KUKURUKU

by Guadalupe Medina Silva

The five sacred colours of maize in the symbolic universe of the Huichol are white, yellow, red, blue and speckled, with blue the most sacred of all. These five colours are personified as the young maize goddesses, who together coalesce into the maize deity,

Our Mother Kukuruku, but also manifest themselves as a single bundle of maize cobs in the five colours.

The maize goddess herself appears as a wild dove, after whose distinctive call she is named.