The Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts is a
non-profit organization, located in the town of Santiago
Ixcuintla, Nayarit, Mexico, and is coordinated by two offices in
the US (one in Oakland, CA, and the other in Cottonwood, AZ).
Volunteers and staff from the US and Mexico help to promote the
Huichol Center by selling Huichol artwork and networking with
individuals, organizations, and foundations, for support.
The goal of the Huichol Center is to help Huichols survive the
cultural transition that they are now undergoing as a result of
mass migrations out of their tradtional homelands into Mexico's
labor force, where they work as field hands. These migrations
threaten the continuation of Huichol traditional life, which has
remained viable since ancient times. The Huichol Center helps them
to preserve their cultural, spiritual and artistic heritage while
adapting to the demands of the modern world which they have
recently become a part of. The following Huichol Center projects
have been created to realize this goal:
Medical: The health of the Huichols who migrate out of their
homelands to work in tobacco fields has been seriously damaged by
the effects of malnutrition, parasitic diseases, infectious
diseases (i.e., measles, tuberculosis, whooping cough), and
insecticide poisoning. Medical attention at the Huichol Center is
provided by traditional shamans and Mexican doctors. Services
include Preventative Medicine, Prenatal Care, Birthing, Emergency
Care, Nutritional Counseling, and Alcohol Counseling.
Hunger: The Huichol Center feeds and shelters hundreds of migrant
families who find themselves without resources while looking for
jobs outside of their homeland. The Huichol Center Vegetable
Garden provides education in gardening techniques and exposure to
healthy foods they may grow in their homelands for better
nutrition. The Center encourages people to learn traditional art
skills so they may remain in their homelands, plant their own
gardens, and remain economically self-sufficient.
Legal: As Huichol governmental officials become more integrated
into the Mexican legal system, they require financial support to
hire laywers to protect them against such things as outside
encroachment on their land, the illegal cutting of their forests
and stealing of their timber, illegal cattle grazing on their
lands, and false imprisonment of innocent Huichols. The Huichol
Center provides financial support for legal aid.
Economic: As the Huichol people have been forced in recent years
to transform their corn trading culture into a cash economy, they
have the great necessity to create jobs for themselves inside
their homeland. The Huichol Center provides skill training in
traditional art forms, such as embrodiery, beadwork, weaving, yarn
painting, and more, so that the Huichols may become
self-sufficient artesans rather than field workers.
Marketing: The Huichol Center provides Huichols with the ability
to market their artwork within Mexico and in the US. The Huichol
Center Art School has taught them to not only create works of the
highest artistic and cultural integrity, but how to ask for and
receive fair makret prices for their work.
Conservation of Traditional Culture: Many of the ancient rituals
and traditions are being lost or forgotten as the elders die off
and Huichol children are educated in schools rather than in the
ceremonies. The Huichol Center Ethnographic Archive contains
valuable knowledge from shamans and other individuals who have
made a conscious effort to record and document this old knowledge
before it disappears. Photographs, music, artwork, and taped
interviews are contained in this comprehensive archive. In
addition, the Huichol Center Design Archive is composed of
hundreds of traditional patterns that have been graphed out and
documented for posterity and for distribution to Huichol artists.
Aid to Huichol Temple Groups: The caretakers of the Huichol
temples, religious objects, and guardians of the traditiona are
faced with extreme economic hardship in modern times which
threatens the continuation of these ancient customs. For example,
an important part of the Huichol ceremonial cycle is the annual
journey the guardians make to their far-off sacred lands.
Previously, the religious pilgrims could make these journeys by
foot. But now their traditional trails have been blocked off by
barbed wire fences, and they are forced to take modern
transportation. The costs of these journeys are prohibitively
expensive to some Huichols. The Huichol Center provides economic
aid to some temple groups in order to help defer the costs of
these important journeys.
Huichol Ethnographic Museum: The Huichol Center is in the process
of establishing a major museum in the town of Sanitago Ixcuintla,
Nayarit, which will provide an economic alternative to working in
the tobacco fields. The museum will provide the Huichol people
with the proper recognition of their unique culture and safeguard
examples of their art and knowledge for future generations. It
will also provide the Huichols with a meeting ground outside of
their homeland where they may market their artwork directly to the
public.
US Non-Profit Foundation Address: PO Box 1430, Cottonwood, AZ,
86326, (602) 634-3946
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I posted this information about the Huichols out of my love
for their artwork. I have been collecting it since 1987 and
it is truly wonderful work.
I had the opportunity to meet with Susana Valadez, one of
the keepers of the flame, and wanted to share their struggle
to retain their culture and faith.
Debra Guzman