August 9 is commemorated, the International Day of Indigenous Populations, this date allows us to remember the importance of these wonderful communities that are always on the lookout for the care and safeguarding of nature, being the best guardians of our mother earth.
Indigenous peoples have inherited and practiced cultures and unique ways of relating to people and the environment, and are also very knowledgeable about their environment and how it relates to oneself.
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In these communities, women help preserve the long history of interaction of these peoples with the natural environment, encompassing a cultural complex that ranges from language, classification and naming systems or resource use practices, food systems, rituals , spirituality and worldviews.
However, many of the original communities, owners of forests and jungles, live in conditions of poverty and marginalization. In addition to that, they suffer great aggression every year for defending those natural assets where they live.
According to data from the United Nations Organization, there are around 476 million indigenous people living throughout 90 countries. They represent just over 5% of the world’s population, yet they are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, accounting for 15% of the poorest.
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In Mexico, according to data from the INEGI census, 7,364,645 people who speak an indigenous language reside in the country. Compared to 2010, the number of speakers of an indigenous language increased by 451,000 people. However, in percentage terms, people who speak an indigenous language decreased from 6.6 to 6.1 percent.
In Sonora, the indigenous peoples with the greatest presence in the entity are 7, among which the following stand out: Cucapás, Guiarijíos, Mayos, Yaquis, Pápagos, Pimas and Seris. On this occasion I would like to tell you a little about the first indigenous people that arrived in northwestern Sonora more than 6,000 years ago.
The Cucupás have lived in the municipality of Mexicali, Baja California, and in Pozas de Arvizu and the municipal seat of San Luis Río Colorado in the state of Sonora; while their Cocopah relatives live mostly in Somerton, Arizona, in the United States.
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The ethnic group is binational with a population of just over 171, of which only 47 speak their language. They are an ethnic group linguistically related to the Pai Pai, Kiliwa and Kumiai groups, inhabitants of Baja California, and to the Javasupai, Hualapai, Yavapai, Mojave and Maricopa, from the United States. Together they make up the Yuman family, which arrived in northwestern Sonora and the north of the Baja California peninsula.
Within their culture, they have an animistic belief: they worship the sun, the sea, the river. The beetle also has an important role, because it is the one who guards the entrance to the afterlife and decides the fate of souls. Their diet was made up of aquatic species obtained from the sea, the Cahuilla Lagoon, and the Colorado River, as well as products obtained through hunting, gathering, and agriculture. The kuri kuri songs are part of their musical tradition. When they interpret them they evoke the animals of the desert and the mountains. Traditional medicine is mainly practiced in the domestic sphere. Few people have the knowledge of traditional medicine with which they heal, through medicinal plants.
And you already knew the Cucupás?
Lic. Pamela Ibarra Dávila
President of Green Culture Love for the Planet AC