|
Article Excerpt
THE GRAN NAYAR AND THE U.S. SOUTHWEST
Cultural comparisons between the Gran Nayar of west Mexico and the Pueblos of the U.S. Southwest must discover systems of transformation. A satisfactory understanding of this macroregion is served neither by unyielding particularism nor by envisioning a singular, unified Greater Northwest Mesoamerica. In past decades the prevailing view was of a U.S. Southwest independent of the cultures to the south. More recently, and in reverse, the position has been that the Anasazi, Mogollon, and Hohokam of the Southwest are mainly extensions of Mesoamerica (Farmer 2001: 124). Here I argue for an analysis of similarities and differences such that the facts of one group will illuminate those of another, in the spirit of Preuss (1998 [1908]: 267). And as Preuss also said (1911: 404), I believe that no other attempt to define culture areas can succeed.
There is no doubt that the indigenous groups of the Sierra Madre Occidental and the northwest of Mexico (also called the central Uto-Nahuas) form a cultural bridge between Mesoamerica and the U.S. Southwest (Seler 1894; Kelley 1966: 99). All of these groups, from the Huichols and Tepecanos of northern Jalisco to the Tohono O'odham of southern Arizona, cultivate corn and share a settlement pattern of dispersed rancherias in adaptation to the mountains and deserts of the region. Their forms of social and ritual organization correspond as well (Hinton 1983; Coyle 1999). Therefore, there is merit in Hinton's proposal to consider this as one regional culture. The Gran Nayar, (1) on the other hand, just to the south of this region, has important relationships to Mesoamerica. Nonetheless, according to Parsons (1939: 1008), the Coras and Huichols of the Nayar are more like the Pueblos than are the other Uto-Nahuas. (2) This idea has not recently been pursued in studies of the Gran Nayar and the U.S. Southwest.
The Pueblos combine linguistic diversity (contrary to the Uto-Nahuas) with notable cultural unity. The unity is materially based on the raising of corn in rather precarious circumstances, but it extends to a characteristic form of settlement (multi-floor residences grouped in restricted spaces) and to many aspects of religion; for example, the cult of the kachinas (Hopi katsinam; see Parsons 1939 and Eggan 1979 on these defining qualities). The language of the Hopi, who live in various villages distributed on three mesas (see fig. 1), belongs to the northern division of the Uto-Nahua languages; the Tewa, Tiwa, and Towa languages, spoken in various pueblos of the Rio Grande Valley, belong to the distinct Kiowa-Tanoan language family, considered to be remotely related to the Uto-Nahua languages; and the languages of the Zuni and of the Keresan pueblos are independent of those and from each other. Finally, in social organization there is a contrast between Western Pueblos (Hopi and Zuni), where matrilineal kinship prevails and the Eastern Pueblos of the Rio Grande Valley, where the societies are divided into moieties (dual divisions).
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Advances in three anthropological disciplines aid the study of our regions. First, contemporary archaeology has established various relations between prehispanic Mesoamerica and the U.S. Southwest. Copper bells, turquoise stones, shells, parrot remains, and other objects indicate routes of commerce between both regions. Many archaeologists propose that sites such as Casas Grandes, Alta Vista, and La Quemada, located to the east of the Sierra Madre Occidental, owe their existence partly to the long-distance trade in those objects (Kelley 1966: 99; Braniff 2001: 237; Weigand and Garcia 2001: 184). The archaeological studies show that regional interaction was greatest during the epiclassic period (Jimenez Betts and Darling 2000: 178).
On the other hand, the linguist Jane Hill (2001) argues that the expansion of the early Uto-Nahua languages was tied to the diffusion of corn farming northward from central Mexico. This hypothesis supplies new elements for the Uto-Nahua protoculture (Hill 1992) whose original homogeneity would be reinforced by the later trade activities.
In studies of social organization, some important scholars of Southwest ethnology are critical of the structural-functionalist paradigm. In particular, Whiteley (1985, 1986, 1998) disputes the idea that matrilineal clans are the key to Hopi and Zuni social structures. To the extent that Whiteley is correct, these societies may prove structurally less remote from the bilateral societies of Mesoamerica and the northwest of Mexico.
To make a systematic comparison between the Gran Nayar (see fig. 2) and the Pueblos I highlight relations between ceremonial architecture and origin myths (the passage of the ancestors from the underworld), and rites of initiation. For reasons of space, I concentrate on the Huichols and the Hopis. In both societies the interaction between genealogical kinship and communal organization is crucial to the traditional organization of authority and to the cycle of the annual agricultural ceremonies. Beyond certain similarities in these aspects, however, there are important differences. The crucial difference is not, as has been thought before, the contrast between matrilineal clans among the Hopis and bilateral kinship in the Nayar. Rather, the differences are in the importance of certain objects that are considered to be inherited from ancestral gods versus the importance of visionary experiences in the ritual maintenance or reproduction of the cosmos.
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
THE TUKIPA AND THE KIVAS
The Huichol tukipa, or callihuey (great house), is an institution sui generis (see fig. 3). The architecture and organization of these ceremonial centers has only recently come under careful study. (3) There are two architectural types of tukipa. Both are elaborations on the patio (ceremonial ground) of the mitote (outdoor religious ceremony) that is found among the Cora, Mexicanero, and Southern Tepehuan neighbors of the Huichols. Among the Huichols of Tateike, one generally finds the main temple (tuki) with a single, small, rectangular god house (xiriki, pl. xirikite). The tukipas of the eastern Huichol communities (Tuapurie and Waut+a) show a great complexity: various xirikite and a grand temple (tuki) grouped around the patio ground.
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
In the tukipas of Keuruwit+a and Xawiepa, two of the more eastern villages, one finds in effect authentic Mesoamerican pyramids still in use: xirikis dedicated to the sun, Tayau (Our-Father), and to peyote, Tamatsi Parietsika (Our-Elder-Brother of Dawn). These are small sanctuaries constructed on pyramidal bases about two meters high. Access to the sanctuaries is by means of steep steps. While the pyramid bases are considered to be replicas of the Hill of Dawn (Paritek+a), located at the extreme cast of the Huichol world, the steps represent the path by which the sun rises in its travel from the underworld to the zenith (see Preuss 1908b: 592). In accord with the cosmic locations, these two god houses are placed at the extreme east of the central dance ground. This large ceremonial plaza always represents the desert of Wirikuta (see below), actually the eastern extreme of the Huichol-conceived earth.
The great tuki temple is placed at the western extremity of this space. In contrast to the rectangular xiriki sanctuaries, the tuki is an oval-shaped, semi-subterranean structure. It represents the "dark" and "most ancient" parts of the universe: the nighttime sky, the underworld, the west, and the ocean and coast to the west of the Huichols. But its roof, supported by four posts, represents the sky and the (eastern) desert.
Concerning the archaeological antecedents of this second, complex type of Huichol construction, the closest resemblance is not in prehispanic Mesoamerican architecture but in the kivas, that is, the subterranean ceremonial places of the ancient Anasazi and present Pueblo peoples. Both the tuki and the kiva are subterranean or semi-subterranean constructions that are identified with the underworld from which the ancestors emerged (e.g., Ortiz 1969: 37). The archaeological kivas are always round, like the tukis (see fig. 4). The historic kivas tend to be rectangular (see fig. 5). On the other hand, the tepali, the ritual hole covered by a stone disc at the center of the tuki, is a variant of the sipapu (Hopi sipaapuni), the mythical place of emergence of the Pueblo peoples, which is architecturally represented as a hole in the center of the kiva (e.g., Kelley 1966: 98, 1974: 27; Furst 1975).
[FIGURES 4-5 OMITTED]
In myth and cosmovision one finds endless Nayar-to-Pueblo correspondences. In this regard it is useful to return to Preuss, who in 1905 compared the figure of the plumed serpent as rendered among the ancient Mexicans, Huichols, Hopis, Zunis, and other North American groups. Elsewhere (1929, 1930) he analyzed the cults of corn and vegetation gods among Totonacs, Mexicas, Huichols, Coras, Hopis, and Mandans, all cultivators of corn. More recent authors, such as Polly Schaafsma, Jane Young, and Karl Taube, have compared Mesoamerica and the Southwest in terms of corn gods (Taube 2000), rain (Schaafsma 1999, 2001), wind (Taube 2001), and polytheism (Young 1994).
Although those authors generally do not include the Nayar peoples in their comparisons, it is clear that these peoples subscribe to the same system of ideas. The sacred bundles of corn, whose importance was traced by Taube from the Olmecs to the Zuni, exist among the Coras (Coyle 2001; Valdovinos 2002) and Huichols. The latter call them niwetsika; they represent both corn gods and the members of descent groups (Neurath 2002).
Schaafsma (1999) showed how the basis of the Pueblo kachina cult is the transformation of the dead into rain gods, an idea that she suggests originated in Mesoamerica. Masked kachina dancers exist in practically all Pueblo villages (Eggan 1950: 91). Each such dancer represents a mythological person, and collectively they represent the community of rain and cloud deities (Fewkes 1903). (4)
Among the Coras this complex is also clear (Coyle 1998, 2001). The magpie dancers, or magpie people (be'eme), of the Coras represent a group of rain gods guided by the Morning Star or Evening Star (Ramirez 2003); the horsemen of Santiago that appear at some Cora feasts represent deceased ancestors transformed into rain (Coyle 1998: 531).
Among the Huichols there is also the cult of five serpents (Nia'ariwamete), rain goddesses of the cosmic directions and the center, whose brother is the wind god Tamatsi Eaka Teiwari (Our-Older-Brother Neighbor Wind). Here the most obvious connections are with the Hopi cult to Paaloloqangw, a water serpent that causes storms (Preuss 1905: 372, 1930: 64; Taube 2001:117), and with the Zuni colored and directional horned serpents called Kolowisi (Bunzel 1932:515; Tedlock 1979: 499). Unlike Schaafsma, who emphasizes the similarities, Malotki (2002: 5-7) stresses the differences between the Mesoamerican feathered serpent and the horned water serpents of the Hopi and other Pueblo peoples. Although he doesn't doubt historical relations within this "family of snake-gods," he notes the "dark," that is, the destructive side of the Hopi god. Among the Huichols it is mainly the Goddess of the Western Rain (Tatei Kiewimuka) who sometimes has a destructive character, because of the hurricanes of the Pacific (Neurath 2004). The eastern Naia'ariwame is related to gentle rains. She appears in the fiesta of Hikuli Neixa as a group of dancers collectively representing a serpent feathered with clouds (haiku) arriving from the eastern sacred land of Wirikuta (Neurath 2002: 252). The same dancers also represent all kinds of sacred animals and deified non-genealogical ancestors, so that they can be said to combine traits of the cults of the kachinas and the rain snakes.
As in the Gran Nayar, the Pueblo religions tend to equate initiated persons with ancestral gods (e.g., Ortiz 1969, for the Tewa Pueblos). In both regions the gods are those who walked the earth before it was solid and dry--when the earth was still "green" (p. 16) and unfinished. Consequently these Tewa gods are called "Dry Food Who Never Did Become," and the initiated persons are "Dry Food Who Are No Longer." Among the Zunis those gods are called "raw people," as distinct from "cooked," or "daylight," people, who are the common humans (Bunzel 1932: 483,488; Tedlock 1979: 499). Now, in the Gran Nayar as in the Southwest, the analysis of divinities cannot be separated from their divine representations in ritual. Thus, although it is not difficult to find correspondences between the ceremonial groups of both regions, the expectation of transformational analysis is that it is unnecessary to seek complete equivalence between each item or group in question.
The Huichol xukuri'+kate (gourd bearers, or "holders of the sacred gourd bowls") represent different gods and serve in different tukipa temples, which are the bearers' places of worship and temporary residences. Each of these carries a sacred gourd that corresponds to a god, and during the appointed time of service the gourd bearer uses the name of the god as his proper name. Living in the ceremonial center mainly during fiestas, ceremonies, and pilgrimages, the gourd bearers are the ancient inhabitants of the tukipa, the deified ancestors of the community. During the fiesta of Hikuli Neixa the gourd bearers collectively personify ancestors transformed into the Easter Rain Snake, who comes to visit humans during the farming season.
The xumuabikari of the Cora Holy Week personify fertility demons that emerge from the underworld (Jauregui and Neurath, forthcoming). In their comic and sexual transgressions they compare with the koyemshi clowns of the Zuni (Preuss 1904: 131, 1930: 60; Bunzel 1932: 521); (5) in their flutes and association with heat they compare with the Hopi len (flute) society (Titiev 1944: 149; Malotki 2000: 24); and in their explicit sexual action, intended for fertility, they compare with the kookopolo and mastop kachinas of the Hopi, as well as the taw society (Malotki 2000: 34-35; Titiev 1944: 111, 132, 138).
Space does not permit me to dwell on all of the similarities of ritual among the Pueblos, Coras, and Huichols, but...
|
