PEYOTE'S DRAW: BLESSING OR CURSE?

A Mexican City Strives To Preserve Itself As Visitors Seek A Tribe's
Culture - And Its Drug

REAL DE CATORCE, Mexico -- Hawk feathers tucked into the band of his dusty
hat serve as proof that Rico is a serious shaman in training.

The feathers were earned, he said, after he completed religious rituals, in
the presence of Huichol Indian teachers, on his path to a higher consciousness.

But Rico is not Huichol. Nor is he Mexican. His full name is Enrico
Baldella Pettinari.

In 1994 the Italian expatriate came, he saw and he got high.

Mr. Baldella discovered the way of the Huichol (pronounced WEE-chol) and
their ambiguously legal, hallucinogenic drug peyote. He's lived here since,
earning a living selling handmade jewelry and guiding tourists on treks
through the Huichol desert, in search of peyote.

Mr. Baldella is an example of the powerful draw of Real de Catorce and its
peyote-driven mysticism. A growing number of young Mexicans and a faithful
legion of aging hippies from around the world are arriving in greater
numbers, seeking the same higher ground.

Peyote tourism is such that it is now the core of a debate among
anthropologists, Huichol leaders and longtime townsfolk over the future of
this remote getaway.

"It is a tragedy," said Victor Sanchez, an author and expert on Huichol
culture and traditional uses of peyote. "It is one thing to mix spiritual
traditionalism with this New Age wave and alter things. But hippie tourism
is a different thing altogether, where the central point is recreational
drug use. That's not what the Huichol are about."

Mr. Sanchez, who has spent years living with and studying the Huichol, was
shocked recently to see some sacred sites around Real de Catorce invaded by
tourists on donkeys and horses. He tells of thefts, reported by angry
Huichols, of offerings of food and handmade crafts they've left at the
sacred sites.

'My adopted culture'

But not all tourists come to disrupt the Huichol, many longtime Real de
Catorce residents argue.

Mr. Baldella, for example, insists that his careful devotion to Huichol
culture has won over the local tribe's leaders.

"This culture is my adopted culture," Mr. Baldella said, gazing out of a
car window at a vast stretch of desert near Real de Catorce - a quiet, wild
place he calls his school. "I cannot be Huichol, and I won't try. I will
always be an outsider. But if you are serious about learning their ways,
and prove to them you're serious, they'll let you in a bit."

The Huichol inhabit a wide swath of central Mexico, from the western
coastal mountains of Nayarit state and east to the plains of San Luis
Potosi state. They're known for their fierce isolation, their colorful
dress and brilliant weavings. To some, they're better known for their
expert use of peyote.

Peyote, a bulbous member of the cactus family, is common in deserts
throughout the Americas. Centuries before explorers arrived in the Western
Hemisphere, peyote had gained fame among tribal leaders for its medicinal
properties and for enlightening priests, according to scholars.

The dull-skinned, turquoise bulbs crowned by pastel flowers are contraband
in the hands of non-Huichol tribe members, according to Mexican law. Mexico
abides by tenets of international treaties that respect rights of
indigenous people to use some drugs for religious purposes. In the United
States, peyote is legally used by members of the Native American Church.

Signs at the entrances of desert preserves warn that peyote must not be cut
by visitors. But that has not stopped a brisk, underground trade.

"Looking for cactus?" a shop owner near one of the reserves asked - with an
arched right eyebrow - as Mr. Baldella and a visitor bought water and beer
before a recent walk into the desert.

Mr. Baldella whispered that local police have been known to harass
peyote-hunting tourists.

"If it introduces people to a way of life that is in danger of being
squashed by modern life, then maybe it's good. Maybe it should be legal,"
Mr. Baldella said. "The outsiders can then help preserve this place and
protect the Huichol."

In Real de Catorce, Shaman Marcelino has mixed feelings about peyote's
popularity outside his tribe. Shaman Marcelino is a stout Huichol, famous
locally for his curative skills and the storehouse of Indian lore in his
head. A few days a week he sits under an ornate hat, near a cafe on the
Real de Catorce square, where he muses about the Huichol experience and
sells woven goods.

"It is good that tourists come, as long as they come with respect for our
lands and our traditions," said Shaman Marcelino, as he wove a talisman
called a "God's Eye." It's made, he said, with thread blessed by water from
a nearby sacred site, and offers round-the-clock protection for the buyer.

"I always carry these with me," he said, pulling several pear-shaped plugs
of peyote from a cloth sack. "But it's illegal for anyone else. It should
be that way, but it is also good that people want to know about us and our
culture.

"The Huichol know how to keep our distance," Shaman Marcelino added. "I
don't see myself as a real shaman; the real shamen are up in the mountains
and the desert, away from all of this. I'm just here selling art and
educating people."

In Real de Catorce, Shaman Marcelino has found no end of willing students.

"I'm here to see what this is all about," said Lilibeth Mendoza, a
26-year-old communications student from Monterrey, Mexico. "I've heard so
much about the mystery of this place; the old buildings and the desert. I
consider myself a young hippie, so of course I'm here for the peyote, too."

A Boon Or A Bomb?

Peyote tourism holds the promise of positive economic development for Real
de Catorce, but it could also plant seeds for the city's ultimate
de-evolution into just another Mexican tourist trap with kitschy trinkets
for sale, said Ron Beal, a contractor from Austin who has spent vacations
and long weekends here over the last two decades.

"It is more touristy. There are double the cars from when I first came
here," said Mr. Beal, who often camps on a friend's property at the edge of
Real de Catorce. "Progress is good, to a point. I hope the people here -
especially the Huichol - can find a way to keep it all low key. The things
that are attractive here, the mystery, the clean atmosphere, the relaxed
pace, all disappear when human traffic is too great."

Real de Catorce emerged in the mid-1800s as a silver mine and home to a
number of Spanish mineral barons.

Getting here seems easy at first. Well-groomed highways run close to the
mountains that guard Real de Catorce. But the final stretch of road is 15
miles of teeth-rattling cobblestone that leads to a two-mile, one-lane
tunnel punched through a mountain more than a century ago by local miners.

Emerging on the other side of the dark and dusty tunnel, onto a plateau
that supports the town, is like stepping back in time.

Cellphones don't work; conventional telephone service is unreliable; and
television reception is spotty for those without satellite links. Many of
the old stone structures appear on the verge of returning to dust; brown,
in the clay and the rust, is the dominant color.

Yet the interiors behind the tumble-down walls are marvels of Southwestern
design - evidence of a generation of moneyed American and Mexican baby
boomers who call this home for at least part of the year.

The place is so picturesque that the Hollywood production The Mexican used
it as a backdrop.

Despite the slow-lane charm, Real de Catorce boasts an unusual number of
thriving restaurants - mostly Italian. And bustling street commerce is run
by dreadlocked vendors selling what Mexicans call "Hippie-teca" - Huichol
weavings, local art, and gemstones - on the town's central square.

The eccentric mix suits locals just fine.

"We're not overrun yet. During the week it's just us locals. Kind of like
the way this place was a couple of decades ago, before the movies and the
tourist guide books," said Melody Fernandez, 26, whose family runs the
Hotel de Catorce.

Like many of Real de Catorce's "locals," Ms. Fernandez splits her time
between Mexico and someplace else. In her case, it's San Marcos, Texas,
where she's studying at Southwest Texas State University.

"We have a chance to preserve all this," she added. "But it is difficult
when some people see they have a chance to make money. ... In a way, that
has been the problem here since the beginning, when this was all Huichol
land and new people came and fenced the land for their goats."

For most of the year the population hovers around 1,500 on weekdays; it's
roughly triple that on weekends. During holidays, the place is clogged by
visitors who overwhelm the town's small hotels and boarding houses, and its
water and sewer services.

Most visitors are either Mexican or American, from nearby cities of
Monterrey and San Luis Potosi, and from Texas, where border-hopping buses
leave daily from Austin.

Out in the desert, Mr. Baldella pondered the conflict between the Huichol
ways and the ways of modern Mexican tourism. Into a ritual he performed
when he came across a good peyote bulb, he inserted a prayer that humans
will find "balance" in the desert.

"There's enough here for everyone," he said as he laid an offering of
animal crackers and water to the animals and spirits who protect the
peyote. "But if we abuse it, like we do many things, we're lost."