Knab, Timothy J. Mad Jesus: The Final Testament of a Huichol Messiah from Northwest Mexico

International Social Science Review, Spring-Summer, 2005 by Joseph Andrew Park Wilson

Knab, Timothy J. Mad Jesus: The Final Testament of a Huichol Messiah from Northwest Mexico. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2004. xiii 279 pp. Cloth, $24.95.

Mad Jesus describes the life and death of Jesus, a Huichol shaman and self-styled prophet in exile from the plateaus of the western Sierra Madres. Anthropologist Timothy Knab met this mad messiah as a student in Mexico in the early 1970s, where he befriended many urban Huichols, learned their language, and participated in their peyote-centered ceremonies. Jesus, or Chucho Loco as he was known, was eccentric even for a Huichol shaman, and was on the fringe of Knab's circle of friends. His religion was a blend of Huichol shamanism and folk Catholicism. Born during Holy Week, Jesus identified himself with Christ. As the grandson of a malevolent Huichol sorcerer, however, he was schooled in the more dangerous branch of Huichol shamanism, associated with Kieli, the Huichol "Evil One." Jesus was a successful artisan and art dealer, who managed the affairs of his small group of "apostles," tending to his flock with the proceeds of their collective business.

Outside of his flock, other Huichols saw Jesus as an unstable and violent individual. In his interviews with Knab, he confessed to several violent crimes, including murders. The context of his behavior is illuminated through the narrative. This book should interest those in the field of deviant psychology. Because of his crimes, Jesus could never return home to the Sierras.

Decades later, a colleague sent Knab a clipping from a Mexican tabloid, describing the police assassination of a "narcosatanic" Indian cult leader, his wife, and some followers, at their compound in the town of San Isidro. The sensationalized account generated more questions than answers, and sent Knab on a journey back to Mexico to uncover the circumstances surrounding Jesus's death.

The volume incorporates translated interviews and testimonies of Jesus, along with standard anthropological sources and field notes. These sources are woven together skillfully using techniques from fiction, biography, history, and travel writing, making it an unusually captivating read, almost like a detective thriller. Knab allows drama and plot to drive the narrative, without compromising accuracy. Rather than interrupt the narrative with definitions and explanations, there is a generous glossary of Huichol and Spanish terms and phrases.

Traditional ethnographers may criticize any attempt to blur the lines between fact and fiction. As one holding a postmodern view, I applaud Knab for admitting what traditional ethnographers deny: The ethnographic narrative is ideologically committed and without inherent objectivity. There is a fundamental lack of coherence between the viewpoints expressed by the subjects of this book, including the viewpoint of Knab himself. He is no mere observer, but the protagonist who struggled for years to get around his emotional connection to Mad Jesus. Rather than concealing his ideological commitment to the subject, he made it explicit, enriching our understanding of his character. After all, why would a dispassionate, objective anthropologist endanger his life by continuing to interview a homicidal madman?

The book is similar to the 1968 classic by Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Like Knab's book, Don Juan told the story of a naive young anthropologist befriending a Mexican shaman, knowledgeable in the ritual use of the psychoactive plants peyote and datura. Like Knab, Castaneda lacked intellectual detachment from his subject, as a participant in the shaman's "way of knowledge." Castaneda also blurred the lines between the genres of fiction and non-fiction. On another level, the similarity between these books is superficial. Unlike Castaneda, Knab waited years after his encounters with Jesus to write the book, giving him perspective to realize his biases as a child of the 1960s' Left, allowing him to be forthcoming about his unconventional methods. Also, the story is deeply tragic, not easily romanticized. The dark figure of Mad Jesus, unlike Don Juan, will not become a darling of New Age religious seekers.

This book will not likely be a cult classic. The book is also similar to the 1932 classic by John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks, the biography of an Oglala Sioux shaman. Both books contain the translated testimonies of Native American shamans who approached the authors with the objective of recording their life stories. But whereas Black Elk was concerned with preserving the old ways of his people, the motivations of Mad Jesus are less clear. Jesus was an egomaniac who had difficulty maintaining normal relationships. He wished to speak his life story into Knab's tape recorder, not to pass his Huichol knowledge to future generations, but to appease the malevolent Kieli. Jesus believed that his voice, replayed over and over, would distract the Evil One, ending the control Kieli maintained over Jesus since he was a child under the influence of his grandfather. Jesus's violent personality is traceable to his upbringing.