Kieri

Kieri, the 'Tree of the Wind,' is a Huichol god of wind, magic and intoxication who personifies the psychoactive shrub Solandra (identified as Datura in the earliest recordings). In the great myth cycle he is the sinister sorcerer who tempts wanderers with his sweet-smelling leaves, sap and fruit, giving them visions before driving them to madness and death, and who plays a violin whose music lures victims to dance until they fall from cliffs. He is the archetypal adversary of Kauyumari, the deer culture-hero allied with the peyote, and after his defeat he is fixed in the land as the kieri plant, still feared and propitiated by those who seek dangerous sorcerous power.

Domains

• sorcery dark magic
• wind
• hallucinogenic plants

Powers

• to deceive people into eating his maddening leaves and fruit
• to teach harmful sorcery to shamans who serve him

Epithets

• Kieri Tewiyari

Sources

• Furst, Peter T. & Myerhoff, Barbara G., 'Myth as History: The Jimson Weed Cycle of the Huichols of Mexico,' Antropológica 17 (1966): 3-39
• Knab, Tim, 'Notes Concerning Use of Solandra among the Huichol,' Economic Botany 31.1 (1977): 80-86