The New Huichols: contemporary Peyoteros

Abstract

This paper documents some of the ways in which various nonindigenous subjects assimilate to the magical-religious practices of the wixárika tradition, especially those related to the consumption of peyote. The methodology used to discover these ways is ethnography, which followed longitudinally for more than a year various subjects and groups in their affiliations with peyote through “el costumbre”. The text explains the concept of new Huichols, a phenomenon based on peyote-centrism and ritualism. It tells how the wixárika tradition opened up to the rest of the world, where the term “new Huichols” comes from, and the experiences of some mestizo mara’akate as contemporary shamans. In the end, it is proposed as a conclusion that the common denominator of the new Huichols is syncretism.