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Yaqui

The location of the Yaqui people in Sonora, Mexico when first encountered by the Spanish.
Regions with significant populations
United States (Arizona) 11,324  Mexico (Sonora)
Languages
Yaqui, English, Spanish
Religion
Indigenous Religion, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Hopi

Yaqui people, c. 1910

Gen. Obregon and staff of Yaqui, c. 1910

The Yaqui or Yoeme are Indigenous people whose ancestors originated in the valley of the Río Yaqui in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Many Yaqui still live in their ancestral homeland. The Pascua Yaqui Tribe is based in Tucson, Arizona. Yaqui people live elsewhere in what is now the southwestern United States.

Language [edit]

The Yaqui language belongs to the Uto-Aztecan language family. Yaqui speak a dialect of Cahita, a group of about 10 mutually-intelligible languages formerly spoken in much of the states of Sonora and Sinaloa. Most of the Cahitan languages are extinct. Only the Yaqui and Mayo still speak their language.^[1] About 15,000 Yaqui speakers live in Mexico and 1,000 in the United States, mostly Arizona.^[2]

The Yaqui call themselves Hiaki or Yoeme, the Yaqui word for person (yoemem or yo'emem meaning "people").^[3] The Yaqui call their homeland Hiakim, from which some say the name "Yaqui" is derived. They may also describe themselves as Hiaki Nation or Pascua Hiaki, meaning "The Easter People", as most had converted to Catholicism under Jesuit influence in colonial Mexico. Many folk etymologies account for how the Yoeme came to be known as the "Yaqui"^[4]

History [edit]

The Yaqui flag

Conquistadors and Missionaries [edit]

When the Spanish first came into contact with the Yaqui in 1533, they occupied a territory along the lower course of the Yaqui River. They were estimated to number 30,000 people living in 80 rancherias (dispersed settlements) in an area about 60 miles (100 km) long and 15 miles (25 km) wide. Some Yaqui lived near the mouth of the river and were dependent upon the sea for subsistence. Most lived in agricultural communities, growing beans, maize, and squash on land inundated by the river every year. A few lived a nomadic existence in the deserts and mountains and depended upon hunting and gathering.^[5]

Captain Diego de Guzman, leader of an expedition to discover lands north of the Spanish settlements, encountered the Yaqui in 1533. A large number of warriors confronted the Spaniards on a level plain. Their leader, an old man, drew a line in the dirt and told the Spanish not to cross it. He denied the Spanish request for food. A battle ensued. The Spanish claimed victory, although they retreated. Thus began 400 years of struggle, often armed, by the Yaqui to protect their culture and lands.

In 1565, Francisco de Ibarra attempted, but failed, to establish a Spanish settlement in Yaqui territory. What probably saved the Yaqui from an early invasion by the Spaniards was the lack of silver and other precious metals in their territory. In 1608, the Yaqui and 2,000 Indian allies, mostly Mayo, were victorious over the Spanish in two battles. A peace agreement in 1610 brought presents from the Spanish and, in 1617, the visit of Jesuit missionaries.^[6]

The Yaqui lived in a mutually advantageous relationship with the Jesuits for 120 years. Most of them readily converted to Christianity while retaining many traditional beliefs. The Jesuit rule over the Yaqui was stern but the Yaqui retained their land and their unity as a people. The Jesuits introduced wheat, cattle, and horses. The Yaqui prospered and the missionaries were enabled to extend their activities further north. The Jesuit success was facilitated by the fact that the nearest Spanish settlement was 100 miles away and the Yaqui were able to avoid interaction with Spanish settlers, soldiers and miners. Important, too, was that epidemics of European diseases which destroyed many Indigenous populations appear not to have seriously impacted the Yaqui. The reputation of the Yaqui as warriors plus the protection afforded by the Jesuits perhaps shielded the Yaqui from Spanish slavers. The Jesuits persuaded the Yaqui to settle into eight towns: Pótam, Vícam, Tórim, Bácum, Cócorit, Huirivis, Benem, and Rahum.^[7]

However, by the 1730s, Spanish settlers and miners were encroaching on Yaqui land and the Spanish colonial government began to alter the arms-length relationship. This created unrest among the Yaqui and led to a brief but bloody Yaqui and Mayo revolt in 1740. One thousand Spanish and 5,000 Indians were killed and the animosity lingered. The missions declined and the prosperity of the earlier years was never regained. The Jesuits were expelled from Mexico in 1767 and the Franciscan priests who replaced them never gained the confidence of the Yaqui. An uneasy peace between Spaniard and Yaqui endured for many years after the revolt with the Yaqui maintaining their tight-knit organization and most of their independence from Spanish and, after 1821, Mexican rule.^[8]

Yaqui Wars [edit]

The struggle for independence from Spain by Mexico in the early 19th century revealed that the Yaqui still considered themselves independent from Spanish rule. They remained neutral and, after Mexico won its independence, refused to pay taxes to the new government. This led to a Yaqui revolt in 1825 led by Juan Banderas. Banderas wished to unite the Mayo, Opata, Pima, and Yaqui into a state that would be autonomous or independent of Mexico. The combined Indian force drove the Mexicans out of their territories, but Banderas was eventually defeated and executed in 1833. This led to a succession of revolts as the Mexican government in Sonora attempted to gain control of the Yaqui and their lands and the Yaqui resisted. The Yaqui supported the French during the brief reign of Maximilian I of Mexico in the 1860s. Under the leadership of Jose Maria Leyva, known as Cajemé, the Yaqui continued the struggle until 1887 when Cajeme was caught and executed. The war featured a succession of brutalities by the Mexican authorities, including a massacre in 1868, in which the Army burned 150 Yaqui to death inside a church.

The Yaqui were impoverished by the series of wars. Mexico confiscated and distributed Yaqui lands. Thousands of Yaquis, however, remained in the mountains carrying on a guerrilla campaign against the Mexican government. In the early 1900s, after "extermination, military occupation, and colonization" had failed to halt Yaqui resistance to Mexican rule, thousands of Yaqui were deported to the henequen plantations of far-away Yucatán or to the sugar cane plantations in Oaxaca, where many died in slave labor. Other Yaquis fled to the United States. However, skirmishes continued until 1927, when the last major battle between the Mexican Army and the Yaqui was fought at Cerro del Gallo Mountain. By employing heavy artillery, machine guns, and planes of the Mexican Air Force to shell, bomb, and strafe Yaqui villages, Mexican authorities eventually prevailed.^[9]

The objective of the Yaqui and their frequent allies, the Mayo, remained the same during almost 400 years of interaction with the Jesuits and the Spanish and Mexican governments: independent local government and management of their own lands. In 1937, President Lázaro Cárdenas, who had defeated the Yaqui in 1917, partially acceded to the 10,000-member Tribe by providing the Yaqui land on the north bank of the Yaqui River and ordering the construction of a dam to provide irrigation water to the Yaqui. Thus, the Yaqui continued to maintain a degree of independence from Mexican rule.^[10] Today, the Mexican municipality of Cajemé is named after the fallen Yaqui leader.^[8]

Lifestyle [edit]

In the past, the Yaqui subsisted on agriculture, growing beans, corn and squash (like many of the Indigenous peoples of the region). The Yaqui who lived in the Río Yaqui region and in coastal areas of Sonora and Sinaloa fished as well as farmed. The Yaqui also made cotton products. The Yaqui have always been skillful warriors. The Yaqui Indians have been historically described as quite tall in stature.^[11]

Yaqui cosmology and religion [edit]

The Yaqui conception of the world is considerably different from that of their European-Mexican and European-American neighbors. For example, the world (in Yaqui, anía) is composed of five separate worlds: the desert wilderness world, the mystical world, the flower world, the dream world, and the night world. Much Yaqui ritual is centered upon perfecting these worlds and eliminating the harm that has been done to them, especially by people. Many Yaqui have combined such ideas with their practice of Catholicism, and believe that the existence of the world depends on their annual performance of the Lenten and Easter rituals.^[11]

The Yaqui religion, which is a syncretic religion of old Yaqui beliefs and practices and the Christian teachings of Jesuit and later Franciscan missionaries, relies upon song, music, prayer, and dancing, all performed by designated members of the community. They have woven numerous Roman Catholic traditions into the old ways and vice versa.^[11] For instance, the Yaqui deer song (maso bwikam) accompanies the deer dance, which is performed by a pascola (Easter, from the Spanish pascua) dancer, also known as a "deer dancer". Pascolas perform at religio-social functions many times of the year, but especially during Lent and Easter.^[11] The Yaqui deer song ritual is in many ways similar to the deer song rituals of neighboring Uto-Aztecan people, such as the Mayo. The Yaqui deer song is more central to the cultus of its people and is strongly tied into Roman Catholic beliefs and practices.

Flowers are very important in the Yaqui culture. According to Yaqui teachings, flowers sprang up from the drops of blood that were shed at the Crucifixion. Flowers are viewed as the manifestation of souls. Occasionally Yaqui men may greet a close male friend with the phrase Haisa sewa? ("How is the flower?").^[11]

Yaqui in the United States [edit]

As result of the wars between Mexico and the Yaqui, many refugees fled to the United States. Most settled in urban barrios, including Barrio Libre and Pascua in Tucson, and Guadalupe and Scottsdale in the Phoenix area. Yaquis built homes of scrap lumber, railroad ties and other materials, eking out an existence while taking great pains to continue the Eastern Lenten ceremonies so important to community life. They found work as migrant farm laborers and in other rural occupations.

Because of their poverty, in the early 1960s spiritual leader Anselmo Valencia approached University of Arizona anthropologist Edward Holland Spicer to help his people. A noted authority on the Yaqui, Spicer, Muriel Thayer Painter, and others created the Pascua Yaqui Association (PYA). U.S. Rep. Morris Udall, D-Ariz., agreed to aid the Yaquis in securing a land base. In 1964, the U.S. government gave the Yaqui (817,000 m²) of land southwest of Tucson, Arizona. It was held in trust for the people. Under Valencia and Raymond Ybarra, the PYA developed homes and other infrastructure at the site. Realizing the difficulties of developing the community (known as New Pascua) without the benefit of federal Tribal status, in the mid-1970s the Yaquis once again had Udall and others sponsor federal recognition legislation. The U.S. formally recognized the Pascua Yaqui Tribe based on this land on September 18, 1978. The Pascua Yaqui Tribe was the last Tribe recognized prior to the formal BIA Federal Acknowledgement Process established later in 1978.

The Yaqui have dwelt in the area of the present-day southwestern United States since before the incursions by Spanish missionaries and soldiers in the 18th century. Yaqui oral tradition and history says there were small Yaqui settlements there centuries before the arrival of Europeans. The town of Tubac, Arizona, had Yaqui in its Spanish garrison. Several communities of Yaqui have existed in Arizona since the 19th century: Pascua Pueblo is in the northwestern part of Tucson and Hu'upa was to the south. It has since been absorbed into the Valencia and Freeway neighborhood of Tucson. In addition, Marana has had continuous settlements of Yaqui.

In the late 1960s, several Yaqui, among them Anselmo Valencia and Fernando Escalante, started development of a tract of land about 8 km to the west of the old Hu'upa site, calling it New Pascua (in Spanish, Pascua Nuevo). This settlement has a population (estimated in 2006) of about 4,000 and is the center of administration for the Tribe. Most of the middle-aged population of New Pascua use English, Spanish, and a moderate amount of Yaqui. Many older people also speak the Yaqui language fluently, and a growing number of youth are learning the Yaqui language in addition to English and Spanish.

Many Yaqui moved further north, near Tempe, Arizona. They settled in a neighborhood named after Our Lady of Guadalupe. The town incorporated in 1979 as Guadalupe, Arizona. Today, more than 44 percent of the town's is Native American, and many are trilingual in Yaqui, English and Spanish.

A small Yaqui neighborhood known as Penjamo is located in South Scottsdale, Arizona. The California Yaqui Association is based in Fresno, and a band of Mountain Yaqui's who lived in the border town of Presidio, Texas chased out of sonora in 1850 for killing Mexican soldiers, who are now based in Lubbock, Texas known as the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians.^[12] In all, in 2008, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe counted 11,324 voting members.^[13]

Notable Yaqui [edit]

• Gabriel Ayala, guitarist.^[14][15]
• Susan Balbas, founder and executive director of the Tierra Madre Fund,^[16] which is "a catalyst for the development of sustainable indigenous communities by providing resources to support innovative projects and to build the leadership of women, youth, artists and culture keepers." President, Longhouse Media, 2006–09; chief development officer, United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, 2006-07.
• Tony Bellamy, (Yaqui/Mexican), lead guitarist and vocalist for the Native American rock band Redbone. He was inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame in 2008.^[17]
• Raul (Roy) Perez Benavidez, a member of the highly classified Studies and Observations Group during the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in eastern Cambodia (although the citation stated that they occurred "west of Loc Ninh, Republic of Vietnam" on May 2, 1968).^[18]
• Rod Coronado, an eco-anarchist and animal rights activist.
• Anita Endrezze, artist and poet.^[19][20]
• María Félix, Mexican actress who was part of the golden era of the Cinema of Mexico.^[21]
• Alex Maldonado,^[22][23] Yaqui flute player.
• Mario Martinez, Yaqui artist and painter.^[24][25]
• Patricia Martinez, member of the Delano, California, Joint Union High School District Board of Directors, 2000–04; member of the Kern County, California, Human Relations Commission, 1997–99; First Lady of Delano, California (her husband, Anthony Martinez, was mayor), 1990s; granddaughter of Guadalupe Quiroz Garcia, a Yaqui traditional healer born in Altar, Sonora, Mexico.^[26][27]
• Don Juan Matus, an arguably fictional†^[28] shaman popularized in the Carlos Castaneda book series.
• Stan Padilla, artist, author,^[29] educator at Sierra Nevada Virtual Museum; consultant in Indian Education Programs; art instructor, Sierra College; advisory board, Maidu Interpretive Center^[30]
• Deborah Parker (Tulalip/Yaqui/Apache), vice-chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes (2012-).^[31] A leading advocate for the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act with provisions giving Tribal law enforcement jurisdiction over all domestic violence offenders, including non-Natives, on their land.,.^{[32][33][34][35]} Formerly a policy analyst for the Tulalip Tribes; 2011 Parent of the Year, National Indian Education Association.^[36]
• Amado Pena, artist, recognized artisan of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.^[37]
• Marty Perez, infielder for the California Angels, Atlanta Braves, and three other MLB teams from 1969-1978; grandson of Guadalupe Quiroz Garcia, a Yaqui traditional healer born in Altar, Sonora, Mexico.^[38][39][40]
• Louis David Valenzuela, traditional Yaqui artist and woodcarver^[41][42]
• Patrick and Lolly Vegas (Yaqui/Shoshone/Mexican), musicians and vocalists of the Native American rock band Redbone. They were inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame in 2008.^[17]

See also [edit]

• Yaqui Uprising
• Battle of Bear Valley

References [edit]

• Miller, Mark E. "The Yaquis Become 'American' Indians." The Journal of Arizona History (1994).
• Miller, Mark E. Forgotten Tribes: Unrecognized Indians and the Federal Acknowledgment Process (chapter on the Yaquis). (2004)

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yaqui

• The Official Website of the Pascua Yaqui Government
• The Website of the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians
• The Un-Official Website of Yoemem/Yaquis in Mexico
• 15 Flower World Variations - adapted by Jerome Rothenberg from Yaqui Deer Dance Songs
• (English)(Spanish)Vachiam eecha Yaqui cuadernos
• Hector O. Valencia's War Record
• Dario N. Mellado (Fine Art & Illustration).