The Yaquis

An analysis of the impact of the construction of aqueducts and dams along the Río Yaqui on the Yaquis of Sonora, Mexico, through the lens of political ecology

“…According to missionaries, the Yaqui lived in small clusters of dome-shaped houses, covered with cane or palm mats, mainly along the annually overflowing river surrounded on either side by desert. The Yaqui channelled the river water into fields for agriculture, and were frequently forced to change location as the river flooded (Spicer, 1980). Potentially on account of the positive reports regarding the Jesuits from the neighbouring Yoreme (the Indigenous peoples to the south of the Yaqui), or the Mayo (people of the river bank; the name commonly ascribed to the Yoreme), in 1617 the Jesuits were invited by the Yaqui into their homeland (Folsom, 2014).…”

“…Despite the proselytising of the Jesuits, Yaqui religious life is syncretic and distinctive. Although a full analysis of Yaqui religion is beyond the scope of this article, the most pertinent aspect for this analysis is the Yaqui concept of the huya aniya (the natural world which is seen as the source of all things including the food and tools of everyday life) which includes the Bacatete mountain range in the north of Yaqui ancestral territory, the Río Yaqui along which the Yaqui live, and the space in which the flora and fauna are reproduced-as the source of all things including the food and tools of everyday life, and men are merely an element within it (Moctezuma Zamarrón, 2015;Spicer, 1980). Yaqui religious syncretism can be somewhat explained by the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish Empire in 1767, which left the Yaqui separated from the Catholic Church for around 100 years (Savala, 1981).…”

“…In stark contrast to the spiritual world of Catholicism, the very essence of the huya aniya is incorporeality. Equally, the concept of immortal beings which inhabit it-including, according to Yaqui myth, the surem, ancestors of the Yaqui who rejected baptism and reorganisation into the eight towns-is at odds with the idea of a material world in Catholicism (Spicer, 1980). Importantly, the huya aniya concept remained as the missionary-managed world of the towns did not have qualities to which the Yaqui could relate and hence substitute for the huya aniya.…”

“…Importantly, the huya aniya concept remained as the missionary-managed world of the towns did not have qualities to which the Yaqui could relate and hence substitute for the huya aniya. Nevertheless, the Jesuits did successfully introduce a new world of the tangible to Yaqui thought termed the pweplo (the part of the universe in which human beings dwell; borrowed from the Spanish word pueblo [village]), which was added to the continuing conception of the huya aniya (Spicer, 1980).…”

“…Along with the dams La Angostura, Álvaro Obregón, and Plutarco Elías Calles, finished, respectively, in 1942, 1952, and 1965, and 14 smaller dams, the AI signalled just the latest in a series of blows in the fight for their ancestral land by the Indigenous peoples the Yaqui from the state of Sonora, Mexico, with yet more water diverted away from their ancestral territory in Sonora (Barry, 2014;Moreno Vázquez, 2015). Lázaro Cárdenas (1895Cárdenas ( -1970, the President of Mexico from 1934 to 1940, was particularly important in granting Indigenous people rights, most prominently in his nationwide agrarian reforms in 1937, which promoted the distribution of land in the form of ejidos (communal land for agriculture) (Spicer, 1980). Cárdenas shared a special relationship with the Yaqui particularly, creating the protected Indigenous Zone in 1937, encompassing much of the traditional Yaqui homeland and granting the Yaqui a number of rights, including to education, sanitation, transportation, and communication (Hu-DeHart, 1988).…”