Beaded Huichol head


It’s a tradition of mine to attend an area private school’s arena-sized garage sale, a fundraiser for the school. Donated items are sold over a period of two days, and literally raised $1 million for the school last year (Minnehaha Academy, for those in the area). Most years, I have a find. I started out purchasing a 50 cent pencil sharpener, those old Boston ones that work so well — I thought that was my find, but no, THIS was my find:

This is a 10″ tall Huichol head, on a solid wood carved form. I did some looking online, and tons of jaguar heads can be found, or human masks, or human clay skulls, but I didn’t see any that look like this. I assume that this was made for the tourist trade, and purchased by someone on vacation.

Here’s the side view:

I love the scorpion ear!

And the back:

This is in my bead room, sitting on top of my bead storage. The original price tag is still on the base, 2000 pesos, which is about $155 today. I bought it for $15. I am SO glad I can give it an appreciative home, and wonder how it ended up at the sale — and at this price?


4 responses to “Beaded Huichol head”

  1. $15! What a deal & yes! I’d be so proud to have that guy in my home too! I can’t believe that you got that for only fifteen dollars! What a deal.

  2. Scorpions for good luck and to repel evil, the traditional yellow green blue and red colors, the deer the peyote button necklace. This is a real find and looks traditional and full of symbolism rather than tourist trade item.

    I think you were really lucky to find this unusual item.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.