The Huichol ritual paraphernalia is heavily symbolized. With his eagle and hawk plumes the singing shaman can see and hear everything anywhere, cure the sick, transform the dead, and even call down the sun; they symbolize the antlers of deer, and deer-antlers in turn symbolize peyote and the “chair” of Grandfather Fire. Peyote itself symbolizes both corn and deer, while the flames of the greatest shaman of all, Grandfather Fire, are his plumes (the brilliantly-colored macao is his particular bird). Deer-antlers, furthermore, for the Huichol symbolize arrows,[41] arrows being the symbol _par excellence_ of prayer. Again, arrows symbolize a bird flying with outstretched neck, the feathered portion representing the heart. The peyote plant, finally, is considered the drinking-bowl of the god of fire and wind.[42] This intricate symbolic complex (corn = peyote = drinking-bowl of Grandfather Fire = god of wind = whirlwind = deer = deer-tracks = peyote = deer-antlers = shaman’s plumes = deer antlers = chair of Grandfather Fire = flames of fire = brilliant bird [macao] plumes = flying bird = arrow = prayer for rain, corn and deer-hunting, etc.) is deeply rooted in Huichol religion, and each one of the symbolic equations has a ritual reflex.[43] TARAHUMARI Tarahumari peyotism is on the decline in Samachique, Quírara and Guadalupe, though still remaining around Narárachic; in Guadalupe the bakánawa cactus is valued instead. From two or three to a dozen men make the month-long trip to the region around the mouth of the Rio Conchos at any time of the year, though usually not in the rainy season. They first purify themselves with copal incense; on the way anything may be eaten, but in the hikuli country they eat only piñole, and speech is forbidden. Arrived, they erect a cross near the first plants found, in order to find an abundance of others, and carefully cut off the tops with wooden sticks to leave the roots uninjured. They sing and eat green peyote while gathering it and in the evening they dance the dutubúri around the cross and a fire. The harvesting lasts several days, some taking turns dancing while the others sleep. Each variety of hikuli is put in a separate bag, for they would fight if mixed.[44] The plants are left on a blanket in the mountains near home, and the blood of a slaughtered sheep or goat is sprinkled on them to “feed” them, with a special song. After drying they are placed in covered ollas away from the house. The hikuli-seekers are met on their return with singing, and a fiesta is held with the sacrificial sheep or goat. The dutubúri and the hikuli-dance are then danced all night around a large open-air fire, much green peyote and tesvino being consumed. This ceremony is to “cure” the pilgrims: the shaman’s necklace of _Coix lachryma-Jobi_ seeds is dipped into a bowl of agua-miel, sotoli, or mescal, each one receiving a spoonful, while the shaman sings of hikuli standing on a Job’s Tears seed as big as a mountain.[45]