Cultural Gems

Who knew the intricately beaded bracelets decorating the wrists of neo-bohemians from Melrose Avenue to Manhattan are helping to sustain a tribe in Mexico?

The story behind the cuffs that have graced the covers of magazines such as Vogue and Rolling Stone is a happy one, but it did not start out that way.

In 1975, when Susana Valadez traveled from Los Angeles to the remote Sierra Madre Mountains of north central Mexico, she found the native Huichol culture on the brink of economic extinction. A UCLA graduate student in anthropology at the time, she believed she could help revitalize the tribe’s economy through its jewelry-making tradition.

“It made sense to me that this artwork could be a solution to providing jobs in the Huichol community,” says Valadez. “Why should they be asking for handouts and working in minimum-wage jobs when they have this inventory of beautiful, symbolic designs that have meaning to them and to all of us?”

Descended from the Aztecs and related to the Hopi of Arizona, the Huichol lived for centuries as agriculturists. Two decades ago, roads, schools and airstrips connected the Huichol to the outside world in a way they had never experienced before.

The Huichol were forced to change from a corn-trading economy to coin. Non-Spanish speaking, for the most part, and illiterate and unskilled, many left their homeland for Mexico’s tobacco fields.

In 1977, Valadez married into the tribe, and now lives among them with her husband, Mariano Valadez, a yarn artist.

“When I looked at my husband’s relatives and thought I might be looking at the last Huichol Indians,” said Valadez, “I got a wake-up call and I didn’t push the snooze alarm.”

She set out to transform field hands into creative hands, founding the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts in Huequilla Lel Alto, Jalisco, in 1981. The site is in the center of the Huichol homeland, which spans a four-state area in Mexico. Its goal is to promote self-sufficiency and the preservation of native traditions.

Business took off in 1994, when Valadez met Hollywood costume designer Carol Oditz at an art show in Seattle. Oditz invited members of the tribe to her movie sets to sell their work. Rene Russo, Susan Sarandon and Alanis Morissette became fans, and soon a New York City jewelry wholesaler came calling.

L.A.’s Parallel Lines showroom began representing the Huichol in 1998.

The cuffs cost $63 to $300 at Giorgio Beverly Hills, Moondance in Santa Monica and Traffic in West Hollywood and the Beverly Center. The Huichol also make earrings, barrettes and chokers. Their holiday line features jewel-toned beads in confetti patterns.

A lariat necklace was on Vogue’s June cover, and the Huichol have recently been nominated for an award by a New York-based fashion group.

“I was going for the Nobel prize but I got the cover of Vogue!” Valadez says.

Valadez initially believed that changing the colors and styles of Huichol bracelets would mar the work’s authenticity.

“That was a nice, idealistic way of thinking of it,” she says. “But orange, yellow and black was not the best color palette for women. I took the step of creating different color palettes with higher quality beads. The bracelets are already incredible works of art.”

Eulogio Guzman Acevedo, a doctoral candidate in art history at UCLA, visited the region in 1998. “The Huichol who are coming [to the center] are much better off than the ones who stay behind,” he says. “They have income they wouldn’t otherwise have, so it’s a blessing in that respect. But it’s not a blessing in the sense that it continues to commercialize them.”

Profits from the jewelry have provided improved health care, education and food for the Huichol living near the center.

For all the progress they’ve made, UCLA’s Acevedo points out, the Huichol are still impoverished.

And Valadez is realistic about the fickleness of fashion. The center is investing in other projects, such as a turkey farm and a soy dairy.

“The Huichol have gotten a new vision of what their future is going to be,” says Valadez. “We have helped people to help themselves.”

For more information, the Huichol Web site is at https://www.huicholcenter.com.