The Ceremonial Centers

As a people firmly anchored in its mythical past, the Wixaritari belong to the select and dwindling group of peoples that have survived human history. This fact alone qualifies their society as utterly sustainable. A qualification in high demand in our XXIth century where, under the aegis of the United Nations, the entire planet is invited to identify sustainable development goals as the means to help build nations that can withstand crisis and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. One would expect special interest for the few remaining sustainable societies from a global community ensnared in non-renewable and un-sustainable development models.

Unfortunately for the Wixárika people, the opposite is true. The world's interests, it appears, do not concern Huichol contribution to sustainability but rather the raw materials in its territories, untapped precisely because of the sustainable relationship of this indigenous people with the earth. Although temporarily halted in the courts, the scheduled mining extraction in the sacred Wixárika land of Wirikuta in the state of San Luis Potosi, where the sun rises and their gods dwell, will destroy Huichol culture. Founded on the perpetual renewal of the cosmos through the good stewardship of man, in a constant consultation with the gods and forebears, facilitated by their communion through the peyote sacrament, the Wixárika society has been notified by the global community of the planned erasing of their peyote fields, irrespective of the fatal consequences for their survival. Throughout their mythological existence the Wixárika people have paid a high price to sustain the viability of their community, a price too high for those who turn the globe into a wasteland while acclaiming sustainability.