Unknown Huichol by Fikes Jay Courtney;

Author:Fikes, Jay Courtney;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AltaMira Press
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Sun Father, Life’s Alpha and Omega

The life of an individual Huichol, starting from the moment the iyari and cüpori enter the fetus, until death and back again, remains embedded in the web of life established by their ancestor-deities. To interpret accurately Huichol reverence for the web of life and their commitment to live in harmony with those ancestors who established its parameters, we must highlight the significance of the sun.

We know that the position in which corpses are placed provides a clue to the itinerary the deceased follows and that a funeral ritual singer following the deceased needs the Sun Father’s nierica (visionary ability associated with a mirror). The significance of the Sun Father’s arrow, carried by Urucuácame, has also been examined. Sometime after Pancho Torres and I had translated Fernando Serratos’s Peyote Dance song, I asked Torres what Serratos meant by declaring that the gods were able to construct the first toqui, or aboriginal Huichol temple, by using five beeswax candles:

Those five beeswax candles signify that in the beginning, in a time before the Sun had emerged . . . instructions about building the temple were given. . . . They had to construct with five candles a stairway or ladder called imomhui by placing a candle in each of the five directions: south, north, west, east, and intersection. This was how the temple construction was ordered. It was a sign or model for the world. Those candles were placed to serve as a support for the sky. They placed them like poles to hold up the sky. That is what the toqui symbolizes. Although we don’t see it, when the singer addresses the ancestors at the beginning of the song, he mentions that this is to hold up the sky, to get where he is going, heading toward Tahueviecame [the Sun Father]. That is the purpose of those candles [forming a ladder] called imomhui.

According to Robert Zingg (2004, 9), Tamatzi Caoyomari made the first ladder, or imomhui, to enable the Sun Father to climb out of the underworld when he was born. Zingg hinted that the steps of this ladder correspond to how high Huichols can climb on life’s journey before “they fall down in death” and perhaps symbolize making the pilgrimage to the Sun Father’s birthplace, to leave offerings for him (1938, 595–96). According to Benítez (1968a, 221–22), this ladder has five steps leading from the lowest place up through the volcanic peak of Paritecüa. He refers to it as a “shamanic ladder” and describes an ancient ceremony wherein the shaman lights five candles that represent the five steps of the ladder as well as the five poles of brazilwood that hold up the sky.

I asked Torres to explain the meaning of the circular shape of the toqui. He replied: “Tahueviecame [the Sun Father] designed it that way. It symbolizes the world. He ordered that it be made round. It amounts to a model of the world.” All available evidence suggests that lighting candles, especially in the toqui, or at the Sun Father’s birthplace, supports the world established by the Sun Father.

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