HUICHOL YARN PAINTING: Colors: blue & teal (background), red, orange, white, black green, yellow, fuchsia, and brick red. Two figures are in the lower corners, one holding a bow and arrow. Two rectangular figures with 4 green protuberances above, are immediately above the heads of the 2 figures. At center is a figure (per description, a peyote) composed of a green trapezoid w/ a round base to which 6 protuberances are attached. Above the figure are 3 yellow roundels, and a band of multicolored yarn. Otilia Pinedo Lopez - artist
Donor:
John Paul
Collection place:
Mexico
Culture or time period:
Wixáritari (Huichol)
Collector:
John Paul
Materials:
Wood (plant material) and Yarn
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Yarn paintings
Function:
5.2 Magic: Objects Associated with Practices reflecting confidence in the ability to manipulate supernatural agencies
Accession date:
February 24, 2011
Department:
Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean area
Dimensions:
weight 30 centimeters and length 30 centimeters
Comment:
(NOTE: Descriptive label in Spanish and English on back of painting.) The hunt for the peyote in Wiritkuta, sacred land of the divine ancestors and the psycho active peyote cactus in the high desert of San Luis Potosi in north central Mexico. Ramon depicts himself on the right firing his arrow at the first peyote, it's body in green above ground its roots, in yellow, below. From the center of the peyote rises stream of color - the soul or life force of the peyote attempting to escape. The manner of self-portrayals is significant: from his head emerge deer horns, the horns of power and his body is skeletonized, showing the ribs, symbolizing shamanic initiation through ritual death and rebirth. Such symbolic skeletonization of the shaman's body is a well-known phenomenon in shamanism. Both men cary gourds for the sacred tabacco, called yá, a mark of the peyote pilgrim. The contrasting colors represent transition from one plane to another, which comes with the successful "slaying" of the first peyote.