When André Breton went to Mexico in 1938, he saw the photographs of Manuel Álvarez Bravo, took a set of them back with him to France and, the following year, published and exhibited them as part of his espousal of Mexico as “the surrealistic place par excellence.” That is the first reason why the work of Álvarez Bravo cannot be overlooked in the broader context of Surrealism. This circumstance, often cited, has rarely been analyzed in any depth and part of the aim of this essay is to undertake that analysis.

Antonin Artaud was one of the first internationally recognized writers to introduce the indigenous Tarahumara (Rarámuri) of Northwest Mexico to the world. In a series of publications based on his experiences with the tribe in 1936, Artaud left a vast visual legacy that positioned the Tarahumara within a powerful regime of representation, one that framed them within a mixed landscape of exoticism, primitivism, and peyote-inspired mysticism. This paper focuses on these literary works and interrogates the veracity of Artaud’s experiences and observations among the “pure race.” Drawing on the ethnographic record of the twentieth century and anthropological field research, it is my intention to reveal Artaud’s ability to fabricate, exaggerate, and embellish “the truth” which he so desperately desired to understand.