La casa de los Dioses

The first world was discovered on the land of the coast of San Blas, and for that reason, the label says, it is “un lugar sagrado de los dioses” (a sacred place of the gods).

In INPI's Los Wixaritari, a book written for Wixárika children, Haramara lies to the west, “allá por las costas de Nayarit” (out on the coasts of Nayarit). Mexico's 2023 decree protecting Wixárika sacred places recognizes Tatei Haramara as “el lugar más antiguo del universo de donde emergieron los ancestros del Océano primordial” (the oldest place in the universe, where the ancestors emerged from the primordial ocean). Kawitu Wixaritari says pilgrims still leave their bowls and arrows on that beach: “Actualmente aún seguimos dejando las” (we still leave them today).

In this territory, the label goes on, a caliguey is built, “que es ririki” (which is a ririki), and inside it a fire was lit to plan the journeys to the sacred places to leave offerings, “una costumbre que los peregrinos Wixarikas realizan” (a custom the Wixárika pilgrims keep).

The anthropologist Johannes Neurath describes the tukipa or callihuey as a ceremonial center of pre-Hispanic tradition, and writes that the inside of its great temple, the tuki, stands for the dark place of origin, “abajo, en el Poniente” (below, in the west), the underworld and the sea. Around it stand the xirikite, in his words “pequeños adoratorios rectangulares cuyo techo es de dos aguas” (small rectangular shrines with a two-sided roof).

At the center, Olivia Kindl of INAH writes, the fire is lit, “frente al cual cantan los mara'akate” (before which the singers sing). Xilonen Luna Ruiz, in a UNAM thesis on Wixárika music, records the singers meeting there “para definir la fecha de cacería del venado, la entrega del fuego, la fiesta del Hikuri Neixa” (to set the date of the deer hunt, the handing over of the fire, the peyote dance).

The second world is in the Sierra Madre Occidental, and its people wanted the sun to appear, so they left offerings of gourd bowls, candles and arrows.

INAH's Universos huicholes, from Mexico's Museo Nacional de Antropología, tells of a world “en penumbras y apenas alumbrado por la luna y las estrellas. Aún no existía el sol” (in half-darkness, barely lit by the moon and the stars; the sun did not yet exist). In the account kept by the Wixárika Research Center, the ancestors had found the fire, and the light of Our Great-Grandmother Moon, Takutsi Metseri, had appeared, “But they were not satisfied with these sources of light.”

The label names the offerings left for the sun: “Jicaras, velas y flechas” (gourd bowls, candles and arrows).

Universos huicholes explains each. The gourd bowl “sirve para producir fertilidad, tomar agua y descansar” (serves to bring fertility, to drink water and to rest). Offering candles “significa renovar los árboles cósmicos que soportan la cúpula celeste para que ésta no caiga” (means renewing the cosmic trees that hold up the sky, so that it does not fall). The arrow serves to hunt deer and “disparar a los monstruos de la oscuridad que se oponen al sol” (to shoot the monsters of darkness that stand against the sun).

INAH's Ruta Wixárika adds that candles “Representan la luz del Sol y la conexión con las deidades” (represent the light of the sun and the connection with the gods).

The shaman leading the ceremony began it because something showed among the clouds, but it was only the light of the moon; he prayed to this world, “y así quedó” (and so it remained).

Neurath quotes the explorer Carl Lumholtz, who heard in the 1890s that there was once no light “en el mundo más luz que la de la Luna, lo que traía muchos inconvenientes a los hombres” (in the world but the moon's, which brought people many hardships).

The third world is where the pilgrims and shamans hold their ceremonies, and they carry their sacred gourd bowls.

Kawitu Wixaritari says that is how the custom was learned, “de llevarlas en pares (jícaras y flechas)” (of carrying them in pairs, bowls and arrows). In Neurath's account, nights of song end with the sacrifice of animals, “que se realizan al amanecer” (carried out at dawn).

They also bring a deer and a calf, the label says, to sacrifice when the star called Lucero shows itself.

Universos huicholes calls the blood of animals sacrificed alive “alimento para los dioses y, más aún, sustancia mágica que crea nueva vida” (food for the gods and, more, a magic substance that creates new life). On a tabla by José Benítez Sánchez it finds Our Mother the Earth receiving the blood of “un toro ( turitu ) y lo que parece ser un becerro ( pixeru )” (a bull and what looks like a calf).

Séverine Durin, writing in Alteridades (2005), cites the rule “que sin sangre de venado, no hay fiesta” (that without deer blood there is no fiesta), and notes that the calves sacrificed are two years old and that sacrifices usually take place in the morning. Kawitu Wixaritari says the deer's blood “se usa para asperjar los utensilios rituales” (is used to sprinkle the ritual objects).

Lucero, the label says, is seen only before dawn and disappears when the sun rises in the morning, “y así queda” (and so it remains).

Among the gods of the tukipa Neurath names “Xurawe Temai, “el Joven Estrella”: el lucero del alba” (the Young Star: the morning star). In Universos huicholes, darkness reigned “hasta que la estrella de la mañana flechó a este gran monstruo marino y el Padre Sol surgió victorioso en el oriente” (until the morning star shot this great sea monster with an arrow and Father Sun rose victorious in the east).

Kindl adds that in Tateikie the morning star is also called Tunuwame and is held to be “el primer cantador y fundador del centro ceremonial de la cabecera comunal” (the first singer and founder of the community's ceremonial center).