In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

“When I went with my mother to the Magic Peyoteland the very first time it was very different. I was very small, no more than six or seven. Is that not so Matsiwa?”Jesús was trying to answer my question,but did not want to deal with the matter of age. Huichols find very little value in chronological age. One is a child, a youth, a man, or an old man. “My mother did not want to go to Wilikuta. She was sick, she was afraid, but her sister and her father, my grandfather José, insisted. Everyone said that she should join them to find her life.Then she would be well,they all said.But she knew that father would be mad if she went with the pilgrims to the Magic Peyoteland. Isn’t that so, Matsiwa? Am I telling the truth?” Jesús asked, looking over at his brother. Matsiwa looked up,“You are saying the truth. I was not there. I was with father. I had arrived at the ranch just before father left for Guadalajara again, but he was mad. . . .” Chucho continued, “Everyone gathered in the Kaliwey after we returned from Teakata. Everyone was ready to depart. We all left with mother. Mother was not well. She was coughing and she was weak,but everyone said she would find her life inWilikuta. She had to eat peyote, plenty of it. Peyote is the only medicine we use, and it can cure anything,” Jesús said with an assuring nod. “Grandfather did not accompany us beyond the Gate of the Mountains. He was not going along, but he would speak to us all the| 77 xiv The Journey to Madness way through the deserts to Wilikuta. Every time we stopped he would come and tell us things on the path and at night in dreams. He warned us there was a witch about and told me especially to take care of mother. I saw him there in my dreams. He spoke to me there on the way when we stopped for the night. Grandfather said he would care for me. . . . We were walking, and mother could not keep up.We arrived at the Ocote Place and burned sticks of ocote for Tatewali. She kept falling behind, and all the people had to wait for her because we were not allowed to get out of order. Every time we stopped, her sister went for her and helped her. She prodded her to keep up. I could do nothing. I was too young. I stayed at the front of the line with Shiraulime. Finally we arrived at the Gate of the Clouds where we must all be purified. Shiraulime gave each one of us a cord, and we were to make as many knots as people we had been with.The children tied no knots, but some of the old men had to tie knots for every five,or ten,or twenty they had known.Mother tried to remember them all,but I am sure she did not. She was coughing, and I was afraid that she would not pass the Gate of the Clouds. She was very ill. We were all blindfolded and told how to pass the Gate.All of those who have never been to Wilikuta before are blindfolded. Shiraulime sang for us and helped us through the gate.We stayed there at the Gate to the Clouds all day the next day because mother could not go on.We had passed the most dangerous part of the journey. She rested, but everyone said that she would be cured if she got to the place where children were bathed, the place where the kupuli, the soul, is made whole. First we had to pass to where the Corn Mothers were.They would feed mother there and would give her sustenance and strength to go on to the place where her soul would be made whole again. She fell way behind everyone when we got to Hawuletameima, the carrier rocks beyond Zacatecas.They all had to go in the same order as the first ones who went there. I was in the front, and I could not see mother.She was very weak,and they had talked about carrying her past the rocks.” Chucho’s voice changed;he was almost crying.These were not ritual tears as he had shed for Santo Cristo.His voice was choked and uneven. XIV | The Journey to Madness 78...

Share