Tarahumaras in the Sierra Madre in Mexico

Tarahumaras, Sierra Madre
Page updated on 11.22.2010

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Photos taken during the inauguration of a municipal building in Cusáraré (July 2009) The 60,000 Tarahumaras live at the southwest of Chihuahua, in the low lands of the Occidental Sierra Madre. Although they have been Christianized since the sixteenth century, they still kept some traditional beliefs. They honor their ancestral Gods on the very same days of the catholic celebrations. For the Holy Week, they dance during three days and three nights in a row in order to hasten the arrival of the rain season. They also organize men and women running races between villages and bet on them.

Photos taken during the inauguration of a municipal building in Cusáraré (July 2009)

You meet them in villages when they sell their craft. They eat mainly potatoes, beans and corn tortillas. They live on farming (culture and cattle). They are not demonstrative. They don’t like pictures but are not aggressive.

Photos taken during the inauguration of a municipal building in Cusáraré (July 2009) They live in family groups on the surrounding highlands, along rios. These rios are dry half year long. When the cold weather arrives, they go down at the bottom of the canyons. They are different from the other Indian groups in Mexico because of their will of remoteness. They are farmers : the men devote themselves to the culture of corn and red beans, their staple diet. The women take care of the house, the children and the fabrication of craft. When they are not working, they spend time in contemplation. It is a system of thinking founded on the spiritual quest for happiness and a higher personal conscience. They are parted in several autonomous communities; each village has his own governor, elected by the whole village according his knowledge and his implication in the everyday life. This people survive thanks to his religion and beliefs. Their practices are a mix of many ancestral rites with Catholicism brought by the Jesuits during the Colonization of Mexico. They have dominical meetings in the church as well as ceremonial in tribute to the stars, specially the sun and the moon.