Mexico Archive

Huehuecoyotl: 30 years of utopia, and going strong

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: April 27, 2012Posted in: Alberto Ruz, Ecovillages, Featured, Mexico, Mexico City, WhyTags: , , , , , , , , ,
Huehuecoyotl: 30 years of utopia, and going strong

Beloved Mexican writer Laura Esquivel, of “Like Water for Chocolate” fame, described it as “a type of Macondo, a magical place that belongs to all of us, that enriches all of us, that represents all of us.”

Mexico’s first ecovillage has just turned 30, and celebrated with the release of a beautiful book of memories, “Huehuecoyotl: Raices al Viento” (Roots to the Wind)” and a festival that took the magical spirit of the place into the heart of the city.

Esquivel, as a collaborator and friend of Huehuecoyotl, was a contributor to the book and one of the presenters at the recent book launch celebration in Coyoacán. Her words capture my own feelings about the place, whose work and inhabitants have had an impact far beyond the green valley where they live.

“…Huehuecoyotl is more than an ecovillage,” she said. “It’s the certainty that not everything is bad, that not everyone is asleep, that not all the civilizing efforts have failed, nor that the ideal of community, common-unity, is a utopia. In Huehuecoyotl, utopia is real; it breathes, it sings, it eats, it kisses, it dances, it dreams.”

I share her wistfulness at not having been there as the vision unfolded. “But do you know what?” she countered. “Thinking about it more, I’m convinced that I was. I was in the temezcal, in the theatrical performances, in the rainy nights and the sunrises, at the births, at the funerals, at the sacred ceremonies, in the silences… in this time out of time where we dream that a world like this is possible… the tribe of Huehue is my tribe.”

Huehuecoyotl is more than a Macondo, it is a real community built with love and cradled in the mountains of Tepotzlán, about an hour and a half outside of Mexico City. And the stories of its inhabitants and visitors, chronicled by more than 40 collaborators, are the stories of the potent currents of change that have moved through this planet, alternately unperceived, misunderstood and repressed by the powers that be.

Huehuecoyotl is like the giant amate tree that stands at the heart of the community, whose seeds have been spread throughout the planet thanks to its inhabitants’ various cultural and educational adventures, beginning in the 1960s with the Hathi Babas in India and the Middle East, and tracing its way through the Americas in the epic Rainbow Peace Caravan, 1996-2009. Look for its current manifestation in the periodic international Consejo de Visiones, or Vision Council.

The writers are dreamers and doers, cultural, spiritual, artistic and ecological activists from Mexico and the United States, from Sweden and Italy and Spain, to name just a few of the nationalities of this global tribe. To page through this collection of essays and the colorful photography of Jan Svante Vanbart and others is to be swept along those currents through four decades of change. These are voices that will not be silenced, but will be raised time and again in song, lifting into the skies like the smoke of the sacred copal.

As Huehue cofounder, author, visionary and teacher “Coyote” Alberto Ruz Buenfil said, “Those who do not dare to live their dreams, or who for fear betray them, the only thing they achieve is to end their existence in the middle of a great nightmare.”

For those willing to take that dare, “Huehuecoyotl: Raices al Viento” is more than an inspiration; it’s a call to action.

Available (in Spanish only, at this time) through Alberto Ruz Buenfil, subcoyotealberto@yahoo.com.

Here are some images from the book launch celebration, April 20 at Casa de Cultura Reyes Heroles, and the Festival de Jade, April 21 in the nearby Plaza Coyocan, bringing the spirit of Huehue to the heart of Mexico City’s most authentic colonia.


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Guadalajara by foot: Trek reveals many faces of historic avenue

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: February 21, 2012Posted in: Biking, Ciudad Para Todos, Com:Plot, Environmental education, Featured, GDL en Bici, Guadalajara, Transportation, Urban green space, WhyTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Guadalajara by foot: Trek reveals many faces of historic avenue

By Tracy L. Barnett
The Esperanza Project

It was a beautiful day for a hike – and a fascinating, if not always beautiful, route. The Fifth Annual Camina por Guadalajara, an event sponsored by the sustainable cities group Com:Plot, drew a lively and diverse crowd to Plaza Juarez on Avenida de la Independencia.

The idea of this walk – as with the previous ones organized by Com:Plot and a sister organization – Ciudad Para Todos, City for All – was to focus attention on a cross-section of the city, step by step and block by block. The entire day would be spent traversing this historic avenue, from the city’s historic center and beautiful plazas to the newly developing suburbs and beyond, to a spectacular surprise (for this reporter, at least) the very end. (These two groups were profiled in my 2010 visit to Guadalajara during the initial yearlong voyage through Latin America: Com:Plot conspires to take back a city and A city for all, not just for cars.)

Along the way, zigzagging back and forth into the neighborhoods that line this avenue, the group would observe and document the city’s historic treasures and glaring deficiencies – or, as the diplomatic Com:Plot leader Alfredo Hidalgo puts it, “opportunities” – sometimes just a few paces apart.

“The Calzada de la Independencia is a territories full of challenges, surprises and history, and it will surely give us an opportunity to reencounter the city,” said Alfredo in his welcome to about 100 people who had gathered to take part in the walk. “Here we will get to look at the city with an eye to the past but above all with a lot of optimism at the future.”

Alfredo, like many of those who joined the walk, is an architect and an advocate of progressive planning for a more inclusive, more sustainable and more walkable city. Guadalajara, despite its nearly 500 years of colonial history, is a metropolis that grew up with the automobile, like most U.S. cities, but with little long-range planning, and the modern metropolitan ills of congestion, pollution and deforestation plague an otherwise beautiful city.

A perfect example was the park to our immediate right, Parque Agua Azul. It’s a lovely, shady park alive with Tapatíos (Guadalajarans) enjoying a sunny Sunday – but the blue water the park was named for has diminished to a shadow of its former self. This entire area, almost as far as the eye could see, was an enormous lake, explained journalist and historian Guillermo Gomez, who narrated a fascinating section of the walk. During the Porfiriato – the time when Porfirio Diaz was president – elegant bathhouses lined the lake, and people would come and take the waters.

The advent of the automobile changed all of that, along with the rest of the city, Gomez said. The lake was gradually drained to build avenues like this one, and the river that fed Agua Azul was channelled under the street in an enormous storm drain. Now the once-grand Rio San Juan de Dios is long forgotten, just another carrier of the city’s sewage.

But not to dwell on unfortunate decisions of the past… the upbeat group headed off toward a lovely set of arches, past a florist shop and out into the sunny day, cameras at the ready to document the face of the Calzada, for better and for worse.

Soon we took a detour to the east into the nearly forgotten neighborhood of Analco. We hadn’t gone a block when the sidewalk disappeared.

“Where’s the sidewalk?” exclaimed an indignant Guillermo, pointing to a long stretch alongside the street where the foot traffic made its way along a long stretch of dirt and gravel. “It’s one thing to have a destroyed sidewalk, but quite another to have no sidewalk at all.”

The Analco neighborhood, Guillermo explained, had been a thriving hub of activity in its day, but had always been working-class. The more monied folk built their homes on the western side of the street, and to this day, a marked difference can be seen in the character of the neighborhoods. But Analco’s fate took a nosedive on April 22, 1992, the day a gas line exploded under the neighborhood, killing at least 300 people (according to the official count; unofficial reports put the number of dead closer to 2,000.

Jesus Arreola, a professor of urban planning at the University of Guadalajara, grew up in this neighborhood and remembers it as vibrant and full of life – a place where a young boy could easily go anywhere he needed to go on a bicycle. Now most of the young people have moved to the suburbs, leaving the elderly and marginal to inhabit the deteriorated infrastructure.

“We citizens need to convince the government to take on the necessary projects to bring life back to these barrios,” he said.

Abandoned lots filled with weeds and trash line the street near the corner where the explosion took place, twenty years after the fateful event.



Lots of opportunities here, he pointed out. A once beautiful art-deco building…

An abandoned corn-flour mill, where people would bring their corn for miles around…

A thriving local market, a bit dilapidated but still a historic gem…

And also home to the sweetest elotes in the city, according to Guillermo…

But also home to some serious problems.

Here we also passed by the once-glorious Coloseum Arena, the biggest and best of its day, where all the famous boxing and lucha libre giants of the ’30s and ’40s would fight for international glory.

Here, fortunately, it was time to head back to the Calzada – just a block back to the west. And what a difference a block or two or three can make! … as we were soon to see…

Monument to Mexican Independence

Site of the historic and formerly grand Alameda Theater, whose inaugural gala in 1942 was attended by the beloved Mexican Golden Age film stars Maria Felix and Cantinflas, it closed in 1980 and remained abandoned for 20 years, when it was demolished to make way for the shopping mall that is now home to McDonald’s and Cineplex.

Thankfully, the nearby Hospicio Cabañas enjoyed a much different fate. Built in 1791 as an orphanage and hospital, it continued to operate until 1980, when the Cabañas Institute took it over and restored it into a beautiful cultural center and home to some of the most spectacular murals of José Clemente Orozco.

Behind the hospicio could be found the likewise historic, vast and somewhat chaotic Mercado Libertad, more commonly known as the Mercado de San Juan de Dios, named for the neighborhood, which was named for the no longer extant river… here you can buy anything from traditional handmade candies and serapes and handcrafts to handguns and ammunition, Guillermo informs me – this latter comes as a surprise to me, because handguns are actually strictly regulated here in Mexico… or so I thought.

Here we were now in the famous Plaza de los Mariachis, also recently refurbished …

And then the beautiful Plaza Tapatía, one of a series of interlinked plazas lined with historic buildings and monuments that are the pride of historic Guadalajara.

We could have easily lingered in the historic center all day, watching the people, listening to music, exploring the iconic cathedral and museums and plazas filled with public art and tempting restaurants and cafes. But we were on a mission – the Calzada called – and we marched on.

Again, just a block or two away from the beautifully restored Calzada, a different face of the city was evident.

(Translation: Dear Virgin of Guadalupe, I am a sinner; send me the punishments that you want but please don’t send me another government by the PAN – the conservative National Action Party.)

But soon we were arriving at the recently restored Parque Morelos, considered by some historians to be the city’s oldest landmark. Still with its original kiosk and wrought-iron benches, the park is an oasis of green in a concrete jungle.

Now it was on to the historic Barrio Retiro, named for the fact that it was on the outskirts of the growing city at the time of its founding. The neighborhood became known for its thriving tannery industry and was home to the beautiful Templo de Nuestra Señora del Rosario…

… and for something completely different, a little architectural oddity, referred to by Norma, one of my walking companions, as “Guadalajara’s tiniest block.”

Soon I caught up with Patricio Alva from Ciudad Para Todos. He had taken along spray cans and stencils to draw attention to the most grievous errors in city planning that the walkers observed along the way – such as the lack of ramps for wheelchair users:

… spectacular holes in the sidewalk:

… and a wheelchair ramp so steep that to traverse it would mean an almost inevitable crash at the end:

Alfredo’s children quickly became Patricio’s alert assistants, spotting pedestrian affronts on every corner.

Another Cuidad Para Todos intervention was the widespread distribution of “wikimultas,” or citizen tickets left on the windshields of rude drivers who blocked pedestrian walkways or otherwise invaded the space of non-drivers.

In this case, a large swath of grassy green public park was fenced in and empty, while children played in a dirt-covered lot nearby.

“Why close up a park? Parks are meant to be open, and free…” lamented Jesus Arreola.

(Translation: FINED by vigilant citizens….We invite you to cooperate in the improvement, harmony and mobility of our city. Respecting each other we will achieve a city that is worthy of all of us.)

I also caught up with architecture students Andrea Cornejo and Juan Pablo Morett, who were on their first Caminata and loved the opportunity to see a much-traveled route from a different perspective.

“For one thing, you realize all the obstacles a differently abled person has to face,” said Andrea, “and you also realize that there are some areas that are very much taken care of by the government and others that are super deficient – but you also see beautiful parts of the city that are really beautiful that you never noticed before.

“I hope the government will realize there are many people who care about the city,” she added, “and that we are aware of the problems that exist, that it’s not enough to just put in a Macrobus to cover up the problem in one area.”

I also ran into Yeriel from GDL en Bici, another of the energetic and innovative groups that are pushing Guadalajara to be a better, more livable city – in this case, for bicyclists. On this particular walk, Yeriel was observing how the recently installed MacroBus – highly controversial before its installation, but heavily used now – has changed the dynamic of the avenue. The traffic flows much more smoothly now, he said. And there’s another big advantage, he added, only a little bit ironically. “We now have a huge super bike lane.”

As he spoke, a bicyclist pedaled swiftly down the Macrobus late – completely illegally – but also completely unimpeded by traffic, and probably much safer than he would have been in normal traffic. Yeriel says the cyclists usually hear or see the Macrobus coming and get out of the way but if not, the drivers will honk.

It was after 2 by the time we reached the stadium and the group broke for “lonches” – the tapatio word for sandwiches – and I made a break for the Plaza de Tecnologia, back in the center, where I had an errand to do. Sadly, thanks to traffic and parking issues, it was two hours later when I was finally able to catch up to the group. I missed the Guadalajara zoo, the beautiful colonial pueblo of Huentitan – now swallowed up by the metropolis but still filled with charm – and the only stretch of perfect sidewalk on the whole avenue, according to the ever-observant Karla Preciado of Ciudad Para Todos – in front of the Coca-Cola corporate headquarters.

I had grabbed the new Metro Bus, a highly efficient, clean and speedy bus line that traverses the length of the Calzada, and it whisked me past traffic and through the bustling neighborhoods of Independencia and Huentitan, then through an area that seemed under construction. Finally the bus stopped; it was the end of the line.

I was able to reconnect with the group just as they finished the walk – and this is where I was in for an amazing surprise.

Karla was waiting for me at the bus terminal and we entered a park called the Mirador, meaning lookout. Suddenly the trees opened and my jaw dropped. The vista at the end of the Calzada de Independencia is nothing short of spectacular. I shook my head and took another look. The grandeur of the Barranca de Huentitan, or Huentitan Canyon, spread out before me like a panoramic postcard.

And there, posed in front of the barranca in a perfect group shot, was our group of walkers – some 60 or so made it through the day to the very end.

For more information about Com:Plot, and to learn how they will follow up on this action, follow their blog at http://citacomplot.blogspot.com/

For more innovative actions from Ciudad Para Todos, or to download their wikimulta for your own use, see their blog at http://ciudadparatodos.org. They are also very active on Facebook.

To follow the wealth of activities sponsored by GDL en Bici and a plethora of other biking groups, go to their Facebook page and blog: http://gdlenbici.org/

And here’s another great GDL group I just learned about: Las Otras Caras de la Ciudad, The Other Faces of the City, on Facebook at Lasotrascaras Delaciudad.

Videos: Historic mass ceremony on Cerro Quemado

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: February 14, 2012Posted in: WhyTags: , , , , , , , , ,
Videos: Historic mass ceremony on Cerro Quemado

REAL DE CATORCE, Mexico – A beautiful glimpse at the historic ceremony on Cerro Quemado, Wirikuta, the night of Feb. 6-7, 2012, by Omananda:

And another, by the Wirikuta Defense Front:

Message from the gods: Unite to defend the Birthplace of the Sun

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: February 8, 2012Posted in: Featured, WhyTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Message from the gods: Unite to defend the Birthplace of the Sun

Story and photos by Tracy L. Barnett

REAL DE CATORCE, Mexico – They came by the hundreds from the Western Sierra Madre, native Wixarika or Huichol people on a spiritual quest, seeking to consult with the spirits of their ancestors and of the land where their world began. They came in their ceremonial dress, colorfully embroidered with their sacred symbols of the deer, the eagle and the peyote. They came with offerings they had fashioned from beads and gourds and beeswax, offerings they had made precious with their love and their prayers, as their forebears had done for centuries.

This year, however, would be vastly different from years past. This year, the sacred lands of Wirikuta lay under the shadow of an uncertain future. Vast swaths of the protected, UNESCO-recognized reserve had been concessioned to Canadian mining companies, and hundreds of hectares had been bulldozed by agroindustrial companies. This year they were responding to a call that ran through all their communities, spread out through the Sierra Madre over four states: The candles of life were dying, and they would come together there to pray for their renewal.

What was different about this ceremony – besides the context of the proposed mines – was that they would converge at the Cerro Quemado, the mountain said to be the birthplace of the sun, and perform the ceremony together, instead of coming in small groups throughout the year. Normally, each of their ceremonial centers would send its own mara’akame or shaman and delegates separately, performing a series of intimate rituals in sacred sites all along the way, each group in its own traditional way. The other difference is that we would – perhaps – be allowed to attend.

The Huichols are one of the most vital cultural groups remaining in the Americas, in part because their intricate and carefully guarded rituals, designed centuries ago in order to maintain a living and reciprocal relationship with nature, are only rarely opened to outsiders – or even to Huichols from other communities.

That is how it came to be that the night of Feb. 6, the Cerro Quemado came alive with the songs of more than 800 Wixarika mara’akate or shamans and their followers, connecting with the essences of life found here and praying to their deities in an unprecedented peritaje espiritual or spiritual consultation for guidance. And that is why, for the first time, dozens of teiwaris or non-Huichol dignitaries, activists and members of the media were sent special invitations to attend the event.

The idea was that we would wait at the foot of the mountain and be accompanied by a Huichol shaman in a special ceremony throughout the night as the elders on the peak communicated with their ancestors, their deities and the “essences of life” and awaited a response to their question: What should we do about the threats to Wirikuta?

It might happen that we would be invited up to the peak during the night to join the ceremony. Or it might happen that we would wait until the sunrise, when the mara’akate (mara’akames) would come down to share with us the message they had received.

It was nearly sundown when I started up the mountain on horseback, along with Wirikuta Defense Front leader Carlos Chavez and his family. All along the way we passed small groups of Huichol pilgrims, making the two-mile hike up into the mountains on foot, laden with food and other supplies for the night ahead. We arrived at the casita, a round stone house at the base of the Cerro Quemado, just as the sun was going down. A phalanx of videographers lined the top of the first peak, shooting the pilgrims and visitors as they made their way up, and people were building fires, setting up tents and settling in for the night.

I waited anxiously with other journalists and invited guests, shivering in the below-freezing temperatures, to see whether we would actually be allowed to attend the ceremony. The other concern was whether the predicted rain would come during the night, something we teiwaris weren’t sure we could endure.

For the moment, we watched as the fog arose over the desert below, creating a sea of white that extended for miles across the valley, and made conversation. The word came down to us that the elders were facing a tremendous task in coordinating their ceremony with each other and that they would need space and time to connect with their deities. We were being asked to stay below.

Disappointment ran through the crowd like a current, but the night was long, and many surprises awaited.

At about 10 pm the message came down that the media and invited guests would be allowed to come up for a limited time, but that we were to stay silent and not take any photographs. We lined up in single file and made our way up the mountain one-by-one in silence.

I emerged at the top to see the ridgetop sparkling with campfires all along its spine. A brilliant full moon shone over the sea of clouds below. At the center, in the concentric circle of stones called Tatewari-ta, the place of Grandfather Fire, about a dozen mara’akate milled about. Most wore their broad-brimmed hats covered in eagle feathers, antenna that capture and amplify the messages sent from their deities. Others were wrapped in blankets to shield them from the bitter cold. All wore their thin cotton ceremonial clothing, slim protection from the rising winds. Many had been walking in pilgrimage for days, going without sleep and very little food, and had been caught in an icy downpour in the late afternoon – a much-needed rainstorm in this drought-afflicted desert that many here believe that their ceremonies had invoked.

I huddled with anthropologists Paul Liffman and Johannes Neurath, shivering in our multiple layers of sweaters, coats, gloves and socks, and marveling at the energy and the nonchalance of the lightly clad Huichols. Soon the mara’akate assembled and the plaintive wail of the Wixarika fiddles began to ring out in the darkness. The chants of the mara’akate rose on the wind; the ceremony had begun.

All throughout the long night these priests of ecology, as Liffman called them, sang their entreaties to the spirits that inhabit this place, an improvisation of melodies from different villages and different eras in time. They conducted their ancestral dialog with Grandfather Fire, an intermediary between the mara’akate and their deities. The sacramental peyote they had hunted in the desert the day before was working its magic. The hours passed in a blur and I huddled exhausted near a fire on the ridge, dozing for a few moments before I felt a shift in the wind. I sensed something was happening and returned to the fire to find a change in the energy.

The mara’akate had risen to their feet and began to dance, a rhythmic and upbeat shuffle of the feet, a forward-and-back movement that warmed the body and the soul. Soon the whole crowd was moving in unison, Huichols at the center, visitors on the edge. The cold began to dissipate and the joyful rhythm beat back the fatigue.

Surprised at the upbeat mood given the gravity of the situation, I commented on the apparent levity to Johannes Neurath. “Of course,” responded Neurath, who has observed numerous such ceremonies over the years. “If you want the gods to come to your ceremony, you have to make it interesting. They’re not going to come to a boring ceremony.”

At the appointed time, a calf that had been waiting on the sidelines was brought to the center and the mara’akate prayed over him, asking him to surrender his spirit for the wellbeing of humankind. The sacrifice was quick and as gentle as a sacrifice can be. The poor beast bleated softly once, twice, and kicked its small legs a couple of times before giving up the ghost. Soon its blood was being offered along with heartfelt prayers to the five directions.

More dancing, more singing. A sense of timelessness enveloped us. I went up the ridge to the fire being tended by a group of visitors from the Native American Church and a Mexican counterpart called the Nierika Center. Sandor Iron Rope, vice president of the Native American Church and a Lakota from South Dakota who said he had come to pray with his Wixarika brothers, gave me a warm smile for such a cold night. “Try not to shiver,” he advised. “It only makes it worse. Just try to breathe it in.” I followed his advice, and it seemed to help.

Sandor looked out over the sea of clouds and the yucca trees that stood out like surreal feathered sentinels on the horizon.

“They look like the Wixarika people with their feathered hats,” he observed. “They are guardians of this place.” I suddenly realized it was true; I had had the sensation of being surrounded by gentle spirits, and now I understood the reason why.

“I wonder how the deities are feeling about all of this,” I mused, looking around at the varied collection of humanity strewn over the mountaintop – celebrities, anthropologists, journalists, spiritual seekers, documentarians, and a wide range of activists, observing the intensely private ritual of a reclusive people communicating with their gods.

“Oh, I think they’re very happy,” said Armando Loizaga, founder of the Nierika Center, a center for the study of sacred plants near Mexico City who has worked with the Huichols and other indigenous groups for many years.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing, there was the gentleness of the sacrifice – that was a good sign. For another, we’ve been blessed with a clear night full of stars. And for another, here we all are. We were allowed to be here, and that’s a tremendous gift.”

By now the ridge was strewn with the bodies of the unconscious, Wixarika and teiwari alike, who had succumbed to the temptation of sleep. But hundreds continued to dance to the mesmerizing chants of the mara’akate, and the moon continued its slow descent.



Finally the sun began to brighten the eastern sky, and we were given permission to photograph a few moments of the ceremony. A frenzy of photographers converged on the ring of stones and clicked madly until an irate mara’akame shooed us away and ordered the cameras to cease. Eventually a procession began to make its way up the south ridge to the xiriki, a small house-like shrine on the summit, where they centered their prayers once again and made their offerings.



It was mid-morning before the mara’akate and traditional leaders of the communities met in the center to discuss, in their native Wixarika tongue, the meaning of the message they had been given. And it was nearly noon before they assembled there on the circle of Tateiwari-Ta to share their vision with the world.

“They are sad, and they ask, with tears, weeping and pain, that it not be done, that they not tear out the heart, that they not take out the blood of this sacred mountain,” said Mara’akame Eusebio de la Cruz of Santa Catarina, Jalisco, who delivered the message from the deities in Wixarika.

Perhaps more importantly, he said, the gods had entreated them at every ceremony along the way on their pilgrimage, and the same message kept coming back to them. “They asked that all the Wixarika people be united to defend this place, And they asked that all humban beings, even the person who invades or destroys this sacred place, be united with us.”

It was a strong message for a people that has been bitterly divided for more than two decades, with territorial and other disputes breeding rancor between the communities. It was also an indication, along with the decision to permit us to join them on the night of this ritual, of a new openness on the part of the Wixarika people to the outside world.

The ceremony was a trial by fire for the Wixarika leaders as well as for the Wirikuta Defense Front, the network of groups that are supporting them, said Eduardo Guzman, a judge in the desert community of Margaritas and a leader in the movement.

“Finally the word came with the coming of the dawn: They had passed the test and ended with a great unity, a great coinciding of ideas,” he said. “It gives us hope that together we can form a much stronger force to impede the destructive and damaging projects that threaten Wirikuta. I leave with a great happiness and a great sense of hope that it’s something that can be done.”

Paul Liffman stopped by to share his impressions on his way out of town. For him, the event has a broader significance, not just for the people of rural Mexico, but for the world.

“The Huichols are positioned as priests of the rain who benefit the entire world – and that’s why the mine represents such a great threat, because they are trying to be a type of ecological priesthood and everything is at stake. The fact is that we live in an epoch of planetary desiccation due to climate change, and the respect for water that is completely implicit in this ritualization of the acquisition of water of a mountain teaches us to have a relationship of respect and honor of the natural elements, which they treat as divinities. The springs are the earthly corporalization of the ancestors.

Everyone here, including those who are in favor of the mines, believes that the Huicholes bring the rain. And now it hasn’t rained in 14 months and suddenly it rains with the arrival of an unprecedented bunch of leaders of the ceremonial centers. They’ve always made the argument they are an essential link for the ecological reproduction not only of the region, but for the world.”

The sun shone on his departure and that of the hundreds of pilgrims and their guests. As I write this piece, the night has fallen on Real de Catorce and the town is silent once again – except for the gentle patter of a steady rain.

For more information about the defense of Wirikuta, see www.wirikutadefensefront.org. For the full Wixarika statement released to the public at the time of the ceremony, click here.


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Real de Catorce awaits historic pilgrimage

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: February 5, 2012Posted in: Featured, Indigenous peoples, Mining, WhyTags: , , , , ,
Real de Catorce awaits historic pilgrimage


Story and photos by Tracy L. Barnett
For The Esperanza Project

REAL DE CATORCE, San Luis Potosi, Mexico – A quiet but excited buzz hums through the streets of this normally sleepy ghost town turned tourist attraction. Hotels that languished for months are filled to bursting and people are camping on every spare piece of real estate. Everyone is awaiting the arrival of hundreds of Wixarika pilgrims from their homelands in the Western Sierra Madre – a historic mass pilgrimage to connect with the spirits of their ancestors and to pray for the renovation of the fading candles of life that reside in this place, the depleting water supply and the continued equilibrium of all life on Earth.

The Wixarika, more commonly known by their Spanish name, the Huicholes, hope to gain some insights in a historic “spiritual consultation” regarding the threats to their most sacred site, Wirikuta. The Huicholes have made their millenial pilgrimages to Wirikuta since the beginning of their history, and see it as their holiest altar of prayer, the place where they come to hunt their sacramental cactus, the peyote, and the place where the sun was born; but this protected reserve is the target of Canadian mining companies and agroindustrial businesses that see it as a resource to exploit.

This UNESCO-recognized natural and cultural reserve is also home to some of the world’s richest silver veins, exploited for centuries by the Spaniards and then left to languish – until now, when new mining methods and rising silver and gold prices have made the area attractive once again to the mining industry. But besides the cultural significance of the site, the region is also one of the most biodiverse desert regions on the planet and home to a number of endemic and endangered species.

I arrived last night in this picturesque colonial mountain town in the company of Carlos Chavez, coordinator of the Wirikuta Defense Front, and got a quick debriefing from Mercedes Aquino, who is heading up the local support effort. Tensions have risen here for the past year since First Majestic Silver Corp. announced plans to open a silver mine, with those who depend on the tourism industry at odds with those who hope to make a living from the mines.

Organizers were worried yesterday about reports that pro-mining forces were gathering and possibly mounting an unfortunate response to the event, but Mercedes was breathless and glowing when we arrived; she and several others went on the air on the community radio station to head off a possible confrontation, explaining the purpose of the pilgrimage and putting people’s fears to rest. And this morning, priests all over the diocesis are urging their parishioners to exercise tolerance and support the pilgrimage in their own way tomorrow night, praying along with the Huicholes from their own homes for water and for life.

“We explained that the Huicholes are coming here to pray for life, to pray for the water, as they have for centuries. And just as they began to arrive, it began to rain. It’s like a miracle, really.”

Like all of northern Mexico, Wirikuta is suffering the worst drought in more than 70 years; the rains never came to Wirikuta this year, and the crops all failed. Many locals are hoping the proposed mines will provide much-needed employment, despite concerns that it will contaminate and deplete the scarce water reserves. So the timing of last night’s cloudburst, and the predicted rain of the next few days, is really quite remarkable.

Organizing the support for this pilgrimage has been a tall order the Wirikuta Defense has had to fill; from the moment the Huicholes made the decision to make this pilgrimage, just a few weeks ago, it has fallen to the small, unfunded and overworked defense group to try and pull together the logistics and smooth things over in the local communities. Somehow they managed to raise most of the nearly half-million pesos necessary to rent buses, buy food and firewood and pull together a thousand other details, and now about a dozen buses filled with Huicholes, in addition to countless individual bands, are making their way here from hundreds of ceremonial centers spread out over the Wixarika territories some 400 miles to the west. Their plan is to converge on the Cerro Quemado, the sacred mountain where they believe the sun was born, on the night of Feb. 6, where they will hold an all-night ceremony of prayer.

Anthropologist Paul Liffman, author of Huichol Territory and the Mexican Nation, called the pilgrimage “unprecedented in recent history – maybe unprecedented, period.” Normally the pilgrims organize their annual journeys to Wirikuta individually, and each of the more than 500 ceremonial centers sends their own group of maraka’ames (shamans) and jicareros (guardians of the sacred sites) over the course of the year. This mass pilgrimage and ceremony is a response to what they see as a mortal threat to their culture, Liffman said. It’s also a result of the logistical and financial support of the civil society and a growing awareness of the media.

Meanwhile, Chavez takes the long view. “What we’re seeing here is a concentration of the challenges that humanity is facing everywhere,” he said. “It’s going to be extremely important that a sustainable alternative livelihood is provided to the local communities,” he said. “What we’re hoping for and working towards is a big project of restoration – this is such an important area and we can make of it an example of sustainable development for the world.”


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Esquire Latin America: Huicholes prepare for battle

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: October 8, 2011Posted in: Featured, WhyTags: , , , , , , , ,
Esquire Latin America: Huicholes prepare for battle

Esquire Latinoamerica, August 2011
Text and Photos by Tracy L. Barnett

For the Huicholes, the region known as Wirikuta, in North-Central Mexico, is sacred; for a Canadian company it is the base of its next great mining project. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the village of Real de Catorce, at the heart of Wirikuta, are divided among those who need jobs and those who see the mine as a threat. The debate grows with every day and has reached as far as Canada and the United Nations.

To see the entire article (in Spanish), download here: PDF Huicholes

Urgent letter from the Wixarika People to the President of Mexico and to all the Peoples and Governments of the World

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: May 13, 2011Posted in: Featured, WhyTags: , , , , , , , , ,
Urgent letter from the Wixarika People to the President of Mexico and to all the Peoples and Governments of the World

(photos courtesy of omananda.com)

To the President of the United States of Mexico Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
To the People and Governments of the World

PRESENT

We come personally from the Western Sierra Madre to deliver this urgent letter to demand that you keep your word that you publicly announced when you committed to respect and protect our sacred places in the pact of Hauxa Manaká in 2008 and to do so according to the fundamental laws of our country and the agreements, decrees, pacts and national and international conventions that the Mexican State has subscribed to guarantee the respect of our living and millennial culture.

We are a commission of agrarian and traditional authorities from the Wixárika People, who together form the Regional Wixarika Council in Defense of Wirikuta, and we bring the word that unites the sentiment of the councils of elders, of the wise chanters, of the pilgrimage groups entrusted with sustaining the arduous work of more than 500 community ceremonial centers and family ranches; we bring the word that together is one united decisive expression of the feelings of the families of all the communities in Jalisco, Nayarit, Durango and Zacatecas where the Wixaritari live and we want you to respond respecting our rights according to your commitment.

The Federal Government of our country granted 22 concessions that span more than 6,000 hectares in the Sierra of Catorce to the mining company First Majestic Silver Corp. and Real de Bonanza, S.A. de C.V. But the Sierra of Catorce and the whole of Wirikuta, Mr. President, is one of the altars of major importance where our pilgrims balance fertility and the equilibrium of the world for all its creatures and we have evidence that the mining operation would affect in a deep way the ecology, contaminating the zone and drying out our sacred springs.

In these times of extreme violence in our country, which are destroying our social fabric, with this megaproject you are kidnapping and want to assassinate our mother, The Earth, which you have threatened, and seek the forced disappearance of an entire people, the Wixarika People.

For this reason we demand that you immediately cancel these concessions and any others that have as their goal the extraction of minerals or the destruction of Wirikuta in any other way because if the object of all of this tragedy is money, with conviction we inform you that it will be infinitely cheaper to cancel these concessions than to lament the ecological, spiritual and social tragedy that digging and extracting the entrails of Wirikuta could provoke.

Wirikuta is the heart of our essence. If it ends, we die as a people. We have been making pilgrimages to Wirikuta for thousands of years and we know the Ancestors who live in each hill, each stony glade, each rocky crag, and each flower by their names and we have for that reason, according to international standards, the right of traditional, ancestral possession. We respect nevertheless, the communities and farmers who live in the area and we pray also that they may sow and reap their food, so that they may live well, care for and be protected by this sacred land whose vocation is not mining but the enlightenment and renovation of the heart of the world.

We see with much concern that despite the aforementioned Pact of Hauxa Manaká and despite the public opposition of our people to the mining operation in Wirikuta, you have maintained an inexplicable silence in the face of our demand, while our territorial rights have been violated, similarly our previous, free and informed consent, in addition carrying out this mining project will violate the environmental laws of our country, because the area is a Natural Protected Area by governmental decree with its management plan.
The fundamentals of our claim are in the first terms of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization, in its articles 2, 6, 7, 14 and 15; likewise, in Article 2 section b subsection IX, article 27 section VII, second paragraph of the Political Constitution of the United States of Mexico and its related laws.
It worries us even more, that some members of the federal government and the mining company itself are trying to convince us to accept the mine in exchange for granting us one of the sacred places from part of the expanse of Wirikuta, the Cerro Quemado o Raunaxi.

We have already explained that the Sierra of Catorce is a whole unit, where the spiritual energy and power of our ancestors, who allow us to live our lives now and in the future, resides between the lowlands and the highest peaks of the mountains and throughout its interior, and it coincides best with the area of more than 144,000 hectares of the natural protected region. We will not accept for any reason that this type of activity be developed in the area as it is too great an affront for our people, for Mexico and for all of humanity, besides the obvious illegalities that these concessions represent.

Mr. President, we are the original people of this country, we are the ancient root and we reiterate, don’t destroy our Wixárika culture, don’t destroy yourselves for the ignorance of not knowing what these valleys of Wirikuta contain, and the mountains which illuminate the world.

For this reason our commission comes all the way here to deliver this written statement to you. We bring you our urgent word in a timely fashion. We are chanting pilgrims, cultivators; we are the legitimate authorities of our people of corn, deer and sun. We are Mexicans and we dress ourselves with flowers because we chant of peace.

Cancel the mine in Wirikuta, raise to the federal level the environmental and cultural protection and all of our descendents will thank you, otherwise the present generations will walk a difficult but firm path in the conviction of detaining this threat, we await your formal answer in your capacity of the Chief Federal Executive and the one principally responsible for the economic, environmental and social policy of our country.

Pampariyutsi.

Attentively,

Regional Wixarika Council for the Defense of Wirikuta
Mexico, D.F., May 9, 2011

Huicholes march for peace

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: May 11, 2011Posted in: Featured, WhyTags: , , , , ,
Huicholes march for peace

Sunday’s National March in Mexico City and throughout the country drew headlines around the world. A delegation of Wixarika authorities who had traveled from their communities in the faraway Western Sierra Madre were convened in Mexico City for a meeting, and they decided to join the protest in solidarity for the 35,000 victims of the drug war that began 4 1/2 years ago when President Felipe Calderon brought out the military to fight the narcotraffickers.

Tears of sadness and of rage were visible in the crowd as speaker after speaker who had lossed loved ones to the violence shared stories of their loss and horror and demanded a shift in government policy. Tens of thousands stood together in a long moment of silence, followed by the ringing of bells in the colonial cathedral.

The message of the Wixarika marchers: Toxic mining is violence, too. Stop the mine in Wirikuta.

Here are the words they delivered in a letter to President Felipe Calderon the next day:

“In these times of extreme violence in our country, which are destroying our social fabric, with this megaproject they are kidnapping and want to assassinate our mother, The Earth to which they have incarcerated, and they seek the forced disappearance of an entire people, the Wixarika People.”

Some images from the march:


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“Wirikuta is the matrix of life”: Wixarika Regional Council

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: April 14, 2011Posted in: Featured, WhyTags: , , , , , , , , ,
“Wirikuta is the matrix of life”: Wixarika Regional Council

(Photos by Gerardo Ruiz Smith)
Editor’s note: The declaration of the Wixarika Regional Council in the Defense of Wirikuta is a powerful commentary on the increasing frequency of natural disasters and the lack of understanding in our contemporary cultures. May we heed their call before it’s too late.

Declaration of the Wixárika Regional Council for the Defense of Wirikuta

To the Wirikuta Defense Front of Tamatsima Waha’a
To the Civil Society in General
To the Three Powers of the Mexican State

Will they understand in time? Will the governments and corporations that control the material order of the world be capable of understanding in time that the disasters like earthquakes or tsunamis, which they only manage to define as natural phenomenon, are the furious words of those our people know as kaka+yarixi, deities or fundamental forces of nature that feel, think and have the word that permits us to live?

For us, these disasters have an urgent message, calling on humanity to try another way of relating with nature. We don’t know if government officials will be capable of listening and attending to the call in time, because they don’t show any signs of being good at dialog.

After our sacred site of Wirikuta was ordered by governmental decree and a management plan that protects it, the government granted concessions to a Canadian mining company that threatens the Sierra of Catorce and the desert lowlands that comprise this sacred zone, in the municipalities of Charcas, Villa de la Paz, Villa de Ramos, Zacatón, Catorce, Matehuala and Villa de Guadalupe.

We have been for more than seven months demanding that the government of our country cancel the concessions of the mining company First Majestic or Real Bonanza in the Sierra of Catorce and we have heard no response from any of the municipal, state or federal institutions. So what good, then, are the agreements, the decrees, the management plans and the word of Felipe Calderón dressed as a Wixárika promising the protection of our sacred places at the hour of signing the pact of Hauxamanaka just two years ago?

We have been demanding for more than seven months and once again, we make our demand:

That the federal government cancel the 22 mining concessions to the Canadian company First Majestic Silver Corp. and its Mexican “prestanombres” (one who loans his name in order to conduct business), Real Bonanza S.A. de C.V. Mining, in this sacred place not only destroys a fundamental pillar of the Wixárika culture, it is an attack that brings as a consequence many natural disasters and death.

The mining company asks us to let them extract minerals from the sierra in exchange for giving us the Cerro Quemado. We explained to them that the Sierra of Catorce is a sacred whole and therefore it is impossible to mine the area and to respect the Quemado. From the South to the North, the sierra is a collection of kaka+yarixi or fundamental ancestors and the springs that are essential for the rain and the fertility of our country. Wirikuta free of mining and of projects that destroy her natural fragility is what we are demanding that the government enforce.

We are not alone in this struggle. Every day more support is growing for the defense of Wirikuta. The Tamatsima Waha’a front, of which we are the point of the arrow, is constituted of numerous Mexican civil organizations and from other places in the world who are working intensely to offer solutions and build alliances with other peoples and other movements that also defend the roots of life.

We appreciate the support of the indigenous people of the United States and Canada, organized in the Native American Church and of course our brothers of the National Indigenous Congress.

We have organized conferences, debates, festivals to spread the word of our right to be respected and we plan still more musical festivals and gatherings and creative activities so that this threat of extermination be detained.

This is the path of our struggle. In what other way does the government want us to remind it of its historic and moral constitutional obligation to respect our fundamental patrimony, the patrimony of all Mexicans and all of humanity?

Listen, ladies and gentlemen of the government and who dominate the corporations: Wirikuta is the matrix of life. Matrix of the rain and of fertility. A place to remember our origin and the natural future of humanity. There is no room there for either mines nor industrial tomato growers. There is room for other projects so that the ejidal campesino families who live in Wirikuta, and those of us in the Wirikuta Defense Front have proposals for that.

We salute with respect all of those who have put forward their dignity in the face of so many years of dispossession and discrimination that today Wirikuta has one of the zones with the highest emigration rates in the country. We salute with the same respect the campesinos of Wirikuta who await this criminal exploitation with hopes of an improvement in their living conditions and who await too with the pain of seeing their children go to the United States, Monterrey and other places to never return, and who await the beginning of the mining exploitation with the pain of seeing that the uncontrolled ambition for money wants to do away with the sacred rain that keeps us alive, to throw them off their lands or make them accept with humility the mining alternative, who await First Majestic with the pain of living with the contamination of heavy metals left behind by the mining activities of the past.

To you, our brothers, our proposal is to change from below, from the local organization of so much injustice that you are now living, reconstructing your social fabric. We have made your situation our own and we are working so that between us we may demonstrate that we are capable of constructing dignified alternatives.

We appreciate the initiatives that are being worked on in an organized manner for the realization of cultural festivals, especially the group of artists and intellectuals who have joined this struggle. We exhort them to continue with this historic force and to trust in our organizational structure headed by our assemblies and traditional authorities, projected in the path of the Wirikuta Defense Front of Tamatsima Waha’a.

We send our recognition and congratulations to the companions with whom, together, we are the Wirikuta Defense Front of Tamatsima Waha’a for the nomination of an international award in the category of Human Rights, which is our demonstration that civil society can organize using the tools of communication that we count on, for which we call on the civil society to support this nomination by voting for our website and the other campaigns that have been launched by our movement.

We wish to reiterate the need to maintain an interlocution and coordination of confidence through the Jalisco Association in Support of Indigenous Groups (AJAGI), and to avoid delays in communication in our communities, which is indeed complicated.

This is what we wish to communicate to the people of Mexico and the Mexican State. It is what we reiterate from the Colonia Rivera Aceves, locality of Waut+a, in this tenth reunion of the Regional Wixarika Council for the Defense of Wirikuta conformed by our traditional and agrarian governments, kawiterutsixi and mara’akate and this is what we communicate to all of our friends of the Front, the journalists, intellectuals, groups of artists, politicians and to the society and general.

Attentively

Wirikuta is not for sale. Never again a Mexico without us.

Regional Wixarika Council for the Defense of Wirikuta
Tiway+la – Colonia Rivera Aceves, C.I. San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán on April 9 of 2011
For Waut+a San Sebastian Teponahuaxtlan and Kuruxi Manuká

Gracias a Gerardo Ruiz Smith por su colaboración fotográfica. Vea su hermosa colección entera aquí.

Saving a sacred tradition in Wirikuta: How you can help

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: December 31, 2010Posted in: AJAGI, Featured, Huichol lands, Indigenous rights, Mexico, WhyTags: , , , , , ,
Saving a sacred tradition in Wirikuta: How you can help

REAL DE CATORCE, San Luis Potosí, México – Rodolfo Cosio prays he’s not the last generation of a dying tradition.

As a jicarero, he is one of the keepers of the ancient pilgrimage of the Wixaritari or Huichol people of western Mexico. Each year he travels to the sacred sites of his ancestors in the five directions, offering up prayers and ceremonies that his people believe are essential to balancing the energies of an increasingly endangered planet.

Each year he explains to his children the importance of living a simple life, of maintaining the traditions, of fasting and pushing oneself far beyond the limits of comfort to keep the ceremonial fires burning as his ancestors have done for more than 1,000 years. He prays this won’t be the last year his people will receive the teachings of their sacred plant, hikuri, or peyote.

Just a few months ago, Cosio and other members of his community received the news that Wirikuta, the most important of their five pilgrimage sites in the state of San Luis Potosí, near the UNESCO-recognized site of Real de Catorce, has been concessioned to a Canadian mining company for a silver mine – despite the fact that the mining concessions lie within a federally protected cultural and natural preserve. The news was met at first with shock and disbelief.

“What they are talking about means the annihilation of our culture,” Cosio said. “It’s like a spiritual death for us.”

At the heart of Wirikuta is Leunar, or Cerro Quemado, the site where the sun rose for the first time, according to Huichol tradition. The region is home to several sacred springs, where their ancestors are buried and important ceremonies must be conducted each year. Here is the desert where they collect the sacred hikuri that they use for their prayers and ceremonies. And here will be the site of Mexico’s next resource battle, as the Wixaritari are not likely to let their ancient ceremonial site be mined without a struggle.

Santos Carillo de la Cruz, a Wixaritari leader, at Real de Catorce, Wirikuta.

The Wixarika communities published a call for support from the international community in September. Since that time, they appointed AJAGI, the Jalisco Association in Support of Indigenous People, to lead their legal defense, and AJAGI has joined with several organizations throughout Mexico to create a coalition called the Frente en Defensa de Wirikuta, or the Wirikuta Defense Front. AJAGI has supported the Wixarika communities for two decades in reclaiming their lands from illegal invasions and in a wide range of development projects.

Those organizations are now working together on the legal challenge and are organizing to raise awareness about this threat and to build an international campaign to support the Huicholes in their efforts to protect their sacred sites.

“In the face of these enormous challenges that humanity is confronting right now with environmental destruction, climate change and industrial contamination, we cannot let economic ambition carry us to the extreme of destroying sacred places of such great spiritual, cultural and environmental value, even disregarding laws and the most elemental of human rights,” said Carlos Chávez, founder of AJAGI. “We must support this cause, which is the cause of all humanity, because to do otherwise would bring us one step closer to the cancelation of our future.”

In this excellent video interview, recorded at the recent Call of the Eagle – Vision Council gathering by Leticia Rigatti and Ryan Luckey of the Común Tierra project, Huichol marakame (medicine man) Julio Parra shares his thoughts about the proposed mine in Wirikuta. For a version with English subtitles and blog entry, and to learn more about Común Tierra, check out their website here.

How you can help

There are several ways you can support the Huichol people in their struggle to protect their culture and their traditional pilgrimage site.

First, you can join the Wirikuta Defense Front by dropping a line to AJAGI1@prodigy.net.mx and asking to be added to the mailing list. If you want to receive information in English only, please specify. Also, please indicate if you have particular skills that you can share: translation, background in environmental sciences or other relevant skills, connections with organizations that might be able to write a letter in support or help in other ways. The group is in the process of translating Spanish-language materials into English; please let us know if you’d like to help. Meanwhile, the Spanish-language blog is SALVEMOS WIRIKUTA (Let’s Save Wirikuta) and there’s also a SALVEMOS WIRIKUTAFacebook page. Also, the Wixarika Resource Center has a Wirikuta page with frequent updates here.

Second, you can organize a letter-writing campaign among your friends and contacts to Mexican officials; personal letters sent through the mail are the most effective, but if you prefer, there is a website where you can just fill out a form and press “send.” Cultural Survival, an international organization dedicated to raising awareness about indigenous rights, has launched an international letter-writing campaign with a sample letter and addresses here, as well as an alert that lays out the issues in detail. Rainforest Rescue has another that goes to even more public officials. Please do both.

* Sign the petition.

Meanwhile, the Wirikuta Defense Front is working to bring international pressure on the Mexican government to shut down the mine before it starts. The group is working to raise the money to send a delegation of Huicholes to Canada to lobby against the proposed mine at the company’s Canadian headquarters, through its stockholders and through the Canadian government.

If you are interested in contributing to the Wirikuta Defense Front to help with this and other expenses related to stopping the mining operations in Wirikuta, please make a tax-deductible contribution to The Esperanza Project via the Paypal link on its website, with WIRIKUTA in the special instructions space, or through the AJAGI bank account in Mexico, c/o CARLOS CHÀVEZ REYES, at HSBC, Branch # 00701, Account #02132 00403 92525 721.

Most importantly, help spread the word – and join Rodolfo and his people in their prayers for a healthier, happier and more balanced planet for us all.

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