Huichol indigenous People and Desert Dwellers Unite in Defense of Sacred Land Gloria Munoz and Adazahira Chavez - CIP Americas Program
go to original August 11, 2013

The wixárika will not be an accomplice to the mining. (desinformemonos.org)

The ghost town of Real de Catorce comes alive. In 1990, the departure of mining companies who operated there for over 150 years signaled almost the entire exodus of all its inhabitants. The town dropped to less than 500 inhabitants.

But today there are over 1,300, almost all of whom depend on local trade and tourism. Here, says one of the local women, “no one died of hunger when the mines left.”

The five mining projects currently threatening the sacred Huichol site of Wirikuta, which covers 140,212 hectares in the municipalities of Villa Ramos, Charcas, Villa de Guadalupe, Matehuala, Villa de La Paz and Catorce, were discussed publically at a meeting recently. For the first time, people could actually raise questions and state their positions. Supporters and opposition to the mines rallied against each other, although an overwhelming majority reject the projects due to the harmful effects on health and pollution of groundwater.

The strongest opposition comes from the Huichol people. Although they are not from the Wirikuta area in the state of San Luis Potosi - they live mostly in the states of Jalisco, Nayarit and Durango - they have been making pilgrimages to the sacred place for at least 2000 years. For them, Wirikuta is the origin of the universe, as they come in search of Jicuri (peyote), a sacred cactus that the Huichol consume to receive the “gift of sight”.

Read the rest at CIP Americas Program

Gloria Muñoz and Adazahira Chávez are director and editor of desinformémonos.org, respectively. Both are collaborators for the Americas Program.

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