The Huichol people live in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in Mexico and many will know them for their annual pilgrimage to Wirikuta, a sacred desert where the first ancestors emerged. The purpose of the pilgrimage is to gather peyote cactus. Walking, or, more recently, riding on buses, pilgrims stop at numerous sacred places in order to prepare themselves for entering Wirikuta. Novices have their eyes covered and everyone must undergo confession and purification to rid themselves of their sins. Wirikuta is a sacred place, as this was where Elder Brother Deer, Kauyumári, once walked, enabling peyote cactus to grow wherever he trod. People do not gather peyote but hunt it, shooting arrows into the ground before giving thanks for Kauyumári’s sacrifice. The people then eat the small buttons of peyote in shamanic rituals, the psychoactive effects of the plant allowing them to break free from this world and access the realm of the gods. The Huichol believe that all wisdom originates from peyote.

There is another form of Huichol shamanism, however, that is far less well known and centres on people’s reverence for wolves.

The Huichol believe that, in the beginning, all humans were part wolf. These creatures lived in dark caves and had never learned how to hunt.  One day, feeling compassion for their plight, Kauyumári allowed Father Wolf to hunt him. After a long chase, Father Wolf caught the deer, who promptly turned into peyote cactus. All the wolves gathered to eat the peyote and, in so doing, they gained great wisdom. They left their dark haunts and came out into the light. Father Sun then gave the wolves a choice: they could either transform into full humans or remain as wolves. Most, including Father Wolf, chose to transform into humans.

Father Wolf, now a human, made a shrine to the remaining wolves, ensuring that people would always be able to communicate with their kind. This gave rise to the Huichol tradition of wolf shamanism.

Initiation into wolf shamanism takes five to ten years during which time the initiate must visit several wolf shrines and make offerings according to strict ceremonial procedure. The wolf shrines are colour coded and the initiate works up through the ranks until he (wolf shamanism appears to be open only to males) works with blue, grey, or multi-coloured wolves.

Towards the end of his apprenticeship, the initiate meets real wolves, who take him to their lair and begin to teach him how to shapeshift. The wolves introduce the initiate to the wolf-kiéri plant (Solandra guttata is its Latin name, a form of datura), which induces visions similar to peyote. This may account for the final part of the apprenticeship.

At the full moon, the initiate goes to a place shown to him by the wolves and performs five somersaults. Each acrobatic move effects a transformation from human to wolf until, by the fifth, the initiate has shapeshifted into a wolf. He will now remain in this form for five days and five nights, joining his wolf friends as they live and hunt together in the vicinity. After this time, the initiate returns to human form but retains his shapeshifting power. Indeed, one Huichol individual recounts that his grandfather had shapeshifted into a wolf regularly and, as a child, he heard the pack howling outside the house.

Wolf shamanism remains a hidden and little studied aspect of Huichol tradition but, if anyone wants to research it further, I have provided the main reference for the practice below. And, if you should ever feel inspired to perform five somersaults at the full moon…

Valdez, Susana Eger. 1996. Wolf power and interspecies communication in Huichol shamanism. In Schaefer, Stacy and Peter Furst (eds.). People of the Peyote: Huichol Indian History, Religion and Survival. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press: 267-305.