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 Chihuahua may refer to: Places * Chihuahua (state), a Mexican state **Chihuahua (dog), a breed of dog named after the state **Chihuahua cheese, a type of cheese originating in the state **Chihuahua City, the capital city of the state **Chihuahua Mu ...

and the

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into 72 municipalities; the ...

n 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 monolingua ...

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. Th ...

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 ...

. 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 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 ''Amaranthus'' is a cosmopolitan genus of annual or short-lived perennial plants collectively known as amaranths. Some amaranth species are cultivated as leaf vegetables, pseudocereals, and ornamental plants. Catkin-like cymes of densely p ...

, beans, maize, and squash. They supplement these crops with wild plants harvested from the forest.

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