ABOUT THE SIERRa: Indigenous Cultures:
Indigenous People of the Sierra

“Tell them to let us live in peace, so we can continue to help keep the world in harmony until they remember they are our brothers and sisters. Tell them not to love their cars more than their neighbors, and to stop burning their initials into the animals. I don’t know if they will listen. I am just an old man.” Augustín Ramos, 95-year-old Raramuri shaman.

The traditional Rarámuri live among the steep mountains and barrancas, or canyons, of southwestern Chihuahua. With a population of around eighty-five thousand, they are one of the largest indigenous groups in North America. They once inhabited a much larger territory, and were pushed into their mountain stronghold by the invading Spanish, who came in the early 1600s, searching for precious metals.

Jesuit missionaries, the domesticating arm of the Spanish conquest, proselitized among the Rarámuri and succeeded in concentrating some of them in small settlements around churches. These bautizados, or baptised ones, were pressed into service in the mines, where they were enslaved and literally worked to death. The surrounding areas were deforested rapidly, for charcoal and mine timbers. Communities were decimated by epidemic European diseases.

“Tell them to let us live in peace, so we can continue to help keep the world in harmony until they remember they are our brothers and sisters. Tell them not to love their cars more than their neighbors, and to stop burning their initials into the animals. I don’t know if they will listen. I am just an old man.”
- Augustín Ramos, 95-year-old Tarahumara shaman.

Infuriated, the Rarámuri rebelled, while their unbaptized kin, known as cimarrones or gentiles, retreated into ever more inaccessible barrancas and peaks, abandoning the fertile foothills and lowlands. A cycle of rebellion and repression lasted the rest of the seventeenth century.

Following the Jesuit expulsion in 1767, the Rarámuri were mostly left alone. From the Spanish invaders, they adopted the axe, fruit trees and wheat, livestock, and the violin, and developed a way of life intimately connected to their surroundings, based on subsistence farming, fishing and hunting, and semi-nomadic herding. They have learned to use the resources of the surrounding forest in myriad ways without damaging or exhausting them, and use approximately four hundred species of plants, as food or medicine or in handicrafts.

The Sierra Tarahumara is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, ranging from snow-covered peaks with an elevation of 3,7000 meters above sea level to four separate canyons, each deeper than Arizona’s Grand Canyon and from pine–oak forest to subtropical deciduous forest.

Rarámuri: The People Who Run

Their name for themselves, Rarámuri, means people who run. They go everywhere on foot. Accustomed from infancy to scrambling up and down the steep slopes where even mules can slip and fall, they are champion long-distance walkers and runners, and hunt deer by running them down until they drop dead with exhaustion. Both men and women race in events attended by the whole community.

Traditional society is deeply egalitarian, and values harmony with the earth and with one’s neighbors more than the accumulation of material wealth. Through Kórima, the obligation of reciprocal sharing, the Rarámuri alleviate extreme poverty; anyone in need has the right to call on a neighbor to share their surplus. This sharing does not incur indebtedness but is a way of ensuring the survival of the community as a whole.

Because flat land for crops is scarce, most of the Rarámuri live on small, widely spaced homesteads, or rancherías. This isolation fosters self-reliance and stoicism. From a young age children are sent out to care for herds of sheep and goats. Many families maintain a summer home in the higher elevations and a winter home in the warmer canyons.

Their name for themselves, Rarámuri, means "people who run." They hunt deer by running them down until they drop dead with exhaustion.

The traditional diet of the three sisters—corn, beans, and squash—and chilies, supplemented by wild greens and occasional meat or fish, is both ecologically and nutritionally sound, far superior to one based on store-bought processed foods. The Rarámuri continue to grow a number of varieties of corn and beans, many of which have been lost in other parts of the country. They plant crops wherever they find level land, generally using a wooden plow, pulled by a team of oxen. Their herds of sheep and goats, with a few cattle, are used primarily to fertilize their fields, which they accomplish by using movable fences. They also weave the wool of their animals into blankets and belts. Livestock is slaughtered only for feasts. Oxen are used for plowing and have long been considered the primary measure of wealth.

Women enjoy relatively high status; a few have even become shamans. While men and women perform different tasks, their isolation often requires them to take on the work of the other. No stigma is attached to men cooking, or women plowing. Inheritance passes separately from each of the parents to each one of the children. Women keep their own property when married and divorce is easily granted.

Traditional Rarámuri are animists, for whom the divine spirit permeates every part of creation. The central figure in traditional society is the Owerúame, or shaman, or curandero, both a spiritual and worldly leader who cures not only the physical body but restores harmony with nature and within the community. Among his many functions are the exorcism of evil spirits, the blessing of newborns and the preparation of the dead for their journey to the afterlife. The Oweruame is central to the many healing ceremonies which take place, some as required by illness or disharmony, and others which follow the agricultural cycles.

Ceremonial Life

“Rain cannot be obtained without tesgüino, tesgüino cannot be made without corn, and corn cannot grow without the rain.”
- Carl Lumholtz.

“Rain cannot be obtained without tesgüino, tesgüino cannot be made without corn, and corn cannot grow without the rain.” Carl Lumholtz

The Rarámuri believe themselves to be descended from corn, and corn is the center of their life, their principal crop and source of food, it is also the indispensable common element in their rituals. Tesgüino, a beer made from fermented corn, is a sacrament and the motive by which the widely scattered families gather.

Among the gentiles, the tesgüinada is indeed the only event celebrated as a group. Any work which requires the labor of more than the family unit calls for the making of tesgüino and the invitation to neighbors to come together to work, perform ritual celebrations, and to drink. The tesgüinada thus combines the function of religious rites, work party and townhall meeting. There marriages are arranged, and contracts sealed. The beer is mild and cannot be stored; it must be drunk to the end.

The tesgüinada cycle, from preparation, the issuing of invitations, dedication ceremony, curing, and drinking lasts several days and the participants, both men and women, end in a state of complete inebriation. In contrast to their lives of solitude and isolation, it is a time of great commotion and togetherness.

Yumarí is the most sacred of their ceremonies and one whose origins go back long before the Spanish conquest. While its performance differs from one community to the next, in all it consists of the telling of the creation myth: that God created the world and put the Rarámuri on earth to work together, live together, and be happy, so that their happiness in turn makes God happy. This story of the origins of the people is sung by the chanter, accompanied by his rattle, and is repeated again and again, from dusk till dawn, while the men and sometimes women march or dance back and forth before an altar holding three crosses and food offerings. Yumari is the most solemn of events and is regarded as an encounter with God, for the purpose of purifying the community and restoring them to health and harmony with one another, the earth, and the divine.

Music is the supreme art of the Rarámuri; they manufacture both violins and guitars, adapted from the Spanish, as well as aboriginal drums and a flute—the chapareke, a dronal instrument with three strings made from the intestine of a fox, somewhat like a Jew’s harp. They also play storebought harmonicas and accordians. The chanter is a central figure in their rituals, charged with leading the singing.

Justice among the Rarámuri

Their concepts of justice and government center on the well-being of the community and not the rights of the individual and are eacting through consensus, in the presence of all.

While the shaman was once both spiritual and worldly leader, encroachment by surrounding world has required the office of the governor, or Siríame. The governors are chosen by consensus and are elders of known generosity and moral authority. They are assisted by a number of lesser officials with various specific responsibilities and are expected to consult with and differ to the Oweruame.

Their concepts of justice and government center on the well-being of the community and not the rights of the individual and are eacting through consensus, in the presence of all. The goal of justice is not the punishment of the wrongdoer but the community restored to harmony with itself and with nature. Their notion of justice is akin to health, both require curing, thus the functions of government are both civil and ritual. The governor delivers public sermons, which function as preventative law: providing advice and counsel, warning to wrongdoers, and reminding the people of their religious duties and their sacred origins.

Encroachments

In the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, with independence from Spain, new mestizo settlements were formed in the Sierra, pushing the indigenous peoples deeper into the barrancas and sierras. Mining accelerated towards the end of the century, and land-hungry mestizos continued to arrive, taking most of the farmland for themselves.

With the Mexican Revolution, the ejido system was imposed on the communities, in a new layer of governance alien to tradition and generally dominated by corrupt mestizo officials. Often ejido boundaries were drawn on a map, without taking into account the steep barrancas and cliffs which divide the countryside, separating communities which had been together for centuries and uniting those which had always been separated.

The Tarahumara are the only obstacle to deforestation and the only force which can stop it.

The mining industry was revived, and timbering began in earnest. New roads were cut to facilitate the removal of old-growth pine, increasing erosion and bringing the most remote communities face-to-face with agents of destruction. The irresponsible logging that has laid waste to large tracts in the Sierra has been devastating to the Rarámuri’s traditional way of life, making it all but impossible. As the tall pines are cut, the understory fails to regenerate, and the plants they depend on for food and medicine disappear. Game and fish become scarce and the remaining cropland becomes exhausted. The rivers fill with silt, the soil is eroded, and rain runs off the bare ground instead of percolating gently through the forest canopy. Today less than one percent of the old-growth forest remains.

The new economic activity has not benefitted the Rarámuri. The best jobs in the logging industry go to mestizos, and profits remain in the hands of outsiders. Roads are cut into remote areas, and corrupt officials charge the communities with the cost of roadbuilding, taking their trees to pay off the debt. The roads also faciliate military incursions into the area.

Since the 1970s, production of marijuana and opium poppies has become widespread in the Sierra, with catastrophic results for the Rarámuri. Forest areas have been destroyed to make way for fields, and families have been unwillingly pressed into service. Paraquat is sprayed on plantations, poisoning the water table. Towns have been overrun by druglords and their gunmen toting automatic weapons. Alliances between corrupt government officials, corrupt police, drug lords, and timber barons have spread a reign of terror.
Increasing numbers of Rarámuri have been forced to leave their homes as traditional subsistence farming has become impossible. Forced to migrate to cities in search of work in order to survive. Many migrate seasonally, after the harvest, and return for spring planting. The Rarámuri view wage work with scorn and suspicion, and say, “Human beings are not for rent,” preferring to work with their neighbors for the common good.

Resistance

“Onorúame (God) has loaned us the earth so we can live here, we have to take care of it so he doesn’t get angry."
- Augustín Ramos, 95-year-old Tarahumara shaman

While gravely threatened by both the disappearance of the natural world and by narcoterror, the Rarámuri have continued to resist and seek new ways of organizing to defend their traditional way of life. The Supreme Council of the Tepehuan and Rarámuri was created to negotiate better terms between traditional peoples and the government. Efforts are being made to denounce drug traffickers and force the government to take action against them. New sources of income such as handicrafts and ecotourism are being explored, and the community, supported by Sierra Madre Alliance and Consejo EcoRegional Sierra Tarahumara A.C., has appealed to international institutions in an attempt to stop illegal logging.

The traditional Rarámuri cannot be saved without their forests and they themselves are the only obstacle to deforestation and the only force which can stop it. Their world view is firmly opposed to the opportunism and rapaciousness of the mestizos, who see only products and profits in the forest. Again in the words of Augustín Ramos, “Onorúame (God) has loaned us the earth so we can live here, we have to take care of it so he doesn’t get angry. If the Chabochis [mestizos or whites] cut the forest, the rain won’t fall, nor will it snow, the rivers will dry up and the waters will end. The plants we use for medicine will not grow, nor the ones which we eat. Without trees and without water, there will be no more Rarámuri in Pino Gordo.”