“¿Qué estás quemando?” (What are you burning?) I asked the curandero. The folk healer looked at me the way you’d look at someone asking a ridiculously obvious question. “Es copal,” he smiled in amused disbelief. My first week in Mexico City, wandering through Chapultepec Park, I stumbled on the Concheros dancers mid-performance—elaborate headdresses, ankle shells, […]
Continue Reading
Magic is Mexico’s superpower. Here, the ordinary and the sacred intertwine like smoke and spirit. The sacred still whispers, and its relevance is ever-present to those willing to listen to its wisdom. Alongside colorful towns and festive celebrations runs a steady stream of healing rituals, sacred medicines, and ancestral wisdom that restore body, mind, and […]
Continue Reading
More than 8 million people in Mexico, about 6% of the total population, speak one or more of the country’s 68 original (indigenous) languages. [1] Najo’obiñ’eje, Welcome, bienvenidos, in Mazahua. Pjiekak’joo, “We speak”, the name of the critically endangered Tlahuica language. Despite an official proclamation following the Mexican Revolution of the elimination of racial prejudice […]
Continue Reading
Más de 8 millones de personas en México, aproximadamente el 6% de la población total, hablan una de las 68 lenguas indígenas originales del país. [1] Najo’obiñ‘eje, Bienvenidos, in Mazahua. Pjiekak’joo, “Hablamos”, el nombre de la lengua Tlahuica que está en peligro crítico de extinción A pesar de, una proclamación oficial posterior a la Revolución […]
Continue Reading
Susana Eger Valadez traveled to Mexico about 20 years ago while working on her Master of Arts Degree in Latin American Studies. She completed the degree from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In the process of studying the Huichol people, her life was changed forever. In 1981, Susana Eger and her Huichol […]
Continue Reading
Deer. Maize. Peyote These are the most important symbols for the Huichol. They represent a culture in transition from hunting and gathering strategies to that of a sedentary agrarian lifestyle. The deer holds the intimate role of symbolizing the Huichol people. The character of the Huichol as a group tends to be light, flexible, and […]
Continue Reading The Huichols are a hearty and enduring people numbering about 18,000, most of which live in the Jalisco and Nayarit, two rugged and mountainous states in North Central Mexico. They are descendents of the Aztecs and are related to their Uto-Aztecan speaking cousin, the Hopi of Arizona. They are representatives of a pre-Columbian shamanic tradition […]
Continue ReadingAmid the reconstructed pyramids of Monte Alban, a pageant is performed commemorating ancient legends of how the sun and the moon and the Earth were born, and were set free to roam the heavens. Designed with help from the Dragon Theater of Maine, and performed by local singers, dancers and musicians, “Sol y Luna” will, […]
Continue Reading A Message From Susana Eger Valadez, Director, The Huichol Center For Cultural Survival And Traditional Arts Dear Friends on the Internet: Thank you for your clicking on us to find out about the important work of the Huichol Center For Cultural Survival And Traditional Arts. I’m Susana, the Center’s founder and director and I’d like […]
Continue ReadingBeginning in mid-October, and lasting for a month, a five-hundred-year-old ritual encompassing history, tradition and cuisine takes place in the valley of Tehuacan, in the Mixteca Poblana region of southern Puebla. Traveling through this rocky, hardscrabble land, one wonders how the inhabitants have sustained themselves for thousands of years and marvels at the fact that […]
Continue Reading