Tarahumara

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Tarahumara
Rarámuri

Two Tarahumara women (one with a baby nursing) at Arareco Lake near Creel, Chihuahua, Mexico. The Tarahumara women wear the traditional brightly colored clothes they are famous for. These women make and sell hand made items at the lake
Total population
Mexico:approx <70,000
Regions with significant populations
Mexico (Chihuahua)
Languages
Tarahumara, Spanish
Religion
Animism, Catholicism
Related ethnic groups
Guarijío, Huichol, Yaqui

The Tarahumara are an indigenous people of northern Mexico and are renowned for their long-distance running ability.

Originally inhabitants of much of the state of Chihuahua, the Tarahumara retreated to the Copper Canyon in the Sierra Madre Occidental on the arrival of Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century. The area of the Sierra Madre Occidental which they now inhabit is often called the Sierra Tarahumara because of their presence.

Current estimates put the population of the Tarahumara in 2006 at between 50,000 and 70,000 people. Most still practice a traditional lifestyle, inhabiting natural shelters such as caves or cliff overhangs, as well as small cabins of wood or stone. Staple crops are corn and beans; however, many of the Tarahumara still practice transhumance, raising cattle, sheep, and goats. Almost all Tarahumara migrate in some form or another in the course of the year.

The Tarahumara language belongs to the Uto-Aztecan family. Although it is in decline under pressure from Spanish, it is still widely spoken.

Athletic prowess

The Tarahumaras' word for themselves, Raramuri, means "runners on foot" in their native tongue according to some early ethnographers like Norwegian Carl Lumholtz, though this interpretation has not been fully agreed upon. With widely dispersed settlements, these people developed a tradition of long-distance running for intervillage communication and transportation. The long-distance running tradition also has ceremonial and competitive aspects. Often, male runners kick wooden balls as they run in "foot throwing" competitions, and females use a stick and hoop. The foot throwing races are relays where the balls are kicked by the runners and relayed to the next runner while teammates run ahead to the next relay point. These races can last anywhere from a few hours for a short race to a couple of days without a break. The Tarahumara also practice persistence hunting, using their ability to run extremely long distances (sometimes as far as 160km) to catch animals such as deer; the animals eventually tire and slow down, and the Tarahumara get close enough to the animal to kill it.

Tarahumara religion

The Tarahumara religion is a mélange of indigenous customs and Roman-Catholic Christianity, characterized by a belief that the afterlife is a mirror image of the mortal world, and that good deeds should be performed not for spiritual reward, but for the improvement of life on earth. In certain traditions (perhaps those more strongly based on pre-Columbian practice), the soul ascends a series of heavens, is reincarnated after each death, and after three lives becomes a moth on Earth which represents the final existence of the soul. When the moth dies, the soul dies completely. However, this end is not regarded as negative or a punishment, but merely as a continuation of the order of life. In Tarahumara cosmology, God has a wife who dwells with him in heaven, along with their sons, the so-called 'sukristo' (from Spanish 'Jesucristo') and their daughters, the 'santi'. These beings have a direct link with the physical world through Catholic iconography, respectively crucifixes and saint's medallions. The Devil's world is not necessarily evil, but is tainted through its ties with the 'Chabochi', or non-Tarahumara. The Devil is said to sometimes collaborate with God to arrange fitting punishments, and can be appeased through sacrifices. In some cases, the Devil can even be persuaded to act as a benevolent entity. The Devil and God are brothers (the Devil is the elder) who jointly created the human race. God, using pure clay, created the Tarahumara, whereas the Devil, mixing white ash with his clay, created the Chabochi. Thus, the Devil is as much protector and life-giver to the Chabochis as God is to the Tarahumara. The Tarahumara share with other Uto-Aztecan tribes a veneration for peyote, the spirits of which are said to be mischievous and capricious.

Luis G. Verplancken, a Jesuit priest who lived among them for many years and is probably the greatest authority^{[citation needed]} on their history and culture, describes them as loyal to God, to their own traditions and their own culture. Although the majority of them have converted to Christianity, there are still some "gentile" groups who have refused baptism. Those converted have introduced their own ancient concepts into their new religion.

The Tarahumara are also known for the brewing of tesguino, a corn-based beer brewed in ceramic jars, that features prominently in many Tarahumara religious rituals.

Sources

• Raramuri Souls: Knowledge and Social Process in Northern Mexico by William L. Merrill

Famous Tarahumaras

• Samuel Gamboa Potter, TV producer and actor [1]
• Daniel Ponce de León, former WBO world junior featherweight champion [2]
• Luis J. Rodriguez, author [3]

See also

• Isidro Baldenegro López
• List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin
• Multiday races
• Tarahumara language

Literature

• Ivan Ratkaj: Izvješća iz Tarahumare (Reports from Tarahumara), (Zagreb: Artresor, 1998)

A modern edition of the first detailed report about the Tarahumara, written by a Croatian missionary in the 17th century. Published in Croatian, German and Latin.

• Antonin Artaud: The Peyote Dance, (transl. Helen Weaver; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., 1976)

An account of Artaud's visit to the Tarahumara in the mid-1930s and of his peyote experience.

• Joseph Wampler: Mexico's 'Grand Canyon': The Region and the Story of the Tarahumara Indians and the F.C. Chihuahua al Pacifico, (Berkeley: Self-Published, 1978. ISBN 0935080031)

An account of Wampler's travels on the Chihuahua al Pacifico railroad that winds along the Barranca Del Cobre through Tarahumara lands.

• Carl Sofus Lumholtz: Unknown Mexico, (New York: Dover Publications, 1987)

An account of Lumholtz's visit to the Tarahumara and other tribes in the Sierra Madre in the 1890s.

• Jeff Biggers: In the Sierra Madre, (University of Illinois Press, 2006)

An account of Biggers's sojourn among the Tarahumara in the late 1990s.

• Cynthia Gorney: "A people apart", National Geographic Magazine November 2008
• Christopher McDougall: "The Men Who Live Forever", Men's Health Magazine April 2008
• Christopher McDougall: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, (Knopf, 2009. ISBN 0307266303)

External links

• (Spanish) Tarahumara Celebration of Easter in Norogachi.
• Radio Tarahumara: Tarahumara Internet Radio featuring the world's largest collection of Tarahumara music and spoken word audio
• Tarahumara.com.mx
• Puro Chihuahua
• Tesguino and the Tarahumara
• wbgu.org WBGU-PBS local production with Romayne Wheeler in efforts to aid the Tarahumara Indians.
• Raramuri Tale Short film about a Tarahumara child, filmed in the Copper Canyon.
• The Men Who Live Forever Men's Health article on the Tarahumara's athletic prowess
• The Tarahumaras: An Endangered Species