The Huichols (pronounced wee-chols)
Religious persecution in today's age
What started out as simply giving some food
and clothes to a
displaced group of Christian Huichols turned into a new saga in the Huichol story - they now have
land of their own and we are now in the building process of carving out a whole
new community out of rock and mountain.
Currently needed is a 1/2HP submersible pump , two wire, and about 300 meters of
1" plastic tubing to get water from the spring storage tank down below to a
smaller storage tank up on the plateau (175' vertical lift) where they are
building adobe houses for drinking water. We also need to finish the
concrete floor in the community shelter (10 meters x 6 meters to go) and my next
goal is to install three 125W solar panels and battery storage and an invertor
to run a TV and 3ABN religious programming satellite system. We need to
get the other Ejidade Huichols (non christians - pagans) living on the lake paddling in on Friday nights for
TV as they come to get their water. We have one of the two springs on the lake;
even if it is only 1 liter a minute. That's why the storage tank as a
flywheel for the spring was necessary.
For those of you who don't believe the story about them being burned out of
their homes, I have some pics of one of
the burn victims. Yes, the pagan Huichols set the Christian Huichol's houses on fire with them
inside to get rid of them from their homeland. Hard to
believe in today's age.
Part 1 - This page and page1pics further down
page2
pics page 3 pics
page 4 pics page
5 pics
Part 2 - Go to here for this part of the story and the
early March 2005 trip.
page 6 page
7 page 8
page 9
Part 3 - Go to here page
10 for the continuing story and March 31st trip pics.
Part 4 - April 13 to 16 trip latrine building, water filter,
shower completion, rechanneling stream flow.
Part 5 - April 27th to 30th
Completion of
latrine.
Part 6 - May
18th - May 20th Setting of storage tank and kitchen
Part 7 - May 25-26 Delivery of roof
parts, water filter mods, completion of outhouse steps
Part 8 - May 31-June1 Delivery of
more roof parts and worked on foundation
in preps to pour corner truss columns next trip.
Part 9 June 7 to 9 Poured two
corner columns and one 1meter slab
Part 10 June 14 to 17 Finished the
other four pillars, one more meter of slab, and welded together all three
trusses.
Part 11 June 21 to 24 Finished the
structure for the shelter roof and are installing the roofing laminar
Part 12 June 28 to 29 Finished the structure for the shelter roof and are installing the roofing laminar
Part 13 October 8th,2006 Scouting trip to see what progress had been made since June and what priorities are for doing next
Other websites related to the Huichols
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/huichol/hchtribe.htm
http://www.arizona-dream.com/Mexique/Indiens/ahuichols.php
http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v04n1/04129hui.html
good article on peyote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huichol
http://www.plenty.org/pb20_4/huichol204.html
http://www.thefarm.org/charities/huisurv.html
http://www.chapala.com/chapala/ojo2005/huichol.html
http://www.thebeadmuseum.com/Huichol/default.htm
Beginning story
Fall 2005 - We could still use financial help to provide food for 9 families of displaced
Christian Huichol Indians of Mexico,
an indigenous native tribe who lived high in the mountains about 6 hours from
Guadalajara. There are several groups there, only one is affected by what you
read below. Here is just another proof that the end times are here.
Pastor Dagoberto has been working with the Huichol Indian tribe for the past 8
years. Their base religion is paganism except for those who have converted to
Christianity through Dagoberto's efforts as well as other's efforts as well.. Irina and I have made trips with
Pastor Dagoberto to this area taking with us pickup loads of food, medical
supplies, doctors, and a dentist for the weekend. Pastor Dagoberto is not
allowed to preach Christianity on Huichol land but has a church in between two
groups of Huichols that is considered no man's land; where they come for
service. He flies a small airplane in most of the time and lands on a dirt road
runway.
This group in the pics below have converted to Christianity and were
attending Christian service in Huichol country. As their conversion brought out truth in what they
should and should not put into their bodies, a conflict arose with the Huichols that were NOT
Christian but who choose to maintain their pagan customs. One of these customs
is the frequent use of Peyote , a cactus plant which is hallucinagenic
as well as the use of a very strong
alcoholic beverage made of corn, much like whiskey, called tejuino. Fermented
tejuino itself is not too strong but they add alcohol to it to make things more
crazy. These people decided to no
longer take part in these ritualistic fiesta type of gatherings of drunkedness and
stupor. Because of this and probably some religious differences of these
newborn Christians, the main body of one group of pagan Huichols
ostracized these Christian
Huichols and made them leave under threat of death. They even set fire to some
of their homes. They said if they did not take part in these pagan rituals of
alcohol and drugs, they
were no longer Huichols. So these people left with almost only the clothes
on their backs and their homes were given to other Huichols. Love of Yahweh took
precedence over man's customs they now knew were wrong.
They are currently staying at the Guadalajara Seventh Day Adventist campiemento - which lies between Guadalajara and Lake Chapala, (where we hold campouts, special seminars, and youth group seminars) while the government is finding them new quarters, which could take awhile. There are about 32 of them counting men, women and children. Most of the men are working on road work during the day as new highway construction is in full swing here, but the pay is very low, about $10 a day.
I am soliciting donations of $1 - $5 to help me make trips to the abastos, the huge food and produce marketplace in Guadalajara, where food is very cheap to bring them a load of fresh food each week until they can get on their feet again. All the food you see in my pickup in the photo below cost only about $50 which included 40kg of oranges, 30kg of carrots, jicama plants (bulbs like a big turnip but very sweet with the consistency of a radish), radishes, bunches of cilantro, onions, 20kg of lemons, 15 kg of potatos, 20kg box of tomatoes, big box of bananas, bags of tortilla chips, tortillas, cooking oil, and more. I even made them a gallon of my special salsa (see www.detailshere.com/salsa.htm for the recipe) and Irina baked them two cakes. A little money goes a long ways here.
Please spend donations no matter how small to egold 115702 Berry Ball , ebullion A21789 Berry
Ball, , or PayPal berry@detailshere.com
Please put "for Huichols" and your email addy in the memo box of the spend. ALL
funds collected will go for food and building materials. And don't think that a dollar isn't important,
with a 5000+ person listserve if only a few of you sent just $1 it would buy a
lot of stuff.
I have posted some pics below of the Huichols that we need temporary help
for at campiemento as well as pics from the trip Irina and I made to
Huichol country when we took food, medicine and doctors with us.
See Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4, and Part 5 for further developments in this story.
Thanks, Ber
Hold mouse arrow over pics to read picture
caption
