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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <a
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href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/05/travel/mexico-peyote-pilgrimage.html">nytimes.com</a>
<h1 class="reader-title">Inside a Peyote Pilgrimage</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Matt Reichel, Robyn Huang</div>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">6-8 minutes</div>
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<div><source media="(max-width: 599px) and
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and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:
1),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution:
1dppx),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution:
96dpi)"><img alt="The Chihuahuan Desert in the
Mexican state of San Luis Potosí. The
Wixáritari, an Indigenous group, return here
every year to collect peyote."
src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/05/travel/05travel-mexico1/merlin_188868666_f9e654b8-2046-4492-9e36-9ef32f24ea89-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"
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<div>
<p>The World Through a Lens</p>
<p>Drug tourists, mining companies and farming
encroachment are threatening the Wixárika people’s
annual hunt for the psychedelic plant in the
Mexican desert.</p>
</div>
</header>
<p><span>The Chihuahuan Desert in the Mexican state of
San Luis Potosí. The Wixáritari, an Indigenous
group, return here every year to collect peyote.</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span><span></span></span></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<p><span itemprop="name">Matt Reichel</span></p>
<p><span>Text by </span><span itemprop="name">Robyn
Huang</span></p>
</div>
<ul>
<li><time datetime="2021-07-07T12:10:45-04:00"><span>Published
July 5, 2021</span><span>Updated July 7, 2021</span></time></li>
</ul>
</div>
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<section name="articleBody">
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<p>Mario Bautista was digging relentlessly at the
ground. Deep in the vast and unforgiving Chihuahuan
Desert, in northeastern Mexico, he had spent nearly
eight hours wading through a seemingly endless patch
of thorny brush. Surrounding him were 25 members of
his community, including his wife and children.</p>
<p>Everyone in the group was searching for one thing:
the psychedelic plant known as peyote, or hikuri — a
small, squishy cactus camouflaged underneath the
shrubbery.</p>
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<p><span>Image</span></p>
<source media="(max-width: 599px) and
(min-device-pixel-ratio: 3),(max-width: 599px)
and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:
3),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution:
3dppx),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution:
288dpi)"><source media="(max-width: 599px) and
(min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(max-width: 599px)
and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:
2),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution:
2dppx),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution:
192dpi)"><source media="(max-width: 599px) and
(min-device-pixel-ratio: 1),(max-width: 599px)
and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:
1),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution:
1dppx),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution:
96dpi)"><img alt="K’kame, at left, an elder
among the Wixárika, takes part in a ritual in
central San Luis Potosí, near a naturally
bubbling spring. Here, the pilgrims use brushes
and candles to collectively baptize one
another."
src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/05/travel/05travel-mexico2/merlin_188868153_08018040-2400-4bb0-93ca-bcaf27861dd3-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"
width="600" height="400"></div>
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<p>Mario and those alongside him are members of the
Mexican Huichol, or Wixárika, people, and hikuri is
their lifeline. Whatever they found would be brought
back to their village for use in their daily
religious rituals.</p>
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<div>
<p>Spread across the rugged Sierra Madre Occidental
range, the Wixárika are an Indigenous people with an
estimated population of 45,000. Within their
culture, peyote is far more than just a
hallucinogenic cactus. The Wixárika believe that the
plant allows them to connect with their ancestors
and regenerates their souls.</p>
<p>Every year, Wixárika communities make a
several-hundred-mile pilgrimage to a sacred place
called Wirikuta, near the northeastern city of
Matehuala. Groups travel — these days by car, trucks
and buses — under the direction of a leading shaman,
or maraka’ame.</p>
<p>Under Mexican law, only Indigenous groups are
authorized to harvest and ingest peyote. But in part
because of its <a
href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/bn5k3m/i-dug-up-peyote-in-the-mexican-desert-456"
title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">increasing
popularity as a recreational drug</a>, the plant
has become harder to find. If their holy lands
continue to be threatened — <a
href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/bn5k3m/i-dug-up-peyote-in-the-mexican-desert-456"
title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">by
drug tourists</a>, <a
href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgz55a/inside-a-massive-peyote-ceremony-during-mexicos-covid-lockdown"
title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mining
companies</a> and <a
href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14064806"
title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">farming
encroachment</a> — then a core aspect of the
Wixárika’s identity will be in danger.</p>
</div>
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<p>This past March, the photographer Matt Reichel and
I were invited to join Mario and his family on their
pilgrimage — as guests of his community, and to
learn about and document their traditions.</p>
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<div>
<p>Pilgrims are divided into groups based on their
ancestral family lands, and each group can only
access a particular area within Wirikuta. They must
also receive an initial blessing in their homeland
before setting out on the journey; for Mario’s
family, the blessing took place in Rancho La
Tristeza, near the village of La Cebolleta, in the
Mexican state of Nayarit.</p>
<p>The next day, the group embarked on the pilgrimage
adorned in their traditional dress. The women wore
vibrant colored, hand-sewn dresses. Scarves
protected their hair from the sun.</p>
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<div>
<p>The men wore white shirts and pants, with
embroidered depictions of deer, peyote and other
symbols. They also wore wide-brimmed hats with
plumed feathers. One particular man, K’kame, the
guardian of the community’s ancestral pavilion, was
a visual splendor: His hat held more plumed feathers
than those of other pilgrims, and he was chaotically
energetic during all the rituals.</p>
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<div>
<p>On the first night, the group settled into a sacred
site off the side of a highway. The evening’s first
ritual was a name-changing ceremony: The desert
became the ocean; peyote became chayote squash. Name
changing helps the pilgrims envision entering a new
world.</p>
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<div>
<p>The pilgrims also underwent a public confession
around midnight, during which each person listed all
their past and present sexual relationships. The
names were then publicly read around the bonfire;
the intention was to let go of the past.</p>
<p>Each of the relationships was tied as a knot on
individual palm branches. The branches were then
burned in the fire.</p>
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<p>Throughout the trek, pilgrims made offerings at
sacred sites — areas where their ancestors had found
water during previous pilgrimages. Water was key to
the offerings; pilgrims used feathers and candles to
sprinkle water over the offerings, which included
corn tortillas and coins.</p>
<p>Families congregated by the watering hole, where
they chanted, sang and blessed one another. A
fiddler played a joyful tune in the background.</p>
<p>After traveling overland for a week, we finally
reached our area, known as Bernalejos.</p>
<p>“It is the largest church in the world,” Mario
proclaimed as we stepped into the desert.</p>
<p>The families rested for a while, but there was no
time to sleep. Instead, the pilgrims stayed up to
sing and dance for a good harvest.</p>
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<div>
<p>The morning of the harvest, families painted their
faces with single yellow dots on both cheeks.
Mariana, Mario’s wife, explained that the paintings
symbolized the sun.</p>
<p>In a beautiful formation, the community marched
into the morning sunlight with machetes and baskets.
Everyone stayed together at first, but gradually the
families spread apart.</p>
<p>The harvest took hours and became increasingly
difficult as the sun grew less forgiving. The
largest peyote patches sat beneath shrubs covered in
thorns; reaching them was treacherous, particularly
in the heat of the day, when the colors seemed to
blend together.</p>
<p>Still, the hunt continued. Mario explained that
they were collecting peyote not only for themselves,
but also for family members who could not make the
journey. During the forage, each family had gathered
up to 150 crowns, after which the plants were dried
and blessed.</p>
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<div>
<p>Around sunset, we walked up a hill to make one
final offering. Mario asked us to hold out our
hands. He tapped our faces, and we ingested small
pieces of the peyote. The plant was incredibly
bitter. The families only ate a little, about the
amount for a microdose, which was meant to
facilitate calm reflection. That night, the group
collapsed into a peaceful sleep, as if a spell had
been cast over our camp.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p>Well rested from the night before, we all
collectively packed-up camp to leave the next day.
As he took a look at the pile of his family’s crowns
on the ground next to the smoldering embers of the
campfire, Mario smiled at us. “We have been given a
sacred gift from Mother Earth,” he said, “and now we
have to return it home.”</p>
<p><a href="https://mattreichel.com/" title=""
rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Matt
Reichel</em></a><em> is a Canadian photographer
currently based in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. You can follow his work on </em><a
href="https://www.instagram.com/matthew.reichel/"
title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Instagram</em></a><em>
and </em><a
href="https://twitter.com/MattCReichel" title=""
rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.robynhuang.com/" title=""
rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Robyn
Huang</em></a><em> is a Canadian writer and
photographer based in Guadalajara, Mexico. You can
follow her work on </em><a
href="https://www.instagram.com/ror0roror0ro/"
title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Instagram</em></a><em>
and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/huangrobyn"
title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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