My study of Huichol weaving began in 1985 and owes much to the ground breaking research of Susana Eger Valadez on Huichol women's art (Eger 1978). At the Valadez's Centre for Huichol Cultural Survival and the Arts in Santiago Ixcuintla, Nayarit, Susana oriented me, provided generous help and guidance, and introduced me to women who are master weavers and artisans. I made important contacts with the women from two families living in the San Andrés Cohimiata part of the Sierra, and spent three years living with these families and conducting weaving research .

Following an approach similar to that of Gladys Reichard (1934) among the Navajo, I learned to weave on a back strap loom under the instruction of a Huichol weaver. I also participated in the daily and ceremonial activities, which included attending ceremonies at the San José temple and accompanying family members on their pilgrimage to Virikuta in 1987. . . . .

... a little further on is her description of the loom as a model of Solar Time:

The first level of the loom model expresses time as a solar event in which day and night are represented by the path of the sun. As my teachers themselves deeply immersed in the ideology and technology of weaving explained, the warp yarns represent the path of the sun, and the sticks of the loom represent the geographic landmarks of the sacred places which the sun passes along its journey. There are many sacred places in Huichol geography, and although it is not possible to represent each of these in the loom, the interpretation of the women in one family, as explained below, indicate mountains or hills, which form a kind of ladder from the sky in the east to the mountains in the west.

The first loom stick, kuaterai , is the top beam and indicates the farthest and highest eastern sacred place visited by the Huichols. (See drawing). This spot is a mountain lake known as Sinamekuta. The goddess of this lake makes the clouds which bring rain to the Sierra and the Pacific Ocean.

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