Tanuka & Shikivindavi (cosmic myth)

photo by Sandra G. Trevino
"Myths are sacred stories or narrations about the gods. They are a system of beliefs about events and facts about how things happen and the norms on social relations," according to Claude Levi-Straus,anthropologist.
A pair of twin brothers,(son and moon); they were born from a couple of eggs. Both would realize heroic actions and deliver the people from danger. But mainly they will kill the serpent shiquivindavi of seven heads to whom the sacrifice of young girls are offered; All these heroic actions are done with the help of animals.
After the danger pass, the younger brother (moon) has intimate relations with a woman with teeth inside her vagina. The younger brother (moon) using an instrument removes the teeth from her vagina and that's why the feminine genitals bleed, inaugurating the menstrual cycle and iniciated the woman's capability for procreation. The son and the moon are celestial gods, they act in duality and their actions establish the order of the cosmos and the earth. The moon is associated with the woman menstrual cicle and her procreation capability.

agricultural rituals

Each year indigenous peasants celebrate agricultural ceremonies with petition of rain around a great geological fault at the Oztotempa’s hill, close to Zitlala in Guerrrero’s Mountain. These rituals mark the beginning of the agricultural cycle and serving as strategy for conservation of the natural resources in the area, because of the creation of norms that prohibit deforestation; the one who violates these norms is incarcerated. About 30 nahua communalities concentrate around the regional center of the geological fault (el pozo de Oztotempa) to participate in the ceremonies.
These massive nahua pilgrimages are part the agricultural ritual which consists in dances and offerings to the gods requesting for productive harvest. They gather around a small church which contains dozens of cruces representing different communities. They sing prayers asking for fain and for the wellbeing of the people. Their offerings consist in sacrificing live animals by throwing them inside the deep hole. These animals are covered with aromatic flowers (cemaxochiltl) which helps the gods to find their path. For the nahuas this great geological fault represents the center of the universe. Young girls dressing as brides representing the cult to fertility are part of the agricultural rituals.
These agricultural rituals are the result of religious syncretism after 500 years of colonization integrating pre Hispanic beliefs with the European religious intuitions creating a new form with its own cultural identity, according to the article “La ritualidad mesoamericana y los procesos de sincretismo y reelaboracion simbolica despues de la conquista” by Johana Brocha. These agricultural rituals are cyclical and go through along the solar year which is related the climate cycles and the natural environment.

peasants children

Many of the agricultural industries in Mexico, big producers of fruits and vegetables, located in Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, and Tamaulipas, which have enormous territorial extensions and great volume of production, demands big agricultural work force; this labor comes from indigenous-migrant peasants. This corporations hire woman and children to work in the fields.

This landowners would not by machinery for the harvest, they rather give poor salaries to their workers. All the monetary benefits are only for the landowner who receives high gains exporting the product, according to Namensio & D. Lozano authors of "Infancia vulnerable: el caso de los ninos jornaleros agricolas migrantes de la montana de Guerrero, 2002.

This agricultural corporations respond to marketing demands by using new technologies like biotechnology, bio genetic which allow gain product variety and introduce them to the market when there is high demand. These systems make shorter the agricultural circles; the peasants are fired right after the harvest.

Harold R. Kerbo, author of "Social Stratification and Inequality" explains that thanks to export agriculture, capital -intensive farming methods, the food is now more expensive, poor peasnats are bieng pushed off the land so more land can be used to grow crops for the world market, and more machines are doing teh work, resulting in fewer jobs for the poor peasants. As a result, urbanization has increased as peasants lose jobs and land since they move to the cities hoping to find better oportunities. The profits of exporting agriculture always go to a small group of wealthy landowners and large multinational agrobusiness with peasants losing jobs, income and land.

The Green Mountain (La Montana de Guerrero)

“Poverty is the result of the process of socio- environmental degradation that creates patterns of economic development which have not fallow equitable and sustainable conditions. The form of how society is organized to use the resources and how are distributed the benefits obtained between the members produce poverty” said Marco Antonio Ramirez, author of “Poblacion, Pobreza y Medioambiente. The Guerrero’s mountain is experiencing extreme poverty. It is the most marginal zones of Mexico. There are three different ethnic groups living in the region, mixtecos, tlapanecos, and nahualts. The mountain’s region of Guerrero is located in the oriental part of the state, with a surface of 7000km over the Sierra Madre del Sur. Its altitude goes from 1000 to 3050msnm.and it is conformed of 16 municipalities.
Ramirez explains that environmental degradation is linked to the forest loss, erosion and depreciation of the soil, poverty, reinforced migration, as the base of social conflicts because of the land. There are various forms of modification of the environment: Reduction of productivity of the soil through erosion, the loss of nutrients, the salts and the soil structures; the loss of biodiversities, deforestation, the waist of water and the changes in the use of the soil. The forms to measure these proprieties are through the percentage of deforestation and the coefficient between the alteration and regeneration of it, and for the level of erosion of the soil.
According to a study conducted by the official government agency, Secretaria de Desarrollo Rural, forty two thousand hectares of forest get lost every year in the state of Guerrero, including the mountain, the costs, tierra caliente, the central zones, and other regions. These lands are mostly used for agriculture and the cultivation of illegal substances, explained Garcia Aguirre, director of (SEDUE), “The region has more than 5 millions of hectares in forest and rainforest which can give the population the resources for development, with strategies like community forestry,” said Garcia and article published by La Jornada.
“Poverty is the result of the process of socio- environmental degradation that creates patterns of economic development which have not fallow equitable and sustainable conditions. The form of how society is organized to use the resources and how are distributed the benefits obtained between the members produce poverty” said Marco Antonio Ramirez, author of “Poblacion, Pobreza y Medioambiente. The Guerrero’s mountain is experience extreme poverty. It is the most marginal zones of Mexico. There are three different ethnic groups living in the region, mixtecos, tlapanecos, and nahualts. The mountain’s region of Guerrero is located in the oriental part of the state, with a surface of 7000km over the Sierra Madre del Sur. Its altitude goes from 1000 to 3050msnm.and it is conformed of 16 municipalities.
Ramirez explains that environmental degradation is linked to the forest loss, erosion and depreciation of the soil, poverty, reinforced migration, as the base of social conflicts because of the land. There are various forms of modification of the environment: Reduction of productivity of the soil through erosion, the loss of nutrients, the salts and the soil structures; the loss of biodiversities, deforestation, the waist of water and the changes in the use of the soil. The forms to measure these proprieties are through the percentage of deforestation and the coefficient between the alteration and regeneration of it, and for the level of erosion of the soil.
According to a study conducted by the official government agency, Secretaria de Desarrollo Rural, forty two thousand hectares of forest get lost every year in the state of Guerrero, including the mountain, the costs, tierra caliente, the central zones, and other regions. These lands are mostly used for agriculture and the cultivation of illegal substances, explained Garcia Aguirre, director of (SEDUE), “The region has more than 5 millions of hectares in forest and rainforest which can give the population the resources for development, with strategies like community forestry,” said Garcia and article published by La Jornada.
Community forestry is defined as the science for the training and cultivation of forest by the landowners, exploited for their own benefit and not for the benefit of others; this sustainable development strategy involves three advantages, economic, social and the protection of forest and biodiversity conservation. However, this benefits work over time and in the meanwhile many families migrate during the year seeking survival, they migrate to big cities in Mexico and then to work in the fields or factories in the U.S.

Juani (a tarahumara's story)

Juani was a boy of twelve, intelligent, lively and in constant activity. Like all his race was the color of light chocolate skin and his hair was long, but it did something different from the others: his eyes, very bright and clever. He was thin, yet strong and resilient and, despite his young age, he was a great runner like all the Tarahumara, who have called themselves Raramuri, which means "the light foot.The men of this tribe have been recognized as the best endurance runners.
Besides the Tarahumara language I could speak the Spanish Juani, for he had learned in a school for Indians who had settled near Guachochi, there came, along with other kids, learn to read and write. Juani playing with other children from the village to target practice with bows and arrows they themselves built. But the game he liked best was that of Taba, which was played with bones of deer or goats which were thrown to the ground and by position in which ca-yeran had a different value. The child who earned more points reached grains of corn, Juani spent long hours playing knuckle-bones, and often came home with handfuls of corn.
As the eldest brother, Juani had to help his father in planting and corn co-Seck and accompany him to hunt deer and squirrels, while his mother stayed with the smaller food making and weaving blankets and sashes vibrant color.
When not playing with other children or accompanying his father to hunt the goats Juani family and sat under a tree with his dad played violin in the ceremonies of the people. The violin was a musical instrument well known among the Tarahumara Juani and liked very much.

A ndr é s the soothsayer . Juani had grown into a highly respected family in town, because his grandfather Andrew was a famous healer and soothsayer people who came from the village when he became sick. Furthermore, as was one of the chief priests, directed the ceremonies and dances that were made in times of drought to ask for rain to Father Sun and Mother Moon. The dance for the Tarahumara was very serious and ceremonious. More than a fun, was a kind of worship and incantation.

The Sierra Tarahumara is calling

"The land is our mother, she feed us and she is going to receive us the day of our death"

A Raramuri popular though.

The Yumari dance is an imitation of a deer's movements and it is one of the most important dances of the Raramuri nation, the main purpose is to persuade father son and mother moon to produce more rain. However, the practice of these traditional dances might not be enough strategy to convince Mother Nature to produce rain. The constant and massive deforestation over the years is causing dramatic climate change, human suffering, and extreme poverty to the bio region and the people living in the forest of the Sierra Madre Occidental located at the south of the state of Chihuahua Mexico, according with the study, "The political ecology of deforestation in the Sierra Madre Occidental of Chihuahua" by Randall W. Gingrich.
As many traditional agricultural systems, the raramuri's system is based on equitable land, labor and resource distribution; they have a reciprocal obligation with a network made during social and religious gatherings and through the sharing of tesguino (traditional maiz beer).
Their traditional social organization system is in opposition to the official ejido system which tracks government-owned land held in trust the ejido members who maintain their membership as long as they are actively working the land. Over 70% of the forest land and over 50% of the all agricultural land in Mexico is held in ejidos,(World Bank,1989).
However, most of ejidos in the Sierra Tarahumara are politically controlled by a mestizo minority group "the caciques," a local boss who controls the business of many ejidos through manipulative and coercive methods including violence, coercion and granting favor by political support; they also work with the Mexican mafia which is powerful in the state. The cacique domination in the ejidos has a devastating impact in social, financial and ecological aspect of the ejido, because these individuals made lucrative deals with the forest industry and federal officials from the Agriculture Ministries (SARH) and the Agrarian Reform officials (SRA), (Gingrich,13).

The raramuri demonstrate passive resistance before the cacique domination. They don't participate in their meetings or expose corruption's management in the ejido, because they are threatened, beaten by the caciques. Other alternative for survival for the raramuri is to migrate out of the region for temporary work to El Paso and Mexico City. These migrations causes dificulties in keeping their ejido's membership because there is not written documentation to prove their temporary migration.
The effects of climate change not only affects the environment causing erosion, persistent drought and infertile soil for the agriculture but also these effects have a strong impact on social and economic aspects of the raramuri causing malnutrition for the lack of appropriate diet in children, according to Jose A. Laguno, The Tarahumara Foundation, (http://www.tarahumara.org.mx/).
The most important characteristics of the raramuri is their straight and resilience, because over the years they had survived abuse, labor exploitation, migration, malnutrition, narcotrafic violence, and cacique intimidation; but perhaps the must challenge problem they are facing is the climate change cause by deforestation. It is a is a matter which they cannot solve alone. Today, 84088 indigenous raramuri are living in a desperate and marginal conditions, and the Sierra Tarahumara is calling.

oregano hunters

Each year, during the months of September and October, the oregano hunters around small communities or ejidos around Fresnillo, south of Zacatecas Mexico are preparing to collect the seasonal herb which grows naturally in the arid region of the state. According to the article, “The importance of the oregano production in Mexico” by Alicia Aguirre published in Carta Economica Regional, num.3, Mexico has the first place in the world in the production of oregano, however, this product is only the 10% of consumtion is used internally and 90% is for the external markets or exportation.
Records indicate from 3200 tons of production, 2800 was exported by 1.25 dollars by kilogram which brought 3 million dollars which 30 percent was for Jalisco and Zacatecas. Paradoxically, the oregano hunters from south of Zacatecas still live on marginal conditions, with no water, electricity or other sanitation. There is no equivalent benefit between hunters and acopiadores or mediators, collectors who monopolized the commercialization and work directly with American corporations which decide on the prices. Aguirre explains that not only there is a lack of technical knowledge in the oregano production because undeveloped formal ways of exploitation but commercialization problems and moreover, the need of institutional support which can provide technical assistance and implement regulations.
Consequently, there is a high index of male migration in nine counties, according to a study by Miguel Moctezuma from the Univesity of Zacatecas. “It is alarming to find ghost towns where there is only woman and children” said Moctezuma according to Gerardo Flores in his article published in La Jornalda, 2008. The IEM an official migration institute indicates that 17 thousand zacatecan men migrated to the U.S. in 2007 explains Flores.