El Dios Huichol (Der Huichol Gott)

DE/MX 2014

Faustino, the 30 year old son of the marakame (shaman) of La Mora, was trained to be a marakame by his father Librado. An essential part of this training is several pilgrimages to the mining village of Real de Catorce, one hundred kilometres distant in the federal state of San Luís Potosí. In the desert landscape of San Luís lies Wirikuta, a place sacred to the Wixaritari, and the mystical mountain Cerro Quemado, where the sacred peyote grows, which enables the Wixaritari to communicate with the spirit of the stag-god. The novice shaman must follow certain rules of renunciation and mortification for many years before he at last becomes a marakame after his fifth journey to Wirikuta. The spirit of the peyote, appearing in the form of a blue stag, gives him the mission of healing. It can also happen that the stag-god doesn’t speak to the young shaman during the peyote ceremony. This means that the young man won’t become a marakame because, for instance, he has not followed the rules or because he lacks the gift of “seeing”. This is happened in the case of Faustino Bautista. Something in Wirikuta went wrong.

After returning to La Mora from his fifth journey to Wirikuta, Faustino began calling himself “God”. The stag-god, he said, had spoken to him: he, Faustino, is God the Father, descended from heaven to be the spiritual guide of the community of La Mora and to lead it. Faustino’s father Librado, convinced of the truth of his son’s words, confirmed this. The inhabitants of La Mora too believed Faustino. Even after he began, supported by a small group of armed disciples, to murder his male rivals and punish women for their sins by abusing and raping them, many of the Wixaritari continued to believe in Faustino. Soon he was having his pistoleros murder small children, burning them alive over an open fire. In a neighbouring village, Faustino had the unborn child of a woman in the late stages of pregnancy cut out of her belly with machete and thrown on the flames. Particularly cruel was the stipulation that the mothers, whose children are murdered, might show no sign of pain. Those who wept must also die. Those who doubted Faustino and tried to flee were shot without further ado.

In adventurous conditions, the young Wixárika Asunción “Chon” Carrillo González finally managed to escape. With a group of 15 police officers from Santa Maria del Oro and reinforcements from the provincial capital of Tepic, he returned to La Mora, where, after a fierce exchange of fire between the officers and Faustino, they seized him. The bloody Faustino, already hit by several bullets, laughed at the police and hysterically screamed that they couldn’t harm him, for he would rise on the third day. A headshot finally ended the Dios Huichol’s reign of terror. The inhabitants of La Mora fled the village and settled in surrounding villages near Santa María del Oro. The relatives of the victims received no psychological counselling or psychotherapeutic treatment.

Bernhard Hetzenauer

4-­Kanal-Videoinstallation, HD, B/W, loop, 30 min

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