The ceremonial artifacts that Lumholtz was able to collect in 1890 were the first of their kind. Today those ceremonial artifacts remain virtually unchanged and form the roots from which the contemporary art has evolved. Today the art is very much alive, and is ever changing, but for the Huichol that still live in the Sierra, the symbols and their meanings have not; they come from a Pre-Columbian belief system that survived the conquest and is very much alive today:
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"All sacred things are symbols to primitive man, and the Huichols seem literally to have no end of them. Religion is to them a personal matter, not an institution, and therefore their life is religious-from the cradle to the grave wrapped up in symbolism." |
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Lumholtz, 1901 |
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