WORKING WITH OTHER TRAINING CENTRES:

THE HUICHOL CENTRE FOR CULTURAL SURVIVAL AND THE TRADITIONAL ARTS in Santiago Ixcuintla, Nayarit, was started in 1981 by Susana and Mariano Valadez . Mariano is a well known Huichol artist. It is situated near the tobacco fields where many Huichol go to work.
One of the aims of the centre is to teach Huichol artisans skills, including marketing, to enable them to generate their own income rather than seek employment elsewhere such as in the tobacco fields.
Their view point is that with careful planning the Huichol people can participate and flourish in a technologically advanced society without sacrificing their native traditions.
The centre is also provides extensive health care. Although the centre was created by both Susana and Mariano Valadez, Currently Mariano is running the centre by himself and raises funds by selling bead work made at the centre and by selling his own yarn paintings. He also sells Huichol T shirts that we print.
Soon Mariano will send us two Huichol women to learn how to spin with a spinning wheel and they will start teaching spinning in the Huichol Centre in Santiago de Ixcuintla.

THE HUICHOL CENTRE in Huejuquilla was started more recently by Susana Valadez with the aim of being able to work directly with the Huichol community. This town has a central position with dirt track roads leading up to the largest Huichol communities.
The aims of this centre are similar to those of the Centre in Santiago de Ixcuintla.
Susana specialises in fine bead art and is starting a bee keeping and organic agriculture project. She has two spinning wheels and soon a Huichol woman ( Emilia ) will start teaching at her centre.

LA CASA HUICHOL is in Guadalajara and is run by Rosío Echivarria and Dr. Antonio. Rosío started La Casa Huichol in 1983 as a place where sick Huichol could come. Rocío is a trained nurse who lived 6 years in the Huichol community of San Andres. Now she is well connected to the hospital system in Guadalajara, and she and Dr. Antonio see that the Huichol that come to them receive good medical attention, if necessary in hospital. Many Huichol stay some time with here convalescing, and in this case Rocío encourages them to make some money with craft work. To raise funds Rocío produces and sells a wide variety of artisania, from yarn paintings, bead work, to embroidery of many types. She has won first prize for the quality of her products. She also distributes the Huichol T shirts that we make in Guadalajara. She has at last managed to get funds to build a much larger and better place for all her activities, and her new premises should be opening in September.
Rosío is interested in the spinning wheels but she will not have room for them until her new centre is opened. She will come and visit us in September and we hope to be able to work with her.

Our priority at the moment is to interest other established Huichol centres in participating in the Spinning Wheel Development Plan+. We have had a very positive response. A training centre could probably teach 2 to 8 people a month depending on the accommodation and the time of year because, as explained above, there are certain times of year when the Huichol cannot easily leave the Sierra.
It is still very early to make any estimate as to how many Huichol women we could collectively train in a year.


TEACHING SEMINARS :

We are well aware of our own limitations. Although we are good spinners and we have used natural dyes we know of other people who really are experts in these fields. For this reason we are very much wanting to attract such people to come and give workshops, seminars, or better still courses, depending on how much time they can give. Ideally such a teacher could visit each centre in turn teaching the staff and the students at the same time. In this way the staff at each centre would gradually become more expert, and better able to teach each successive group of students.


LOOMS, CARDERS AND OTHER EQUIPMENT:

We will make looms suitable to weave blankets and other items that are too wide or too slow to weave on a back strap loom. Also we are making carders which we give together with the spinning wheel and two spare bobbins to the women who learn how to spin. We will also make a simple carding machine for use in the training centres which will greatly facilitate the preparation of the wool prior to spinning.



WORKING IN THE SIERRA:

ADESMO built two Weaving workshops in the Sierra Huichol, one near Nuevo Colonia or Tuapuri, The other in San Andres. The one in San Andres has been out of action for several years. The weaving workshop near Nuevo Colonia is run by a Huichol called Cirilo Montoya. Cirilo is an enthusiastic weaver. He started with two large frame looms and for three years was producing plain cotton cloth of a type that is suited for embroidery work that the Huichol use for their costume.

Cirilo went to live for a while with a family of weavers in Michoacan where he learnt about dying fibre and weaving patterns. His ambition became to work with colours so he built an extension onto the weaving workshop to do the dyeing. Unfortunately he was called away by his community to run the school boarding house before he could put the dye house into action. Then, after running the school boarding house for a year, he was made to take it on for a second term of one year because there was no one else to do the job. At last he has become free again to start the weaving workshop but first he needs to repair the building and buy raw materials which is made harder for him since by now he has a family with 2 children. For this reason he left to work in North America and is due to return soon.

Cirilo is planning to start the workshop up again, get the dye house working, and apart from the cotton weaving that he already has had working, he could start weaving wool with looms that I can make in La Cruz. There are various advantages to weaving wool, one is that since the thread is thicker one advances faster, another is that it is much easier to dye, and another is that there is a larger profit margin. (Plain cotton cloth is made so fast and efficiently on huge machines that it is very difficult to compete with a hand operated loom.)

There are several important functions the weaving workshop could perform:

1. Weaving cotton cloth for embroidery.
   
   
2. Weaving patterned woollen cloth for blankets and warm jackets.
   
   
3. Being a place where women can come and spin to produce thread for the looms.
   
   
4. Being a store of raw wool to supply the weavers.
   
   
5. Being a shop to sell spinning and weaving supplies including spinning wheels to the women of the community.
   

I see Cirilo's Weaving workshop as an important step in establishing a weaving community in the Sierra. Once it is working it may be possible to start up the weaving workshop in San Andres.

PURCHASING WOOL:

The indigenous people that lives to the West of the Huichol are the Tepehuanes. They live mostly in the state of Durango in a region that is much more rich and fertile. Most of the area is forested and they are famous for rearing sheep. The Huichol are famous for their 'curanderos' and Huichol curanderos have, since time immemorial, gone on tours around the Tepehuane territory curing the sick. A Huichol healer can be very well paid. Often he is paid in kind, with cattle, sheep or fleeces. This is the route by which most wool gets to the Huichol. This could be the supply route for bringing wool from the Tepehuanes to the weaving workshop. For example,Cirilo's father in law is a curandero who has a house in one of the Tepehuane communities, and another house in Nuevo Colonia, and a pick up truck. He is a person in an ideal position to bring wool back with him from his trips to the Tepehuanes.

PURCHASING WOVEN ARTICLES:

Each time I go to the Sierra to return and pick up students I have an opportunity to check on how women who have already got their spinning wheels are progressing and to buy articles that they want to sell. What I purchase in this way I can pass onto Club Regina (who run shop in Puerta Vallarta called Huichol Collection). Since they are paying for the Spinning Wheels, to be able to sell the product of their assistance and so complete the circle, would be a very satisfactory arrangement. My objective is to be able to pay the weavers a sufficiently high price for their products so that they will feel that their effort was worth while and want to continue weaving.

Susana Valadez also makes frequent trips to Huichol communities in the Sierra, and will be able to perform a similar function. She exports a lot of Huichol artwork to North America and she believes the weaving community there could be a good market for naturally dyed hand spun wool.

At present making bead work is an established activity amongst the Huichol, and they never lack initiative to discover sources of beads, the special wax they need, the special needles and so on. And when they have made enough articles to be worth a trip, they travel to ever more distant cities to find new markets for their produce. They have been coming down to Mexico city and Puerto Vallarta for many years now. More recently they are travelling to Cancun and places on the border like Tijuana. Already there are several Huichol who have a home in the U.S.A. from which they sell their artwork for a better price. Once weaving with real wool gets to the point of being an established activity in the same way that bead work already is, then I will no longer need to ensure that the weavers can sell their produce.

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