Missionary Efforts Among the Tarahumara Indians

Not checked by Don MISSIONARY EFFORTS AMONG THE TARAHUMARA INDIANS THESIS Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate Division of Texas Western College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By Donald Harris Burgess El Paso, Texas January, 1963 MISSIONARY EFFORTS AMONG THE TARAHUMARA INDIANS APPROVED: (see original for signatures) PREFACE I have been interested in the Tarahumara Indians for a number of years. In 1957, I went with my father on a tour of the construction of the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad, which crosses the Tarahumara country. Two years later, desiring to learn Spanish, I spent a summer helping with the construction of this railroad at the town of Cuiteco. It was during that summer that I became acquainted with the Paul Carlsons, Wycliffe Bible Translators, who are working with the Tarahumaras. From February to May of 1963 I lived in Samachique, in the middle of the Tarahumara country, learning Tarahumara and helping with the Carlsons' work in their absence. I was recently accepted as a member of the Wycliffe Bible Translators and hope to return to the Sierra Tarahumara. The purpose of this thesis is to help people who work with the Tarahumaras to become acquainted with what has been done previously, both good and bad, and to impart a better understanding of the Indians. It is also an attempt to fill some of the many gaps which occur in Tarahumara history. A great deal has already been written on the Jesuit work and only a summary is given here. The most difficult chapter to do research on was "Franciscans and Secularization." Very little information on this period is available unless a person can spend years in research. Perhaps the three most valuable places to do research on the Tarahumara history are the Bancroft Library at the University of California, the Latin American Collection at the University of Texas and the Parral Archives, which were recently microfilmed by the University of Arizona. Probably the most valuable source was lost when the Chihuahua City Archives burned a few years ago. Much of the research for this thesis was done in Spanish and I hold the responsibility for the translations. A great many people have given invaluable help. My advisor, Dr. John McNeely, and many other teachers, missionaries and friends, both in the United States and Mexico, offered suggestions and contributed to the thesis. The authors of some of the works cited, such as Father Gerard Decorme, Campbell Pennington, Francisco Almada, I. Thord-Gray, José Carlos Chávez, Mrs. Paul Carlson and Ken Hilton all offered help and encouragement. Several members of my family contributed by printing the pictures and drawing the maps. Edwin Lent and John Mayner checked for English mistakes and Mrs. Dick Crawford patiently typed the thesis. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface List of Maps and illustrations Chapter I. The Tarahumaras and Their Environment II. The Jesuit Missions III. Franciscan Efforts and Secularization IV. The Apaches and the Tarahumara Missions V. Baptist and Evangelical Methodist Missions VI. The Wycliffe Bible Translators VII. Conclusion Bibliography LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS Map (see original) 1. Outline of Mexico 2. Land of the Tarahumara Illustration (see original) 1. Tarahumaras in Chihuahua City 2. Catholic Church in Témoris 3. Ramón López and Family 4. Antonio Loera, his wife and son planting corn 5. The Barranco del Urique map #1 Outline of Mexico MISSIONARY EFFORTS AMONG THE TARAHUMARA INDIANS CHAPTER I THE TARAHUMARAS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT As the Sierra Madre Occidental stretches down the western half of Mexico and enters the southwestern part of the State of Chihuahua, it becomes known as the Sierra Tarahumara. Forty-four thousand square kilometers of mountain peaks, mesas, rugged canyons, small valleys and high plains make up this region.1 This is the home of the Tarahumara Indians. The Indians call themselves Rarámuri, a word that probably comes form rara (foot), juma (run) and ri (a participle).2 Ever since colonial times, two distinct ecological regions have been recognized in the Sierra Tarahumara and are known as the Tarahumara Alta and the Tarahumara Baja.3 The larger of the two regions, the Tarahumara Alta, consists of the highlands. A number of its peaks rise above eight thousand feet and the Cerro de Mohinora in the southern part of the area reaches close to ten thousand feet.4 The mountains are covered mostly with a soft, easily weathered volcanic tuff which has resulted in many weird rock formations and caves. Heavy snows and temperatures well below zero are common during the winter. Abundant forest of pine, Douglas fir and oak cover the mountain slopes.5 Criss-crossing the Tarahumara Alta are hundreds of miles of deep rugged canyons, which make up the Tarahumara Baja. Several of these canyons approach the Grand Canyon of Arizona in size and awesomeness and at least one of them, 1 Francisco R. Almada, Geografía del Estado de Chihuahua (Chihuahua, 1945), 102. This includes the municipios of Guerrero, Temósachi, Ocampo, Uruáchic, Chínipas, Maguarichi, Guazapares, Urique, Satevo, Bocoyna, Belisario Domínguez, San Francisco de Borja, Batopilas, Morelos, Guadalupe y Clavo, Belleza, Nonoava and Olivos. 2 All notes on the language come form the author's study of Tarahumara and K. Simón Hilton, Tarahumara y Español (México, 1954), unless otherwise noted. 3 Almada, Geografía, 22. 4 Almada, Geografía, 56. Sources differ as to the heights of the peaks and waterfalls, and the depths of the canyons. Only approximations are given here. 5 Wendell C. Bennett and Robert M. Zingg, The Tarahumara (Chicago, 1935), 3-4, 48. the Barranco del Urique, is reported to be six thousand feet deep.6 The first white man to visit the canyon was the Jesuit priest, Father Juan Salvatierra, in 1684. Along with an Indian chief, he approached the canyon on horseback. He later said: On discovering the precipices, such was my terror that I immediately asked the governor if it was time to dismount, and without waiting a reply, I did not dismount, but let myself fall off on the side opposite the precipice, sweating and trembling all over with fright; since there opened on the left, a chasm whose bottom could not be seen and on the right, some perpendicular walls of solid rock. In front was a drop of four leagues, at least, not a gradual slope but violent and steep, and the trail, so narrow that at times it is necessary to travel by jumps, for not having a place in between to put your feet.7 The vegetation in the bottom of the canyons is semi-tropical. Parrots8 as well as the anopheles mosquito9 are sometimes seen. "In these places the traveler begins to sweat from 7 in the morning, even in winter, and can at the same time contemplate along the edges of the high mountains the whiteness of snow.10 The Spaniard early began to dig into mineral wealth of this region and silver, gold, copper and other minerals have been found in abundance. The most famous of the mines, Batopilas, has produced native silver for nearly two hundred fifty years.11 Most of the mineral wealth is found in the canyons which form the spillways for the numerous rivers which drain the area. The Urique River with its various tributaries joins the Chínipas River to form the Río Fuerte. This, along with the Mayo and Yaqui rivers, winds its way across the flat plains of Sinaloa and empties into the Gulf of Lower California. On the other side of the continental divide, the San Pedro and Florida rivers combine with the Río Conchos before emptying into the Río Grande.12 The rivers run to capacity during the rainy season, which comes between July and September, and the few roads 6 Campbell White Pennington, "The Material Culture of the Tarahumar and their Environment." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, 1959), 71. 7 Francis Javier Alegre, S.J., Historia del la Provincia de la Compañia de Jesús de Nueva España (Rome, 1959), IV, 67-68. 8 Francisco del Paso y Trancoso, Relaciones del Siglo XVIII Relativas a Chihuahua (México, 1930), I, 24. 9 Bennett and Zingg, The Tarahumara, 5. 10 Francisco M. Plancarte, El Problema Indígena Tarahumara ("Memorias del Instituto Nacional Indigenista", V; México 1954), 14. 11 Bennett and Zingg, The Tarahumara, 7-8, and Almada, Geografía, 297. 12 Bennett and Zingg, The Tarahumara, 6-8, and Plancarte, El Problema Indígena Tarahumara, 14. which today reach into the mountains are often impassable during this time.13 The ninth largest waterfall in the world, the Cascada de Basaseáchic, is found in the municipio of Ocampo, with a continuous drop of about one thousand feet.14 It is in this rugged, inhospitable land that the Tarahumara Indians live. Archeological reports suggest that they have been in western Chihuahua for two thousand years, since the most ancient findings are similar to those of the Basketmaker Culture.15 When the Spaniards first came to northern Mexico, the Tarahumaras lived further out on the high plains and valleys toward Chihuahua City and Parral, where farm land was more fertile and in more abundance. Gradually, with the constant pressure of the Spaniard and other Indians, they drew back into the rugged mountains and canyons, where their cave-dwelling type of life has remained practically unchanged down to the present day.16 Since the seventeenth century, the number of Tarahumaras has remained fairly constant17 and today the population is approximately forty-four thousand.18 Seldom do they live in towns but rather in scattered family groups and all attempts to draw them into communities have been strongly resisted.19 Many of the Tarahumaras are semi-nomadic, leaving their crude log cabins and caves in the high mountains and moving down into the warm canyons when winter is approaching.20 Another reason for the semi nomadic way of life is the soil, which is shallow, stony and of spotty distribution.

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