Acaxee was a tribe or group of tribes in the
Sierra Madre Occidental in eastern
Sinaloa
Sinaloa (), officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is d ...
and NW
Durango
Durango (), officially named Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Durango; Tepehuán: ''Korian''; Nahuatl: ''Tepēhuahcān''), is one of the 31 states which make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, situated in ...
. They spoke
a Taracahitic language in the Southern
Uto-Aztecan
Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The na ...
language family. Their culture was based on
horticulture and the exploitation of wild animal and plant life. They are now extinct as an identifiable ethnic group.
[, accessed 1 Feb 2011]
History
In December 1601, the Acaxees, under the direction of an elder named
Perico, began an uprising against
Spanish rule. This revolt was called the
Acaxee Rebellion
The Acaxee Rebellion was an insurrection against Spanish rule in Mexico by Acaxee Indians, in 1601. The Acaxee attempt to expel the Spanish from their lands, regain their independence, and retain their traditional culture which was threatened by ...
. They are said to have been converted to the
Catholic faith by the society of
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
s in 1602. Early accounts by Jesuit missionaries allege
continual warfare and
cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...
among the
Tepehuan, ''Acaxee'', and
Xixime who inhabited
Nueva Vizcaya.
Ethnographer Ralph Beals reported in the early 1930s that the Acaxee tribe from western Mexico played a ball game called "''vatey''
r''batey''" on "a small plaza, very flat, with walls at the sides".
[Kelley, J. Charles. "The Known Archaeological Ballcourts of Durange and Zacatecas, Mexico" in Vernon Scarborough, David R. Wilcox (Eds.): ''The Mesoamerican Ballgame''. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press. , 1991, p. 98. Kelley quotes Beals: Beals, Ralph J. ''The Acaxe, A Mountain Tribe of Durango and Sinaloa'' (Iberoamerican 6) University of California Press, Berkeley: 1933.]
Subdivisions
*Acaxee (proper)
*Sabaibo
*Tebaca
*Papudo
*Tecaya
Notes
References
*Beals, Ralph L. 1933. ''The Acaxee: a Mountain Tribe of Durango and Sinaloa''.
Further reading
* Deeds, Susan. ''Defiance and Deference in Mexico's Colonial North: Indians Under Spanish Rule in Nueva Vizcaya''. (2003) University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Acaxee
Indigenous peoples of Aridoamerica
Indigenous peoples in Mexico
Peoples of the Sierra Madre Occidental
Durango
Sinaloa
Cannibalism in North America
Extinct ethnic groups