Mexico, June 1977
Huichols make a 300-mile pilgrimage to gather peyote. By eating the hallucinogenic top of the cactus, they believe they can communicate with their deities. Their guide must be a shaman who has made many such treks and proved his supernatural powers.
June 1977
A painted prayer blooms on the cheeks of a Huichol woman, who uses lipstick to form a background for flower petals, symbols of fertility. Emblems of a sacred bird march across her headdress. In the solitude of the Sierra Madre Occidental, Mexico’s Huichols still heed a pantheon of deities who rule their hearts- while the government introduces modern ways to help their bodies and minds.
Bakers decorate loaves with saints and skulls for pan de muertos, or bread of the dead. May, 1978
Seri Indians of Sonora traditionally paint not effigies but themselves. Basket maker Angelita Torres (right) applies natural pigments and lipstick in a tooth design. Ephemeral art, meticulously created, instantly destroyed, is a hallowed tradition in Mexico. During Holy Week in Mexico City, a 20-inch papier mache Judas explodes in a burst of firecrackers (left). May, 1978
Bible in clay, an ornate decoration known as a Tree of Life tells the story of Adam and Eve. In Metepec, near Mexico City, Pedro Sotento paints leaves near the serpent after the piece is fired in the huge kiln. May, 1978
Mexico, May 1978
Clay devils, created by Tarascan Indians of Ocumicho village. With such vibrant displays of imagination, Mexican folk artists link the ancient past with the changing present, the spiritual world with the physical, in continual celebration of the cycles of life and death. Mexico, May 1978
