Located in the state of Sonora, Mexico, the Yaqui Tribe is an Indigenous Nation made up of eight Peoples who share the same territory, language, and culture. Also, a long history of struggle and resistance unites them, first against the colonial government and later against the Mexican State which led to attempts at dispossession and extermination. Yaqui, Indian people centred in southern Sonora state, on the west coast of Mexico. They speak the Yaqui dialect of the language called Cahita, which belongs to the Uto-Aztecan language family. (The only other surviving speakers of the Cahita language group are the related Mayo people.)
A Brief History of the Yoeme
The ancestral lands of the Yoeme (Yaqui) were originally in southern Sonora, Mexico, around the Yaqui River. The Yoeme people migrated and traveled widely, likely travelling to the modern day southern Arizona several hundred years before the arrival of European colonists or Spanish missionaries, who later arrived in the 1690s. The Yoeme lived in mid-sized communities and practiced a settled agricultural model of living.Using their intimate knowledge of the Sonoran Desert landscape, the Yoeme cultivated a variety of crops, including maize (corn), various bean and squash varieties, cotton, wheat, and more.
Women played an integral role in planting, harvesting, and processing food. Yoeme women would grind corn into flour which could be used to make masa (dough) for flat stone-baked cakes and other dishes. Women also tended to be responsible for tasks such as weaving nets, baskets, making pottery, and developing family spaces. Men are known as the prominent keepers of oral history in Yoeme tradition. However, Yoeme culture values the correlation between age and wisdom, or intelligence. So, older individuals and older Yoeme women are more justified in speaking out to express themselves because they have special wisdom acquired due to their age. Thus, older Yoeme women have more established hold and influence in social contexts than younger Yoeme women.
The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are an Uto-Aztecan-speaking Indigenous people of Mexico in the valley of the Río Yaqui in the Mexican state of Sonora and the Southwestern United States. They also have communities in Chihuahua and Durango. The Pascua Yaqui Tribe, based in Tucson, Arizona, is the only federally recognized Yaqui tribe in the United States. Yaqui people live elsewhere in the United States, especially California, Arizona and Nevada. Many Yaqui in Mexico live on reserved land in the state of Sonora. Others formed neighborhoods (colonias or colonies) in various cities. In the city of Hermosillo, colonies such as El Coloso, La Matanza, and Sarmiento are known as Yaqui districts; Yaqui residents there continue Yaqui cultural practices and language.
In their native language Yoeme means “The People”. The ancestral home of the Yoeme is the fertile land along Rio Yaqui in Sonora, Mexico. During the Mexican Revolution, the Mexican Army tried to exterminate the Yoeme. Many became refugees in the American Southwest. In 1964, the U.S. gave the Yaqui tribe a 202 acre reservation at Tucson, Arizona. In 1978, the United States formally recognized their sovereignty, thus creating the Pascua Yaqui Nation. “Pascua” is Spanish for Easter. For the Yoeme, Easter is the most sacred time of the year.
Today, the Yaqui Tribe continues to fight and defend the continuity of their lifeways for its present and future generations. The looting of their resources and the harassment of their members was not by choice, on the contrary, the Yaqui Peoples are experiencing a new wave of violence that has left many imprisoned and their leaders assassinated. At the end of the 19th Century, the Yaqui Tribe faced one of the most intense extermination efforts by the Mexican State. With Porfirio Díaz in command, the Mexican State issued an open call to “colonize” the Yaqui and Mayo Valleys, and based on the Lerdo Law, it ignored the titles that protected the possession of the Yaqui Peoples over their territories. Faced with this call to invade territories that since ancient times belonged to the Tribe, the Yaqui Peoples took up arms in 1882 and for several years they faced federal troops who tried to do away with them. The persecution weakened the Yaqui community. Hundreds of Yaqui boys, girls, men and women were captured and sent to work as enslaved people on henequen (agave) estates in southeastern Mexico, as was reported by the American journalist John Kenneth Turner in Barbarian, Mexico.
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. 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. 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 cults of its people and is strongly tied in to Roman Catholic beliefs and practices.
Known for their Deer Dance (Danza del Venado)
Ume Yoemem Mehikopo hikan vicha ho’akame nau tekipanoa waka’a vem bwiarawa into haisa hiapsa’u hiva ya hippu’uvaekai. Ta vesa, itepo kaa aa mammattee waka’a utte’ewata haisa huh’uwa’apo amani bwe’itule ite kaa aa vicha waka’a haisa nau cha’aka waa Yoemra into vem bwiarawa, vem ethehoim into vem santo tekil mikri’u. Huevena Yoemem vetchi’ivo, vem Lutu’uria into hoowame Kaa tu’ulisi naikimtewa um kia etehoim/hakwo yeu sikame/lutu’uria/uhyoria/nesanwame, into waate. Into kechia, wame cuaderno nikimteim che’a ala wepul wirooat yo’otu. Wame cuaderno naikimteim yee aa vittua waka’a nau hu’uneiyawamta into vea haksa a nawaka’apo amani, into hiva yu am hiapsitua waka’a Yoemrata. Itepo tu’isi aa yo’orine into aa ta’ane waka’a kaa nanao hakwo yen sikamta lelevelaim huni’i into waka’a Lutu’uriata, kaa aa kottaka o aa nasonteka ela’aposu hiva yu yo’otune into hiva yu tutu’uline. Ini cuaderno aa haiwa haisa wame Sonorapo Yoemem che’a hu’uneiyana wam vem hakwo yen sikame etehoim into hakwo yeu sikame kia etehoim. Wame yoyo’owe vea inime hakwo yeu sikame etehoim, o “etehoim”, vem usimmeu etehone, hunakvea wame vem usim au yo’otune waa Testamento hu’uneiyawa’apo amani waa Yoem Bwiarapo yeu sikame, into haisa vitwa wa lutu’uria hiapsi wame. Ume “etehoim” im cuaderno po ameu cha’aka wame aniapo weyemtawi into waa lutu’uriata weye’epo yi’iwame waa maaso into pahko’olam wam i’at cha’aka weyeme, “Lutu’uria”.
An interview with a Yoeme (Yaqui) elder – in Yoeme
Throughout the northern state of Sonora, Mexico, one cannot go far without encountering the image of a Deer Dancer: on large signs, as statues along the highway, on public announcement flyers, even on prepackaged grocery items such as salsa, milk and bread. For many Mexicans, these images do little more than associate a Sonoran heritage with the indigenous populations that “once lived there.” However, for many Yoemem in both Mexico and the United States, the Deer Dancer image speaks to issues of cultural continuity, tribal sovereignty, and ritual sacrifice. Scholars have noted how the dances contain a particularly clear example of pre-contact Yoeme ritual, since the ceremonies make relatively few references to Christian symbols.
The Yaqui language belongs to the Uto-Aztecan language family. Yaqui speak a Cahitan language, 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.[3] About 15,000 Yaqui speakers live in Mexico and 1,000 in the US, mostly Arizona. The Yaqui call themselves Hiaki or Yoeme, the Yaqui word for person (yoemem or yo’emem meaning “people”). 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”.
The Yaqui were impoverished by a new series of wars as the Mexican government adopted a policy of confiscation and distribution of Yaqui lands. Many displaced Yaquis joined the ranks of warrior bands, who remained in the mountains carrying on a guerrilla campaign against the Mexican Army. During the 34-year rule of Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz, the government repeatedly provoked the Yaqui remaining in Sonora to rebellion in order to seize their land for exploitation by investors for both mining and agricultural use. Many Yaqui were sold at 60 pesos a head to the owners of sugar cane plantations in Oaxaca and the tobacco planters of the Valle Nacional, while thousands more were sold to the henequen plantation owners of the Yucatán.
Indigenous Peoples Literature 