whose vision of the universe is what we see in the work.
Watakame, the first cultivator, and Takutsi, Our Grandmother, stand face to face on the primordial gourd; he, as the first Huichol man, and she, with her deer antler, as the oldest deity in the universe.
According to the myth, a devastating flood destroyed the entire world. Takutsi chose Watakame to save it and told him to build a boat and board it with a little black dog and five kernels of corn. Together they sailed the universe. First they went to the north, where Takutsi left her magic walking stick that turned into the hill of Hauramanaka, “place of floating wood,” or Cerro Gordo in Durango. Then they went south. There the waters receded and the boat ran aground, becoming Xapawiyemeta, “place of Our Mother, the rain fig tree,” or Lake Chapala. Watakame settled and discovered that the little black dog, once she removed her skin, had turned into a woman. They married and he planted maize.
In the yarn painting, to the left of the gourd we can see the little black dog in a house evoking the first settlement. To the right of Takutsi, Tatei Xapawiyeme spreads out and also shelters Tatei Haitsi Kipuri in its interior. Mother goddesses or Tateiteime of the rain of the south and north, respectively, refer to the route of Watakame’s boat before it touched land. A black vertical line that seems to strike the body of the Tateiteime brings to mind the magical walking stick of Takutsi.
Watakame appears once more on a serpentine path that comes from the head of Xapawiyeme, the place where his boat ran aground, and goes to the great nierika, “vision of the gods.” Now he wears an antler (awa) and a row of long baskets or takwatsi, signs of shamanic initiation. So it would seem that through the intervention of the gods, he meets the first woman, the blue figure, and with her he becomes the progenitor.
Watakame, the first cultivator, established the original community when the mythical flood came to an end.
The route of his voyage to the north and south marked the area where the most traditional communities are established: in the heart of the Sierra Madre Occidental that crosses Wixarika or Huichol territory from north to south.
In the yarn painting Watakame stands between mountains that allude to the Sierra as he carries the coamil, the cornfield, on his back. Two buildings refer both to the house (ki) and a temple (tuki) or parental shrine (xiriki), basic structures that together with the coamil form the homestead (kie) and the Wixarika community.
The scene shows prosperity and fertility. An apparent squash (xutsi) flower grows luxuriantly toward the celestial world. It evokes the first fruit at the same time as children as young rain gods. In addition to being the future of communities, newborns and young children are associated with squash and young corn, rain and clouds (haite).
An essential act in serving the gods is to make an offering of sacrificial blood in the hopes of receiving health, fertility, and rain in return.
Blood (xuriya) is regarded as a vital liquid. If it comes from animals that are still alive it is food for the gods as well as a magical substance to create new life. It is smeared on offerings because it “makes them speak” to the gods and makes prayers more effective.
In the yarn painting Tatei Yurianaka, Our Mother the Earth, receives the blood of two animals, a bull (turitu) and what seems to be a calf (pixeru) or sheep (muxa), which lie at her feet as blood flows from their necks.
Beside them is Tatutsi Maxakwaxi, the main deer god and muwieri or the ceremonial stick of Our Grandfather Tatewari. On his back he holds Our Mother the Earth and his head is between the gush of blood from the two animals. Maxakwaxi, intercessor and “magical device,” appears as the intermediary between sacred food and the earth that is nourished by it; it in turn will bestow fertility and food. The group evokes the connection that ritual sacrifice forms between human beings, the gods, and the gifts they exchange.
When the whole world was in darkness and dim light shined only from the moon and the stars, the first deer emerged from the primordial waters of the sea and began to walk toward the east.
They traveled long distances between rain and darkness until they reached the desert in the east. The first deer gave himself to the five first hunters (the awatamete) who had followed its tracks from the waters of the sea. In the hunt the deer’s iyari (heart, “true being”) was transformed into hikuri, sacred peyote. Then the hunters ate it and the deer gave them nierika, “the gift of sight.” His voluntary sacrifice turned him into a deity and Elder Brother of the Huichols. Then he was revealed to the hunters as the great Blue Deer, Maxa Yuawi. At that moment Wirikuta, the place of light and gods, was created and the Sun was born. Therefore the first deer was known as Tamatsi Parietsika, “Our Elder Brother he who walks at dawn.”
In the yarn painting, this story extends across almost the entire length to show the primordial pilgrimage that began “below” in the underworld and crossed the surface of the earth to reach the celestial world “above.”
Under the nierika on the left the first deer appear to depart from Tatei Haramara, the sea from where they emerged, and they make their way to Tatei Yurianaka, the earth. There stands the hunting trap that marks their transformation into hikuri, the sacred peyote.
Above the nierika on the right, now in the celestial world, Maxa Yuawi (the Blue Deer) appears large and impressive, displaying prominent antlers (awa). A wavy line comes from his horns to evoke the birth of the cloud serpents (haikuterixi) and the arrival of the first rains from the direction of dawn.
The time of the first deer hunt coincided with the first sunrise.
In a vertical arrangement the yarn painting shows the journey from the world “below” by Our Father Sun to the celestial world “above,” where he emerged from the place of dawn, the easternmost extreme of Wixarika or Huichol territory.
In the underworld the Sun appears still in his human avatar with a spark on his head during his journey through the interior of the earth. As the myths say, when the child, who was “lopsided,” crippled, and one-eyed, but “a very good hunter,” threw himself into the bonfire he descended into the underworld and after a long journey, he finally emerged in the world “above” at the Hill of Dawn or Paritekia. No one knew his name, but a turkey cried “tau, tau!” and he was called Tayau.
And so he became a deity, the Father Sun.
The dark, watery primordial world was illuminated and it began to dry out. The mythical era came to an end. The ancestors were deified. The male ones adopted the form of mountains, rocks, and other elements in the landscape; the female ones, became bodies of water. Therefore, each deity occupies a specific place in Huichol territory.
With sunrise the sacred desert of Wirikuta was created from the vision or nierika obtained by the first pilgrims who consumed hikuri, the sacred peyote. Now with the vision of dawn, they dreamed for the first time of the rain serpents (haikuterixi).
The path from the Hill of Dawn in the celestial world down to the surface of the earth, Our Mother Tatei Yurianaka, is laden with gourds, signs of fertility that take the rains from Wirikuta to the communities. This path, from and toward the nierika, must be traveled by the initiates time after time to ensure the appearance of the sun in the east and the continued creation of the world time and again from “above.”
When Tatewari, Our Grandfather the god of fire, was born, his radiance became the first source of light and heat for those who dwelled in the universe, which at that time was in darkness and was dimly lit by the moon and stars. The Sun did not yet exist. The newborn fire was so precious that an opossum tried to steal it.
Tatewari, the oldest deity in the world “above,” has, in essence, nierika or the “gift of sight.” Since his birth, he lavished his light and guided the ancestors on their pilgrimage to the east in search of the deer that took them to dawn. Fire is thus the connection between “below” and “above,” the intermediary between people and deities.
That is why Tatewari, the “dreamer,” is the first shaman, healer and singer: the mara’akame par excellence.
In the yarn painting Tatewari receives the arrival of the Sun at the Hill of Dawn. The Sun, as “the fire from above,” wears the array of shamanic paraphernalia: muwierite or prayer sticks and takwatsi baskets, woven cases for their sacred instruments.
Flowing from the mouth of the ancient Tatewari are chants and his hand points to the path that initiates must follow. He stands on one of the serpents that sprouts Kauyumari, the god of the word. Through him he communicates with the pilgrims who carry candles and a gourd. It would seem that they raise the Sun with their candles, evoking the haurite or pillars of the world with them. Their ritual devotion has produced sunrise. One of them clutches the serpent sprouting from Kauyumari to receive the message from Tatewari. The vision of the dawn springs from his eyes.
These two are also Xurawe Temai, the Young Morning Star and his brother, the Evening Star, whose arrow shots “knocked down” fire so that Tatewari was born and they defeat the serpent of the underworld every dawn.
Around the right side of the nierika is the most complete and eloquent story in the yarn painting. It is about the origin of the first rain serpent, the girl Nia’ariwame.
The myth tells of how the young Nia’ariwame endured the constant scolding of her parents who called her bad-tempered and complained of her shapeless serpentine appearance.
She fled her house. Adopting the form of a snake, she slithered far away leaving small puddles and springs in her path. She traveled to the five directions of the universe and gave rise to the five mother goddesses Tateiteime of the rain. When she reached the world “above,” she was turned into the rain serpent of the east, Tatei Matinieri.
Then her brother found her and asked her to return home with their parents. She agreed, sent her brother home and promised to return. Nia’ariwame was good to her word, but she arrived as a furious storm that destroyed her parents’ home and killed them.
Nia’ariwame, now as the mother goddess of rain, also traveled to the other directions of the universe to carry the gentle, beneficial rains to those who go on a pilgrimage to her new home in the east and grant them fertility.
In the yarn painting the sequence of the story is cyclic. It is told from below to above on the right side to descend again on the left side.
Below the newborn Nia’ariwame can be seen emerging from between the mountains with her blue head and snake-like body. She timidly coils herself beneath a large deer face that might be her mother, who some myths identify as Tatei Uti’anaka, mother goddess of catfish and ancestor of rivers and fish. Standing on the deer’s head and under the nierika on the right, a human couple stands face to face. Nia’ariwame’s parents are also identified with an oak (her father) and a pine (her mother). At the same time, it is told how Watakame, the first cultivator and his wife, the first woman, procreated the first rain serpent and her brother Xikuakame, squash boy.
To the right of her parents appears Nia’ariwame, now as a snake, fleeing her homestead and emerging on the roof of the temple en route to the celestial world. Now “above,” she appears as the enormous rain serpent of the east Tatei Matinieri with a deer face, antlers, and tails. Beside her are the different transformations or appearances or rain: a small insect or butterfly evokes young children or “rain children”; an enormous bull suggests Hakuyaka, the mythical bull who personifies downpours; a cloud serpent (haikuterixi) like those dreamt by initiates in Wirikuta; and a cloud (hai).
Descending on her return home on the left side, a triple being that refers to several characters flies by. As the brother of Nia’ariwame, Xikuakame the squash boy appears under the three varieties of this fruit and squash leaf ears. However, Xikuakame is also the ancestor of lightning bolts, which relates him to Hakuyaka, the great mythical bull of heavy rains. Both have bull horns and are a sign of storms.
In contrast, the bull horns are also related to “mestizos” or non-Huichols because “they come from afar.” This coincides with the fact that in other versions of the story, the brother of the goddess Tatei Nia’ariwame is the wind god Tamatsi ’Eaka Teiwari, “Our Elder Brother, the Neighbor (Mestizo) Wind.” Ill-tempered like his sister, the wind is responsible for bringing clouds, but sometimes also for dispersing them. In the yarn painting, these three beings that resemble a mischievous “devil” seem to transport their sister the rain back home, but as a destructive storm. The “little devil” in the upper part seems to throw her into a gourd.
The siblings’ return home is shown as a serpentine line or path that goes down to the place they were born where hanging inverted gourds drip rain in the form of blue dots or droplets. From the two closest to their parents come lightning and black dots that suggest hail, signaling a storm.
Finally, the serpentine path cradles three small children facing skyward. This image evokes the fiesta celebrating the first fruits called Tatei Neixa, where people bid farewell to the rains at the end of the rainy season. Young children undertake a symbolic journey to Wirikuta in the form of cotton balls that are tied to a rope toward the east, the world “above.”
This path of children and gourds is the image of the rainy cycle at the same time as the journey from the surface of the earth toward the celestial world of the gods.
In the middle of the upper part of the yarn painting, over the figure of Tatutsi Xuweri Timaiweme, Our Great-Grandfather, is the story that, in a way, closes the cycle of all the others.
It is about the ancestors and their return to earth as deified beings in the form of irikate or “arrow people.”
The ancestors who made the first pilgrimage to the east from the waters of the sea in the west became deities at sunrise when they obtained the nierika, “gift of sight,” through the deer sacrifice. Thus, they inaugurated the path that people had to follow from then on to be able to be initiated.
The deified ancestors of humankind, who “are now like ancestors,” return to the world as small quartz crystals tied to ritual arrows. These sacred effigies personify them, so they are called “arrow people.”
In the yarn painting three male ancestors and three female ancestors are entwined with vines sprouting sacred elements: deer tails that identify them as deified ancestors; nierikas, their instruments to see; hearts that evoke their iyari (their memory, heart, essence, or “true being”); and “arrow people.” These irikate point downward indicating they will be shot at the surface of the earth to be among humankind. But they also point directly at the head of Our Great-Grandfather Tatutsi Xuweri Timaiweme, suggesting that everything he has shown is, in reality, the essence and the iyari of the ancestors.
