Huichol
The Huichol (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈwit͡ʃo̞l]) or Wixárika (Huichol pronunciation: [wiˈraɾika])[1] are an indigenous people of Mexico and the United States living in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango, as well as in the United States in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. They are best known to the larger world as the Huichol, although they refer to themselves as Wixáritari ("the people") in their native Huichol language. The adjectival form of Wixáritari and name for their own language is Wixárika.
For the language, see Huichol language.
The Wixáricas speak a language of the Wixarikan group that is closely related to the Nahuatl group. Furthermore, they have received Mesoamerican influences, which is reflected by the fact that Wixarika has features typical to the Mesoamerican language area.
Their spirituality traditionally involves collecting and consuming peyote (Lophophora williamsii), a cactus that possesses hallucinogenic effects due to its psychoactive alkaloids, such as mescaline.
Language[edit]
The Huichol language, Wixarika, is a Uto-Aztecan language (Corachol branch) related to Cora. Huichol words conform to four patterns according to their inflection: type I words, principally verbs, are inflected for person and mode, and type II words, principally nouns, are capable of being inflected for number and possession. Type III words include quantifiers and are inflected for case and optionally for gender and person. Type IV words are uninflected.[12] Huichol major sentence types include transitive, intransitive, complemented transitive, and complemented. Complemented sentences contain object-like constituents, termed complements. True objects do not stand in cross reference with any affix in the verbal. Complements include quotative phrases and direct objects of double transitive sentences. Huichol minor sentence types are vocatives and exclamations.[12]