A desert precedes a cobbled twenty kilometers and a mountain tunnel other almost three kilometers, somber, the time when the rocks were dug to take silver and gold that were delivered after an ocean. Then, in that place alone and lost in the mountains some travelers from around the world come to taste the famous peyote to undertake a long journey and alien to reason, horses or mules are taken and walks to the mountain.
a landscape of crumbling old mines then crosses beside a thin stream that mutes the barking of dogs abandoned. The trail leads to a wide horizon of high mountains, peeled, where cactus grow at their base at will. Amid this scene a single tree stands, a sacred poplar say energy recharge men who come there. And close to the top, more than 3000 meters, mysteriously plants all point to the crest of the mountain as if imitate the procession of the Huichol or Wixárika, an indigenous people with a centuries-old sacred march that concluded there.
a single tree is distinguished, a sacred poplar say energy recharge men who come there
A stretch of no more than 400 meters sloping, after a tollbooth, finally discovers all. In summary, two visions: a mountain with a hood and a ring of ceremonies since the endless desert contemplated; or a mine full of many minerals to make many rich men. There begins and ends the story of a conflict between yesterday and tomorrow. the town of Real de Catorce and the distance is.
Cerro de la Quemada or Wirikuta is the Vatican or Mecca of the Huichols and, also, a mountain full of precious stones which the Canadian company First Majestic wants to exploit. "Touching the mountain is the same as if the veins of the heart will be ripped out", resume Armando, a Huichol who along with three companions has come 400 kilometer walk from Jalisco to reach their sacred altar. «We come every year if we can and we have money. Took to get about eight or ten days and returned five or six. Here the sun was created and here we make our offerings », He explained from the summit the only one of the four Huichol who speaks fluent Spanish.
At the summit there is a ceremonial center, composed of stone circles that enters only after making certain rituals and offerings permit watcher, a Huichol named Manuel, and a small chapel where deer heads, musical instruments, candles, bows and… peyote. «Let's drink some tesgüino (a local brandy) and we take our peyote. For us that is like the sacred host for you. It makes us closer to our gods, find. Before we prepare for it. We do not eat meat, we neither drink salt nor have previous sexual relations », says wixárika, Huichol word that does not convince you because it reminds him that that was the name they called Spanish.
The four Indians, with his feet dusty after crossing a desert, They have agreed to talk, something weird, With strangers. Usually they reserved and distant tourism that is coming and there becomes a natural temple on set of selfies.
They wait for the night or to dissolve the incipient storm a few tourists to enter its sacred ceremonial area, cleanse their souls, say his prayers, take your peyote and more closer to their God from that altar is the mountain of Quemado. "Here the Sun was born", repeat, and "there is the desert where we found the peyote", point. A world then pokes her fingers framing five shrines scattered along a route over 500 kilometers covering the four cardinal points and the center of the cosmos. Of the five, Wirikuta, the East, It is the most relevant.
"Here the Sun was born", repeat, and "there is the desert where we found the peyote"
But the conflict is complex and full of edges. Some years ago the Canadian mining company First Majestic (Real Bonanza on your project in the area) He discovered that in time of the Spaniards was an abandoned mining area and has still many resources in her womb. The area around the tourist Real de Catorce is a poor area, ejido farmers and ranches, where the company landed with a storm it promises investment and jobs. The message seeped into a portion of the population and society lost the mountains easily snapped into two.
“We plan to create 760 direct jobs and 1800 indirect jobs in the state of San Luis Potosí », explains the mining Real Bonanza. A lifeline for many communities around the Cerro de la Quemada not have the opportunity to live and Catorce tourism. The wick has caught easily.
«They divided us Huichols and mestizos. There were citizens in Real for and against and there were bad words for those of us who were not from here », explains Marciano de la Cruz, of a Huichol 35 years it is belonging to one of the five Huichol families living in the village. His name serves as a clue to understanding the strong backlog living in Mexico indigenous communities: «Before we did not have a name or birth certificate. We not speak Spanish. On Monday I went to school and the manager gave me a choice between Mariano, Marciano, Martial Mark. I chose Marciano ».
He actually, his four children and his wife are immigrants who have been in Real de Catorce tourism to live without departing from their beliefs. «We Huichols live in San Luis Potosí because of El Quemado, peyote desert and pilgrimages. We are immigrants », recognizes.
Are near 50.000 Wixárika throughout Mexico
His people live in the states of Durango, Nayarit and Jalisco and Zacatecas mountains. Are near 50.000 Wixárika throughout Mexico. Everyone should come regularly to fulfill his long pilgrimage in the holy mountain.
So when the offer came mining and, part of the local population sees only trickle through in the Huichol for their land (increasingly difficult by the proliferation of fences) I sided employment, and part of the population, especially foreigners and NGOs, they sided with the Huichol "immigrants" until the project was partially halted.
«The mining company cruelly divided the population among outsiders, Huichol and local people. There were people who defended the Huichols and people who told us you are a ball peyoteros and hippies and thus defend the Huichol. What we want is work », Petra remembers Bridge, Mayor of Real de Catorce 2007 a 2009 and owner of the hotel and restaurant Meson de la Abundancia.
businesswoman, He is declaring in love with the town and its surroundings and had a scandal over the brand Real de Catorce been registered in his name as he was municipal president, something she says she did to preserve the brand and will donate to a foundation that is creating, It was reintroduced in mayoral elections 2012. «I had an invasive presence of the mine against my campaign. There was a strong buying votes that made us lose the election. I sat with senior politicians Federal and State government to change my opinion. Some meetings were led by people from my own party », says Petra Bridge. There is talk of numbers on the table of up to two million dollars.
Have you done or offered First Majestic fees to change local elections or change the opinion of the people on the draft Royal Mine Fourteen? «Not, never, are false accusations. We do not know the interests of those who make these unsupported claims », responds to this newspaper mining company.
There was a strong buying votes that made us lose the election
«They were going to give our children a painting workshop and then sell the pieces. Later we found out that the Mine was behind it and I told my daughters that they better not go », Marciano exemplifies what happened to the townsfolk.
Money, or lack of it, They buffeted everything but the unshakable belief Huichol. The beautiful and deserted Real de Catorce became famous as a film set for numerous films from Hollywood. "Brad Pitt told us we have a dirty diamond. Thousands of sites dream of being diamonds and you are », Petra remembers saying to them at dinner the actor when he recorded there for weeks the film with Julia Roberts The Mexican. Many gringos then came the people, and famous, by its bewitching drug peyote.
«Many people deceive people, Huichol dress, shamans, and they take tourists to desert to take peyote. Many people come just to get high. They do not come to meet him with respect », Yolanda explains, another Huichol who lives in Real de Catorce.
The sale of peyote is prohibited and punishable by imprisonment. Only the Huichol can consume for their uses and constumbres, but the reality is sold and trafficked within the village. «He who wants to find it finds it», recognizes Petra. We check that the offers go to encontralo the desert on horseback or on Willis (four-wheel cars) they bloom when scraped with a little discretion. The buy of Real, also.
The sacred peyote has become one of many drugs that are trafficked in the country
«In addition, a lot of fake peyote is sold in healing creams in Catorce and the mayor does nothing. The mestizo is not supposed to sell it because it is not their custom. Community accuse us of selling us, but it is false. Many people go and take the desert. Mestizos him out of boxes and carry it to Europe, EE.UU o SitesAfrique. In the ejidos it is sold », Yolanda complaint. The sacred peyote has become one of many drugs that are trafficked in the country.
Another problem is its taste. «Many go to the desert, tear it without knowing and when they try it and find that it is very bitter spit it out. They kill a plant that is scarce », Armando explains that contemplates with her three traveling companions and two young Western features perform rites in the chapel of Cerro while shelter from the storm. Crumbled throw chocolate, they play instruments, light candles and pray murmurs of an alien idoma.
The «güeros», name which in Mexico is called foreign Europeanized, They are a global tribe that goes to the call of peyote and mystical experiences often total ignorance. «A shaman told me that peyote was in the desert and belongs to everyone, but it must be taken with respect and knowledge », explains Benito, one renter of horses feel closeness and respect for culture wixárika. Mix it with alcohol and other drugs like marijuana to insure themselves that your trip is longer than the thousands of kilometers to get there.
«The warning signs of this bad consumption began years ago. It was sounded the case of a young couple families well from Mexico City who went into the desert to consume peyote along with alcohol and other substances and he ended up killing her because he thought she was the devil », recalls Petra. «You have to explain and make people see that it is something sacred, not a single drug. One does not go to Church and begins to dig into the host of the priest », affects the former mayor.
A young couple Mexico City went into the wilderness to consume peyote with other substances and he ended up killing her because he thought he was the devil
In some psychiatric clinics San Luis Potosi youth dealing with aftermath, although 90 and 2000 They were perhaps the decades where the peyote became more havoc.
But, that argument has served many people in the communities to identify the Huichol and the Cerro de la Quemada as a simple place where drugs are consumed. "They are drug addicts who put us out of work", summarizes some of the angry residents of the area because that culture deprives them of a job.
For now Justice has said that Wirikuta is untouchable and the project has stalled attacking a native culture. «In a meeting, the people from La Mina had the clumsiness of telling the Huichols that they were only going to dig inside and that upstairs they could continue with their rites. That was telling them that they were going to rip out their hearts and they didn't even realize it », says Petra.
«The La Luz project will be 7,5 Cerro Quemado kilometers and even this ceremonial center is outside the concessions Minera Real Bonanza has authorized for extraction. Minera Real Bonanza in we have always committed to the preservation of sacred sites Culture Wixárika so keep intact the sacred route used by Wixárika to reach their ceremonial centers. We can say that the extraction process will be underground way, as it has been done for more than 200 years in that mining area », mining responds to the question of whether touch the Cerro.
Maybe a difficult concept to understand for those who do not believe in the soul of the mountain
But the outside and the inside is the same for the Huichol, one perhaps difficult concept to understand for those who do not believe in the soul of the mountain or intended simply pierce it.
For now there is only one non-final judicial shelve and perhaps a new future negotiations. On the one hand there is an already advanced project to convert the pilgrimage of the Huichol in Cultutral Heritage Site and prevent progress so another piece of an unproductive culture devours. Wirikuta, in any case, way since 1998 part of the Network of Natural Sacred Sites of Unesco. Other, mining does not renounce extract minerals from the mountains and generate jobs in an impoverished area that many yearn: «We are totally willing to carry out the project and change some things. We reaffirm our interest in contributing to the development of the region and its people, through competitive jobs that promote the welfare of families in Real de Catorce, as well as the preservation of Cultural Heritage and other social programs », says mining.
«When you go to El Quemado you will find stones and that is our heart. For mining the stones are treasures but for us is our heart. If we allow them to dig, we do not know what tunnels they are going to make and if they were going to take out the heart of Cerro Quemado », he concludes Marciano.
That night a heavy storm falls on the sacred mountain of silver veins and mules azoran back to town. At the entrance of the town, the humble houses glued to the stream are filled with mud while in the central plaza de Catorce music concert that celebrates the arrival of tourists sounds Holy Week. Armando and his three companions Huichol will safeguard water in its chapel and in complete solitude and celebrate at night and early morning rites. The four smiles shyly when they see us from the sun and finally left alone on the hill where he was born, where he created the world, where it all began.
