Finding the Hui in Huichol: Excerpts from Of Enemies & Venison (2026)
[§3,1]
“The use of lassos and nets in Mesoamerica was still very common in hunting contexts until very recently, before the widespread use of guns. We have already discussed the equivalence between hunting and warfare. We return to this point, adding that these traps were also used against humans, such as the conquistadors, who were particularly afraid of being caught in them (Flores, 1984: 21). At the beginning of the 20th century, the Tarahumaras were still using techniques of this kind to hunt deer, as were the Nahuas of Guerrero with their maguey fibre rope traps (Olivier, 2015a: 188). Other relatively contemporary examples exist among the Totonaques of Veracruz, the Mixtecs of the state of Oaxaca and the Huichol, who use istle nets tied to trees to capture deer. These are camouflaged by an ingenious black paint made from burnt corncobs, as shown in the photo taken by Norwegian ethnographer Carl Sofus Lumholtz in the early 20th century (Figure 11). In his book Mexico Unknown (1987), he wrote about Huichol techniques:
While birds and most of the animals are killed with arrows, the Huichols, in hunting deer, use snares. Sometimes as many as twenty are put up in places where the game is likely to pass, and then the quarry is driven into them, even with dogs. The end of a snare is tied to the trunk of a tree; while the loop, filled in with meshes that are drawn up by it, is placed upright in the shape of an approximate square, between two bushes or two poles on either side of the track. The upper edge of the snare is about half a yard long (1903: 40).
Figure 12: Hornless deer caught with a lasso. Codex Madrid (Bourbourg, 1870: PL 9).
The use of traps and lassos is also attested to in a number of historical documents at the time of contact with Cortez's troops, whether in Alonso de Molina's Vocabulario (1970) under the various variations of the word nitra (lasso) or in Sahagún's texts on the Otomis. Speaking of the latter, the missionary wrote that "they only enjoyed hunting rabbits, hares, quail and deer with nets, arrows, glue and other ingredients that they used to make use of" (1880: 666). The various codices also contain a series of pictograms illustrating the deer-hunting technique described above (Figure 12). It should be pointed out that the content of the Codex Madrid tends to focus on the Maya and Yucatán populations. Does this prevent us from generalising the use of such techniques to the Aztecs? Again, by no means. The Codex Borbonicus, the contents of which come from observations made in the Mexico basin, and the Tonalamatl Aubin (a codex possibly produced in Tlaxcala) also demonstrate the capture of prey by lassos and various traps (Olivier, 2015a: 185-186). While there is some debate about the nature of the animals depicted, Olivier is on the side of those who consider that deer are depicted (Olivier, 2015a: 187).
According to Olivier, there is no doubt that the spread of traps and lassos in Mesoamerica stemmed from a certain need to capture deer alive (2015a: 325). This necessity involved the sacrifice of deer, in particular by cardiectomy (Figure 9). Olivier's proposal, as discussed in the previous section, is that the deer are assimilated to war captives and Mimixcoa. In this sense, they should undergo the same treatment.
Disguising oneself as prey is a mimetic technique that was widely used in Mesoamerica, which is not at all surprising in view of the dynamic of identification as we have presented it, of an analogist-animist ontology and of its implications in our particular context. The deities, whether Tlaloc, Xochiquetzal (Codex Borgia, 1963: 27-59) or Tlazolteotl (Codex Laud, 1994: 42), are themselves represented wearing deer horns, which goes hand in hand with the ambiguity of the positions (of the deer and their personalities) discussed in the second chapter.
In Maya ceramics from the pre-Cortesian period, it is possible to see representations in which hunters disguise themselves as deer by putting on their skins in order to approach them (Reents Budet, 1994: 34). Historically, such a technique was also used in central Mexico, as reported by Cervantes de Salazar in his Cronica de Nueva Espana. In the 16th century, Olivier (2008: 48) wrote of the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan that they hunted deer wearing the hide of a deer; getting down on all fours, carrying the head of a deer whose hide they also wear, and thus securing the hunt, arrowing it from very close. When they want to make the royal hunt [obviously referring to a hunt of the kind that takes place during Quecholli], as was done for Don Antonio de Mendoza and Don Luis de Velasco, fifteen or twenty thousand Indians gather, armed with their arrows and bows, and others with clubs and roasted sticks, and surround a mountain where there are deer, bears, lions and wild pigs.”
“Such a technique also existed at the beginning of colonization among the Timucuas of Florida and more recently among the Zacatecs (and others), and continued to exist until the 20th century among a number of indigenous peoples in Mexico and Guatemala (Olivier, 2015a: 191). Disguising oneself as prey is a mimetic technique that was widely used in Mesoamerica, which is not at all surprising in view of the dynamic of identification as we have presented it, of an analogist-animist ontology and of its implications in our particular context. The deities, whether Tlaloc, Xochiquetzal (Codex Borgia, 1963: 27-59) or Tlazolteotl (Codex Laud, 1994: 42), are themselves represented wearing deer horns, which goes hand in hand with the ambiguity of the positions (of the deer and their personalities) discussed in the second chapter.
In Maya ceramics from the pre-Cortesian period, it is possible to see representations in which hunters disguise themselves as deer by putting on their skins in order to approach them (Reents Budet, 1994: 34). Historically, such a technique was also used in central Mexico, as reported by Cervantes de Salazar in his Cronica de Nueva Espana. In the 16th century, Olivier (2008: 48) wrote of the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan that they hunted deer wearing the hide of a deer; getting down on all fours, carrying the head of a deer whose hide they also wear, and thus securing the hunt, arrowing it from very close. When they want to make the royal hunt [obviously referring to a hunt of the kind that takes place during Quecholli], as was done for Don Antonio de Mendoza and Don Luis de Velasco, fifteen or twenty thousand Indians gather, armed with their arrows and bows, and others with clubs and roasted sticks, and surround a mountain where there are deer, bears, lions and wild pigs. Such a technique also existed at the beginning of colonization among the Timucuas of Florida and more recently among the Zacatecs (and others), and continued to exist until the 20th century among a number of indigenous peoples in Mexico and Guatemala (Olivier, 2015a: 191).