The term Guarijío designates this indigenous people's members that inhabit in Chihuahua, related with the tarahumaras, and the term Guarijío corresponds to the ones that live in Sonora, related with the Yoreme. Its meaning is "The ones that walk along the ground".

At present they integrate a 1,100 inhabitants' population, being the 54 % men and the 46 % women. They belong to the municipalities of Alamos and Quiriego.

LOCATION

The Makurawe inhabit in the south-western part of the State of Sonora, in the sides of the Sierra Madre Occidental, at the municipalities of Quiriego, southern part, Alamos, northern part, and to the east with Chihuahua.

The population lives dispersed in several principal communities like La Mesa Colorada, Los Bajíos, San Bernardo, Burapaco, Guajaray, Mochibampo and Bavícora, and at little settlements making good use of the zones of irrigation in the margins of the brooks and of the conditions of the terrain. Their principal contact is with San Bernardo, where the CDI ( Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Towns ) has a delegation established. The nearby more important cities are Alamos and Navojoa.

In order to get to their territory, one departs of Alamos city by a dirt road to San Bernardo, and the access to smaller communities continue by foot or in the back some animal. To the towns of Guajaray, Mesa Colorada and Burapaco one can arrive by car.

TERRITORY

Because of being settled in the Sierra Madre Occidental their territory is very uneven: Mountains, ravines and the valley of the High Mayo river. They possess an ejidal territory, of approximately 25,000 hectares ( according to the CDI's data, National Comisión for the Development of the Indigenous Towns ). The altitude varies between the 200 and the 1000 meters above sea level, what offers a great bio diversity where is found so much the caducifolia low jungle, like the arborigrásico thicket, the amacollado pastureland and the asclerófilo forest.

In relation to the flora there exist more than 140 varieties of cultivated plants ( tomato, lettuce, alfalfa, tobacco, garlic, pumpkin...), eatable seeds and fruit trees. Of the resin of the Kiki tree they make the glue for musical instruments like the harp and the violin.
It is a typical mountain ground, disabled for the extensive irrigation and the agricultural mechanization, in addition to favor erosion because of the inclined plane of this ground.
The fauna is very varied, bears and pumas in the higher parts; Coyotes, deer, turkeys, hares, squirrels, snakes, doves, etc. in the middle and low parts.

CLIMATE

It is dry with moderated rains in summer, with an average annual temperature superior to the 18°C. Their maximum temperature being typical of 40 which indicates thermic instability and extreme indices.
The driest station is the one of spring and the months of heat and rain are: July, August, September and October, season that they take advantage of for their gale cultivations.

HISTORY

There does not exist a lot of references about the history of this group. Evangelization and the makurawe's conquest was a difficult task. The Jesuits initiated it in 1620 and had to invest quite a while until being accepted by these tribes, establishing a mission in Chinipas. The missionaries realized that, in spite of having supported the missions, the groups kept on practicing their rites and ancestral habits.

In 1632, the guarijio of Chinipas ( in Chihuahua ) team up with other groups and rise against the Jesuits, killing, burning and destroying the missionaries' all possessions. This action brought a strong repression by part of the army of the Colony and the guarijío disperse to different directions. Some soar to the nearby Sierra Tarahumara, adapting their language and habits to the ones belonging to the tarahumara, and other ones meet with the Sinaloa adapting the language and habits of the yoreme. At present the Guarijío continue divided in these two groups without holding relations among themselves.
In 1683, when the development of the mining and cattle industry initiates, both concentrated in Alamos, the guarijíos become confused with the mayos and, deprived of their original territory, they did not take part in the process of mestization, and by that they could maintain an own space that permitted them to reinforce their cultural identity and their sense of group in front of the other groups.
Around the middle of their XIXth century, their history is determined for the one belonging to the Enríquez family, who move to Sonora and settle in their territory, opening big farmsteads and haciendas. The guarijío work at their lands in exchange for corn and foods, and to earn money they go out to work the agricultural fields of the valley of the Mayo and Yaqui, Caborca or Sinaloa.
At the beginning of the decade of 1970, they stablished contact with the guerrilla fighters of the September 23 league and they consider their situation of dispossessed group. The Enriquez do not back up them and, because of their negative, they murder two of them, the army puts in prison to the guerrilla fighters and the guarijío population is again repressed.
In the mid seventys, the Canadian Edmundo Faubert contact the guarijíos, and initiate negotiations with the state and the federal government to recognize this group.
In 1982, two common lands get constituted: Burapaco and Los Conejos, conforming a traditional government and obtaining credits and infrastructure for their cultural development.

LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL RELATIONS

The guarijío language belongs to the group Taracahíta of the Yuto Azteca branch, of the pima-cora family. Two variants are recognized in their language, that represent a link between the tarahumara and the mayo. In general the population is bilingual, except some old men that do not know Spanish. Among themselves they talk to each other in guarijío, and to communicate with not native authorities and officials they use Spanish.
For the guarijío, the belonging to the social group is every person that speaks the idiom and that lives inside the territory.
The families frequent themselves and maintain contact with the mestizo people through the sale of crafts and labor force. In their traditional parties, the mestizo is accepted like observer and guest.
As to marriage, they are inbred due to that it should be accomplished inside the same indigenous group, even though the mestization also exists. The most common age to get married is of the 14 to the 16 years for women and to the 20 years for men, being the most generalized habit that of "stealing" the girlfriend.
The typical family is composed of father, mother and five children. The old men are treated with a lot of respect and the cases of second marriages and adulteries are common, being accepted in the group without bigger problem.

HEALTH

Traditionally the concept of health or disease has to do with the magic-religious aspect: Spell or damage like cause of the disease or death. Another causes of the disease are the indigestion, the scare, heat and cooling. When it has to do with a spell, they attend to the sorcerer who, by means of the "humareadas" discovers from where came the spell or damage, to cure it with cleanings and natural remedies.
In general, their situation is unfavorable, and the knowledge on the use of medicinal plants is limited. There exist traditional doctors ( yerberos, sobadores and midwives ) and a Rural Medical Unit ( UMR ) in Burapaco, San Bernardo and a clinic established in Mesa Colorada.
The most common ailments are respiratory diseases, gastroenteritis, diarrhea, dermatosis, malaria, hypertension and anemia.

DRESS

The man uses denim trousers, with normally checkered shirt and a hat of palm weaved by women. As to footwear, some of them use teguas ( sort of raw leather shoe closed to the ankle, with a sole of rubber of old tire ) and the majority wears the guarache of three tips, consisting of sole of tire with leathern strips that pass between the big toe and goes up for the bridge of the foot to lace up in the ankles.
The women wear skirt and blouse, with a scarf to fasten their hair, and trousers when it is cold.
The ceremonial attire of the pascola is the same than the daily one, adding a belt of jingle bells on the waist, the mask in the head and the tenabaris in the legs.

HOUSING

The houses are made out of adobe, with wooden posts and earthen or palm roofs; They consist of one or two rooms, with earthen floor. They construct next to the house a ramada where they spend most of the time, due to the high-temperature climate.
Their settlement is scattered, the houses are found in groups of two or three houses in the top of the hills, close to the brooks or water sources.
The chairs, tables and cots are by homemade production, being the construction of the houses a men's task, who cut and carry the trunks and the palm and make the adobe.

ECONOMY

The principal economic activities are:

Agricultural, preparing the land for plantings;
Of sheepherding, taking care of the cattle,
Migration of the men to the agricultural fields of Navojoa, Obregón and Culiacán during the season of pizca or harvest, while women and children stay in the region. Some youth migrate temporarily because of motives of study.
The agriculture that they practice is of gale and for auto-consumption, based on the planting of corn and of bean, eventually harvesting sesame and chiltepín.

MYTHS, COSMOGONY AND RELIGION

The guarijio legends tell that:

"Tatita Dios" made them a lot of years ago, at that time it was raining a lot, the world was full of water and the plants grew with ease. Then God thought to make the men and formed them with mud, with that clay he made a lot of men and women but could not populate the mountain totally; As he was out of mud, he took ash and puting in water he made other men and women. Those made of mud were born "prietitos" and very strong for work, these are the Guarijío Indians. Those who were made of ash came out white, weak and of watered-down blood, these are the white men, the Yori.
A giants' couple ate the children and did not allow anybody to live in peace, they had them down for dinner, gave them chilicotes and that way the giants died.
*** Once upon a time there was a large fire from which only a man saved himself, after that he made a multitude of spirits believe that he was already dead.
A great snake formed a whirl at the river and pulled the people to the bottom. Help was asked for to the maynate ( singers or prayers ), who fought against the snake and defeated her.
Their cosmogony is made out of myths and beliefs, by-products of the tarahumara and mayo traditions, and their vision of the world is expressed through the oral tradition, by means of tales, legends and anecdotes, as much as in the tugurada's songs.

The guarijíos possess a great religiousness that combines pre-Hispanic elements with Catholics, without having formal cult spaces. In the tuguradas, the cava-pizca, the vigils and the ends of year, the maynate conduct the ceremonies to the rhythm of rattles made out of bules and with guttural and repetitive songs, that narrate the life of the animals of the mountain.

HOLIDAYS

The TUGURADA or tuburada, is the party with bigger presence of the year. A guarijío man should accomplish it three times in his life and a woman four, since it is considered that she is more prone to sin and therefore she should pay more for him.
This party is done for several motives: In order to be able to attain Heaven after the person has died, to ask for rain, to avoid the inclemencies of weather or for the celebration of any saint of the Catholic calendar, like for example San Juan and Guadalupe's Virgin.

The maynate sings the songs in this ceremony that starts when falling the sun and finishes to the early morning of the next day. While he sings the women dance, positioning between the singer and the cross, covered with a shawl and a rosary, next to an iron bar that delimits the sacred space.

The tugurada's organization is usually familiar, they sacrifice a young goat and prepare chivabaqui, getting money for coffee, sugar, flour and beans. The maynate receives a contribution in kind for its participation.

La CAVA-PIZCA: is the most important in the guarijío's religious life. In it, they reproduce their natural and symbolic world through the dance, the music, the theater and the religion.
This ceremony is celebrated the previous agricultural cycle, giving thanks for the good harvest, and they ask for blessings for the new cycle. From December to May are celebrated three cava-pizcas, celebrating specially to San Isidro Labrador. They are carried out in the communities of Mesa Colorada, Los Bajíos, Bavícora and Guajaray.

In all the parties they dance the only two dances practiced by this group: The Tuvuri, women-only dance, and the Pascola, men's dance.

CRAFTSMANSHIP

The guarijío make handicrafts with materials of their environment: Palm, clay, branches and fibers, the ones with which they elaborate baskets, sleeping mats, hats, angarillas ( baskets made with three hoops of plaited branches and a natural fiber net, that are useful for carrying objects hung up in the back and supported in the head ). They also make little benches with branch of poplar and hide of young goat or cow.
In San Bernardo are made masks of the Pascola and of some characters related with the cava-pizca; Birds and other animals carved in torote's wood and they manufacture string instruments like harps, violins and guitars.
The craft production is at family level and often depends on the woman, who manufactures them so much for daily use like for sale.

PRESENT SITUATION

Because of being a group settled down at the mountain, in outcast communities, the principal problems that they present are related to the lack of adequate services: Of health, of communication, of provisioning and of an education in accord to their cultural condition.
The same abrupt condition of the terrain difficult the construction of terrestrial roadways, causing that the installation of services turn out to be deficient.
Most of the settlements stock up on water of the brooks that run from above the mountain and do not count with electric power. They prepare the food in stoves of firewood. Between the communities there exist an internal network of telephony that works at the towns and is based on batteries.
In San Bernardo they count with services of telephone, telegraph, mail, center of health and civil registry. The majority of services are concentrated in Mesa Colorada: A school-shelter, a Diconsa store, storehouse, Center of Culture and certain hydraulic infrastructure for domiciliary takes; Center of Health and tele-secondary education.
Another important problem is the lack of job sources, forcing them to work at ranches and nearby fields with very low salaries, or to emigrate to the coast to employ  in various works leaving their families alone.