The Original Indigenous People of Sinaloa (Part 1)
The State of Sinaloa, with a surface area of 58,200 square kilometers (22,471 square miles) is basically a narrow strip of land running along the Pacific Ocean and represents only 2.9% of the national territory, ranking it as the 17th largest state. Sinaloa is bordered to the north by Sonora and Chihuahua; to the south, by Nayarit; to the east by Durango, and to the west, by the Gulf of California.
Politically divided into eighteen municipios, Sinaloa had a 2010 population of 2,966,321, ranking Sinaloa as the 16th largest state by population. The twelfth largest city in Mexico, Culiacán Rosales, is the capital of Sinaloa with a population of 858,638, which represents 28.9% of the state’s total population.
Sinaloa’s Geography
Sinaloa’s western coastal plain stretches along the length of the state and lies between the ocean and the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental Range, which dominates the eastern part of the state. Sinaloa is traversed by many rivers, which carve broad valleys into the foothills. The largest of these rivers are the Culiacán, Fuerte, Sinaloa, Mocorito and Piaxtla rivers.
The Contact
Because of its great mining potential, Sinaloa was coveted by the Spanish who sought to exploit its mineral wealth. However, the early Spaniards found some thirty groups inhabiting the region from the western slopes of the Sierra Madres to the Yaqui River. The indigenous groups that occupied Sinaloa are described below and a map on the following page shows the approximate territories of the indigenous Sinaloa tribes around the time of the Spanish contact [Jaontiveros, “Sinaloa 1530 de Acuerdo” derived from Sergio Ortega Noriega, “Breve Historia de Sinaloa” (1999) [Published Oct. 21, 2008].
The Ranchería People
As the Spaniards moved northward during the 1500s and 1600s, they found an amazing diversity of indigenous groups. Unlike the more concentrated Amerindian groups of central Mexico, the Indians of the north were referred to as “ranchería people” by the Spaniards. Their fixed points of settlements (rancherías) were usually scattered over an area of several miles and one dwelling may be separated from the next by up to half a mile.
The renowned anthropologist, Professor Edward H. Spicer (1906-1983), writing in Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960, stated that most ranchería people were agriculturalists and farming was their primary activity, but they also supplemented their crops with hunting and gathering. They generally had a decentralized political structure, with no single tribal chief.
Totorame
The Totorame tribe occupied the coast of Sinaloa from Mazatlán and the Piaxtla River southward. Their territory extended inward into Nayarit and included the primary settlements of
Aztatlán, Sentispac and Chametla, the latter on the Baluarte River and the first two in Nayarit territory.
The Totorame were closely related to the Cora Indians of Nayarit and belonged to the Aztecoidan linguistic group. The geographer Carl O. Sauer estimated the aboriginal Totorame population at 100,000, with a population density of 10 people per square kilometer. Also known as the Pinome, they inhabited the Sinaloa coastal strip south of the Piaxtla River and extended inland into parts of present-day Nayarit.
The sedentary Totorames were farmers, cultivating corn, beans, squash, chili and cotton. They consumed sea products and collected salt from natural deposits for their own consumption and for trade with other groups. The Totorames were not aggressive people, but had to defend themselves frequently against the Xiximes and Acaxees who came down from the sierras to take away their crops on a regular basis.
Inhabiting the area that included the present-day city of Concordia, the Totorames achieved their greatest achievements in pottery, agriculture and fishing. A short history of the Municipio of Concordia, declares that the influence of the Totorame culture in that area was “extraordinary.” People who visit the remains of their settlements today can see vestiges of a once great culture.
Tahue
The Tahue Indians occupied the lowlands between the Piaxtla and Mocorito rivers with their main settlement at Culiacán. From a cultural standpoint, they were very similar to their southern neighbors, the Totorames. One of the main Tahue towns was Culiacán. The Tahue were farmers, cultivating corn, beans, squash, chili, cotton, guava and plum, but they also picked wild fruits. They fished in both the rivers and the sea, where they obtained a great variety of fish and seafood that constituted an important part of their diet. They collected salt from the numerous natural deposits that form on the coast. The Tahues were also skilled potters, who produced pieces of ceramics beautifully decorated for domestic use. Like their Totorame neighbors, the Tahue were peaceful people and only practiced defensive war when it was necessary to do so.
According to Cuarta Relacion Andnima (1955), Tahue men were described as highly tattooed and the women considered to be the most beautiful encountered along the Sinaloa coast.
The Acaxees and Xiximes
At the highest points of the Sierra Madre Occidental, east of the region occupied by Tahues and Totorames, lived the Acaxees and Xiximes, in a territory that the Spaniards called the Sierra de Topia. Both groups had very similar lifestyles and similar languages, belonging to the Taracahitian branch of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic stock.
However, in spite of their cultural similarities, the Acaxees and Xiximes were irreconcilable enemies. For the most part, both groups occupied the western region of the current state of Durango, but their western limits were within what is today known as Sinaloa. Life in the rugged Sierras forced the Acaxees and Xiximes to live in small communities that were scattered through a sizable area. Both groups practiced agriculture and cultivated small plots where the land allowed it, usually planting corn, beans, squash and chili.
The Cáhitan Language Group
At the time of the Spanish contact, the Cáhita group of tribes were living in pueblos and permanent villages along the banks of the Mocorito, Sinaloa, Fuerte, Mayo and Yaqui Rivers in the coastal regions of both southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa. Speaking eighteen closely related dialects, the Cáhitan group is part of the Uto-Aztecan Language Group and is most closely related to the Pima and Cora languages.
Numbering about 115,000 at contact, the Cáhitans were the most numerous of any single language group in northern Mexico and included the famous Yaqui and Mayo ethnic groups, who lived along the middle and lower portions of the valleys of the Yaqui, Mayo and Fuerte rivers in the southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa. Other Cahitan groups included the Bamoa, Sinaloa, Ocoroni, Zuaque and Tehueco, all of which are now culturally extinct. Living in the fertile valleys along these rivers, most of the Cáhita engaged in agricultural pursuits, growing corn, cotton, calabashes, beans, and tobacco, and also in cultivating the mezcal-producing agave.
The Cahitan cultures were less developed than those of the Tahues and Totorames, but there is a great deal more information about them due, among other factors, to the fact that they were evangelized by Jesuit missionaries, who were constant observers of the customs of their parishioners. Many of the Cáhitans were semi-nomadic, lacking permanent settlements and moving periodically within a large territory, which they recognized as their own and which they defended energetically if they were invaded by neighboring groups.
Guasave and Achires
The Guasaves and Achires inhabited the marshes of the coast between the San Lorenzo and Fuerte rivers. They were the only groups whose language differed markedly from the Cáhitans. They did not practice agriculture and primarily relied on fishing, hunting and gathering of wild fruits.
The Guasave Indians lived along the Pacific coastline of Sinaloa between the Estero de Agiabampo and the San Lorenzo River. This group was presumably a subclass of the Cáhita-Opata and Tarachitian family, similar to the Comopori, Ahome, Vacoregue and Achire (all now extinct groups). The Ahome were a division of the Guasave living near the mouth of the Fuerte River.
The Colonial Period (1531-1821)
From March 1531 to Mexican independence in 1822, the Spaniards of Colonial Sinaloa dealt with a large group of indigenous peoples, settling in their territory and occasionally fighting wars against them. Although Sinaloa’s northern neighbor Sonora continued to wage war on its Mayo and Yaqui residents well into the 20th Century, most of Sinaloa became pacified by the time of independence.
During the colonial period, the Tahue, Totorame, Acaxees, Xiximes and the numerous Cáhitan speaking groups became assimilated into Spanish colonial society. However, they assimilated, but they did not disappear. They were transformed into Mexican citizens. And many of Sinaloa’s current inhabitants descend from these groups.
In the recent 2015 Mexican Intercensal, 12.83% of Sinaloa’s 2,966,321 citizens considered themselves (Se considera) to be of indigenous background by culture. And four Sinaloa municipios had populations in which more than 25% of their residents claimed to be of indigenous background: El Fuerte (43.47%), Choiz (39.38%), Elota (28.78%) and Ahome (28.49%).
Indigenous People in the 1921 Census
In the unique 1921 Mexican census, residents of each state were asked to classify themselves in several categories, including “indígena pura” (pure indigenous), “indígena mezclada con blanca” (indigenous mixed with white) and “blanca” (white). Out of a total state population of 341,265, only 3,163 individuals (0.9%) claimed to be of pure indigenous background. A much larger number – 335,474, or 98.3% – classified themselves as being mixed.
Indigenous Languages Spoken in Sinaloa in 2010
The 2010 Mexican census revealed that nearly half of the 23,841 indigenous language speakers 3 years and older in the State of Sinaloa spoke the Mayo language. The other 46 languages spoken in the state were languages transplanted from other states, including:
Náhuatl (2,136 speakers — 9.0% of all indigenous speakers)
Tarahumara (1,864 speakers — 7.8%)
Mixteco (1,646 speakers — 6.9%)
Zapoteco (1,319 speakers — 5.5%)
Yaqui (325 speakers — 1.4%)
Purépecha (Tarasco) — 239 speakers — 1.0%)
While the Tarahumara are primarily from Chihuahua, the Yaquis are from Sonora. In addition, the Purépecha originated from Michoacán, while the Mixtecs and Zapotecs come from the State of Oaxaca. For this reason, the Mayo language is the only language truly indigenous to Sinaloa. All other languages are transplants from other regions.
Copyright © 2019 by John P. Schmal. All Rights Reserved.
Primary Sources:
Beals, Ralph L. “The Aboriginal Culture of the Cáhita Indians,” Ibero-Americana, No.19. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1943.
Departamento de la Estadísticas Nacional. Annuario de 1930. Tacubaya, D.F., 1932.
Enciclopedia de los Municipios y Delegacíones de México: Estado de Sinaloa, Concordia. Online: http://siglo.inafed.gob.mx/enciclopedia/EMM25sinaloa/municipios/25004a.html
Gerhard, Peter. The Northern Frontier of New Spain. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982.
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI). Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010: Tabulados del Cuestionario Básico: Población de 3 Años y Más que Habla Lengua indígena por Entidad Federativa y Lengua.
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI). Principales resultados de la Encuesta Intercensal 2015. Estado Unidos Mexicanos: III: Etnicidad. Online:
http://www.senado.gob.mx/comisiones/asuntos_indigenas/eventos/docs/etnicidad_240216.pdf
Miller, Wick R. “A Note on Extinct Languages of Northwest Mexico of Supposed Uto-Aztecan Affiliation,” International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 49, No. 3, Papers Presented at a Symposium on Uto-Aztecan Historical Linguistics (Jul., 1983).
Noriega, Sergio. Sinaloa Historia Breve. Mexico, D.F.: El Colegio de Mexico Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2011 (3rd edition).
“Sinaloa Prehispánico: Los Grupos Indígenas que Ocuparon el Estado Previo a la Conquista Española,” Espejo, June 3, 2019. Online: http://revistaespejo.com/2019/06/sinaloa-prehispanico-los-grupos-indigenas-que-ocuparon-sinaloa-previo-a-la-conquista-espanola/.
Spicer, Edward H. Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 1997.