Schaefer Revised

Portraits TOC HUICHOL: BECOMING A GODMOTHER Stacy B. Schaefer MY INTRODUCTION TO SPROUTING CORN Nauxé, á ítsari, éna pu ta, éna pu ta. Look, your loom, put this here, put this here. Mükü pu ta, éna pu ta. Aixru pu áne. Put that there, put this here. That’s good. Pe ti kwa’á? Teté kwaní. Are you hungry? It’s time to eat. hese were the first words spoken to me by a little four-year-old Huichol girl named Sprouting Corn, who was later to become Tmy godchild. Together, as godmother and goddaughter, we would develop an extraordinary relationship that would transcend the traditional role of anthropologist and young native informant. It was midday and we were sitting in the dirt patio of Sprouting Corn’s family rancho in the Huichol Indian Sierra community of San Andres Cohamiata, located on the pine-covered mesa of the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains in the state of Jalisco. I was just beginning my long-term fieldwork researching backstrap loom weaving and the role of women among the Huichol Indians of Mexico. Sprouting Corn’s mother, Swift Rabbit, a master weaver, had agreed to teach me the ancient art of Huichol weaving. Although I was fluent in Spanish, I knew very little of the Huichol language—a language related to Nahuatl (spoken by Aztecs) and Hopi—which derives from the Uto-Aztecan language family. Thousands of years of separation have made it difficult for the speakers of these related languages to understand one another. So when this little girl, dressed in a bright print gathered skirt and shocking pink blouse with ribbons sewn on, with strands of blue, orange, and yellow beads circling her neck, started chattering to me as if I understood completely what she was saying, I nodded in confusion. She helped me tie up and put away my loom before we went into the adobe brick kitchen to eat the midday meal. Sprouting Corn’s father, White Star, had an axe in hand and was cutting the last piece of firewood from an oak tree he had cut down several months ago. In his white cotton pants and shirt elab- orately embroidered with dancing and sitting deer, rabbits, birds in flight, chickens, flowers, intertwining vines, and mandalalike geo- metric designs, he stood with a look of amusement on his face, watching his daughter help me put away my things. Grinning widely, he said in broken Spanish that it looked like I understood 3 4 PORTRAITS OF CULTURE everything Sprouting Corn had told me to do because I followed her instructions perfectly. I sighed with relief, glad that I had passed that little trial. Smoke was billowing from the grass-thatched roof of the kitchen, and Swift Rabbit stuck her head out the doorway, telling me in Spanish to come in and sit down. Inside she stood behind the mud brick hearth where a blazing fire was going. On top of the fire was a large flat clay disk, a comal, upon which she was cooking handmade blue tortillas. I commented that I had never seen blue corn tortillas. She replied: “We have blue, red, yellow, white, and speckled tortillas, depending upon what color of corn we use. This last year the gods brought much rain. Now we have lots of corn. I especially like the blue corn, which we call yuave.” I sat down on the freshly swept and watered-down dirt kitchen floor and ate a tortilla. The family cat, which they simply call mitsu (meaning “cat” in Huichol), climbed into my lap and sneakily batted at my tortilla with its paws, trying to grasp a piece to eat. In addition to the tortillas there were mesquite seed pods, squirrel stew, chile salsa, and pieces of deer meat. White Star had gone deer hunting last week with the men from their temple group. He and Swift Rabbit and their family had temple responsi- bilities, known as cargo, which they were obligated to fulfill over the next five years. There are five ancient temple compounds scattered through the countryside, where Huichol families for genera- tions have performed ceremonies to ensure that the many gods were pleased and answered their prayers. Now, in February, it was the dry season, the time for deer hunting and pilgrimages to sacred places within and outside the Sierra, to Lake Chapala, where the goddess Rapauwiyeme lives, and to the Pacific Ocean, home of the goddess Haramara. The most important pilgrimage of the dry season is to the San Luis Potosí Desert, where Huichols go to recreate their origin myths, commune with the gods, and gather peyote, the sacred hallucinogenic cactus used in ceremonies. In the past, White Star told me, the men used to hunt the deer with deer snares and bows and arrows. Now they use rifles, but the rifles have to be blessed by the leading shaman, mara’akame, in order to sanctify the hunt. The shaman sings all night in front of the fire, calling upon Tatewari, Grandfather Fire, and Kauyumari, the great deer god, to help him find the deer so that the hunters will be successful the following day. In the meantime, the women have dream visions, and through their dreams ask the deer to give their lives. In return the women will care for the souls of the deer and make sure that they make it safely to the upper world. HUICHOL 5 The deer meat we were eating came from a large buck White Star had cooked in a covered pit under the earth in order to dry the meat for later consumption. Huichols do not have electricity, refrigerators, stoves, or running water, so they have learned to hunt, gather, and store their food accordingly. As we sat and ate, Sprouting Corn started to whimper and cry. I asked her mother what was wrong. Swift Rabbit said, “She is upset because according to our custom children cannot eat deer meat until they have reached five years of age. Before that time they are very vulnerable and do not have a complete soul. If they eat deer meat, the deer might make them sick; they might even die. When they are five years old their soul is complete; they are a complete person and can eat the meat.” I thought about this and decided that it made sense. The infant mortality rate for Huichol children is extremely high, at least fifty percent. Many die of dis- eases such as measles, mumps, whooping cough, pneumonia, tuberculosis, parasites, and debilitating diarrhea. If children live to the age of five, they have a greater chance of living to adult age. I called Sprouting Corn to come over and sit with me. She pushed the cat away and cuddled into my lap. Swift Rabbit and White Star glanced at each other and exchanged some words in Huichol. Then Swift Rabbit said to me, “Sprouting Corn really cares about you. I have never seen her take a liking to anyone the way she has to you. Would you like to be her godmother?” I was surprised by the question and thought about what being a godmother in Huichol tradition involved. I didn’t know what kind of obligations and ritual ties were established by becoming a godmother. I looked into the face of this little girl almost asleep on my lap, this little one who had been my constant shadow and helper ever since I arrived, and replied, “Yes, I want Sprouting Corn to be my goddaughter.” SPROUTING CORN’S FAMILY, COMMUNITY, AND CULTURAL HISTORY The light of the afternoon sun was beginning to fade as it crept down the mesa, leaving in its wake a brilliant hue of reds, pinks, purples, and then a deep, dark blue. Since it was the dry season, 6 PORTRAITS OF CULTURE the clouds were wispy white strands floating across the sky, reflecting the final colors of dusk. I sat with my back against the stone wall of the house that was also the family shrine. Inside was an altar where the family kept all of their sacred offerings—gourd bowls decorated with beads pressed into beeswax, prayer arrows, the sacred ears of corn, candles, and bottles of holy water from var- ious springs, lakes, and the Pacific ocean. Also on the altar were the urukame, the arrowbundles containing rock crystals of the family’s deceased ancestors. All of these sacred objects rested safely within this little house with the doorway facing east to greet the morning sun. During the ceremonies the offerings were brought out as prayers to the gods for good health, rain, abundant crops, cattle, and success in the deer hunt. The ancestors, in their crystal form, were important participants in the ceremonies, and were fed with the blood from sacrificed cattle. I thought about what a privilege it was for me to be here with Sprouting Corn, her family, and the Huichols from this Sierra community. I reflected upon what I had read about Huichol culture and what I had been learning firsthand during my fieldwork. The Huichols number about twenty thousand, but, unlike most indige- nous groups in North America, they have maintained the core of their old beliefs and practices dating back to pre-Columbian times. Living as they do in widely scattered small communities made up of ranchos in the remote mountains and valleys of this mountainous region in the states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Durango, and Zacatecas, the Huichols have been able to fend off the pressures of change better than many native peoples closer to the dominant Mexican culture.

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