Michele McArdle Stephens. In the Lands of Fire and Sun

In the Lands of Fire and Sun: Resistance and Accommodation in the Huichol Sierra, 1723–1930 is a sometimes impressionistic tour through the colonial and modern history of Huichol Mexico, located in the unforgiving highlands that dominate the present-day borderlands of Durango, Jalisco, Nayarit, and Zacatecas. Paradoxically, there is both a lot and frustratingly little history in this concise volume. Michele McArdle Stephens establishes early on that Huichol identity has long been rooted in the tight relationship between the unique regional geography of their homelands and their spiritual universe. One of the book’s strongest elements consists of weaving together oral histories, maps, and outsider accounts to reveal the details of peyote pilgrimages. Over the course of nearly five hundred years, these spiritual journeys continued even as the Huichols remained inscrutable to the eyes of outsiders. Foreigners of different stripes, from Spanish conquistadors and Franciscan missionaries to liberal soldiers and European anthropologists, have set foot in the region without altering this fundamental dynamic. Whether well intentioned or not, interlopers really have failed to sublimate, eradicate, or corrupt Huichol culture.

Accommodation · Ancient history · Archaeology · Biology · Colonialism · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Resistance (ecology) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Ecology · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies