Ancient Cora and Huichol Art: The Konrad T.

Preuss Collection
Editorial

Konrad T. Preusss Mexican Adventure

Margarita de Orellana

hundred years have gone by since an inquisitive and determined German anthropologist named
Konrad heodor Preuss arrived in Mexico. His goal was to study and live with indigenous
communities that had always avoided contact with outsiders: Huicholes, Coras, Mexicaneros
and Tepehuanes. For centuries, these cultures have retained a strong sense of identity, and kept
their traditions alive. Preuss was convinced that a better understanding of their spiritual life would ofer
him insight into the religion of the ancient Mexica culture.
How does one even begin to imagine Preusss irst contact with those tribes? He was aware of the
achievements of other anthropologists who had gone before him and also of what they had endured.
How did he react to the hostility or indiference with which these communities may have greeted him?
How was he able to establish such open communication with them, one that would reveal keys to understanding their cultures? What resources did an anthropologist such as Preuss need a hundred years ago
in order to enter such diverse and not always friendly worlds?
We know that Preuss attended many Cora, Huichol and Mexicanero rituals. He transcribed their songs
and prayers, recorded their music and described their dances. He collected about 2300 crat objects, most
of them ritual in nature. He was an active participant in the agricultural ceremonies known as mitotes,
sharing in the ecstatic experience produced by the music, dancing and peyote consumption. Later, he
would remember them as the most interesting moments in his long stay in rural Mexico. In his diary he
exclaimed, How paltry is the mere aesthetic experience compared to the sensation of watching the ritual
ater one has also understood the intellectual forces that explain the origins of all this!
In this issue of Artes de Mxico, a selection of the ritual objects that Preuss acquired in this country
will be shown publicly for the irst time in a hundred years. his collection has been preserved all these
years due to the fact that it is housed, along with Preusss ield notes and journal, at the Berlin Ethnological Museum (part of the Dahlem Museum Center), which has generously allowed us access to them and
to publish photographs of them. his is the second time that we have had the opportunity to work with
this institution and its curators (see Artes de Mxico issue no. 17 on the Dahlem Museums surprising
collection of pre-Hispanic sculptures). We are once again fortunate to have Johannes Neurath as the issue coordinator. He was previously the guest editor of our colorful and very popular issue on Huichol
art (Artes de Mxico issue no. 75).
As if pulling treasures one by one out of a chest, at the Dahlem Museum we were able to inspect each
of these precious objects that we are pleased to share with our readers here. Preuss believed that these
pieces were not precisely oferings to the gods. hey were used in religious practices, and their manufacture formed part of the rituals: non-verbal dramatizations of the myth, as Preuss called them. he objects
were magical instruments that sustained the existence of the gods and the movement of the world. hey
were tools that helped the gods in their activities. In retrospect, the aesthetic value of these pieces is increased by our knowledge of their meaning.
Many of these pieces are like tiny, symbolically-charged worlds that provide us a glimpse of the spiritual dimension of these ancient cultures that are still alive today, and whose existence continues to be
governed by myths and rites.
Mexico is deeply indebted to the many foreign scholars who have helped open our eyes to our own
cultural wealth. his issue of Artes de Mxico is intended as a tribute to the memory of Konrad heodor
Preuss, a German pioneer of Mexican ethnology, and an account of the Mexican adventure that he embarked on a century ago.

Translated by Michelle Suderman.

theoretical determination

Konrad heodor Preuss:

In Search of Magic, Rituals and Songs
Paulina Alcocer

he son of a civil servant, Preuss was born in 1869 in the city

of PreussischEylau (eastern Prussia). He studied geography and history at the University of Knigsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia) and in 1894 presented his doctoral thesis, he
Funerary Customs of Indigenous Americans and Northeastern
Asians. It is worth noting that even in this early scientiic work,
he tended to oppose the monotheistic supposition of a bodysoul dualism in referring to the religions of ethnic groups. It
was due to his rejection of this notion that he was able in subsequent works to address theoretical problems concerning magic,
art and ritual.
Like many of the irst generation of German anthropologists,
Preuss was a disciple of Adolf Bastian in Berlin. He took courses
in ethnology at Friedrich Wilhelm University and joined the
staf of the Royal Museum of Ethnology as a scientiic assistant
in their Oceania and Africa departments.
Inspired by Eduard Seler, a pioneer in the study of pre-Hispanic codices and Sahagns manuscripts and at that time curator
of the museums Americas department, he soon changed course
to focus on Mexican studies, publishing a series of articles on the
Mexica religion at the turn of the century. Nevertheless, unlike
his mentor Selerwho increasingly focused on Mesoamerican
studies during these yearsPreuss always kept up his general
anthropological interests, particularly in the ield of ritual theory.
Inluenced by classical philologists, folklorists and historians of
contemporary religionmany of whom belonged to Hermann
Useners inluential schoolhe demonstrated a great interest in
the comparisons made between the Aztecs and other ancient
civilizations, such as the classic Greeks and the Vedic Hindus.
In his earliest essays on Mexico, Preuss suggested that Aztec
human sacriice should be seen as the sacriice of demons, intended to increase the magical powers of deities associated with
natural phenomena. In fact, in his view, all forms of artistic expression, as well as sacriice and the staging of ritual battles and
coitus, stemmed from magical acts aimed at bringing blessings
and abundance. According to this line of thought, what set the
gods apart from other beings was the fact that they possessed
magical powers, though in the strict sense they were supposed
to be seen as objects in the natural world, distinguished only by
their ability to transform themselves.
Although at this stage, Preuss conceived of rituals as the nonverbal dramatization of mythsfollowing the tenets of the school
of natural mythologyby the end of the decade, rituals had
gained greater theoretical autonomy in Preusss thinking, and he
focused more on their particular kind of symbolization. Starting
in 1904, Preuss began to investigate the relationship between ancient Mexican culture and its extensions in northern America. In
he Suns Battle against the Stars in Mexico, he set out the results
of his quest for a cohesive concept that would reveal the unifying
principles behind the enormous variety of phenomena present in

74

ancient Mexican religion. What ideas were there underlying the

beliefs and worldview of the peoples who shared this cultural tradition? Mexican religion strikes most researchers as so strange
that until now, the quantity and variety of images have stood in
the way of any attempt to discover some uniformity in them, he
writes. However, only a uniform conception of an evolving history capable of explaining all the facts can ensure the validity of all
the particular relationships established, as well as the most general
interpretations. One of the nodal points required to achieve such a
uniform conception is the struggle between the Sun and the stars.
Although he was identiied with the trend known as astralism,
which arose following discoveries about the astronomy of the
Babylonians and other ancient Old World civilizations, Preuss
was no uncritical partisan of that school of thought. He found it
unacceptable to replace the understanding of an entire cultural
tradition with crude labels by employing terms like Sun worship, snake worship or fetishism.
A clearer formulation of his stance on the subject can be
found in a 1910 work, he Observation of Nature in the Religions
of the Mexican Cultural Sphere. In it, he asserts that, Every ethnologist must concur that progress in the science of the religion
of primitive tribes depends primarily on research into the observation of nature, which serves as the basis for the form and
essence of divine beings. Gods are thus constructed not from
depth of feeling or anything else; instead, it is a matter of efective forces that are questioned by man, and whose power has in
some way been lodged in mans perception.
Nor did Preuss believe that ideas about natural forces and
the gods could be attributed solely to natures inluence. On the
contrary, he said, Within man himself lies the desire to impart
magical inluences to his natural surroundings.
Preuss expedition to the region known as El Gran Nayar was
no doubt directly motivated by Lumholtzs studies of the Huichol
Indians. Seler himself had already published a lengthy article in
which he reorganized the Norwegian explorers materials according to Mexicanist criteria. It appeared obvious to Seler and
Preuss that Lumholtz had neglected to record indigenous ritual
texts in their native language and failed to take the heuristic importance of contemporary religious rituals into account when
interpreting aspects of ancient Mexican civilizations. In every
instance, the Berliners approached the ethnography of El Gran
Nayar in the light of their Mesoamerican interests and from their
ethnophilological perspective.
It was Seler who proposed the idea for a German expedition
to El Gran Nayar. As M. Rutsch points out, Seler and Boas had
planned from the start to organize an international expedition
to the Huicholes mountain enclaves in collaboration with museums in New York and Berlin. In Selers view, however, Preuss was
not the ideal candidate to see it through, as neither his linguistic
skills nor his speculative theories had gained Selers trust. It
was the geographer Von Richthofen who was able to turn things
in Preusss favor, and he was oicially put in charge of the enterprise by Prussias Ministry of Religion, Education and Medicine
and the Royal Museums general administration. Financing was
to be provided by the foundation that Joseph-Florimond, the
Duke of Loubat, had established in Berlin to fund the chair in
Linguistics, Archaeology and Ethnology in the Americas.

Ritual combat during Easter celebrations, Jess Mara, Nayarit, 1923. National Museum of the American Indian. Smithsonian Institution.
Photograph by Edward Davis.

Documents at the Berlin Ethnological Museum provide information on the original plans for Preusss expedition to Mexico.
he goal was to study Indian antiquities and tribes in western
Mexico, in particular, the states of Jalisco, Tepic, Zacatecas, Durango, Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Sonora. he expedition was
justiied by the fact that the museum possesses practically no
archaeological or ethnological materials from there, despite the
importance they might have to studies of ancient Mexican cultures, given that these native tribes are linguistically related to
the Aztecs. heir religious life in particular will help to clarify, in
retrospect, the culture of ancient Mexico, and to interpret pictographic manuscripts with mythological and religious content.
Preuss expedition to western Mexico was thus originally
geared toward the exploration of archaeological sites that were attributed to the Chichimecas, such as La Quemada. he archaeological objects were to be illegally transported to Berlin, in order
to enrich the world-famous collections of Prussias Royal Museum of Ethnology. he objective of the ethnological study of the
mountain tribes was to obtain information about their myths that
might prove useful in interpreting the expeditions inds. To the
majority of Berlin-based Mexicanists, the conceptions of living
Indians were but the impoverished remains of their past glory.
Preuss reversed the order of priorities. Choosing to respect
current Mexican legislation which prohibited the export of antiquities, he embarked on an ethnographic study of the mountaindwellers. He spent half a year among the Coras, nine months

75

with the Huicholes and another three months with the Mexicaneros. hough Seler, his direct superior in Berlin, repeatedly
exhorted him not to neglect the archaeological aspect, in the end
Preuss paid him no mind and devoted the entire expedition to
the indigenous population of the Sierra Madre Occidental.
He focused chiely on transcribing and translating ritual texts.
Using a sophisticated payment system, he convinced several religious specialists to dictate ceremonial songs to him, word for
word. In all, Preuss illed thirteen 400-page notebooks and came
close to running out of paper up in the mountains.
Based on these philological studies, Preuss developed a new
theory of Mesoamerican religion. Magical objects (such as gourd
bowls, arrows or small wooden pyramids) served to ensure the
connection between the gods and the world. But this magic was
not governed by a utilitarian teleology. Ritual objects were not
meant to manipulate nature. he miniature pyramid was a replica of the sky. Whatever happened to an object also occured on
the macrocosmic level.
Unlike Lumholtz, who had gained some celebrity as a ield
researcher even before travelling to the Sierra Madre Occidental,
Preuss was every inch the armchair anthropologist, with nearly a
hundred scientiic publications to his name when he departed on
his irst expedition. As an ethnological professional, Preuss had
little use for the old-school style of naturalist research so familiar
to Lumholtz, who had moved freely across a spectrum of disciplines ranging from geology to ethnology. Preuss was a research-

er specializing in problems of religious theory, anthropology and

linguistics in the Americas. By the time he began working in the
ield, hed already thoroughly developed his hypotheses, to the
extent that the empirical data obtained in El Gran Nayar seemed
to it his theories a little too neatly. In discussing Preuss, however,
it must be remembered that there have been few great theorists
in anthropological history to have actually performed in-depth
ield research. Preuss knew how to combine theoretical speculation with empirical research in a way that few others did.
he initial hypothesis that guided his ieldwork among the
Coras, Huicholes and Mexicaneros was that any understanding of ancient Mexico should begin with a detailed study of the
mountain tribes. Furthermore, to perform a valid analysis of
the religions of Mexicos ethnic groups, it was indispensable to
obtain traditional texts in the vernacular tongue. Ater the expedition, Preuss analyzed the abundant corpus of oral literature using classical philological methods. In his interpretation of rituals,
he developed Useners approach: ritual art is part of the means
of religious expression. In other words, it can be located on the
same analytical plane as songs and dances.
Translated by Daniel C. Schechter.

ethno graphic determination

Exploring the Living

Cultures of the Nayar
Manuela Fischer, Richard Haas and Edith heis

reuss took great care in making the preparations for his trip
to Mexico. Documents housed by the Berlin Ethnological
Museum attest that he took intensive Spanish courses at the
Berlitz Institute, and that he obtained letters of recommendation for the various Mexican governmental agencies from the
Prussian Ministry of Foreign Afairs. He let Germany early in
1905. In Paris, he met with Lon Diguet (18591926), a longtime
researcher of the Coras and Huicholes. When Preuss boarded
the America at the port of Cherbourg, his luggage included a
wooden box, a crate of riles, a tin suitcase, clothing, a tent, a bed
and two packages of letters.
He stopped in New York, taking advantage of the opportunity
to visit Franz Boas (18591943), staying at his house and discussing his plans with him. While in the Empire City, Lumholtz himself gave Preuss an introduction to his former ield of study, which
the younger man would cultivate earnestly from then on. From
New York, Preuss traveled to the port of Veracruz, accompanied
by the Mayan studies expert Edward Herbert homson (1860
1935). He then took the train to Mexico City where he spent some
enjoyable evenings at the home of Celia Nuttall (18571933), a
specialist in Mayan codices, and met with the archaeologists Alfredo Chavero (18411906) and Antonio Peaiel (18391922) as
well as the ethnologist Nicols Len (18591929).
Preuss then traveled by rail to Guadalajara, inally reaching
the terminal of San Marcos, Jalisco. From there, he continued his
journey to Tepic by stagecoach. In Tepic, he procured pack animals and the necessary provisions, with the assistance of Eugen

76

Hildebrandt, consul for the German Empire, and his business

partner, Maximilian Delius. He also obtained letters of introduction on behalf of the governors of Jalisco and Durango as well as
Tepics political leader.
In the numerous reports and letters he sent back to Germany,
Preuss documented the details of his journey. he ile of certiicates relating to Preusss position as an employee of the Berlin
Royal Museum of Ethnology contained letters addressed to his
immediate superior, Eduard Seler, the director of the Americas
section and at that time his main academic liaison.
here are other letters addressed to his colleague and personal
friend Max Schmidt (18741950), as well as reports with a more
oicial tone addressed to the Prussian Ministry of Religion, Education and Medicine. In these missives, Preuss told of the strides
hed made in his research and provided a glimpse of the oten
adverse conditions of life in the sierra. heres no doubt that for a
native of Prussia, the climate in Jess Mara Canyon would hard
to withstand, reaching temperatures of up to 45C (110F) in
the shade. He also sent versions of these reports to the editors
of several German scientiic journals, such as Globus: Illustrierte
Zeitschrit fr Lnder- und Vlkerkunde (Brunswick); Zeitschrit
der Gesellschat fr Erdkunde (Berlin); Archiv fr Religionswissenschaten (Leipzig) and Zeitschrit fr Ethnologie (Berlin). As regular mail service had been established in Cora territory as early as
1892, Preuss took advantage of the situation by sending his writings to Tepic. From there his compatriot Delius, a locally based
businessman, forwarded them to Germany, where they were published within a few weeks of the time they were written.
On December 24, 1905, Preuss sent Seler the following letter: Most distinguished Herr Professor: Tomorrow at seven in
the morning I plan to embark on my journey to Cora territory.
Ater spending Christmas Eve at the home of the local consul, I
want to brief him on the route of my journey and my plans. Soon
ater I arrived in the capital, it became clear to me how diicult it
is to export antiquities from Mexico. herefore I shall not make
any collection trips to the Chichimeca zone in question, mainly
because it would mean too great a depletion in my funds. And so
I have postponed all that and have begun to plot my trip to Cora
territory. [] Eventually, should it become necessary to return
to Tepic, I could perform excavations near the sea. Some tombs
have already been recommended to me. here are still downpours here which last a good part of the day, causing loods, and
this has delayed my departure.
Preuss let Tepic on Christmas Day of 1905, bound for Jess
Mara Chusetee via the royal road. He arrived there six days later.
He immediately commenced his ethnographic study of the Coras
and remained among them until June 1906, allowing him to witness many of the rituals associated with the dry season. His base of
operations was the Jess MaraSan Francisco de Paula road in the
scorching river gorge where the Coras lived, although he also visited the Nayar mesa in the high part of the sierra. At that time there
were 1500 indigenous people and 100 mestizos (persons of mixed
race) in Jess Mara, the municipal and ecclesiastic seat of the Cora
region, which was far less densely populated than it is today.
Of the three groups he studied, the Coras turned out to be the
most reluctant to participate in the ethnographic investigation.
During the irst month, he only managed to secure the collabo-

ration of Francisco Molina, an indigenous man who had fought funds for the expedition, mainly because the museums Americas
alongside Lozada in 1873. Actually, Molina no longer practiced
section was already deep in debt. While congratulating him on
his ancestors religion, but he was the only qualiied interpreter the strides hed made thus far, Seler said two dry seasons ought
available, since the other Coras spoke little or no Spanish.
to be more than enough to compile a lifetimes worth of materials
Ater his irst two months in the mountains, Preuss seemed to
for study and recommended that Preuss curtail his goals, adding
have overcome any initial diiculties. In a letter to Seler he wrote, a subtle reminder that the main objective of the trip was to comUntil this point, my study of the Coras has been limited. During
pile archaeological materials from the Zacatecas area. He further
the two months Ive lived among them, I managed to attend their wrote, I do not reproach you for considering other goals as your
most important ceremony, the mitote dance. I also documented
principal task, nor that youve dedicated yourself, and want to
the mitote songstwenty-three in allas well as the most im- continue dedicating yourself, to them exclusively. he success
portant prayers, and translated them from the Cora language. I youve had so far justiies your decision. In his response, dated
was even able to record most of the songs on my phonograph. May 13, 1906, Preuss made no mention of Selers instructions.
hese songs are very ancient and reveal absolutely foundational On the contrary, he raised the need to devote at least a years
concepts, despite the fact that these indigenous people have ad- study to each of the regions four ethnic groups.
opted a large number of Catholic customs. [...]
Even though Preuss expedition was moving ahead at full
he songs can be compared to the extraordinary Aztec songs
speed, he experienced his fair share of adversity and obstacles.
that have been handed down to us by Sahagn. In general, many In a letter addressed to Max Schmidt in May, Preuss had this to
customs go back to the pre-Hispanic era. During the mitote, for say: he indigenous people [Coras] have eyed me with great
instance, I saw a child who personiies the morning star and con- suspicion the whole time, and my presence always makes them
quers the other stars which take the guise of the deer character. uneasy. Nevertheless, Ive attended their ceremonies and dances,
[] Similarly, the ballgame using ones buttocks was still being
both in the town and up in the hills. In the towns of Jess Mara
played here a decade ago. I hope to make a valuable contribu- and San Francisco, I found men willing to dictate their songs,
tion to an understanding of the ancient Mexicans, and Ive ascer- tales and prayers to me. Two other Cora towns were too far away,
tained with great satisfaction that many of my interpretations of
so I visited them only briely. It took money to accomplish my
the ceremonies have been conirmed by the Coras.
goals, but I also had the help of a priest who lived alone among
Preuss had not even spent four months in the mountains when the Coras.
he addressed a letter to the general administration of the Berlin
With the commencement of the rains, Preuss moved to HuiMuseums to explain why he needed to extend his stay another full chol territory and rented the San Isidro ranch, which became
year. Eduard Seler backed his request, though in his reply to Preuss, his headquarters from late June to early October 1906, during
he could not help but express the dilemma faced by German an- the rainy season. He returned to Jess Mara for the mitote asthropologists of the day, which afected even Selers own interests. sociated with the irst fruits. In January, he settled in San Andrs
Although they were responsible for all aspects of ethnological re- (Teteikie), staying at the mission of the Catholic priest. In midsearch in addition to university instruction, the ethnologists main February he moved to Santa Catarina (Tuapurie), inally inishobligation was to amass museum collections. hus Seler urged ing his work among the Huicholes in late March 1907.
Preuss to collect archaeological objects from western Mexico.
Of his extended stay in San Isidro, Preuss had this to say:
Under the circumstances, Preuss was quick to underline his he indigenous people visited me daily, and I returned the visits,
progress in this task. In a letter dated March 14, 1906, he wrote, mainly on the occasion of their many iestas. I labored daily on
hus far, Ive managed to amass a collection of 400 Cora items
transcribing their texts, thus obtaining a large part of my collecincluding ritual instruments and art objects.
tion. It was a truly diicult job, since the Huichol languagelike
But true to the plans of the founding director of the Berlin that of the Corasis practically unknown, though there was an
Royal Museum of Ethnologywho had stated that an ethno- advantage here in that the Huicholes were easier to deal with
graphic collection should not be simply an accumulation of ex- than the Coras. he latter are ininitely more reserved but also
otic objects but also include materials that would allow a culture
more prone to violence, since theyre more fearless. he Huichoto be documented in all its aspectsPreuss proposed something les, in contrast, only become belligerent and boastful at their
more than a mere collecting expedition. Instead, he insisted on iestas, which they attend in droves, with both the men and the
carrying out in-depth ethnological research based on transcrib- women getting drunk. In these situations, the hatred they feel
ing texts in the indigenous languages while noting the diiculty toward foreigners comes to the fore and they accuse us of stealin completing such a project in the time allotted. In a letter ad- ing their lands. A further diiculty of working here is that the
dressed to the general administration of the museums he stated
ranch communities are widely scattered and normally consist
that, he indigenous area of the Sierra Madre [] strikes me as
of no more than ive little houses. Many of these include seva single vast whole, and it would be impossible to cover all of it in
eral dwellings with cornields between them. Furthermore, the
a yearnot even by restricting my attention to its main features. people customarily make extended forays for commercial activiAnd by choosing to limit it to a single tribe, one would be unable
ties or to visit their places of worship, so it can be hard to track
to solve most of the problems, since they can only be addressed them down. he Huicholes are generally poorer and their terrain
in the context of the other tribes.
rougher. By four or ive months before the harvest, you already
In April 1906, Seler wrote Preuss from Rome to inform him
begin to notice a lack of food. Wild fruits and roots are eaten
of the diiculty he had encountered in trying to ind additional during these times of scarcity.

77

Cora game bags from Jess Mara, Nayarit.

With San Isidro as his base, Preuss made several excursions

through Huichol territory: Another three-week excursion took
me to Guadalupe Ocotan, on the other side of the Chapalagana
River, where I had the chance to witness four iestas. [] Working here was occasionally uncomfortable, mostly because the
Huicholes fear that I am searching for mines. hey think my
camera is some kind of metal detector.
While among the Huicholes, in addition to the aid of a Cora
Indian named Molina, Preuss hired Jos Mara Carrillo and later
Ramn N. to serve as intermediaries. hey were bilingual and
well-acquainted with the outside world. He invariably paid these
informants for their services, though he noted that the wages
demanded by the Coras were much higher than those earned by
the Huicholes; even so, a days salary was three times that of a
farmhand. Additionally, special bonuses were awarded to those
storytellers who were able to work with him throughout some
of the longer sessions. He was not ashamed to acknowledge that
indigenous people would come to his camp to sell him myths.
Once the expeditions objectives were understood, his assistants
would also be responsible for selecting ethnographic pieces for
the museum collections. Some of them earned commissions for
inding objects. Sometimes the pieces would be paid for in cash;
other times theyd be traded for cloth, beads or wool. On certain
occasions, as in the case in Santa Catarina, a form of reciprocal
donation did the job: gits for cultural testimony. Meanwhile, the
anthropologist focused on transcribing texts and observing rituals. he line-by-line translations were done in situ, in collaboration with his assistants, and a more detailed version was done
later. One of his employees learned to use the camera, helping
out with photo documentation. Due to the technical requirements of the time, Preuss had to develop his own pictures.
During these trips, his collaborators obtained the necessary
authorizations to visit sacred sites and negotiated the collection

78

of pieces for the museums. Where necessary, Preuss would use

oicial recommendations to facilitate his research activities.
Due to complications with customs in the port of San Blas,
it was no easy matter for Preuss to ship his collections to Berlin.
In a letter he sent to Max Schmidt from San Isidro, Preuss complained that the customs oicers unpacked everything, despite
Deliuss attempts to intervene, so in the long run, it turned out to
be more practical to transport the objects overland from Tepic
to Tampico for shipment to Europe.
During his time with the Huicholes, Preuss had gone through
the 15,000 marks hed originally budgeted for a years stay. To
solve his inancial problems, he made a deal with the Municipal
Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg to sell them an ethnographic
collection valued at 3500 marks, without prejudicing the Berlin
museums interests.
Finally, at the beginning of April 1907, he traveled to the
town of San Pedro Jcora, in the region of the Mexicaneros. As
Preuss noted in another letter to Max Schmidt, he Aztecs
have always been my aspiration. From Jess Mara, he followed
a route that passed through San Francisco, San Juan Peyotn,
Huazamota and San Antonio.
Amid these accessible indigenous people, whom he would
come to consider the most civilized of the three tribes, he found
the most collaborative informants. He rented a house on the
town square and hired two locals to take him to most highly respected storytellers. He summarized the spirit of his ield work
as, Living peacefully alongside the people, sharing their joys
and hardships.
Preuss realized that the Mexicaneros were not, as hed supposed, the missing link between the ancient Aztecs and presentday Coras and Huicholes, although certain characters in Nahua
textsreferred to simply as devilsdo shed some light on certain deities of ancient Mexico.

here was one problem that he could never have anticipated:

with such a wealth of textual material, his supply of paper could
run outsomething that almost came to pass. He had been
planning to stay with the Mexicaneros until the end of the rainy
season, and even to visit the Tepehuanes and Tarahumaras, but
then he contracted malaria and his funds again began to run low.
He let San Pedro Jcora on June 25, 1907. On his way to the
Mesa del Nayar and Jess Mara he passed through the town of
Santa Teresa (Cueimarutsee), in the most elevated part of Cora
territory. As the rivers rose, he had to leave his most valuable
collections behind in Jess Mara with the intention of shipping
them later, ater the end of monsoon season. He reached Tepic
on July 14, 1907.
Once in Tepic, he found that 4000 marks had arrived from
Berlin to help him continue with his research. Had he known
that these funds would be made available to him, he would have
attempted to research the Tepehuanes, despite his malaria.
In a letter written in mid-August aboard the ship Albingia,
he noted, My return journey from Tepic was deplorable. It took
a while for my stomach to get used to a meat diet, and in addition, I continued to sufer from bouts of malaria. I was glad
to have embarked without becoming seriously ill. I am feeling
much better now.
Preuss had a number of reasons to feel satisied with the
results of his expedition. In a report addressed to the Ministry
of Religion, he enumerated the expeditions accomplishments
as follows: 1. An extraordinarily rich body of indigenous texts
in three diferent languages (Cora, Huichol, Mexicano), unlike
anything known today among the people of Mexico and Central
America. he texts, with interlinear translations, ill about thirteen 400-page notebooks, and comprise 293 myths, hundreds of
long chants and songs, and numerous prayers. he entirety of
this corpus was transcribed directly from the indigenous people
themselves, who have no written language, and then translated
by indigenous interpreters, who possessed only the most rudimentary knowledge of Spanish. 2. Material to produce grammar
books for two languagesCora and Huicholthat were virtually unknown until now and are quite diferent from each other.
[] 3. Detailed descriptions of or information on the rituals and
ceremonies of the tribes in question. 4. A collection of around
300 selected ethnological objects. [] 5. Around seventy wax
phonograph cylinders with songs and prayers in the Huichol
and Cora languages. [] 6. Nearly a thousand photographs,
demonstrating every aspect of indigenous life and the natural
environment.
he ethnographic collection sent to the Museum of Hamburg
comprised 400 Huichol and 150 Cora objects. In the 1920s, the
Berlin Museum sold a small part of the Preuss collection to Swedens Gothenburg Museum.
Based on his scholarly research during the trip to Mexico,
Preuss published numerous articles on the Coras, as well as one
monograph in 1912, he Expedition to Nayarit I: he Cora Religion. Some unpublished manuscripts on Huichol texts were
lost during World War II. Part of the material from the Mexicaneros was published posthumously between 1968 and 1976,
edited by Elsa Ziehm.

determination to understand

he Use of Magical Instruments

Paulina Alcocer and Johannes Neurath

Translated by Daniel C. Schechter.

79

he expedition to the Gran Nayar marked a new style of research using philological and morphological methods for a
project that sought to understand the American peoples on their
own terms. From that perspective, the integral analysis of a ritual
is especially signiicant and is based on detailed documentation,
not only of texts but of every form of religious expression, such
as dance, music and ritual paraphernalia. In this sense, Preusss
ethnographic collection is especially valuable for the connections it makes between intellectual culture and material culture,
two spheres that he considered inseparable.

Coras
In Jess Mara, following the New Years celebration, Preuss witnessed a mitote ritual for the irst time. His transcription of ritual
texts commenced later with the collaboration of Ascensin Daz,
from San Francisco, and then other singers from Jess Mara:
Leocadio Enrquez and Santiago Altamirano. He also was able
to convince other specialistslike Matas Cnare (governor of
Jess Mara), Haciano Felipe and Lucio Bernabto tell him
myths and stories. hat way, he gradually won the friendship
and conidence of a few informants. However, he was rejected
outright by some of the singers, and on the Mesa del Nayar he
was even told that the mitotes no longer existed, which was obviously not the case.
Among the Cora Indians he witnessed important syncretic
ceremonies combining local and Christian traditions, including Christmas, Easter, the Changing of the Authorities ceremony,
Carnival and the ceremony of the Baths. In his view, though, it
was a nominal Christianity, in which the Coras constantly strove
to adapt their pagan customs to the Catholic liturgy. His notes on
the diferent groups of dancersthe moros, the urraqueros, the
maromeros and, above all, the judosare interesting.
He collected a number of masks worn by the so-called old
men of the dance and documented the ritual use of one of them
as an oracle. he dancers carried a wooden staf in one hand,
known as palma. A miniature version of this staf, made of natural palm leaves, is placed in the hands of dead people. hey wear
a crown decorated with four bunches of long magpie feathers;
children who die before the age of twelve wear the same crown.
Some of the dancers had covered their faces with a beaded veil.
he magpie is the bird of Mother Earth.
In June 1906, the German ethnologist was invited to the
planting ritual or cicada ritual at the ceremonial center of Tauta,
a Cora community in San Francisco de Paula Kuaxata. According to the report he sent to the magazine Zeitschrit fr Ethnologie, Preuss had gained the conidence of the locals by showing
them a letter he had written attesting that there was nothing
reproachable about their customs. At the time, expressing such
an opinion in writing was a sign of solidarity because just a few
years earlier, the sub-prefect of Jess Mara had attempted to
prohibit and suppress these ceremonies.

I feel strong emotions when I remember those ceremonies

Sun, the water causes no further misfortunes, but rather beand festive dances, wrote Preuss, because I truly managed to comes a blessing. Preuss explained that, [he] snake that lives
penetrate the intellectual world of the Coras and their ancestors. in the western sea [] represents the night sky. Its darkness is
Although the Jesus Mara mitote was more interesting, my best conceived as water, and the Morning Star is believed to kill it evmemories are from the community of San Francisco, whose in- ery day with its arrow. Next, the snake is ofered to the Sun God
habitants treated me very kindly, even inviting me to take an ac- as food. So the Morning Star transforms the snakes destructive
tive part in their ceremonies.
energy into a blessing. In the same way, it makes the dew fall
Of course, active participation implied consuming peyote, at upon the earth. It is believed that in the past, before the Mornthat time a common Cora practice. In reading his report, it be- ing Star dominated the snake, the latter efectively destroyed the
comes clear that Preuss did not resist the more pleasurable efects world and all humanity.
of the psychotropic cactus. In this text, written in a slightly ironic
tone, Preuss testiies to several typical efects: insomnia, height- Huicholes
ened acoustic perception, stimulation of the imagination and a Among the Huicholes, Preusss main interest was also to obtain
ixation on details such as spiders and other insects perishing in textual testimonies, although he obviously took advantage of the
the ire: he crowd jammed the small ritual patio, which was
opportunity to observe the rituals that took place during his stay.
enclosed by a ring of stones. Everyone took an active part, even His reports contain descriptions of diferent ceremonies, like the
in the minor rituals. In the center of the patio a peyote potion ritual of the tender corn cobs; a few healing ceremonies; the ritual
was being prepared in a large gourd bowl. Everyone was served
of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the dance of the Wainarori; the
a large spoonful, using the same spoon for everyone. Actually it Pachitas ritual (Carnival); the peyote and toasted corn rituals, Kuhad the consistency of a porridge more than that of a beverage. runime, the changing of the roof on the great tuki temple, the
Its consumption, oten in large quantities, is one of the sacriices
change of leaders for the tukipa ceremonial center, the ceremony
a ield researcher must endure.
to protect against leas and the heiwatsiire ritual. So, in diferent
Peyote induces sleeplessness, but I couldnt have slept any- communities, he witnessed virtually the entire annual cycle of Huiwaysitting on the uncomfortable rock they always ofered me
chol rituals. He described the sites and the ritual paraphernalia,
as a seat, regaling me with corn-leaf cigars, while serving me
providing explanations of their meaning, and also explored the
more and more peyote. All the while, behind me, the frenzied
sacred places in the regions of San Andrs and Santa Catarina.
dancing and noisy rhythmic stomping of sandals continued.
In the peyote ritual, he noticed that All the dancers were
In the distance, there were rumbles of thunder, which are the
holding deers tails. As in Jess Mara, the two feathered sticks
words of the gods and are mentioned in the songs. Fortunately, that many wore on their heads represented deers antlers, while
we were blessed with the usual nocturnal rain. A cicada fell into
the choreographic movements of the dance imitated the attackthe bonire chirping its swansong without anyone becoming up- ing thrusts of a deers antlers. he peyoteros costumes included
set over the death of a deity. With the same indiference people
hats decorated with turkey feathers and squirrel tailsboth solar
watched the death by incineration of an enormous centipede
animals. Like their family members, the peyoteros wore the face
that had appeared from between the peoples bare legs. For what paint of the gods. Of all the dances I watched in the sierra, none
seemed like an eternity, every detail of its luminous body was
made such an impression on me as the abandoned frenzy of the
visible as it burned.
peyote dance, which would begin at noon in the plaza outside
he researcher from the Royal Prussian Museum of Eth- the temple. Danced by men and women alike, some 175 peonology clearly enjoyed indigenous rituals. In his opinion, they ple in all would step in time to the rhythm of the singers lusty
marked the most interesting days during his long stay among the voice. hey would make turns in diferent directions, in absolute
Coras, the Huicholes and the Mexicaneros.
chaos, suddenly rushing headlong inside the temple for a few
In the same report, he talks of the connection between the
moments. Many dancers would leap wildly in the air, shaking
ritual act, the songs and a myth that all refer to the rising Sun the sugar canes painted with lightning and rain clouds with one
and its victory over the stars. he boy who represents the Morn- hand, while holding the deer tails in front of them with the other.
ing Star [Haatsikan] was taken before the altar. He shot an arrow he consumption of peyote caused some of them to have a terriwith the bow he found there. he arrow fell on the far west side
ble, ixed deathlike stare on their faces, but the rest of the people,
of the ritual patio. Simultaneously, one of the dancers picked up
sweaty and enveloped in an enormous cloud of dust lit up by the
a sash that belonged to one of the traditional governors assis- burning hot sunrays, would be shouting with joy. he sight of
tants, who had deposited it in that same spot in the west. Swing- the dancers decked out in feathers, belts, sashes, bags and other
ing it in the air, the dancer moved in circles around the ire a few accessories, was an extremely colorful spectacle.
times. Finally, he threw it toward the arches of the altar on the
Animated by his understanding of this ritual, he exclaims,
eastern side, where it remained. [] he aforementioned sash How paltry is the mere aesthetic experience compared to the
represents the snake that lives in the sea of dawn. he snake is
sensation of watching the ritual ater one has also understood
the dawn and lives in the West, as we know from Cora myth.
the intellectual forces that explain the origins of all this!
he ritual text that corresponds to this scene explains that
Preusss ethnographic descriptions are not lacking in humor.
Haatsikan irst kills the snake, then the falcon carries it up to the He describes the ritual for protection against leas as follows: A
zenith, where the eagle devours it. At that moment, the snake is
boy of seven, who had been crouching before the altar hidden
transformed into the water of life, or rain. Controlled by the
under a blanket, was taken outside, irst to the middle of the

80

he Sierra of Nayarit. Photograph by Lon Diguet. Photo SCALA, Florence.

Collection of the Muse du Quai Branly, 18961898.

plaza, then successively to all four corners. Ater each sortie he

re-entered the temple, leaping on all fours, until he inally remained outside. he grubby little tyke understood his role as a
lea perfectly. He bounced his way into a crowd of women waitingbrooms in handto sweep the temple ater the inal ceremony. he women scattered amid screams of laughter.

Mexicaneros
In the Mexicanero community, Preuss researched the xuravet
equivalent to the Coras mitoteand visited the sacred caves in
the vicinity. He paid special attention to healing techniques and
documented practically all the prayers and xuravet songs common at Carnival time, as well as numerous myths and tales. He
managed to prove that despite the havoc wrought by the Conquest and the changes inlicted by Spanish colonization, many
of the ancient beliefs had been preserved in these cultures. But it
was in the literature of this Nahua culture that he irst discovered
vestiges of themes from European folktales.

Preusss Collection
Preuss amassed the most systematic collection of Cora and Huichol objects ever seen. Although he never managed to write the
inal volume of his Die Nayarit-Expedition about the material
culture and social life of these peoples, it is possible to use museum catalogue entries and some of his articles to reconstruct

81

the role that the analysis of Cora and Huichol objects played
in the global interpretation of the culture of these indigenous
mountain dwellers.
Many of the Cora and Huichol pieces at the Berlin Museum
are ritual objects, which Preuss saw as forms of cultural expression and therefore, as having the same religious importance as
the texts, songs and dances.
On numerous occasions, Preuss criticized the tendency to
consider any ritual object as a simple ofering. Referring to arrows, gourd bowls and other Cora and Huichol ceremonial objects, he insisted that they were the magical instruments of the
gods. he votive arrows cannot be considered oferings, but neither are they prayers. Instead, they are indispensable vehicles for
obtaining life, health, rains and good harvests.
he ceremonial feathered arrows are beings in and of themselves, blessed with magical powers, the equivalent of idols. he
speciic powers of the feathers depend on the color and habitat
of the bird in question, and the diferent types of feathers corresponded to speciic deities.
In the ritual texts recorded by Preuss, the ritual objects participated in the dialogues and cosmogonic events at the same
level as zoomorphic or anthropomorphic divinities. According
to the mythology, the arrows and gourd bowls originally belonged to the gods; it was they who brought them here when
they let the underworld. he job of men consists of restoring

them to their former state because the gods need these objects with their feet. By dancing, the ancestors stretched out the diato keep the world functioning.
mond-shape weaving covered in earth, which is the world. hat
In this sense, stepsimumuiare used by the sun to rise in is why every mitote celebration amounts to a representation of
the sky and reach its midday position. he disks called nierika, the mythical events of creation. Manufacturing these objects imlike the woven crosses called tsikurite, are instruments to see, plies creating the world.
to obtain the shamanic visions that reveal the inner shape of the
On several occasions Preuss warned against overly narrow
cosmos, although the latter are also considered stars. According interpretations of indigenous religions. For example, the [Cora]
to Preuss, the etymology of the word tsikuri comes from turning deities are ancestors or natural forces, but it would be impossible
round with thread. In a Cora song he documented, the chnaka
to classify them based on these two decidedly diferentiated catweaving, equivalent to the tsikuri, is a pre-iguration of the Earth. egories. In fact, consistent with Preusss discoveries, we would
hat text describes how the irst mitote ceremony was cele- have to say that in the indigenous religions he researched, a conbrated and how the goddess of the Earth and Moon created the cept of nature as an area separate from culture and society simworld. Ater taking her children from the depths of the primeval
ply did not exist. Nature is not merely the backdrop for human
ocean, she assigned the clouds to them as their abode. But now life. he cosmos is not a given, nor does it exist independently
the gods started thinking: What are we going to do? Were tired
of ritual work. hat is why Preuss insists that oferings are not
of just hanging here. hey remembered their mother, their el- just a git to revered beings. We can say that their elaboration
der brother and their father, and called them: Were tired now. and dedication is a ritual that reenacts the birth of the gods and
Do you know how you can help us? She listened and told them: allows them to exist.
Look for something of yourselves. So they did, and they began
Among the oferings for the renovation of special gods, he
searching. hey took something of themselves which was earth, mentions the one to Takutsi, the old goddess of unlimited fertiland formed a small ball out of it. When they inished doing that, ity, which included maguey, jicamas, yams, and iguana and wild
they called their mother, their brother and their father. To their boar meat, along with a replica of the canoe from the great lood.
mother they gave what they had taken from themselves. She re- Many of these items are the embodiment of the goddess herself.
ceived it and wondered: What am I going to do with that? hen Preuss also describes the ofering of a catish to the goddess of
she remembered Our Elder Brother, and told him, Put your ar- corn and ish, Uteanakathe catish being an embodiment of
rows there, place them crosswise, one on top of the other. [he
this goddess.
narrator mentions explicitly that the arrows were placed in northhe fact that no clear distinction can be made between gods
south and east-west directions.] hats what he did and thats how and magical instruments is crucial to the theory of religion.
he placed his arrows. hen he tied them in the middle with a knot. Preuss maintains that at the dawn of religion there can be no
When he inished, he called his mother and told her. She then conception of a deity because the transition from magical obthought for a moment and remembered her hair. She pulled out jects to gods is necessarily a later phenomenon in the history of
a lock and wove it.
humanity. In the case of the Indians of the Gran Nayar, the gods
What the song describes is the elaboration of a diamond- are magical objects used by shamans and individuals in charge
shaped object commonly known as a Gods eye. It is a fairly of ceremonial centers.
common handicrat which is nevertheless replete with religious
he methodology employed by Preuss to interpret the symsigniicance because it was from a weaving of this typemanu- bolism of the magical objects is based on philosophical meditafactured with the arrows of the Elder Brother god and hair from tion on the process that the human intellect uses to form relithe mother godthat the earths surface was made. he song con- gious concepts and express them in texts and ritual customs, in
tinues: Once she had woven her hair, she took the earth and the
mythology and art.
hair, arranged them on top of the arrows and let the product for
Cora magical thinking shows how an indigenous religion lothe gods. hen she said to her children: Stand on this. hey did cates magic precisely in the imaginative power of thought, in
so, stamping on it with their feet to stretch it out. When they had sudden, spontaneous enlightenment or instant understandinished, they informed their mother, father and elder brother: ing. In the inal analysis, the magical action is to think and talk
Here it is, weve done as you asked. Good, replied Our Mother, with poetic force. It comes as no surprise, then, that the magic
You will remain here. And there she let the gods. Our Mother of words is so important in religions like those of the Coras and
blessed the product and called it world (chnaka). With those Huicholes. Prayer is nothing more than spoken ritual. Words bewords she completed the job. here she let the gods and every- come oferings, and people pray with objects, music and dance.
thing: stones, trees, grass, water and the god of Water [Txkan].
So, according to Preusss theory, the starting point for any
here she let all the birds and the animals. She also let human be- study of intellectual culture must be to recognize the role of
ings and domestic animals: cows, mules, horses, donkeys, sheep, imaginative power, a creative ability that acts by producing synswine, chickens and cats. Here on earth she let everything that theses that combine sensory impressions with fantastic ideas,
exists in it, and she will remain in the middle, above us. Nothing through which the things of the world are gradually introduced
is missing, and she will remain here forever. She also let behind a to the intellect, to then insert themselves into the analogical netlittle something for us, her children, for one of these days.
work that comprises the worldview and which precedes and dePreuss explains that, during this song, the mitote ritual be- termines the plethora of personal ideas.
gins precisely when the mother god says, Stand on this, and
In magical rituals, there is no false law of cause and efect bethe song continues with the words, hey did so, stamping on it cause no distinction is made between the part and the whole, and

82

therefore, rituals are not intended to be a manipulation of nature.

What happens in the microcosmos of the gourd bowl or the ritual
area also happens at the same instant in the macrocosmos.
And thus, with his theory of magic, Preuss distanced himself
from Frazer and other authors of his time (like Lumholtz), for
whom the ritual was utilitarian behavior based on false knowledge that would eventually be surpassed by human reasoning.
Preuss had no trouble accepting the polysemy of ritual symbolisms. he tsikurite are a good example, inasmuch as they
represent stars and simultaneously the earth. he earth is also
represented by the gourd bowls. Cotton is believed to be the
goddesss throne of clouds while simultaneously representing
the clouds that goddesses need to make rain.
A gourd bowl full of cotton represents humid, fertile earth,
which is why it also alludes to the female sexual organs that the
gods use to create life. It might be assumed, then, that arrows are
phalluses, but despite his interest in sexual symbols and phallic
rites, Preuss mentions nothing in this respect. Instead, the evidence he inds indicates that the votive arrows are the projectiles
used by the gods in deer hunting.
Every Cora arrow bears the symbols of the Morning Star
(Haatsikan), even if it is dedicated to Mother Earth (Texkame)
or to the ancientsthe most important deceased forebears
(takuate). he Morning Star is the protagonist in the cosmic
struggle between the forces of light and the sidereal nocturnal
monsters. he arrow is a metonymy for the Morning Star.
his identiication provides an argument against the interpretation that sees votive objects as the expression of a prayer:
If we are now told that the votive arrows are like the arrows of
Haatsikan, this means that they are not a means to carry prayers
and oferings but rather, powerful weapons. Wouldnt it be a very
strange custom to send prayers with an arrow?
Despite his reservations regarding the concepts of prayer and
ofering, Preuss explains that in the ritual songs he translated, it
is the gods who ask for the magical objects.
In our own experience, in Cora and Huichol rituals it is not
easy to determine who is asking and who is giving. In the dialogistic songs, the gods speak through the shaman, who is then
transformed into the people he was previously speaking to. he
symbolic eiciency of the songs apparently lies precisely in the
permanent change of perspective on the part of the Huichol shaman. he roles of the oferings donor and recipient become systematically muddled, in the same way that the roles of hunter and
prey, sacriicer and sacriicial victim, become confused.
In some articles, Preuss formulates a compromise between his
theory of magic and the principle of reciprocity. he Huichol oferings serve to provide the gods with the magical instruments they
need for their activities, but they also express the donors desires.
Consequently, the iconography of arrows, gourd bowls, nierikate
and itarite visually expresses what is being asked. Many arrows are
made to ask for childrens health. Details on arrows like miniature
sandals, bows and bracelets refer to children. Ater small cloths
have been rubbed against an infants skin to rid him or her of an
illness, they are tied to votive arrows. A miniature gourd containing tobacco is for boys who wish to become witch doctors; a partially-woven textile for girls who want to be weavers.
Translated by Carole Castelli.

83

Instruments of the Gods:

Select Pieces from the Preuss Collection
Margarita Valdovinos and Johannes Neurath

The Steps of the Gods (Huichol)

On a warm day in February or March 1907, the German ethnologist Konrad heodor Preuss visited the Huichol sanctuaries of
Teakata. If only for its natural beauty, it is worthwhile visiting this
area, stated the researcher in a travel chronicle he submitted to
Globus magazine. All the sanctuaries are located in a very narrow region alongside a creek that gushes over high waterfalls and
runs through enormous and impressive caverns. Six temples may
be glimpsed beneath some reddish rocks the size of towers. More
places of worship and sacred caves could be found nearby. he
two temples devoted to the gods of birth are only accessible by descending a vertical rockface. New mothers make a pilgrimage there
ive days ater giving birth: they enjoy the most enviable health.
He goes on: he region of Teakata is also the setting for
some of the myths I have documented. his is where the battle
between two groups of giants took place. While the losers were
being annihilated, the victors were becoming the ancestors, of
whom the people of Santa Catarina are so proud. And further
on, he god of ire appeared for the irst time in one of the
Teakata caves, burning from the netherworld up to the heavens,
whence the ire was stolen. On a strenuous day of work amidst
scorching rocks, I visited and documented it all, carrying away
a large booty.
he pieces collected at Teakata included a small wooden
pyramid, which was an ofering to Father Sun, meant to serve as
steps in his ascent to the skies. he miniature is a replica of the
sky which, in Mesoamerica, was not viewed as a dome but rather
as a stepped pyramid. he sun ascends into the sky by climbing
one side, and descends the other side. When the sun is at the
zenith, it has reached the highest point in its journey.
Ritual texts that Preuss transcribed in indigenous tongues
provide evidence for this interpretation: he songs clearly express that the loty heights of heaven igure among the regions
where the gods carry out their activities. his is why they mention
that the gods ask for steps (imumui) to ascend to and descend
from heaven. his document further states that, I felt like I was
dreaming when among the savages I was able to meet individuals whose sensitivity to nature was so highly developed and affectionate. In comparison, even the Greek world came up short in
my view, because the origins of their religious ideas can no longer be reconstructed, and their tales about the souls of trees and
plants represent only insigniicant vestiges of what once existed.
he miniature pyramid constitutes a good example for the
appreciation of the methodology Preuss used in his study of indigenous civilizations, both modern and ancient. here is no
doubt that among ancient Mexicans, the stepped pyramids with
places of worship at their peaks were also representations of the
gods abodes in the celestial heights, Preuss explained in a lecture on the Mexican astral religion. A simple Huichol ofering
is the key to revealing the secrets of pre-Hispanic ceremonial
architecture. J.N.

The Sacred Bundles of the

God of Children (Huichol)
Preuss let us some crucial testimony as to the Huicholes relationship with the dead and with deiied ancestors: hey feel
a great need to have the dead with them, to keep many deities
present. [] In small temples, one oten only inds a small chair
for the god. hey have some fairly simple sculptures made out
of stone or wood to represent the gods. In a place of worship
near the Santa Brbara church, every altar held a large bundle of
cloth and weaving, each with a stone inside. Surrounded by offerings of votive arrows, feathers, seeds, ribbons bearing beautiful designs and other woven textiles, these bundles could only be
opened once the rainy season had ended, given that the objects
had been arranged in a very speciic way in order to bring good
harvests. I was able to bring the largest bundle back with me: the
ire god Tatutsi Uistewari, seated on an equipal and quite similar
to a Peruvian mummy.
Another interesting aspect of these bundles with stone sculptures at the center is that they bear a striking resemblance to the
mummies of the Cora kings as described in colonial chronicles.
According to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources, these
were actual human bodies wrapped in fabric and seated on equipales (chairs of authority), which were worshipped in temples or
caves. Similar practices existed among the Huicholes.
A chronicle by Father Arlegui dating to 1851 quotes a report
describing the destruction of a Huichol ceremonial center located
on the outskirts of the town of Tenzompan: Being Father Miguel
Daz the guardian of this convent [of Tenzompa], he received news
that in Tenzomplatwo leagues away from the townthere were
certain little straw huts in the most hidden part of the mountains.
hey were full of many shields, arrows and pots, and apparently
no one lived in them. [] he largest hut had a small basket at the
door, and standing on it there was a waxen igure, a span high, representing a very ugly black man, with his hands held in such a way
that he appeared to be guarding the door. Inside this same house,
there was a chair or equipal at the front, and seated on it there was
a igure with the following form: it was a dead body that was not
missing a single bone, oddly wrapped in woolen cloths adorned
with brightly colored feathers, the bones somehow joined together,
so that only the lesh and nerves were missing, and they were tied
together with cane. In the other houses, there were shields, pots
and many glass beads. J.N.

The Mask of the Oracle (Cora)

Cora masks for the old men in the Dance of the Urraqueros are
especially powerful objects. For instance, Preuss had no problems acquiring the sacred Huichol bundles that are considered
to be the ancestors, but he never managed to collect any original
examples of masks for the Old Man of the dance.
Preuss described his experience with the San Francisco Kuaxata mask as follows: he mask worn by the leader of the dance
is especially interesting. It was carved about twenty years ago,
and it is so sacred that it was impossible to procure, so I had to
settle for an exact copy. he original was made by the key elders ater fasting for ten days, meaning that they ate only once a
day, and abstained from salt, and also that they drank water only
once a day. All the elders dreamed the same dream when they

84

slept, and that was that they must make a mask that depicted a
speciic person. hat is why the mask is a portrait. Ater making the mask, they fasted ten more days, and only then did they
start using it. he mask itself is a powerful god, and the people
worship it. When the rains are scarce, the people gather at town
hall and fast for ive to twenty days. During this time, the mask
is placed on the loor. [] Its long hair made from maguey ibers is stretched out like a coat, and to bring the rain, an ofering is made of paper and cotton lowers that represent clouds.
[] When the mask is angry, it refuses to send rain, and does
not want to protect people from misfortune. By communicating through its white, black or red paint, it appears in peoples
dreams and shows them what they need to do. When it speaks
with white paint, the problem that needs to be addressed is illness. White is a kind of protective barricade, but illnesses can
get through it and afect the population. Black is a reference to
night and clouds, and its signiicance is that the mask commands
the celebration of a nocturnal mitote ceremony in the mountains.
[] When the mask communicates through the color red, it is
asking that people pray to the Sun, that the entire population
recite prayers to the Sun. Red also represents the lightning bolt
against which the mask can ofer protection. J.N.

The Ywime Gourd Bowl (Cora)

he Preuss collection includes two of the most interesting Cora
ritual objects in existence, which are still in common use: the
ywime gourd bowl and the chnaka weaving. Both pieces are
considered to be representations of the world.
However, given that they appear in diferent ceremonial contexts, a comparative analysis of their ritual use allows us to move
past their iconographic characteristics and see how such objects
are known for their great dynamism: like their design, their use
is an indispensable element in our understanding of the representations that such objects contribute to ritual activities.
he interior of the ywime gourd bowl features a design in
colored beads, parrot feathers and cotton ibers held in place with
beeswax. he composition of these elements provides a glimpse
of the worlds structure. Preuss sees in this design an analogy
with the distribution of the ritual space where the gourd is used:
four points indicating the cardinal directions, with a vertical axis
emerging from the center, indicating up and down.
In the agricultural rituals known as mitotes, these bowls are
placed on an altar located on the east side of a circular patio. he
patio, the altar and the bowl are all seen as maps of the world. A
white handkerchief is placed on the inside of the ywime bowl, and
several small loral bouquets are arranged on top of it in the form
of a cross. hese bouquets were provided by each of the participants in the ritual, so the arrangement represents the members of
the group and the world at the same time. his bundle is called tihkame and constitutes the central object of worship in the mitotes.
During the ritual, the gourd bowl acts as a container of men
and corn. his is why it is identiied with the abode of Hrimua,
the goddess and creator of life. In its condition of recipient, of
uterus, the ywime bowl provides human life and corn, but
above all, it creates an analogy between these elements, and allows people to understand their own existence in relation with
the lifecycle of the grain.

The Chnaka Weaving (Cora)

he weaving known as chnaka (which literally means world)
consists of a circular structure made up of slender reed stems
interlaced with colored yarn. he design represents the territory
where humans live and within which they travel throughout their
lives. A circle in the center represents Tukamuuta, a mountain
that is considered the center of Cora territory and of the world.
Several triangles project from it, each one corresponding to a
mountain or a particular place, while their diferent colors attest to the varied landscape and kinds of soil there are on Earth.
hey correspond to places that the weavers have known all their
lives. Because of that, their woven interpretation is always diferent. Today, for example, it is said to include certain cities in the
United States where large groups of Cora now live.
he weaving is done by the members of the Council of Elders.
It is elaborated during the ive days of fasting following the ritual
held at the end of each year during which the traditional responsibilities are allocated. When the ritual is over, the weaving is
taken to Tukamuuta and placed in a cave as an ofering to Our
Father Tayau, identiied with the image of the Holy Sepulcher
and the Sun. his object is the central piece in a group of offerings, consisting of arrows (tabehri) that are placed before the
gods of the directions (tyahkuatye) who inhabit the mountains
and hills around the community.
he ritual uses of these two objects show us the diferent
conceptions of the world and the diverse ways in which its inhabitants relate to it. In the way the gourd bowl is used, we can
observe a process of concentration in which the diferent components of the world are represented through its unity. his centripetal conception may be seen in the design inside the gourd
bowl, where in a single image of the world we can see its diferent regions, though what predominates is the overall image. A
similar process takes place in the distribution of the contents of
the gourd: the placement of the bouquets contributed by each
of the participants indicates that they all form part of a single
group and that it is only as members of this group that they are
able to establish ties with corn. he action that takes place during the mitote ceremony refers to the relationship between the
ceremonial group and the corn, making it the starting point for
the conception of human life.
he case of the chnaka weaving is diferent, because more
important than its ritual use is its elaborationalways so innovativeand the fate that awaits it: ater this ofering is placed, it is
abandoned. Moreover, the fact that it occupies the central spot in
the arrangement of oferings next to the ritual patio highlights the
existence of a centrifugal process where the objective is to fragment the representation of the worlds unity. his process comes
into play in the chnaka weavings design, which is intended to
illustrate the diversity of the world and the diferent experiences
of its inhabitants. In a similar fashion, the ritual during which this
object is created alludes to the dispersion of the oferings, so that
the central object takes on its full meaning in the context of all the
other oferings which are placed as part of the same ritual process
in Tukamuuta, and throughout the Cora territory.
Other aspects of the ritual use of these two objects are equally
divergent. While the same gourd bowl is preserved and passed
down from generation to generationsuch continuity being

85

presented as analogous to the relationship between humans and

cornthe chnaka is an object made to be ofered and then forgotten, given that a year later, a new one will be made and ofered
in its place. Its ephemeral presence refers to the changes that the
landscape undergoes with the changing seasons.
he dynamic conception of the world expressed in these two
objects provides a glimpse of two facets of the relationship between the Coras and the world they live in. In the case of the
gourd bowl, the world is conceived as an agent with an active
role, because it gives humanity life through corn. In the case of
the woven cloth, the world appears as a passive agent, given
that it is man, through his experience, who creates links between
himself and the territory he moves through in his lifetime.

The Crown of Feathers (Cora)

Every Cora community that celebrates the mitote ceremony possesses certain prized items, including at least one crown of parrot
feathers. his object is always beautifully preserved by its custodians. he great care that goes into this task is due not only to
the regions dwindling parrot populationmaking the elaboration of new crowns very diicultbut also to the valuable role
the crown plays: passed down from generation to generation, the
parrot-feather crowns help to interconnect the representations
of the gods, deer, corn and man.
During the mitotes, two individuals are seen wearing such
a crown. he irst is a boy who represents Haatsikan, the Cora
cultural hero, and the second is a young man who personiies
the deer. hey appear at diferent moments of the ritual, dancing around the central ire among the other participants. heir
feather crowns, hidden beneath a bandanna, also hold a bunch
of feathered sticks on either side of their faces to simulate a deers
antlers.
he boy Haatsikan appears at diferent moments at the center
of the ritual action. He is usually accompanied by a girl dressed
in white and covered with lowers made from colored ribbons.
She represents Taty, Our Mother Corn. Together, they move toward the diferent cardinal directions to visit the spirits at each
point in the world. he youthwho is given the role of Naris
responsible for feeding the central ire and personifying the deer
in some of the dances. It is at this moment that he wears the parrot-feather crown.
Both participants have many other things in common besides their costumes. hey form part of a single hierarchy of
ritual positions, given that the young man chosen to represent
Nar must have played the role of Haatsikan in his childhood.
Similarly, during the ritual, the two characters facilitate the appearance of a new character who, though unseenas he only appears through descriptions of him in the songsshares certain
characteristics with them: it is Tah, Our Older Brother. his deity, identiied with Saint Michael the Archangel, is considered to
be a true cultural hero among the Cora Indians, as he is also the
deers older brother.
he crown of parrot feathers is an element that evokes different aspects of whoever wears it. In the case of the child, the
crown shows us that he is the guardian of the corn. When it is
worn by the young Nar, the crown identiies him as a particular
deer made from corn by Teih, Our Mother Corn.

One inal use of the parrot-feather crown may help us to

clarify its meaning. Another crown, identical to the one worn by
the two aforementioned participants, is placed around a gourd
bowl containing a large cotton boll. Set at the center of the altar
during the mitotes and at the ceremonies marking the change
of season (held in February, May, August and November), this
gourd contains the oferings of cotton let over the years by different residential groups that have participated in the ritual. he
crown of green feathers that surrounds it indicates that everyone
represented inside the recipient is closely linked to corn, which
is the main object of worship in these ceremonies. It also shows
the rituals participants that whoever wears the crown of feathersHaatskan, the deer and Tahremains in the world to
take care of them. he parrot feathers with their characteristic
bright green color represent corn tassels. M.V.

Huichol, Cora and MexicaneroTextiles

Preusss collection of textiles is surprising in its diversity and completeness. he clothing, game bags, ribbons, belts and nets that the
ethnologist acquired during his expedition through the Nayarit
Sierra are notable for the variety of designs, techniques and materials. he diversity of pieces and styles is quite revealing in terms of
certain aspects of the use and manufacture of these objects.
he collection of Huichol ribbons, bands and sashes is extraordinarily beautiful. Consisting of about a hundred pieces, it
features a varied graphic vocabulary that is notable for its color
combinations, original designs and the perfection of the techniques used. While these kinds of objects continue to be produced and used today, modern examples rarely display the same
degree of complexity as the pieces collected by Preuss, where the
smallest details and intricate designs evidence the diversity of
their use and central role in Huichol culture.
here are many examples of game bags woven on the backstrap loom, allowing us to identify certain distinguishing characteristics of Huichol and Cora textiles. Huichol pieces are woven
from one end of the loom to the other, so when the textile is
folded in half to form the bag, the central design is divided in
two. Cora game bags are woven from both ends of the backstrap
loom, allowing the weaver to create a diferent design for each
side of the bag and to inish the weaving at the centercorresponding to the bags basewith a simpler, more open stitch.
Mexicanero bags made from natural ibers display a diversity of
weaving styles and forms: square, round and extendible.
he diferent techniques used to decorate Cora bags allow us
to track the evolution of their designs. he irst group of textiles, woven or embroidered, contains simple geometric designs
that are repeated to create diferent texturesa birds wings, a
corncob, natural ibers, and so forth. A second group features
more elaborate designs with geometric forms that are combined
and organized in order to create certain images: lowers, animal
silhouettes, birds, tools, plants and so forth. A inal group, made
up mainly of embroidered pieces, is characterized by the use of
more elaborate images of lowers, plants and animals in which
symmetry is not the rule, as it is the unique details and variations
that predominate.
he textiles in the Preuss collection ofer one further surprise:
just as they provide us with a glimpse of the textile universe from

nearly a century ago, they also reveal certain facets of the person
that collected them. he inclusion of antique and sometimes incomplete textiles reveals the ethnologists interest in understanding how they were used. his interest is particularly evident in
one particular type of object in his collection: the samplers. In
fact, a large number of the textile pieces appear to fulill this
function, given that rather than presenting a inished design
done in a particular technique, they seem to be a collage of different stitches, color combinations and decorative techniques. In
this sense, Preusss samplers bear witness to his tireless quest to
understand the daily life of indigenous cultures. M.V.
Translated by Michelle Suderman.

unfinished determination

he End of an Ethnological
Adventure

86

Johannes Neurath

n February 1908, Preuss began to arrange for funds to publish

the results of his expedition. At that time, he was planning an
opus in ive volumes: 1. Cora texts, 2. Huichol texts, 3. Mexicanero texts, 4. Grammars and vocabularies, 5. An account of
his journey and a description of intellectual and material culture
(religion, art and sociology, and so forth) in context, taking into
account parallels with the ancient Mexican culture.
In 1912, the irst of the books about his Mexican research
was published in Leipzig, with the title Die Nayarit-Expedition:
Textaufnahmen und Beobachtungen unter mexikahischen Indianern 1. Die Religion der Cora-Indianer in Texten nebst Wrterbuch Cora-Deutsch (Expedition to Nayarit: Records of Texts and
Observations about Mexican Indians. I. he Coras Religion
through heir Texts, with a Cora-German Dictionary).
In the introduction he points out characteristics of the Cora
religion. Based on the philological analysis of the words to songs
from the mitote ceremony, he presents a systematic comparison with the religion of the ancient Mexicans. In his study of
the Cora religion he starts with the importance of the night sky
and the contrast between light and dark, to then move on to an
analysis of the main divinities: Tayau, the Sun; Tatx, the Earth
and the Moon; Haatsikan, the Morning Star, and Sutari, the
Evening Star.
He then presents 147 texts including myths and songs, with
their corresponding interlineal word-for-word German translation, followed by a freer translation. At the end he includes a
Cora-German vocabulary, so that the texts are more comprehensible for the reader. His wife Margarethe was in charge of correcting the galleys and compiling the index.
he book met with positive reviews all over the world. However, a series of unfortunate circumstances prevented a complete
publication including all the material obtained in Mexico.

Journey to Colombia
In September 1913, Preuss interrupted the publication of materials
from his expedition to Nayarit to embark on a new research voyage,

this time to Colombia. his decision may seem surprising, considering that he had only completed one ith of his editorial project.
Ater the irst volume of Die Nayarit-Expedition was published, Preuss was at the height of his celebrity. German colleagues and others around the world unanimously showered
him with accolades. But his relationship with the other Mesoamericanists of BerlinEduard Seler and Walter Lehmann
was worse than ever. Preuss had long been having serious diferences with Seler, his superior. Seler argued that Preusss theories
were too speculative. Preuss, the theorist, defended the need for
a global interpretation of the Mexican religion. With irst-hand
ethnographic studies, Preuss managed to impress his colleagues
by presenting an important theoretical, and at the same time
empirical, work.
Sidelined from Mesoamericanist projects directed by Seler,
Preuss did not attend the International Americanists Congress
of 1910, held in Mexico City, nor was he involved in the International School of American Ethnology and Archaeology founded
in the Mexican capital that same year. Daz de Arce mentions a
curriculum vitae in which Preuss states that the intention of his
journey to Colombia was to broaden his horizons, although it
was quite obvious he was also searching for a study ield far away
from director Seler.
Preusss main objective in Colombia was to visit the region of
the ancient culture around San Agustn, at the source of the Magdalena River. It was one of the most famous archaeological groupings in South America because of its many gigantic stone statues,
standing up to four meters tall. From December 1913 to March
1914 he carefully explored that region, drawing maps, excavating
and describing sites, amassing archaeological collections, making
molds of the statues and photographing them. Preusss work is
a landmark in the history of Colombian archaeology, inasmuch
as it was the irst systematic study of the countrys most famous
pre-Hispanic monuments. It interesting to note that in Colombia,
Preuss became involved in something he had never wanted to do
in Mexico: terrain archaeology.
On completing his work in San Agustn, Preuss moved to the
wild region southeast of Florencia. In hopes of discovering clues
in the beliefs and rituals of the living indigenous population that
would allow him to interpret the San Agustn monuments, he
traveled to the Uitoto Indian community that had settled on the
banks of a tributary of the Orteguaza River.
In July 1914 he went back up into the hills to begin new excavations on the other side of the central cordillera. Political
disturbances in Ecuador prevented him from reaching the area
from southern Colombia. So during August and September he
conducted archaeological digs in the Patia river valley, which he
was forced to suspend when his inancing was cut ater the outbreak of World War I.
Although he found it very diicult to concentrate on his research projects under these circumstances, in November 1914 he
set sail for Riohacha. He then traveled by canoe as far as Dibulla,
a village of blacks and mulattos, and from there to the irst Kogui
town of San Miguel, where he returned to his far less costly ethnographic research. he Koguis, a Chibcha group also known
as the Kgaba, was perhaps the most unapproachable of all the
cultures he had studied.

87

In April 1915, at the conclusion of his ieldwork, international political events stranded him in Colombia indeinitely.
Although Colombian authorities would not allow him leave the
country, they agreed to let him continue his research. He settled
in La Esperanza, along the railway between Girardot and Bogot.
Now his plan was to use the time to prepare works for publication about the Uitotos, the Koguis and San Agustn. He went so
far as to claim that all his notes would give him enough work
for the rest of his life. Ater receiving proposals from certain Colombian intellectuals to undertake other research in the country,
he wrote something that could well become a motto for anthropologists everywhere: It is satisfying to be able to inish a job
and begin another, more promising one [but] what use is it for a
researcher to explore a series of cultures, one ater the other, if he
runs the risk of not being able to publish the most essential part
of his work in his lifetime?
Finally, on October 7, 1919, he returned to Berlin. He immediately began looking for publishers for his books about Colombia, but in that era of crisis and inlation it was no easy matter
to get three voluminous books published. So the whole process
dragged on for a decade. In the early years ater World War I,
German anthropology not only sufered the consequences of the
loss of colonies: many foundations that had previously inanced
scientiic expeditions and publications had gone bankrupt under
the pressure of unending economic crises.

Preusss Death
here are still many questions surrounding the death of Preuss.
We know that under the Nazi regime Preuss refused to renounce
his independent spirit and was betrayed by an old colleague, a
scheming opportunist.
In contrast with the liberalism that had characterized the
founders of German anthropology, in the 1930s many representatives of this science were racists or even declared anti-Semitics.
Preuss wasnt, and because of that, he openly distanced himself
from Nazi ideology. In 1934, in the context of the Nazifying politics of cultural institutions, both Preuss, who was then 64, and
W. Lehmann, 55, lost their jobs at the museum. In Lehmanns
case it was more obvious that he had been forced into premature
retirement, though it was oicially explained as an administrative simpliication.
It was in this inauspicious atmosphere that Preuss resumed
publishing the Huichol texts. Beginning in 1934, he received a
modest annual sum from Franz Boas of the University of Colombia, who suggested that Preuss publish the Gran Nayar materials in
the United States. At the same time, Preuss and his exiled disciple
Mengin completed the irst edition of the Toltec-Chichimec history, published as a supplement to the magazine Baessler-Archiv.
he ethnology handbook, Lehrbuch der Vlkerkundeoriginally the idea of Leonhard Adamwas published in 1937. Ater
Adam emigrated, Preuss took over the coordination of the book,
for which he had been commissioned to write articles about
literature and religion, as well as a Guide to Ethnological Recordkeeping in the Field. Defying Nazi censorship, he included
Leonhard Adams articles about legal anthropology and the use
of questionnaires, as well as pieces defending functionalism by
Richard hurnwald and Wilhelm Mhlmann. his tendency was

repudiated by the regime, mainly due to certain anti-Nazi declarations by the most famous functionalist anthropologist, Bronislaw Malinowski.
Seizing Preusss selection of material as a political opportunity, Krickeberg wrote a review of the Lehrbuch for Zeitschrit
fr Ethnologie. According to the Austrian journalist Egon Edwin
Kisch, the review read more like a formal accusation to the police, done in a medium that was no longer viewed as out of the
ordinary in Nazi circlesthe pages of a scientiic journal. he
recriminatory reviewer [] informed the Gestapo that the eminent Mexicanist did not respect the national socialist ideology
because he did not profess the historicist idea of ethnology []
and frequently and respectfully quotes the functionalists.
In the inal paragraph of his text, Krickeberg wrote that, It
is inconceivable that Preusss book includes two contributions
from a non-Aryan ethnologist [L. Adam], and grants preference
to an ethnological school [the functionalist school] whose leader
[B. Malinowski] has become a declared adversary of todays nationalist-socialist Germany by adopting precisely this academic
viewpoint,
he editor of Zeitschrit fr Ethnologie, jointly responsible for
this publication, was the Africanist and avowed Nazi Hermann
Baumann. In the next issue of Zeitschrit, Krickeberg continued
his attacks. He ably painted Preuss as an orthodox functionalist,
and functionalism as a scientiic tendency with a Jewish orientation. In particular, he accused Preuss of not condemning
Malinowskis anti-Nazism enough, again arguing that the latters
political position should be understood to be a direct consequence of his scientiic stance. He thought it was not enough that
Preuss had limited himself to commenting that Malinowski has
a strangely tense relationship with current nationalist trends.
On June 8, 1938shortly ater these accusations were divulgedPreuss died. Oicial documents show the cause of death
to be a heart attack. According to Kisch, it would not have been
surprising that fear of a possible arrest by the Gestapo, mixed
with his indignation over the despicable and cowardly act by
an old pupil and colleague, had caused the health of the stillyoung Preuss to deteriorate. Moreover, the possibility that he
was assassinated with a blow to the heart has certainly not been
eliminated.
In 1947, when the German magazine Weltbhne publicly
accused Krickeberg of provoking Preusss death, he vigorously
denied it. he Berlin anthropologist Norbert Daz de Arce recently submitted the whole matter to a fairly meticulous review,
when it was concluded that although Kischs report contains a
certain lack of precision, it could indeed be airmed that Krickeberg was a declared Nazi who plotted against colleagues. Possibly
Preusss death was not caused by Krickebergs review but by a letter signed by Baumann informing Preuss that at a meeting which
the Americanist had been unable to attend, he had been stricken
from the list of eligible candidates for presidency of the German

88

Anthropological Society. he reason? An equally negative review

of the Lehrbuchwritten by an assistant of Professor Plischkes
named Senge and published in a Gttingen newspaperhad
also stated that it was scandalous to have included contributions
from racially impure authors.
his information comes from testimony written by Hans Nevermann, dated 1947, intended to defend Krickeberg, so it is not a
highly reliable source either. As Nevermann puts it, it was Preusss
widow who had conided the details of her husbands death. We
shall probably never know for sure what happened. According to
Nevermanns testimony, it was Baumann who insisted Krickeberg
add the aforementioned inal paragraph to his review.

he Posthumous Publication of Mexicanero Texts

In 1938 Preuss already had the Huichol texts ready for publication, and there was a plan in place for the German Science Emergency Association to inance the publication. However, during
an air strike in Leipzig the original manuscript was burned at the
B. G. Teubner publishing house. hen in 1944, during bombing
raids on Berlin, the building where Preuss had had his apartment was destroyed and along with it his photographic records,
as well as the only carbon copy of the book and all ield notes on
the Huicholes. Not only that, in the Hamburg bombings most of
Preusss collection that had remained in the city museum there
was destroyed.
Only a few objects and catalogue cards prepared by Preuss
survived. Fortunately, most of the cylinders with musical recordings were not afected. Ater the war they were taken to Leningrad, to later be returned to East Berlin. he irreversible destruction of the Huichol materials was a terrible loss for anthropology
and universal literature.
In search of unpublished work by Preuss, Gerdt Kutscher
accidentally came across a note in a publication for German
booksellers that one Mr. Preuss of the city of Treysa had won
a literature prize. When he contacted him, he turned out to be
the anthropologists grandson who told him that he had visited
his grandfathers apartment on January 3, 1944shortly before
its destructionand had taken some notebooks as a souvenir.
When Kutscher received them in 1958, he saw they included
three of Preusss ive ield notebooks containing Mexicanero
materials, a notebook of Cora texts and three notebooks with
Colombian materials. Elsa Ziehmethnomusicologist, specialist in oral literature and scholar of classical Nhuatlagreed to
prepare those texts for publication. And the Iberoamerican Institute of Berlin posthumously published Nahua-texte aus San
Pedro Jcora, Durango (Nahua Texts of San Pedro Jcara, Durango), in three volumes. In John Bierhosts view, despite the losses,
the work published by Ziehm constitutes the richest collection
of mythology, songs and prayers in Nhuatl since the work of the
great Franciscan monk, Bernardino de Sahagn.
Translated by Carole Castelli.