I drank only a small cupful, but felt the effect in a few minutes. First it made me wide awake, and acted as an excitant to the nerves, similar to coffee, but much more powerful. This sensation lasted for about ten minutes, when it was followed by a depression and a chill such as I have never experienced before. To get warm I almost threw myself into the fire, but not until morning was the feeling of cold conquered. Some Tarahumares told me that they are similarly affected, and for this reason they do not take it. When I told the shaman about the effect hikuli had on me, he asked whether I had rasped on the notched stick, because, he said, hikuli does not give chills to people who rasp. In other words, according to him, the effect might be warded off by physical exercise.
A shaman who agreed to sell me some hikuli took me with him to his house. Then he walked over to a store-house of pine boards, and with a long stick undid the lock from within, taking off a few boards from the roof to get at it. After some searching, he produced a small closed basket. Holding this in his hand, he rapidly ran around me in one ceremonious circuit, and said in a scarcely audible voice: “Thank you for the time you have been with me; now go with him; I will give you food before you go.” The smoke of copal was blown over the plants in the basket, that they might eat; and I had to smell of the incense, so that hikuli might find pleasure in being with me. The shaman then opened the basket and asked me to select what I wanted. I picked out twelve plants, but, as he asked $10 for them, I contented myself with three.
Shaman Rubio and His Company at a Hikuli Feast. Photographed after a Night’s Singing and Dancing. Rubio is Seen to the Right.
On my way back to civilisation, I spent some time at Guajochic, near which place the great hikuli expert, Shaman Rubio, lives. He is a truly pious man, well-meaning and kind-hearted, living up to his principles, in which Christianity and Paganism are harmoniously blended. He is highly esteemed by all his countrymen, who consider him the greatest hikuli shaman in that part of the Tarahumare country. His profession brings him a very comfortable living, as his services are constantly in demand, and are paid for by fine pieces of the animals sacrificed. For curing the people he even gets money; and what with praying and singing, drinking tesvino and hikuli, fasting and curing the sick, he passes his days in the happy conviction that he keeps the world going. From him I obtained specimens of the various kinds of cacti which the Tarahumares worship,—a betrayal of the secrets of the tribe, for which the other shamans punished him by forbidding him ever to go again on a hikuli journey. Though in the first year he obeyed the sentence, he did not take it much to heart, feeling himself far superior to his judges, who, he knew, could not get along without him, and in the end would have to come to him; for he is the most virtuous of them all, and therefore knows the commands of Tata Dios better than anyone else.
It is to him that I owe a good deal of what I know about this plant-worship, as well as several songs used in the cult. He came often to see me, and one day told me in confidence that the hikuli in my possession would have to be fed before they started on their long journey to the United States; for it was a long time since they had had food, and they were getting angry. The next time he came he brought some copal tied up in a cotton cloth, and after heating the incense on a piece of crockery he waved the smoke over the plants, which he had placed in front of him. This, he said, would satisfy them; they would now go content with me, and no harm would come to me from sorcerers, robbers, or Apaches. This was a comfort, for to reach Chihuahua I had to pass through some disturbed country, and there were rumours of a revolution.
It seems that at present only the districts around Nararachic and Baqueachic get hikuli from its native country, and that all the others procure it from these two. Until recently the people of Guachochic also went to fetch plants, and a few may yet undertake the journey. One old man showed me some hikuli which he had gathered thirty-five years ago. At Nararachic they use hikuli all the year round, that is, as long as they have corn, because “hikuli wants tesvino.” The people in the barrancas are too timid to go on the expeditions, and they buy the plants at the price of a sheep apiece. The purchaser holds a feast, not only when he brings the demi-god to his home, but also a year after the event. In the eastern section of the country, and in the foothills around Rio Fuerte, hikuli is not used at all. It is very rarely planted by the Tarahumares; the only instance I saw of it was in Tierras Verdes.
A significant light is thrown on the antiquity of the cult, as well as on the age of the tribe itself, by a certain variation in the ceremonial which I observed in the southwestern part of the Tarahumare country. There it is the custom of the shaman to draw underneath his resonator-gourd a mystical human figure in the sand, and to place the hikuli in its centre. Regarding this mystical figure, my lamented friend, Frank Hamilton Cushing, informed me that similar or almost identical drawings are found depicted on the lava rocks of Arizona. In a letter dated October 30, 1893, he said:
The figure you sketch for me is closely allied, for example, to very ancient ritualistic petrographs in the lava regions of Arizona. You will see this at a glance by the figure of one of those petrographs, which I reproduce in juxtaposition with yours:
Others which I have recorded are even more strikingly similar. I have always supposed that these figures were designed for “medicine” ceremonials, but thought of them rather as pertaining to the medicines of the elements, wind, rain, water, etc., used in connection with sacrifices (with which ceremonial rites were terminated) than as connected with actual medicinal ceremonials. I was led to this belief by finding in connection with some of them little cup-shaped concavities pecked into the angles of the figures (as a, a, a). You will observe that a line is drawn from the middle and straight portion of my figure and coiled around the concavity at the right side, and that the terminations of the upper cross lines are bifurcated around similar though smaller concavities. This entire figure represents a water-animal god, one only of a number of semi-human mystic monsters. For convenience his heart is drawn out to one side, and within it is placed the cup of the “chief” medicine; while in his left hand is the cup of the “good” medicine, and in his right hand the cup of “bad” (i.e., strong) medicine. If in the light of this you re-examine your figure, you will see with me that it represents a man-god sitting, his legs doubled under him and his medicines distributed around and upon him according to his parts, and in accordance also, probably, to their importance and the case in hand. He must always have the chief of all medicines placed on his heart, as the renewer of life. Then, strictly with reference to the ailment to be treated, and its location in the body or limbs of the patient (I should say), the other medicines. I throw this out as a suggestion, yet with much confidence in its at least approximate correctness as indicated by my comparative studies. Probably a consultation of your notes and the remembrance of variations of the ceremony you have seen, will signify to you whether I am right or not. Remember that if these people have this ceremonial in connection with the treatment of disease, they will also have it in the treatment of the weather, etc., when “diseased,” so to say. You have opened up a new significance of many outlines among the older lava-remains, and if my record of these in turn has helped to explain your diagram, etc., you can judge of my pleasure and appreciation.”