Fowler Museum Wixárika Yarn Paintings and the Artists Ramón Medina Silva and José Benítez Sánchez

Introduction

The Wixárika (pl. Wixáritari) people, commonly referred to as the Huichol, traditionally reside in Mexico’s western Sierra Madre Occidental region that overlaps parts of the states of Durango, Jalisco, Nayarit, and Zacatecas. Since the 1960s, Wixárika artists have garnered international acclaim for paintings (nierakate, sing. nierika) composed of colorful yarn affixed to wooden boards with beeswax. Inspired largely by mythology and shamanic visions associated with the use of the hallucinogenic “divine cactus” peyote (Lophophora williamsii), nierakate are thickly populated with vibrant images of deified ancestors, sacred animals, holy plants, and important ceremonial objects.

Nierakate

Nierakate with simple designs have long served as votive objects representing kakauyari (ancestral figures) from the Wixárika cosmos. When deposited as offerings at sacred sites, they cement relationships between humans and other-than-human beings who give order to the universe. Made knowable through mythological narratives, communal rites, and material arts, such as yarn painting, the kakauyari are referred to with familial intimacy as Takutsi Nakawe (Our Great-Grandmother), Tatewari (Our Grandfather Fire), Tau (Our Father Sun), Tamatsi Kauyumarie (Our Elder Brother Deer), and Tatei Niwetsika (Our Mother Blue Corn).

Peter T. Furst (1922–2015)

The bulk of the Fowler’s collection of nierakate was acquired in the mid-1960s by the UCLA-trained anthropologist Peter T. Furst (1922–2015) after he met the self-described Wixárika apprentice mara’kame (shaman) Ramón Medina Silva (1920s–1971) and his wife, Guadalupe de la Cruz Ríos (1917–1999). While recording indigenous mythological stories narrated by Ramón, Furst prompted him to illustrate them. The resultant depictions ultimately reshaped both outsider and insider understandings of yarn paintings. Medina Silva became globally renowned for his ability to translate Wixárika beliefs and rituals into stunningly arranged strands of spun fiber.

José Benítez Sánchez

José Benítez Sánchez (Yikaiye Kikame, “Silent Walker”), born in 1938 at San Pablito in Nayarit, emerged as another one of the most influential Wixárika yarn painters of the twentieth century, forging a practice rooted in ceremonial knowledge, pilgrimage, and ancestral memory while navigating profound social change. Raised in the community of Wautia (San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán) by his grandfather and stepfather—both mara’akate—he underwent early ritual training that included extended mourning disciplines and pilgrimages to sacred sites; although family circumstances interrupted his formal path toward becoming a shaman, these formative experiences remained central to his artistic vision. After periods of agricultural labor and work with Mexican government agencies serving Indigenous regions, he began creating yarn paintings in the early 1960s, initially drawing upon recollections of family teachings and Wixárika cosmology; by the late 1960s he had achieved distinction among his peers and would become widely regarded as a master whose compositions set a new standard for symbolic complexity and formal innovation. Renewed pilgrimages in the 1970s to sites such as Wirikuta and Teakata deepened his ceremonial commitments and catalyzed a shift toward increasingly intricate, visionary works, including major paintings such as The Four Aspects of the Spirit (1973) and The Transcendental Vision of Tatutsí Xuweri Timaiwe’eme (1981), the latter eventually entering the collection of Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology. His art is marked by bold, rhythmically balanced forms, layered cosmological references, and a sophisticated use of color and texture—first with wool and beeswax, later with acrylic yarn—evolving from relatively direct narrative imagery into highly elaborate, interwoven fields of symbolic energy. Benítez trained numerous artists, including members of his own family, significantly shaping the direction of contemporary Wixárika yarn painting. Beyond his artistic production, he advocated for urban Wixaritari communities in Tepic and received national recognition, including the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes in 2003. He died in Tepic on July 1, 2009, leaving a body of work that he regarded as a living repository of collective memory and spiritual knowledge. This information is based on Juan Negrín, “José Benítez Sánchez,”, n.d.

Wixárika Yarn Painting

José Benítez Sánchez (b. 1938, San Pablito, Nayarit, Mexico; d. 2009)
Untitled, 2005
Acrylic yarn, beeswax, wood
Gift of Ronald Lanyi, X2013.12.1; Fowler Museum at UCLA

Analysis

Here, Benítez Sánchez envisions the movement of the azure-hued Tamatsi Kauyumarie (Our Elder Brother Deer) through the three worlds that comprise the Wixárika cosmos: Watetüapa, the subterranean region from which the deities emerged; Heriepa, the mountainous area that mirrors the Sierra Madre Occidental range; and Taheimá, the domain of the sky. At one and the same time, Tamatsi Kauyumarie is the supernatural essence of hikuri (peyote), primordial mara’akame (shaman), and first among the kakauyari (ancestral figures) who assume animal, plant, and human dimensions.

While most yarn painters utilize rectangular shapes in producing nierikate, Benítez Sánchez employs a spherical form that mirrors the circularity of the cosmos and the gourd bowls used in Wixárika rituals. His depictions of votive arrows or darts (irite) highlight sacred elements and communication with the divine.