The Kiekari, the sacred Huichol ceremonial territory that extends around its center in Te’akata in the middle of the Wixárika heartland in Mexico’s western Sierra Madre, from the Pacific Ocean to the eastern highlands and includes parts of the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Durango, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi. The Kiekari is a vast expanse of 35,000 square miles, the Huichol heartland is much smaller, some 1,500 square miles.
The Kiekari is said to be the product of ‘ceremonial-based placemaking’ ¹: it is defined by the five most sacred places of Huichol mythology, the cardinal points, that mark beginning, middle and end of the main pilgrimages, re-enactments of the foundational treks of the gods. They equally mark the confines and center of the Wixárika cosmos which they are believed to uphold.

The foundational Huichol mythology exists of two ‘kawitu’ or groups of myths that define the Kiekari. The first kawitu alludes to the origin of the world, in the sea of Nayarit. They talk about the original trek the gods made, from Haramara to the Wirikuta desert, from the place of darkness to the place of sunrise, from west to east. On this journey, the gods stopped in the Huichol mountains in the sacred cave of Te'akata, then continued on their way to the land of the peyote. On this long itinerary of 500kms there were gods who did not reach their destination; they stayed on the road in the form of sacred hills, stones and springs and ever since inhabit the landscape.
The second group of myths speak of a trip by canoe from north to south, from Hauxamanaka to Xapawiyemeta. They allude to the deluge that flooded the world in primitive time, to the first cultivation of corn and to the origin of the Huichols from a first farmer named Watakame and a black dog, who became his wife.

The Huichols´ cosmovision is founded on a spatially disperse sacred landscape marked by each of its 5 cardinal points. This Kiekari landscape expands through five different states of the Mexican territory by linking the dispersed cardinal points through pilgrimages.
Haramara at San Blas on Isla del Rey – King’s Island- in the coastal state of Nayarit, signals the western end of their world and the dwelling of sea goddess and queen of the five differently colored corn cobs, Tatei Haramara.
Hauxa Manaka at Cerro Gordo – Fat Hill - in the state of Durango, represents the northern most point where the canoe of the goddess Nakawé, mother of all gods, finally rested and where the wind and the royal eagle, her messengers, were born.
Xapawiyeme at Isla de los Alacranes – Scorpion Island - in the Lake of Chapala in the state of Jalisco that indicates the southern tip where Watákame, a farmer, first touched ground after the universal flood.
Wirikuta, in the Chihuahuan Desert of the state of San Luis Potosi, is at the eastern end of the Huichol “cosmological geography” and was the final destination of the ancestors and deities in the pilgrimage they undertook to witness the birth of the sun.  Wirikuta is also the scenario where the first hunt of the deer took place: it was from the deer’s foot prints that the peyote, the sacred cactus, was born. 
Finally there is the center of the Huichol universe, Teekata, in the Huichol community of Santa Catarina Cuexcotatmitlan, where the revered sacred fire of grandfather Tatewari is kept.²

In these 5 sacred places the Huichol gods reside and they will remain there for as long as they can be worshipped. Thus, the Huichols undertake regular pilgrimages to these spots, to celebrate and revere their gods in elaborate ceremonies and keep them alive and the cosmos from imploding. Therefore, success in the struggle for access to the very land that the mestizo society and the Mexican state wish to use for competing interests is the basis for survival of Huichol ceremonial. As we report on the pages of the different sacred places mentioned above, the external attacks on the Kiekari are a permanent threat to its safeguarding.

¹ Liffman, Paul, ‘Huichol Territory and the Mexican Nation – Indigenous Ritual, Land Conflict, and Sovereignty Claims’, The University of Arizona Press, 2014.

2. Otegui-Acha, Mercedes, Developing and Testing a Methodology and Tools for the Inventorying of Sacred Natural Sites of Indigenous and Traditional Peoples in Mexico, 2007