The Guarijío are an
indigenous people of Mexico
Indigenous peoples of Mexico ( es, gente indígena de México, pueblos indígenas de México), Native Mexicans ( es, nativos mexicanos) or Mexican Native Americans ( es, pueblos originarios de México, lit=Original peoples of Mexico), are those ...
. They primarily live in 17 villages near the West
Sierra Madre Mountains in
Chihuahua and the
Sonoran border.
[ Their homelands are remote and reached either on foot or horseback.][Yetman 30] Their traditional Guarijio language
Huarijio (''Huarijío'' in Spanish; also spelled Guarijío, Varihío, and Warihío) is a Uto-Aztecan language of the states of Chihuahua and Sonora in northwestern Mexico. It is spoken by around 2,100 Huarijio people, most of whom are monolin ...
has about 2100 speakers.
Name
The Guarijío people are also known as the Huarijío, Maculái, Macurái, Macurawe, Varihío, Varijío, Varohio, or Vorijío people.[
]
Language
The Guarijío language is a Tarahumaran language of the Uto-Aztecan language
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 n ...
family, written in the Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
. A dictionary and grammar have been published for the language.[ Children primarily learn Spanish in school.][
]
History
Guarijíos lived between the Tarahumara to the south and east and Mayo Mayo often refers to:
* Mayonnaise, often shortened to "mayo"
* Mayo Clinic, a medical center in Rochester, Minnesota, United States
Mayo may also refer to:
Places
Antarctica
* Mayo Peak, Marie Byrd Land
Australia
* Division of Mayo, an Aust ...
to the west. Spanish Jesuit missionaries arrived in their territory in the 1620s. The Jesuits established a mission in Chínipas, where some Guarijío and Guazapare people rebelled against them. After the Spanish military retaliated, the Guarijío dispersed and split into two distinct communities—one in Sonora and the other in Chihuahua[
]
Culture
These people enjoy seclusion in spacious villages. A festival, called ''tuburada'', brings them together socially on momentous occasions, including the planting and harvesting of maize. A tubrada includes feasting, ceremonial smoking of ''Nicotiana rustica
''Nicotiana rustica'', commonly known as Aztec tobacco or strong tobacco, is a rainforest plant in the family Solanaceae. It is a very potent variety of tobacco, containing up to nine times more nicotine than common species of ''Nicotiana'' such ...
'', processions with fireworks, and dancing.[Yetman 61–63]
Subsistence
Guarijío adapted farming to their dry climate and grow amaranth, beans, maize, and squash. They supplement these crops with wild plants harvested from the forest.[
]
See also
* Jean Bassett Johnson
Jean Bassett Johnson (September 7, 1915 – April 4, 1944) was an American anthropologist and linguist who conducted field studies in Mexico during the 1930s and early 1940s. A doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, he was ...
(1915–1944), American anthropologist who studied the Guarijío in the 1930s
* ''Wimmeria mexicana
''Wimmeria mexicana'' is a large shrub or small tree, often reaching in height, that is common in the Southeastern United States and in regions of Mexico, including the states of Oaxaca, Chihuahua, and central to eastern Sonora. It is commonly ...
'', a plant used by Guarijío people for medicinal tea
Notes
References
*Lenguas indígenas y hablantes de 3 años y más, 2020 INEGI. Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guarijio People
Indigenous peoples in Mexico
Indigenous peoples of Aridoamerica
People from Chihuahua (state)
People from Sonora