Gourdvines, fires, and Wixárika territoriality

Liffman, Paul M.

article

Gourdvines, fires, and Wixárika territoriality

Journal of the Southwest • 42 (1) • Published In 2000 • Pages: 129-165

By: Liffman, Paul M..

Abstract
The Huichol claim that ritually-constructed genealogies and social bonds grow along ancestral migration pathways, similar to how gourdvines spread along the surface of the soil. Such ancestral vines are thought to connect the ceremonial fires in the shrines of extended family compounds to a great temple from which the settlements’ founding ancestors first borrowed fire. When a settlement grows and divides like a vine, descendants must borrow and register new fires, with their shrines ultimately becoming temples. This process of growth and attachment to land is ceremonially expressed in an annual cycle of temple rites, and in the retracing of the gourdvine paths of divine descent in pilgrimages to places of creation, especially to the birthplace of the sun, Wirikúta.

Inter-community relations

Prayers and sacrifices