Ebook: Rock crystals and peyote dreams : explorations in the Huichol universe

The Huichol people live in west Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental.
The most authentically "traditional" of all Mexican Indians, they have become
famous because of their vivid yarn paintings, well-documented peyote pilgrimages that take them three hundred miles
east from their present homeland into the
north-central desert, and sacramental use
of the hallucinogenic cactus, peyote.
In the mid-1960s, Peter T. Furst began
a lifelong encounter with their intellectual
culture, facilitated by a growing relationship
of mutual trust with Ramón Medina, an
aspiring Huichol shaman, storyteller, and
artist, and Ramón's wife, Guadalupe de la
Cruz Ríos. Ramón, who became a full-fledgec
shaman with his fifth peyote pilgrimage, also
had a Huichol name: 'Uru Temay, Young Arrow Person.
Over the years, Furst published a number
of articles on various facets of Huichol life,
many of them centered on what he learned
and observed during his growing relationship
with Ramón and his people Bound together
by personal reminiscences and background
explanations, Rock Crystals and Peyote Dreams
compiles and updates many of those articles
It includes transcriptions of myths that function as charters for "being Huichols" and
descriptions of deities, rituals, and beliefs, as
well as the place of hallucinogens in Huichol
culture. Furst skillfully weaves memories and
current reflections with older material in a
manner that makes for a highly readable,
contemporary presentation.