Journey to Mexico
Artaud and the ancient knowledge
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31048/1852.4826.v15.n3.39344Keywords:
Artaud, Civilization, Modernity, Tarahumaras, PeyoteAbstract
In 1936, following an inner dissatisfaction toward European abstract thinking and rationality, French playwright and actor Antonin Artaud travels to Mexico. The main event of this journey will be his encounter with the tarahumaras, an indigenous community of the Sierra Madre Occidental. However, this is not a scientific expedition of a naturalist or anthropologist collecting new information on the local nature and its inhabitants. On the contrary, this traveler is a surrealist artist in pursuit of a mystical truth. This article aims to analyze his search for a mysterious and ancestral entity, peyote, and the value of ancient knowledge in Artaud’s narrative. It examines the intellectual climate of the time, the later legacy of Artaud and the link with Alejo Carpentier´s concept of the marvelous real. As a conclusion, we will establish a comparison between the “journey to the land of the tarahumaras” and other rituals with powerful plants, by introducing our personal experiences in neo-shamanic ceremonies.
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