Tatehuari Art Origin and Design Guatemala

I assumed that all artifacts were made using machines because they had different shapes and sizes. After selecting Tatehuari as my artifact of choice I assumed that they were all made from plastic and recycled materials since most of the Tatehuari’s sold are always in plastic form. I thought all artifacts are made by modern people and placed in a museum for the purpose of study because ancient people had little knowledge and therefore they did not invent any artifact. I assumed that artifacts were made during leisure time and they never had any significance to the people who made them. The Huichol people of Mexico relied mainly on selling beef as their source of income. Most children never went school due to poverty since all the money found from the selling of beef was used on the importation of food (Haviland, et.

al. In times of good harvest, excess maize and lumber were sold and the money was used in buying food. Their languages varied because of establishing settlements in different states such as Jalisco, Nayarit, Zacatecas and Durango. Rancho was the name given to the basic unit of a family and it was made up of nuclear families who shared common farm and lived in the same house. Peyote hunt was the main religious ceremony practiced by the Huichol. The ceremony was believed to forgive people of their sins and to break any curse that was spelled on them. The Huichol made beaded and woven Tatehuari for religious purposes. They believed that arts called “nierikas” were created from dreams and visions that they saw during the yearly ceremonies and they represent their petition to gods.

The arts were of different shapes and symbols such as peyote, arrows, deer, corn, scorpions and serpents (Barnett, R. The Huichols were treated by Shamans using a feathered wand, holy water, local herbs and rituals to drive away the illness from the patient and their families (Carl Lumholtz, 1898). Death ceremonies were held five days after someone dies as a way of bidding farewell to the departed soul. They believed that when a sinful person dies, their souls were tormented in the other world. On the contrary, a righteous person goes directly to the temple of the dead in the west upon their death where he or she dances to unwind themselves to the threads of life. Huichol people made Tatehuari art using beads which were made using bones, jade stones and seeds.

Different bead colors were used to bead the edges of the clay bowls. The clay bowl was placed in a cool place for the wax to settle before applying tree resins to seal the beads to the bowl. I made embroidery on a t-shirt by using beads of different colors and shapes. I made a sketch on the t-shirt in the form of a zigzag pattern using a waterproof marker. I then took a mixture of liquid paraffin and beeswax and painted it on the pattern using a flat paintbrush. assumed that all artifacts were made using machines because they had different shapes and sizes. It is through Huichol’s old technology that modern-day currency came into existence. Consequently, researchers realized that melting beads that were made from jade stones produced mercury components which are used to manufacture modern day currency.

Availability of beeswax from craft stores and beads in jewelry shops made me spend less time and effort to complete my project. Consulting my lecturers aided my completion of the projects as I was able to learn new things from the expert. Lee, and William A. Haviland. Cultural Anthropology. Toronto: Nelson, 2005. Barbara Myerhoff, Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indian, Cornell University Press, 1974 Barnett, Brooke, and Army Reynolds. Guatemala, “The Land and the People,” 1961.