Hunting for History in Potam Pueblo

A Yoeme (Yaqui) Indian Deer Dancing Epistemology

Bibliographic Data

ID8934011
AuthorsD D Shorter (0000-0003-4059-116X, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume118
Issue3
Pages282-306
Publication date2007-11-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFolklore (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0015-587X • E-ISSN: 1469-8315
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00155870701621780
OpenAlexW1564760451
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited40

Based on fieldwork with the Yoeme (Yaqui) Indians of northwest Mexico, this article traces the ties between contemporary deer dances and pre-colonial deer-hunting rituals. The author claims that indigenous performances provide documentary evidence not only of intercultural dynamics but also of how native people think historically about those dynamics. The essay details how, in Yoeme deer dancing, community members demonstrate collective identity as well as ontological and epistemological sensibilities. Additionally, it re-assesses the ethnohistoric utility of the term "conversion" when writing about colonial and missionary contact zones. As a research model, this project demonstrates the central role of performance studies within the field of folklore. Acknowledgements This particular research project was made possible thanks to the funding obtained from a University of California Dissertation Research Grant, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Science Foundation (Award #0603320), and a New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities Exploration Traveling Grant from Indiana University. This piece would not have been possible without the help of the author's Yoeme collaborators, particularly Guillermo Amarillas Flores (Potam Pueblo) and Felipe Silvestre Molina (Marana Pueblo). Sara Friedman, Mary Gray, Kathryn Lofton, the two anonymous reviewers, and the Editor of Folklore provided invaluable editorial advice. All translations in the text are the author's, unless otherwise noted. All photographs were taken with the expressed permission of the performers. Tribal authorities do not allow documentation of ceremonies in any of the Yoeme (Yaqui) communities, except by permission. Notes [1] To see video clips and many of the images—the deer dance, the pahko'ola dances, the deer-dancing symbol in Mexican popular culture—associated with this essay, please refer to the author's website "Vachiam Eecha: Planting the Seeds" (http://hemi.nyu.edu/eng/cuaderno.shtml). [2] The Yoeme Indians are more widely known as "Yaqui" or the "Yaquis." I use "Yoeme" since my collaborators refer to themselves in their own language as "Yoeme" (plural, "Yoemem"). The terms "Yaqui" and "Yaquis" are retained in direct quotes and references. In this paper I have usually given the plural form (with the addition of an "m" of Yoemi words). Evidenced throughout the rest of the paper, most Yoeme words are pluralised with the addition of an "m" at the end of the word. [3] As with all fieldwork, mine is particularly situated within a certain network of collaboration and resistance. I work primarily in Barrio Santamea of Potam Pueblo, the largest and most central among the Yoeme pueblos in Sonora, Mexico. I began my field research in 1992 and I have continued to visit since then. My personal relationships with collaborators have developed over time, from that of researcher, student, to ceremonial kin, friend, and patron. My collaborators are fieldworkers, elders, ritual specialists, and teachers. They are mostly men and all at least bilingual. [4] Muriel Thayer Painter collected numerous warnings and requirements regarding deer–human relationships, many of them analogous to curers who transmit power through their eyes and do not blow on hot medicines (1986, 272–80). [5] For reasons of the scope of this essay and community privacy, I do not describe here the tenku ania, tuka ania, kawi ania, vawe ania, teeka ania, or nao ania (the latter being the corn cob world accessed for witchery). [6] Yoeme religiosity, as with other worldviews, allows for a wide range of perspectives. See Shorter (Citation2002, 63–4) for a detailed description of how various community members have come to represent "aboriginal" life-ways as being less-Catholic and, therefore, immoral. [7] The pahko'ola regalia are analysed in depth in Robinson (1992). For descriptions of the female societies, see Painter (1986, 143–50) and Erickson (Citation2000, 227–52). [8] For more information on how Redfield, Spicer's thesis director, came to the quoted conclusion, see Edward H. Spicer, letter to Robert Redfield, 11 February 1940, "Unprocessed Correspondence between Edward Spicer and Robert Redfield" (). [9] Spicer's interpretations may have reflected a comment that Juan Valenzuela made one afternoon in conversation: "The pascolas don't come from the people of the enchantment. They just make jokes about coming from somewhere before they begin to dance" (Spicer Citation1942a). After spending, by this point, thirty years working in Yoeme communities, Spicer may not have recognised when his questions continued to be eluded. [10] James Clifford notes: "Polyphonic works are particularly open to readings not specifically intended" (Citation1988, 52). [11] The types of animals addressed vary among pahko'olam. The practice of addressing these animals supports dialogic relations with the wilderness world. In this case, particularly, lizards, toads, and other desert animals that walk close to the ground may be addressed due to their close connection with bringing rain in Yoeme cosmology. Personal conversation with Herminia Valenzuela and Felipe S. Molina, 21 June 1996. [12] This view of the shared culture of colonisation is also taken up by Morrison (Citation1979), Scott (Citation1985, Citation1990), and Trigger (Citation1985, 183–225). [13] See also Morrison (Citation1992a; Citation1992b; Citation2002). A well-developed critique of Eliadian thinking throughout religious studies is Dudley (Citation1977). [14] The "big headed" or masked monsters of the fariseos group belong to a secret society whose name, I am warned, should not appear in print outside of Lent. As a respectful gesture, I will use circumlocution regarding these performers. [15] My understanding of the Yoeme dramatisation of this battle between good and evil reflects an approach to ethnographically reading indigenous rituals. In particular, I agree with Trexler that "missionary theatre of Mexico was ethnography" (Citation1987, 594; his emphasis). In contrast to Trexler's focus on the clergy's role as the ethnographic authors, however, I would prefer to think diachronically about native authorship and communicative intentions, both internally and externally. [16] In a similar manner, Jeffrey Anderson (Citation2001, 695–6) examines how the Northern Arapaho translation of the Christian prayer, "Our Father," negates the label of religious "conversion." [17] Along this line of questioning, I am intrigued by the work of other scholars working among native hunters. Tim Ingold (2004), Sylvie Poirier (2004), and Adrian Tanner (2004), are among the authors providing both the casestudies and the theoretical models that might enable a better understand of the importance of hunting to indigenous ontology and epistemology

Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Ethnography · Ethnohistory · Folklore · Foundation (evidence · Indigenous · Media studies · Sociology · The arts · Visual arts · Anthropology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · History · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Latin American history and culture

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