Huichol Beaded Folk Art Mask

This is an outstanding true Huichol masks crafted by original folk artists before the turn of the millenium. The origins of this collection are still being documented, and currently the belief is that these pieces were crafted possibly around 1991 when full solar eclipse totality engulfed this part of Mexico. This is the first of the series. We are working on getting the full collection online so please visit back soon.

Huichol art broadly groups the most traditional and most recent innovations in the folk art and handcrafts produced by the Huichol people, who live in the states of Jalisco, Durango, Zacatecas and Nayarit in Mexico.

- Wikipedia

The ethnonym huichol comes from the adaptation to the language Nahuatl from the ethnonym wixarika, due to that in the language wixarika the a can be spoken like o; r and l are allophones, and the pronunciation of x, that was a sibilant, was read as an affricate, tz, between the 17th and 18th centuries (time period in which the word could have been borrowed), but the loss of the syllable -ka resulted in huitzol en náhuatl, and its, wirraricas.

The Wixáricas speak a language of the Wixarikan group that is closely related to the Nahuatl group. Furthermore, they have received Mesoamerican influences, which is reflected by the fact that Wixarika has features typical to the Mesoamerican language area.

Their spirituality traditionally involves collecting and consuming peyote (Lophophora williamsii), a cactus that possesses hallucinogenic effects due to its psychoactive alkaloids, such as mescaline.

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