Mayo (Yoreme) Indian Culture

The Mayo, or Yoreme Indians, live together in small villages and ranchos (rancherías) in the lowlands of southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa. They are estimated at about 40,000 people, at least that is the estimated number who speak the indigenous language, classified under Uto-Aztecan. Mayo is one of 62 indigenous languages (including Tarahumara) recognized by the federal government with the “same validity in their territory, location and context” as Spanish. Education is bilingual in the village schools, and an indigenous university is located in the town of Mochicahui along the highway from Los Mochis to El Fuerte.

Some of their dances, regalia, masks and headdresses date to pre-Columbian times, while others were altered after the Spanish invaders brought the new religion.

To convert the people, the friars staged religious dramas to recount important Biblical and historical events, demonstrating the forces of good and evil and introducing the saints and devils of Christian belief. Mayo interpretations of this colorful but culturally confusing pageantry are reflected in their dances and regalia to this day. The small wooden mask worn by the Mayo dancer on our home page is called “pascola” (note the cross on the forehead) and among the general public is typically worn on the side or back of the head, but over the face in a village fiesta.

Although archaeologists are presently hard at work, little is known of the pre-conquest Mayo. Early Spanish documents reveal a large, culturally complex population in the fertile coastal Sinaloa plain. As the conquest moved north the population was decimated through battle and epidemics. Jesuits succeeded in pacifying the Mayo through missionization, but discovery of precious metals led to exploitation of the land and the people, and revolts ensued. After the Catholic Church expelled the Jesuits from the New World in 1767, the incoming Franciscans failed to gain a foothold.

Caught between the politics of church and secular authority seeking cheap lands and labor, the Mayo languished. Little changed after Mexican independence from Spain in the 1820s. Several Mayo revolts against impressed servitude preceded the Mexican Revolution, when many Mayo joined up with a future president of Mexico, Alvaro Obregón, in 1912 to fight for their lands and dignity.

Even though the “ejido” or communal land system was established as an outgrowth of the Revolution, it was not until the late 1920s and early 1930s that the system took hold in Mayo country and they were able to consolidate on ejido lands and revive their traditional way of life in relative peace.