HUICHOL INFORMATION
The Huichol (Wirrárica) are one of the few indigenous groups in Mexico to have maintained an active practice of Mesoamerican textile weaving, thatch and wood braiding traditions. With beaded artwork, these traditions are a living part of daily life. The Huichol are a semi-nomadic culture, traveling (often on foot) 400 miles on annual pilgrimages to the Pacific, the Sierra Oriental, and to Sierra farm lands in the wet and dry seasons. In the last three decades, the arrivals of airstrips and roadways have threatened Huichol ways of life and the natural resources of their lands. Many Huichol men (and families) must now travel to find work as day laborers in the tobacco fields in Nayarit, where they are exposed to toxic pesticides. Work migrations impact Huichol women and their children in the Sierra. As household heads, women must often tend ranchos alone and provide for children and elders.
The grid infrastructure for centralized electricity is too costly to construct in the rugged, mountainous terrain of the Sierra Madre. To access electricity and electric light, for education or employment, the Huichol must leave the Sierra lands they own, on which their culture is centered, and relocate to settle in fixed townships outside the Sierra. With almost no preparation for participation in the industrialized economy, Huichol cultural autonomy, social infrastructure and community self-sufficiency -- particularly among Huichol women and their families-- have been severely threatened by extreme poverty and lack of opportunities for education and household economic development.
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Words from Miquel Carillo, Huichol Community Leader, Santa Catarina
The original speech was presented in Huichol and Spanish, translated to English by Susana Valadez of the Huichol Center.
“I am grateful that you all came to the Huichol village. You people are getting the idea that it is really hard for us here. We don't have light. We can only work during the day. Because now, as you see, we can't see anything and it's still so early. Nobody can do anything. We just wait for the sun to come up again.
The government lighting system is really expensive. It cost a lot to bring the grid out here. We can't get electricity because they think it's too far anyway. In conclusion, the government system doesn't do anything for us. Having the light brings a lot of good. The standard light, electricity, brings a lot of good, but it also brings much bad. We wanted to be isolated and alone and we never wanted to have roads like we have now. A lot of times, the government puts in whatever they want. You might have seen as you came here on the road, there are lots of lumber trucks taking out our pine trees. That's why the government has built roads -- to take things out. They steal everything they can from us. The elders and the counsel members accept electrification so that we can take advantage ourselves of our own land without outside influences, but that is impossible. Consider what just happened in one of our own local communities or other [Huichol] communities. They’ve already put in the electrical grid and roads and it's all real different now. We haven't ever accepted it here though, but they've been pressuring us to put light electricity here but we haven't accepted. So that is why we’ve been searching for alternatives like the solar power in Nuevo Colonia.. Now, we’ve seen a real small scale of light but your visit here is extremely significant because it could grow into something much bigger.
I wish you the best of luck to make it a bigger project so that it really can meet the needs of the people, so we can conserve the integrity of our lifestyle and not be pressured by the government to accept things that we don't want to have. This can be a huge step forward for us. Thank you all again for coming.
We've never seen things like this kind before. But if you go to [Huichol] community meetings it’s very different and real hard for you [foreigners] to do. You always get the renegade people who are really negative when you try and present it to the whole community. The approach would be to really get a good prototype and little by little have something really important to show. Not just a single experiment, but have something real viable to show the Huichol people. It’s good that you're working on a small scale now, there's lots of places here you can try it out on a small scale. Little by little you would introduce the light, making the prototypes better and better and really make a difference.
Thanks so much for coming. We really hoped you like coming here.”
As translated from Spanish to English.