The term “pima” designates the ethnic and linguistic group that lives in the Sierra Madre Occidental where the southeastern part of Sonora and the southwestern part of Chihuahua meet. The phrase “pi’ma” means “there’s not,” “it doesn’t exist,” “I don’t have,” or probably “I don’t understand,” word that the natives use in response to the Spaniards when they asked them something. That is why the Spanish called them this way.

Pimas called themselves o’ob, which means “the people.” The term “pima” designates a varied set of native societies, as the Pimas of the desert or the Pimas of the mountains. However the phrase o’ob refers to the Pimas who live in the mountainous region, and are called “Pimas Bajos” (Low Pimas). The term “yori” is used to call white people.

In the colonial period, the Pimas Bajos were divided into three principal subgroups: ures, nebomes and yécoras. The first two have disappeared as ethnic entities. The Pimas yécoras still conserve own cultural characteristics and concentrate in the region of Maycoba, Sonora, as well as in Yepáchic, Mesa Blanca, Pinos Verdes, in the area round Canoachi and Mineral de Dolores, in Chihuahua. Its territory is rough and high. The area covers the municipalities of Moris, Ocampo, Madera, and Temósachic in Chihuahua and parts of Sahuaripa, Arivechi, Rosario, Onavas, and almost all Yécora, in Sonora.

HISTORY

In the time where the first meetings with Spanish occurred, the tribes of the center of Sonora had great mobility on the territory. Before beginning the XVII century, the opata and eudeve bands made pressure over several settlement spots, most of all on the region of Tónichi and in the valleys of the San Miguel and Alto Sonora rivers. Due to this pressure, the Pimas moved towards the west, territory that the yaquis defended tenaciously.

Towards 1536, hundreds of Pimas Bajos followed Cabeza de Vaca (Cow Head) in its rute to the Sinaloa River, and established in the community of Barnoa. This kind of drift only occurred when life conditions, in some places turned intolerable, or when they wanted to get away from the opata and eudeve invasions. These migrant Pimas soon accepted the Jesuit teachings, which arrived to Barnoa in 1519. Between 1622 and 1634, the Jesuits established churches in Onavas, Movas, Nuri, and Tónichi.

During the XVII century, several confrontations between Pimas and Spanish were provoked, that stopped the evangelizing action of the Jesuits, who have had established missions in Yécora and Maycoba in 1670. Several Pima and Tarahumara factions rebelled against the missioners’ abuses. In 1698, the Pima-Tarahumara coalition devastated Maycoba and Onapa. In 1740 there was a rebellion of Pimas Bajos, Yaquis, Mayos, and Pimas Altos. During these events, several Pima populations, as Yécora, remained pacific.
The relationships between Pimas Bajos and Spanish were more pacific during the first and a half meeting century. After the Jesuits’ expulsion in 1767, the missions located in the ópata territory and in the Pimería Baja remained in the Franciscan province of Jalisco.

In the XIX century, the Pima area was almost abandoned; the incursions of the Apache bands put missioners, miners, yoris, and yet, Pimas in danger. During the decade of the 80’s of the XIX century, the last Apache bands were confined in the reservations in Arizona and New Mexico. From then, the presence of yoris increased most of all in Yécora, Moris y Yepáchic; however the Pima population decreased. Franciscans came back to the zone to reestablish in the abandoned missions left at the “Apache terror” time.

During the Revolution, besides confiscating food and animals, the troops of Pancho Villa, drafted some Pimas; others preferred to keep aside of the war, and got deeper into the mountains. Currently, the Pimas of Maycoba considered that due to their participation in the wars against the Apaches and in the Revolution, they have more rights over the territory than the yoris. When these began to penetrate into the region, they had with them a mutual coexistence relationship; the Pimas selled the yoris their manual labor and some hand-crafted products, but when the yori population increased, its land and resources’ demand also increased. The plunder suffered by the Pimas, created a situation of evident hostility.

LANGUAGE

The Pima language belongs the yutoaztec stock, composed by the Taracahita (Corahuichol), and Nahua subgroups, and by the Pima or Pimana branch. The Pima is considered as the closest language to the Taracahita branch. All the indigenous languages of Sonora and Chihuahua are included under the family of languages from Sonora. Pima forms part of a set of related languages called Pimanas or Tepimanas, that well could be named o’dum or o’tham languages. In the zone of Maycoba, the rate of bilingualism is very high, because most of the people have learned Spanish.

CRAFTS

In the past, the Pima women made pots, palm products, and clothes made of wool. In the area of Yepáchic, they threaded with distaff and loom. They wove blankets, girdles, and “chiquitas,” for saddles. Currently, very few Pima women know how to weave and the sheep breeding is no longer profitable. The manufacture of clay pots has also declined.

Pimas make products out of vegetable fibers, such as hats, mats, suitcases, or rectangular baskets with lids to keep all kinds of things, as well as “guaris,” or open mouth containers with four corners at the base used to put food. Sometimes, they decorate baskets with indigo dye. These products are manufactured, mainly with grass; hats are made of palm. The cotton spinning is no longer being made. Some people work wood; they made trays, mats, and cooking and working utensils, as well as musical instruments such as guitars and violins. They also make leather “teguas” and “huaraches.”

RELIGION

Christianity taught by missioners, had to be adapted to the native language and mentality. Besides, the indigenous groups added substantial elements of their own religious and ritual structures to the missioners’ rituals and ceremonies, process in which the Pimas had to accept San Francisco as their patron saint. After the Jesuits’ expulsion of the Spanish possessions in 1767, their indoctrination and control role was followed by Franciscans. Economic difficulties, rebellions, the Independence War, and the extensive periods of chaos and anarchy of the XIX century, obstructed new missioners to develop their evangelizing project in the Pima communities.

Since several years ago, a couple of missioners of the Instituto Lingüístico de Verano (Summer Linguistic Institute) work in the Pima area. These new missioners do their evangelist proselytism job in many Pima and Yori settlements that have accepted the new creed.

FESTIVITIES

The conflicts between natives and non-natives, besides other less symbolic manifestations, appear dramatized in the festivities and celebrations of the place. There are differences between the celebrations in the ceremonial centre and those in the settlements. Among those in the ceremonial centre, there are: Santa Cruz, Holly Week, the celebration of San Francisco, and the Virgin of Guadalupe’s Day. The celebrations at the “rancherías” or settlements are agrarian rituals that commemorate relevant stages of the agricultural cycle, as it is the yumare, or the San Juan Bautista’s festivity, which is celebrated with ritual bathes commemorative of the rain arrival.

The high economic costs, the dispersion of people, and the high acculturation rate have decreased the celebrations’ number and quality. With certain consistence, there are still festivities associated to the agricultural season, which initiates with Holly Week and ends with San Francisco’s celebration. Holly Week gets together the Pimas of the region at the ceremonial centers, and many of them participate in the rituals of “fariseos” and jews to carry out religious vows and keep the ancient Pima traditions. The celebration of San Francisco is a typically Yori holiday, with fairs and northern modern dances that attract both, Pimas and Yoris, as well as merchants from all the Mexican Republic.

RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER TOWNS

The Pima’s neighboring groups are: the Tarahumaras or Rarámuri, at the east and southeast, in the Tutaca and Madera zone; the Guarijíos, or Makurawe, at the south and southeast. The vicinity with Tarahumaras has many centuries of continuity, originating physical mixtures and a very deep cultural exchange. The relationship with Guarijíos has been more restricted in space and temporality.

The relationships between Pima and non-native populations have been very conflictive, due to the principal cause which is the claim and aim of land. Still a century ago, tolerance was mutual; however, when the Yori population increased, as well as its land demand, the coexistence became a fight by the political and economic supremacy. In this struggle, the natives have become more affected by the loss of land and access to forestall wealth.

Yoris treat natives contemptuously and with certain remorse that make them adopt paternalist positions. Pimas are suspicious of Yoris and maintain great distance with them, showed in endogamy and in devotion to certain traditions and familiar relationships. It’s almost for sure that in spite of the common discrimination they suffer in the cities, migrants from rural and native origin don’t resent the rejection as much as the one manifested by the yoris of the mountains.

INTERESTING FACTS

- Belen and Arizpe are both of Pima origin, however as time passed by, the first one remained in power of the Yaquis, and the second was occupied by the Opatas, as the Pimas abandoned it.
- Pimas have great historical affinities with the Opatas, because both have taken an active part in the wars and political movements of Sonora, cooperating with the government to fight against the Apaches.
- Pimas express themselves in negative phrases or sentences. For example, they never say “the man is crazy,” but they say “the man has NO common sense.” That is why, their name comes from the phrase “NO tellers.”

Source:

Instituto Nacional Indigenista, www.ini.gob.mx

Links:

Pima County Arizona - http://www.co.pima.az.us/ (English)
Pimas - http://www.sonora.gob.mx/historia-cultura/etnias/pimas.htm (Spanish)
Pimas y Opatas - http://coppercanyon.freehomepage.com/Pimas%20y%20Opatas.htm (Spanish)
Pima, Grupo Étnico - http://www.eccnet.com/missions/p_n_a/perfiles/pima.html (Spanish)
Indien Pimas - http://dianantes.free.fr/equi/pimas.html (French)
Papagos et Pimas Font Fleurir le Desert - http://perso.wanadoo.fr/yanu/terre%20amerindienne/HTML/page22.htm (French)