Using Multimedia to Expand the Audience of ... - Richard Repp

Using Multimedia 9
maps and religious offerings, confirmed that this area was the home of Huichol
sanctuaries.
Negrin da Silva’s unpublished manuscript Moving towards a new relation?: The
struggle to preserve Huichol self-sufficiency in the face of the developmentalists politics
of the Mexican state (2004) presents a window into how modernization effects the
Huichol. The author informs the reader that in the past two decades, government
developmentalists have built roads, a major dam project and electrical posts and wires
bringing curious outsiders closer to the Huichol’s sacred land.
Editors Malinowski, Sheets, Lehman, and Doig present facts collected in 1998 in
Volume II of The Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. The article on the
Huichol people includes a general historical and cultural description of who they are,
where they live, a population count, a brief timeline from 1524 to 1970s, and a short five
item bibliography for further reading by Paula Pyzik Scott. The encyclopedia identifies
many important facets of the Huichol, such as remarking how they are very isolated with
a population count of approximately 19,000 over the age of five and speak the
Aztecoidan branch of a Uto-Aztecan language. The treasures of tradition of the Huichol
culture, least affected by the impact of missionary acculturation, have been safeguarded
in the remote mountains in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit. At an altitude of about 6,560
feet tower the majestically rugged Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains. In this area,
Huichols inhabit extended-family ranches linked between several miles of arid, rocky
terrain. This essential text is a straightforward presentation about native people that
features succinct information. The volume recognizes the Huichol as a thriving traditional
tribe, but the information needs to be updated. There is no mention of Huichol music in