Mad Jesus: The Final Testament of a Huichol Messiah from Northwest Mexico

6: Jesus: Santo Cristo

Early the next morning Matsiwa arrived at my little apartment on Calle NuevaYork with Jesús.We settled the terms of the agreement. At first his tale had been pretty much a standard formal Huichol tale that began with the origin of the world, the Mothers and the Fathers of the Huichol, their gods, and all the other peoples of this earth.This was the proper way to begin an important tale.It was the way marriage proposals began, and it was the way the kawiteros, the old men, the Huichol council of elders, asked someone to take an important office in the community.There were variations on themes I had already heard, and Jesús was a fine narrator, but there wasn’t anything really interesting in the first day or so. On the third morning I began to get an inkling into the life of Mad Jesus.I heard a banging on the door and knew it had to be the Huichols. They never used the bell. I got up from my desk.The early morning sun streamed into the apartment, bathing the sofa and the low coffee table that my tape recorder sat on in the clear light. It had stopped raining; fresh air was blowing in through the open courtyard windows.When I opened the door Jesús and his brother stood before me, grinning. “Ke’aku,” I greeted them, and we exchanged greetings in Huichol. The two Huichols strode in and sat down. I went into the kitchen for some beers and cigarettes.As the patrón it was my duty to provide such things, even at nine in the morning. 34 | vi Jesus: Santo Cristo “Give me the beer,” ordered Jesús. Jesús grabbed a bottle and drank it in one gulp. I went back into the kitchen for something to nibble on while we spoke, and when I came back Jesús was already nearly finished with the second beer. Matsiwa took the last one. Jesús took one look at the chips I brought and said, “Tomorrow get something else, some tortillas and a salsa maybe, or some nice refried beans.” “Or some chocolate cookies.They go better with beers,” Matsiwa chimed in.That was Huichol taste, chocolate with a beer for breakfast . Huichols can be very abrupt and demanding.This was something I had learned, but Jesús was different. Even other Huichols seemed to find Jesús “a little strange.” While most Huichols lived in extended family groups even here in the city,he lived alone.He had a little band of followers who produced the artwork he sold, but he didn’t stay with them either. From what Matsiwa had said, he was staying with one of his patrones. He motioned me to turn on the tape recorder. I was using my big reel-to-reel machine to record his tale and transferring it to cassettes for Jesús. Finally he began his tale: “It was after the time that I talked about yesterday when the first Hewi were born,” he began. The Hewi were the ancient ones for the Huichol, not quite gods, but ancestors and revered elders. The Huichol gods all bear kinship terms.They are the Mothers,Fathers,Elder Brothers,Younger Brothers of the Huichol. “They came after the Fathers and the Mothers, the Brothers and the Sisters and the Aunts and Uncles of the Huichol had come forth from Teakata, the navel of the world.They showed us the way to live, as I told you. In the waters at Haramaratsia,in the sea at San Blas,lived the Kuwe Eme,the two great green poisonous Sea Snakes who lay in coils around the sharp white rock.They lay there quietly sleeping, not moving. The Hewi came to that spot. More Hewi were born.The second Hewis were the mother and father of the Coras, our neighbors.The third were the first parents of theTepehuanes, and the fourth were the VI | Jesus: Santo Christo| 35 father and mother of the Mexicans.The fifth was the beginning of the Chinese, the Blacks, the Whites, and the Americans, and all the others that live in the world. One day,however,aVirgin dressed in blue,the color of the sea,came from the south to Lake Chapala where all the Hewi were living together.Her name was Guadalupe.She came to them...