If you grew up in an American school in the 1980s or 90s, you've made one. Two sticks, some yarn, instructions to wrap it in a diamond pattern. Your teacher called it an "Ojo de Dios" — Eye of God — or maybe a "God's Eye," and that was the full explanation.
Here's what she didn't tell you.
What It Is
An Ojo de Dios is a symmetrical diamond-shaped object woven from yarn or fiber around a cross of two sticks or reeds. The weaving radiates outward from the center in concentric diamond patterns, often in multiple colors. The finished object is hung in the home, given as a protective gift, or carried.
The name Ojo de Dios is the Spanish translation of a Huichol concept. The Huichol people — who call themselves Wixáritari — are an indigenous group from the Sierra Madre Occidental region of western Mexico, primarily in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit.
Their name for this object is Sikuli, which doesn't translate directly to "Eye of God." It translates more closely to "the power to see and understand things unknown." The diamond shape represents a divine eye — the ability of a higher power to observe all four directions of the world simultaneously.
The Wixáritari and the Sikuli
The Wixáritari (Huichol) are known for some of the most visually striking folk art in the world: intricately beaded nierika (ceremonial panels), yarn paintings (cuadros de estambre), and the sikuli.
The sikuli was not originally decorative. It was made by fathers for their newborn children — a protective object woven with prayers, representing the hope that the gods would watch over the child as they grew. One eye was added for each year of the child's life, up to age five, when the family offered the completed object to the gods.
The colors chosen were not arbitrary. Different colors carried different meanings tied to Huichol cosmology: blue for rain and the sky, green for the earth, red for the sun and blood, yellow for corn. A sikuli was a visual prayer.
How It Traveled
Trade and cross-cultural contact spread variations of the sikuli through Mexican folk craft traditions over the centuries. As it moved, it simplified — from a precise ceremonial object with specific color meanings to a recognizable folk craft that could be made from available materials and given as a protective or decorative gift.
By the time it reached the United States in the mid-20th century — through border trade, tourism, Mexican-American cultural exchange, and eventually through craft curricula that picked up folk art from Mexico — it had traveled far enough from its origin that most people teaching it had no idea what it originally was.
It became an American summer camp staple. A gift shop product. A Southwestern décor item. And somewhere along that chain of transmission, the Wixáritari who created it, and what they created it for, got almost entirely removed from the story.
The Appropriation Question
Let's say it directly: when a craft with specific cultural and ceremonial roots gets extracted and replicated without any connection to the people who created it, that's a form of cultural appropriation.
The harm is specific: the Wixáritari are a living community. They continue to make sikuli and other traditional crafts. They are not a historical people. When their craft is mass-produced without attribution or acknowledgment, and without any economic benefit flowing back to them, the extraction repeats the pattern of taking from indigenous communities while rendering those communities invisible.
This doesn't mean no one outside the Wixáritari can ever engage with the craft. It means the engagement should come with knowledge. It means if you're buying an ojo de dios object or gifting one, it's worth knowing where it comes from and what it originally meant.
The best version of engagement: purchasing from Wixáritari or Mexican artisans directly, or from sellers who source directly and transparently, rather than from mass manufacturers who have disconnected the object entirely from its origin.
What Respectful Engagement Looks Like
Learn the name. Ojo de Dios is the Spanish translation. Sikuli is the Wixáritari name. Both are correct to use; knowing the original name signals that you know more than the surface.
Know the meaning. The diamond = four directions. The eye = divine watching and protection. The colors = cosmological meaning (historically; specific meanings vary by family and community tradition).
Source consciously. Wixáritari artisans and Mexican craft cooperatives exist. They are findable. Supporting them directly keeps economic benefit within the community rather than outside it.
Don't treat it as decoration only. The sikuli was made as a prayer. You don't have to practice Wixáritari spirituality to handle an ojo de dios with the knowledge of what it was made to be.
Why the Image Travels as Design
The diamond radiating pattern is visually striking. It's also culturally coded for anyone who grew up in a Mexican-American or broadly Latino household — the ojo de dios hung on a wall, given as a gift, a recognizable signal of a specific aesthetic sensibility.
On merchandise, the ojo de dios pattern signals connection to indigenous Mexican heritage, to folk art traditions, to the specific visual world of the Southwest and Pacific Coast Mexican-American communities. It's the kind of design that reads immediately to the person it's meant for.
When that design is used with knowledge of its origin and with respect for the community that created it, it's a continuation of the tradition. When it's used as a generic "tribal" or "Southwestern" pattern stripped of context, it's something else.
The difference is worth knowing.
Fe runs deep. Browse our full Fe y Raíces collection — faith-forward gifts for the family that prays together.