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The Yaqui or Yoeme are a Native American tribe who originally lived in the valley of the Río Yaqui in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Many Yaqui still live in their original homeland, but some live in Arizona as a result of wars between the Yaqui and the Mexican government. The Yaqui call themselves Yoreme, the Yaqui word for person (yoemem or yo'emem meaning "people"). Their language is one of 30 in the Uto-Aztecan family. The Yaqui call their homeland Hiakim, from which some say the name "Yaqui" is derived. They may also describe themselves as Hiaki Nation or Pascua Hiaki, meaning "The Easter People", as most had converted to Catholicism under Jesuit influence in colonial Mexico. Many folk etymologies account for how the Yoeme came to be known as the "Yaqui".
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In the past, the Yaqui subsisted on agriculture, growing corn, beans, and squash (like many of the natives of the region). The Yaqui who lived in the Río Yaqui region and in coastal areas of Sonora and Sinaloa fished as well as farmed. The Yaqui also made cotton products. The Yaqui have always been skillful warriors. The Yaqui Indians have been historically described as quite tall in stature.[1]
The Yaqui conception of the world is considerably different from that of their European-Mexican and European-American neighbors. For example, the world (in Yaqui, anía) is composed of five separate worlds: the desert wilderness world, the mystical world, the flower world, the dream world, and the night world. Much Yaqui ritual is centered upon perfecting these worlds and eliminating the harm that has been done to them, especially by people. Many Yaqui have combined such ideas with their practice of Catholicism, and believe that the existence of the world depends on their annual performance of the Lenten and Easter rituals.[1]
The Yaqui religion, which is a syncretic religion of old Yaqui beliefs and practices and the Christian teachings of Jesuit and later Franciscan missionaries, relies upon song, music, prayer, and dancing, all performed by designated members of the community. They have woven numerous Roman Catholic into the old ways and vice versa.[1]
For instance, the Yaqui deer song (maso bwikam) accompanies the deer dance, which is performed by a pascola (Easter, from the Spanish pascua) dancer, also known as a "deer dancer". Pascolas perform at religio-social functions many times of the year, but especially during Lent and Easter.[1] The Yaqui deer song ritual is in many ways similar to the deer song rituals of neighboring Uto-Aztecan people, such as the Mayo. The Yaqui deer song is more central to the cultus of its people and is strongly tied in to Roman Catholic beliefs and practices.
Flowers are very important in the Yaqui culture. According to Yaqui teachings, flowers sprang up from the drops of blood that were shed at the Crucifixion. Flowers are viewed as the manifestation of souls. Occasionally Yaqui men may greet a close male friend with the phrase Haisa sewa? ("How is the flower?").[1]
The Yaqui were never conquered militarily by the Spanish, and they defeated successive expeditions of conquistadores in battle. They were converted to Christianity by Jesuit missionaries, who convinced them in the seventeenth century to settle into eight towns: Pótam, Vícam, Tórim, Bácum, Cócorit, Huirivis, Benem, and Rahum.
For many years, the Yaqui lived peacefully in a relationship with the Jesuit missionaries. This resulted in considerable mutual advantage: the Yaqui developed a productive economy, and the missionaries used the income to extend their missionary activities further north. In the 1730s, the Spanish colonial government began to alter this relationship, and eventually ordered all Jesuits out of Sonora. This created considerable unrest among the Yaqui and led to several rebellions beginning in 1740. The Franciscan priests who were supposed to replace the Jesuits never arrived, leaving the Yaqui with no Spanish Catholic religious leaders.[2] From there followed decades of war between the Spanish, and the later Mexican republic, against the Yaqui, a period known as the Yaqui Wars.[3]
The Yaqui leader Juan Banderas, executed in 1833, had wanted to unite the Mayo, Opata, and Pima tribes, together with the Yaqui, to form an alliance separate from Mexico in the 1820s. His effort failed and the Yaqui remained within the scope of Mexican legal authority.[2] The nation suffered a succession of brutalities by the Mexican authorities, including a notable massacre in 1868, in which the Army burned 150 Yaqui to death inside a church.[2]
The Yaqui leader Cajemé led another effort for independence in the 1880s. Following this war, the regime of Porfirio Díaz subjected the Yaqui to further brutality. He ordered a policy of ethnic transfer, in order to remove the Yaqui from Sonora and encourage immigration from Europe and the United States. The government transferred tens of thousands of Yaqui from Sonora to the Yucatán peninsula. Some were sold as slaves and worked on plantations in Mexico; many of the slaves died from the brutal working conditions. Many Yaqui fled to the United States to escape the persecution. Today, the Mexican municipality of Cajeme is named after the fallen Yaqui leader.[2]
On January 8, 1918, the U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment was involved in a firefight with Yaqui Indians just west of Nogales, Arizona. E Troop intercepted a group of American Yaqui on their way to render aid to Yaqui of Sonora, who were in the midst of long-running war with the Mexican Government.[4]
With the Mexican Revolution many Yaqui refugees fled to the United States. Many settled in urban barrios, including Barrio Libre and Pascua in Tucson and Guadulupe and Scottsdale in the Phoenix area. Yaquis built homes of scrap lumber, railroad ties, and other materials, eking out an existence while taking great pains to continue the Eastern Lenten ceremonies so important to community life. They found work as migrant farm laborers and in other rural occupations. Due to their poverty, in the early 1960s spiritual leader Anselmo Valencia approached University of Arizona anthropologist Edward Holland Spicer to help his people. A noted authority on the Yaqui, Spicer, Muriel Thayer Painter, and others created the Pacua Yaqui Association (PYA). Congressman Morris Udall agreed to aid the Yaquis in securing a land base. In 1964, the U.S. government gave the Yaqui 202 acres (817,000 m²) of land southwest of Tucson, Arizona. It was held in trust for the people. Under Valencia and Ramond Ybarra, the PYA developed homes and other infrastructure at the site. Realizing the difficulties of developing the 202 acres (known as New Pascua) without the benefit of federal tribal status, in the mid-1970s the Yaquis once again had Mo Udall and others sponsor federal tribal recognition legislaton. The US formally recognized the Pascua Yaqui Tribe based on this land on September 18, 1978. The Yaquis were the last tribe recognized prior to the formal BIA Federal Acknowlegment Process established later in 1978.
The Yaqui have dwelt in the area of the present-day southwestern United States since before the incursions by Spanish missionaries and soldiers in the 18th century. The Yaqui oral tradition and history says there were small Yaqui settlements centuries before the arrival of the Europeans. The town of Tubac, Arizona, had Yaqui in its Spanish garrison. Several communities of Yaqui have existed in Arizona since the 19th century: Pascua Pueblo is in the northwestern part of Tucson and Hu'upa was to the south. It has since been absorbed into the Valencia and Freeway neighborhood of Tucson. In addition, Marana has had continuous settlements of Yaqui.
In the late 1960s, several Yaqui, among them Anselmo Valencia and Fernando Escalante, started development of a tract of land about 8 km to the west of the old Hu'upa site, calling it New Pascua (in Spanish, Pascua Nuevo). This settlement has a population (estimated in 2006) of about 4,000 and is the center of administration for the Tribe. Most of the middle-aged population of New Pascua use English, Spanish, and a moderate amount of Yaqui. Many older people also speak the Yaqui language fluently, and a growing number of youth are learning the Yaqui language in addition to English and Spanish.
Many Yaqui moved further north, near Tempe, Arizona. They settled in a neighborhood named after Our Lady of Guadalupe. The town incorporated in 1979 as Guadalupe, Arizona. Today, more than 44 percent of the town's is Native American, and many are trilingual in Yaqui, English and Spanish.
A small Yaqui neighborhood known as Penjamo is located in South Scottsdale, Arizona. The California Yaqui Association is based in Fresno, and a small band of Yaqui live in the border town of Presidio, Texas.[5] In all, in 2008, the tribe counted 11,324 voting members.[6]