The Tarahumara

The Tarahumaras’ word for themselves, Raramuri, means “runners on foot” in their native tongue according to some early ethnographers like Norwegian Carl Lumholtz, though this interpretation has not been fully agreed upon. With widely dispersed settlements, these people developed a tradition of long-distance running for intervillage communication and transportation. The long-distance running tradition also has ceremonial and competitive aspects. Often, male runners kick wooden balls as they run in “foot throwing” competitions, and females use a stick and hoop. The foot throwing races are relays where the balls are kicked by the runners and relayed to the next runner while teammates run ahead to the next relay point. These races can last anywhere from a few hours for a short race to a couple of days without a break. The Tarahumara also practice persistence hunting, using their ability to run extremely long distances (sometimes as far as 160km) to catch animals such as deer; the animals eventually tire and slow down, and the Tarahumara get close enough to the animal to kill it.

The Tarahumara religion is a mélange of indigenous customs and Roman-Catholic Christianity, characterized by a belief that the afterlife is a mirror image of the mortal world, and that good deeds should be performed not for spiritual reward, but for the improvement of life on earth. In certain traditions (perhaps those more strongly based on pre-Columbian practice), the soul ascends a series of heavens, is reincarnated after each death, and after three lives becomes a moth on Earth which represents the final existence of the soul. When the moth dies, the soul dies completely. However, this end is not regarded as negative or a punishment, but merely as a continuation of the order of life.

In Tarahumara cosmology, God has a wife who dwells with him in heaven, along with their sons, the so-called ‘sukristo’ (from Spanish ‘Jesucristo’) and their daughters, the ‘santi’. These beings have a direct link with the physical world through Catholic iconography, respectively crucifixes and saint’s medallions. The Devil’s world is not necessarily evil, but is tainted through its ties with the ‘Chabochi’, or non-Tarahumara. The Devil is said to sometimes collaborate with God to arrange fitting punishments, and can be appeased through sacrifices. In some cases, the Devil can even be persuaded to act as a benevolent entity. The Devil and God are brothers (the Devil is the elder) who jointly created the human race. God, using pure clay, created the Tarahumara, whereas the Devil, mixing white ash with his clay, created the Chabochi. Thus, the Devil is as much protector and life-giver to the Chabochis as God is to the Tarahumara. The Tarahumara share with other Uto-Aztecan tribes a veneration for peyote, the spirits of which are said to be mischievous and capricious. Source