Plant-worship—Hikuli—Internal and External Effects—Hikuli both Man and God—How the Tarahumares Obtain the Plant, and where They Keep It—The Tarahumare Hikuli Feast—Musical Instruments—Hikuli Likes Noise—The Dance—Hikuli’s Departure in the Morning—Other Kinds of Cacti Worshipped—”Doctor” Rubio, the Great Hikuli Expert—The Age of Hikuli Worship.
To the Indian, everything in nature is alive. Plants, like human beings, have souls, otherwise they could not live and grow. Many are supposed to talk and sing and to feel joy and pain. For instance, when in winter the pine-trees are stiff with cold, they weep and pray to the sun to shine and make them warm. When angered or insulted, the plants take their revenge. Those that are supposed to possess curative powers are venerated. This fact, however, does not save them from being cut into pieces and steeped in water, which the people afterward drink or use in washing themselves. The mere fragrance of the lily is supposed to cure sickness and to drive off sorcery. In invoking the lily’s help the shaman utters a prayer like this:
“Sūmatí okilīveá sævá rākó cheeneserová
“Beautiful this morning in bloom lily thou guard me!
waminámela ke usugitúami cheeotshéloaya
drive them away (those who) make sorcery! thou make me grow old!
cheelivéva tesola chapimélava otshéloa
thou give me walking-stick (to) take up (in) old age
rimivélava Matetravá Sevaxóa
(that I may) find! thanks exhale fragrance