Indigenous people of Mexico

The indigenous peoples of Mexico are those that assume an ethnic identity based on their culture, their institutions and a history that defines them as the autochthonous peoples of the country, descendants of the societies originating from the territory Mexican. The Mexican State recognizes indigenous peoples by defining itself in its Political Constitution as a multicultural nation founded on its indigenous peoples. According to a calculation by the National Indigenous Institute (INI), National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI), in 2012 the indigenous population was approximately 15 million people (out of a total of 130), divided into 68 ethnic groups. In 2020, the INEGI census showed that at the national level there are 11.8 million indigenous people and 23,232,391 people who were identified as indigenous based on self-identification.

In contrast to other Latin American countries, where indigenous peoples mostly correspond to a single linguistic group, whose language has been elevated to official status along with Spanish, in Mexico there are around 65 indigenous peoples that They speak between sixty-three and more than a hundred different languages (depending on the source consulted).

As part of the laws on linguistic rights of indigenous peoples, which are regulatory laws of article 2 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, the languages of these peoples are recognized as national languages, with the same category as Spanish; but in practice, its official use is extremely limited, it is reduced to: the publication of some laws; its use in bilingual education, at the lowest levels; the publication of outreach materials; and occasionally, some radio stations broadcast, partially or completely, in the indigenous language and some Internet sites.

The indigenous population is distributed throughout the territory of Mexico, but is especially concentrated in the Sierra Madre del Sur, the Yucatán Peninsula and in the most remote and difficult to access areas, such as the Sierra Madre Oriental, the Sierra Madre Occidental and neighboring areas. The indigenous population in Mexico is not numerous due to miscegenation, but the presence of Mexican natives within the national identity is very present due to the high development of Mesoamerican cultures. Part of Mexico's mestizo population is influenced and identified by indigenism to a greater extent unlike other nations with indigenous contingents.

In the north, center and west of Mexico there are groups such as the Tarahumaras, Huichols, Mazahuas, Otomiés, Purépechas, Mexicas, Nahuas and the Yaquis. While in the southeast and south of the country the Tlapanecos, Mixtecs, Mixes, Triquis, Zapotecs and the Mayans, among others.

The state with the largest indigenous population is Oaxaca, although much of it has emigrated and the one with the largest indigenous population living in its own territory is Yucatán. Ethnic groups such as the Zapotecs, Mayans, Nahuas, Purépechas, Mixtecs, Yaquis, Kikapúes and Otomíes have managed to improve their living conditions and have easily adapted to the culture of commerce and globalization.

Origin of the term Indian

Christopher Columbus arrived in America on October 12, 1492 and, after landing on the island of Guanahaní, in the Bahamas archipelago, he believed he had reached an island near India. The admiral called the inhabitants of the island Indians, although in reality they were Taínos, and to be more specific, they were Lucayans. What Columbus did not imagine was that when he baptized the inhabitants of Guanahaní with that name—and then making it general for all the inhabitants of the islands and mainland that he visited on his travels—he was also baptizing countless towns of which he probably never heard of. Among these unknown peoples are the Mesoamericans, Oasisamericans and Aridoamericans - and the descendants of all of them -, inhabitants of the territory that we currently know as Mexico.

The term Indian is commonly used to designate individuals belonging to the native peoples of America. The term "indigenous" better defines these towns. In most Latin American nations, "indio" It is used as a derogatory term or insult, as a designation of a group of people who are located on the periphery of the social structure. Calling a person Indian is equivalent, in certain contexts, to disparagingly describing a person as poor, ignorant, people without education or intelligence. The social meaning of the term has a historical dimension that begins precisely at the time of the discovery of America by Europeans.

Guillermo Bonfil Batalla from a position that we could call indigenous, wrote:

The Indian category, in fact, is a supra-ethnic category that does not denote any specific content of the groups it covers, but a particular relationship between them and other sectors of the global system to which the Indians are part. The Indian category denotes the status of colonized and makes necessary reference to the colonial relationship.

(Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, 1995)

History

Viceroyalty

The arrival and establishment of Spanish colonies in the Antilles had very serious consequences for the indigenous people of that American region. In fact, they practically disappeared after a few decades, forced to work on the encomiendas or culturally and racially assimilated to the newcomers. But after the discovery of new lands beyond the Caribbean Sea, there was a rethinking of the position that the Spanish should take towards the more complex societies that occupied the continental territory. Among the many passages left by the Spanish chroniclers of the conquest of Mexico, some of them reveal a certain surprise at the cities of the Mesoamericans, establishments that had little to do with those they found on the Caribbean islands. In the following, Bernal Díaz del Castillo described a day of flea markets in Tlatelolco, as he remembered the day the Spaniards went up to the Templo Mayor for the first time.

And after well looked at and considered all that we had seen, we again saw the great square and the multitude of the people that there were, some buying, others selling, and the rumor and buzzing of voices and words that there sounded more than of a league, and among us there were soldiers who had been in many parts of the world, and in Constantinople, and throughout Italy and Rome, and they said that they had so well seen

A few years after the Conquest, a harsh debate took place between multiple positions that sought a rapprochement with the inhabitants of the subject lands. The legislation introduced by the Crown considered the inhabitants of the new conquered lands as subjects of the Crown, but introduced forms of exploitation for their evangelization in exchange for work (such as the encomienda or the mita), which had a very negative impact on their conditions. of life. The conquistadors maintained that the new lands belonged to them by right of conquest, while other Spaniards proposed that Spanish domination in America was an act of injustice, and that its consequences for the naturals were dire. One of the most typical pens of this position is that of Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican friar who wrote several texts about the destruction caused by the newcomers in America. For example, regarding the conquest of New Spain, Las Casas complained to the Crown that during the twelve years since the arrival of the Europeans to American soil, they were committing so many horrible acts that language nor news and human industry could not suffice to describe them

So, from the entrance of the New Spain, which went to eighteen April of the said year of eighteen, until the year of thirty, that were twelve whole years, lasted the massacres and havoc that the bloody and cruel hands and swords of the Spaniards continually made in four hundred and fifty leagues around the city of Mexico and around it, where there were four and five great kingdoms, so happy.

In response to these abuses, the Crown legally and geographically separated the indigenous people from the Europeans in the so-called Republic of Indians and Republic of Spaniards. The establishment of the colonial regime in New Spain meant in principle the replacement of the Aztec peak of power established by the Spanish, that is, the subjection of the vassal peoples of the Aztec Empire to the Spanish Crown. This meant the maintenance of local power structures in the 'Republic of Indians', with a separate but inferior legal regime to the 'Republic of Spaniards': the Inquisition had no jurisdiction over the Indians, but they were obliged to pay a personal tax. The indigenous people had an intermediate legal status between whites and members of other races ('República de castas'), but their social position was inferior, especially due to their lack of knowledge of Spanish. The evangelization policy was partly responsible for this social and linguistic segregation but also for the maintenance of indigenous languages, since in principle the Crown required evangelizers to preach in indigenous languages, then only in the main ones and finally in Nahuatl. Only in the 18th century, when the proportion of Spanish speakers was greater, did indigenous schools and churches begin to introduce Spanish.

In the long run, however, the 'lordships' indigenous people fell into decline due to the loss of population, their geographical and economic isolation, the institution of the encomienda and political and economic evolution, with which power passed definitively to the cities inhabited by whites and mestizos.

The indigenous people did not submissively accept the authority of New Spain and the white and mestizo over their lands, but rather they undertook numerous rebellions during their history: Yaquis (1740, 1767)[2], Mixes (1570), Mayans (1712, 1761), Rarámuris (1690, 1698), Zapotecs (1660, 1770) and many others, all subdued in a bloody manner. But the Viceroyalty meant a gigantic upheaval in the indigenous way of life, with new power relations, a different economy and diet (introduction of coffee, wheat, barley, cows, sheep, chickens, pigs, appearance of large-scale mining). and a different religion (united with the old one in a typically Mexican syncretism).

Independence and the 19th century

Indigenous participation was important for the [Independence of Mexico], this did not entail great changes for the indigenous majority of Mexico even then. The imposition of the Spanish language in all public affairs was accompanied by the obligation of primary school in Spanish for the entire population, it was the most transcendental change.

The liberalizing processes involved a new blow to traditional indigenous life, by eliminating the indigenous councils governed by uses and customs and the communal plots, which were privatized and passed into the hands of local chiefs. This further worsened indigenous living conditions, forcing them in many cases to work as semi-slaves for the new masters.

Indigenous rebellions against continued expropriations and exploitation by the White (person) and mestizos continued: Zapotecs (1839-1853), Nahuas of Guerrero (1842-46), Huastecos (1879-1882), Yaquis (1825 -1897) and the so-called Caste War, a Mayan rebellion that created an independent state in Yucatán. These rebellions were put down by the new Mexican government as viciously as New Spain, including massive deportations, such as that of Yaquis to Yucatán or the sale of Mayans as slaves to Cuba, after the massacres of mestizos and whites in numerous cities of the Yucatan Peninsula. The intolerance between the two groups only seemed to grow, as Justo Sierra O'Reilly points out in his book 'The Indians of Yucatán':

I would like today to disappear that cursed race and never reappear among us [...] I curse them today for their wild ferocity, for their fanatic hatred and for their innoble desire for extermination.

The 19th century however saw the arrival of an Indian to the highest hierarchy of the nation, Benito Juárez, a Zapotec married to a mestiza; and also, a mestizo [[Mixtec-Creole people, Porfirio Díaz, who nevertheless distinguished himself for his repressive anti-indigenous and 'whitening' of the population (Yaqui War), which ended the Caste War.

20th century

At the beginning of the XX century Mexican indigenous people were more than half of the population, their participation in the Mexican Revolution Asking for land and better living conditions, they were only partially satisfied with the (agrarian reform, creation of ejidos), but they continued to be marginalized and poor. Zapatismo was a fundamental movement that strongly influenced indigenous people in rural areas, under the motto of The Earth belongs to those who work it.

In time of the war of independence of 1810 headed by Father Hidalgo, we are the indigenous people who gave the most blood for the independence and freedom of our homeland. But after that war of independence and freedom, the indigenous still occupy the same place of slaves, of the poor, of humiliated and forgotten, the blood of our fallen and the existence of those who survived were ignored. Then there was no freedom or independence of the indigenous, they only changed masters and sir. Then the revolution of 1910, we are also the indigenous and peasants who gave more blood and life for land and freedom because it was our indigenous brothers and peasants who fought bravely and heroism without fear of losing more than their own life. But after that revolution there was neither land nor freedom for the indigenous and peasants. Those who assumed power in the name of the revolution after the assassination of our General Emiliano Zapata also forgot the indigenous [... ]

During this century, Diego Rivera painted the revaluation of the indigenous peoples of Mexico in a very radical way, strong indigenous feelings and xenophobia arose towards white men as the main culprits of the eternal suffering of these Mexicans most disadvantaged by national policies.. Many Mexican intellectuals tried to find a basis for national identity in indigenism.

The San Andrés Accords

Between 1995 and 1996, San Andrés Larráinzar (Sakamch'en for the Zapatistas) would be the scene of one of the most democratic exercises in memory in the recent history of Mexico. The Government and EZLN would build between efforts and easing, but facing society, the proposals that would later have to be converted into agreements to sign peace. To do this, both the government delegates and the Zapatistas were accompanied by expert advisors for each of the topics at the tables; namely:

1. Indigenous Rights and Culture
2. Democracy and Justice
3. Welfare and Development
4. Conciliation in Chiapas
5. Rights of Women in Chiapas

The year 1996 would arrive with the political response of the EZLN regarding the results of the National and International Consultation for Peace and Democracy and with the signing of the agreements of the first of the six tables. These commitments would be known as the San Andrés Agreements following the Acteal massacre.

21st century

The loss of language is accepted by many parents to prevent their children from being rejected; Mainly children and young people have lost their native speech to quickly join life stereotypes that arise from imitation and television programs.

The Mexican indigenous people are an important group of migrants to the United States and Canada who have very different characteristics compared to their mestizo and white countrymen. Although Americans call them Latinos, the indigenous people reject being given a label with which they have no racial connection, they argue that they are related rather to the American Indians themselves and not to the Latin American mestizos. and descendants of Mediterranean countries.

They are participants in their festivals and traditions in their hometowns, not only do they send remittances for the construction of their homes but they also finance community activities such as Tequio or religious festivals, many of them They return to Mexico on important dates and then cross back into the United States. They generally look for jobs related to agricultural, fishing or livestock activities; since it is very important to understand the bond with the land and nature with the indigenous cosmogony of the Mexican people.

Some suffer mockery and rejection from their own Mexican countrymen who are not indigenous, many times they cannot combine with the American or Chicano way of life; and due to ignorance of the laws of this country, they have created cultural or behavioral conflicts such as the sale or delivery of their daughters in exchange for products or objects. Other problems arise in multifamily apartments due to the celebration of ancestral rites without knowing the condominium regime.

There are many social and health problems suffered by the indigenous peoples of Mexico in the 21st century; Among these are the problems generated by migration such as the spread of HIV (AIDS) mainly among women, family disintegration, alcoholism and others such as morbid obesity, caused by poor eating habits (the same problem that they share with other groups). indigenous people of the United States and Canada).

In the fight for the care of nature, the voice of the indigenous peoples of Mexico is present, in the defense of the environment there is the denunciation of the clandestine logging of forests and the irrational use of these, the care of water where the mobilization of Mazahua women was seen in defense of rights and against adversities arising from the Cutzamala project.

Despite the fact that many institutions protect the human rights of indigenous peoples, racial education still persists in Mexico in the 21st century< /span>, indigenous communities continue to be victims of abuse and invasion of their properties by other Mexicans. Due to the discrimination they are subjected to and the dispossession of their lands by ranchers supported by the government of the state of Baja California, the Kiliwas have made a death pact within their community; This pact declares that no Kiliwa woman will bring a single more child into the world, thus ending this people and their suffering forever.

The word of the elderly

Based on Natural Law, it is defined as the Wisdom of the Indigenous Peoples and communities, placed in the Mouth of the Elders of the Indigenous communities of Mexico. Since ancient times The Council of Elders (huehuelque). Of the Indigenous Peoples and communities, it is the Indigenous authority that dictates Rules of Conduct to the members of the Ancestral Autonomous Body and that advises the calpullec (natural law: it is an objective legal order, not coming from any legislator, that is imposed on the men by their own nature; it is objective and immutable and known by reason.) Legal encyclopedia

Rural and urban indigenous population

The indigenous population in Mexico has generally been considered rural, to a certain extent due to its close relationship with the land, however there is a significant portion of the indigenous population that is urban.

In 2014, Meneses Monroy carried out a study on the rural and urban indigenous population, which shows that in 2010 in Mexico there was a population of almost seven million speakers of an indigenous language, which corresponded 6.6 percent of Mexico's total population. Of the total number of speakers of an indigenous language, 82 percent were rural indigenous people and 18 percent were urban indigenous people. The above considering rural localities as those with a population of less than fifteen thousand inhabitants and as urban those with fifteen thousand inhabitants or more.

In this study it is observed that the largest urban indigenous group is the Nahuatl with more than a million people and the second largest urban indigenous group is the Maya with more than half a million people. On the contrary, in the case of urban indigenous groups: the Mayan population is slightly higher than the Nahuatl, since the urban Mayan indigenous people are approximately 269 thousand people and the urban Nahua indigenous people are approximately 259 thousand people.

Economy

Although many Mexican indigenous groups have prospered economically by being related to the logging, textile, construction and tourism industries, as well as large-scale trade and export, they have not stopped being discriminated against in this country. person who speaks an indigenous language.

The Mezquital Valley as its inhabitants sarcastically call it, or the Mezquital Valley, is a geographic region of the state of Hidalgo that has a high rate of migration to the United States, the Otomi communities They began to prosper thanks to the remittances of their migrants; A high development of construction is taking place in these communities, large residences are being built in the middle of an arid landscape made with plans brought by the owners themselves who worked in the construction in the neighboring country to the north, a situation similar to that of the Indians Spaniards who came to work in the countries of America. Due to the government of the communities by customs and customs, the Otomi of the Mezquital Valley have improved the infrastructure and basic services of their communities without support from the federal, state and municipal, the remittance absorbs the expenses that are entrusted to the heads of the communities; Indigenous migrants have learned in the United States modern irrigation systems that they have implemented to produce their food, they have built tourist facilities in ejidos to maintain the needs of the community in towns such as El Alberto, Cocineras, La Florida among others..

Education

Basic education has been of vital importance for the Mesoamerican peoples, the first years of the infant were placed under surveillance to form the child's thoughts, the grandparents and the mother serve as guardians responsible for their care, attention and feeding. Archeology has revealed the development of recreational toys that were used for children's learning; The toys were according to sexuality, dolls, winches, tops, food pots, among others.

Each Mesoamerican people educated their children and young people according to their norms; In the Mexica people, children and young people studied in the calmecac or tepochcalli depending on the social status of the student; The children of the nobility received artistic and philosophical education from priests and the town's students were trained in war and technical skills. Girls received their education from their mother and grandmother.

Indigenous children currently prefer to speak Spanish because their classmates make fun of them, calling them Indians or Nacos. Some children in urban schools are mistakenly integrated into special education or slow learning groups due to the difficulty of mastering them. of the Spanish language.

In rural communities, bilingual education schools are built, the material is provided free of charge by the Ministry of Public Education, in some cases boarding schools are built for girls or boys where the objective is that they do not travel long distances from their home and school. school.

There are also school shelters mainly in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero and part of Chihuahua, which are under the command of the Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples. There are CONAFE rural schools, in which young people who, due to lack of resources, cannot continue with their professional education, provide services to teach classes in indigenous communities that are difficult to access in the preschool and primary areas. Sometimes they have to walk for hours. to reach these communities. to later obtain support or scholarship to continue with their professional studies.

The first indigenous university in Mexico was built in Los Mochis, Sinaloa; It is named after the Autonomous Indigenous University of Mexico.

Art and culture

The plastic arts remain present to this day, the native peoples preserve the patent of their crafts from generation to generation. FONART or Arte Sano programs seek to enable the workshops of Mexican artisans.

Dance

Despite what may be said about the indigenous background of the Guelaguetza, the festival, as it is known today, is the product of the mixing between the indigenous culture and that of the Spanish, who arrived in Mexico in the century XVI.

The tradition of Guelaguetza defines the Oaxacan people, from historical times to today. The word itself means "reciprocal exchange of gifts and services" and refers to the reciprocal relationships that unite people. These relationships serve to create a network of cooperation between individual families and even between towns and municipalities.

According to the State Archive of Oaxaca, the celebration was invented on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Benito Juárez. Over time, the organization of the festival has given rise to criticism for corruption, discrimination and influence peddling, given that according to the Secretariat of Tourism during the days that the Guelaguetza is presented, the greatest economic benefit from tourism occurs in Oaxaca.

The Deer Dance is a ritual dance celebrated by the indigenous Yaqui and Mayo peoples of the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Sonora. Both groups are related to each other, and speak what appear to be variants of the same Cahite language. This dance is a dramatization of the deer hunt, a cultural hero of these people, by the paskooolas (hunters). I'm Xaan

Audiovisual media

Audiovisual media offer a wide sample of the artistic manifestations of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, such as myths and legends, song and poetry. The database Lingmex, linguistic bibliography of Mexico since 1970 in each of its updates seeks to collect samples of these materials.

Health

The critical approach to interculturality in indigenous health points out the symbolic aspect of indigenous therapeutics; it must be studied to evaluate existing conditions and create a connection with national health services. This hegemonic discourse extends to nullifying the sociocultural context in which they are expressed, such as the process of impoverishment; education, family, culture, traditions, dispossession of territory, racist discrimination and little access to goods and services. Health as a public good is part of the individual and collective rights of the indigenous population, such as the right to health, education, culture, identity, language and employment.

Traditional medicine

The birth of traditional Mexican medicine comes after mestizaje following the vision of the indigenous world that allowed the natural or divine causality of a disease to be determined, as well as to decide the therapeutic practices and healing resources to follow; The colonizers saw this type of conception as an obstacle to evangelization and that magical conceptions were a main concern for the evangelizing friars. In Mexico we have more than 60 indigenous peoples that represent approximately 10% of the total population, which is why we recognize ourselves as a multiethnic and multicultural country, in which traditional medicine is a phenomenon of national culture that has its own characteristics.

Through knowledge and study of these topics, complicities can be established between workers, the people to be cared for and the health services. Likewise, conventional disciplines can be linked to traditional ones, which are very important to offer a better service to patients; An example of this is the Tosepan Titanisk Cooperative Society, which, in 1993, formed a group of community promoters whose task was to provide technical assistance to producers in the region, seeking to improve living conditions, crop diversification and improve the productivity of coffee cultivation.

Health care programs that take into account the search for interaction with traditional medicine are more congruent when relating them to the sociocultural reality of the communities in Mexico; The consequences of this are an acceptance of policies and strategies to improve the health conditions of the population, likewise, it forms a different approach that recovers its cultural identity for national medicine.

Interculturality

Cultural diversity within the framework of a complementary and intercultural health care system is important for institutions to carry out prevention and health promotion actions to increase the quality of life of the population. The integration of the ethnic equity perspective in the formulation of health policies, technical cooperation programs, and organizational policies is necessary to contribute to the reduction of health inequities due to gender, ethnicity, and social factors. racial. The impact on health institutions and public policies to promote policies of access to services and health coverage is essential to avoid falling into exposed risks, make health as a common good and provide quality care through the indigenous community and the services and institutions that guarantee health to the population.

What were their religious beliefs

The ancient Mesoamerican civilizations had a visualization of the world around them that was foreign to the proto-Christian peoples, philosophy and science went hand in hand, great thinkers of the pre-Columbian world influenced the daily lives of pre-Hispanic citizens, the observation of universe and the rotating cycles of the planet were measured and assimilated for agriculture, women's fertility and the most important festivals throughout a year.

With the arrival of the Spanish, a stage of social and philosophical changes begins in the life of an indigenous person. The Christianization of the indigenous peoples was a hard and prolonged process to accept the faith of the colonizers; Dr. Norma Blazquez tells us that the wisdom of the indigenous people was understood by the Catholic Church of Rome as acts of satanism and witchcraft, many of the victims of the holy office were mostly women, knowledge of plants and their effects was not tolerated. effects on the human body, the invocation of spirits and all types of rituals towards nature or natural phenomena. The representation of Quetzalcoatl was associated with the image of the Devil and the serpent recounted in the book of Genesis and therefore, the cult of this Mesoamerican god was penalized, as well as the worship and worship of other types of deities other than the God Yahweh.

In certain regions, the profession of a faith other than Catholic is seen as a threat to community unity. It is argued that the Catholic religion is part of the ethnic identity, and that Protestants are not willing to participate in traditional uses and customs (tequio or community work, participation in patron saint festivals and similar issues). The Protestants' refusal is due to the fact that their religious beliefs do not allow them to participate in the worship of images. In extreme cases, tension between Catholics and Protestants has led to the expulsion of Protestants in several towns. The best-known cases are those of San Juan Chamula in Chiapas, and San Nicolás, in Ixmiquilpan Hidalgo.

A similar argument was presented by a committee of anthropologists to request the government of the Republic to expel the Summer Linguistic Institute (ILV), in 1979, which was accused of promoting the division of indigenous peoples by translating the Bible into vernacular languages and evangelize in a Protestant creed that threatened the integrity of popular cultures. The Mexican government heeded the call of the anthropologists and canceled the agreement it had signed with the SIL. Conflicts have also occurred in other areas of social life. For example, since Jehovah's Witnesses are prohibited from honoring national symbols (something that is done every Monday in public schools in Mexico), children who have been educated in that religion were expelled from public schools. These types of problems are only resolved with the intervention of the National Human Rights Commission, and not always with favorable results for children.

Beyond the churches and religious denominations, a phenomenon persists in Mexico that some anthropologists and sociologists call Popular Religion, that is, religion as it is practiced and understood by the people. In Mexico, the main component is the Catholic religion, to which elements of other beliefs have been added, whether of pre-Hispanic, African or Asian origin. In general, popular religiosity is viewed negatively by structured religions. Other examples are the representations of the Passion of Christ and the celebration of the Day of the Dead, which are carried out within the framework of the Catholic Christian imagination, but under a very particular reinterpretation of its protagonists.

As a result of the activity of the Spanish Muslim Aureliano Pérez Yruela (known as the emir Nafia), a member of the Islamic Community of Mexico, the religious phenomenon of the indigenous Muslims of Chiapas occurred. Pérez Yruela was expelled from Mexico in 1998. Previously, it was in 1995 when dozens of Protestant families, violently expelled from San Juan Chamula and installed on the outskirts of San Cristóbal de las Casas, created a colony called Nueva Esperanza, as a symbol of the dispute. with traditional Catholic indigenism. Today, among 300 Tsotsiles, after having been Catholics and Protestants, they adopted the Muslim faith.

Existing Indigenous Peoples in Mexico

Famous books about current natives

• The Otomí-Pame Family of Central MexicoJacques Soustelle.
• The Teachings of Don JuanCarlos Castaneda.
• The Indians of MexicoFernando Benítez.
• Travel to Tarahumaras CountryAntonin Artaud.
• The Zapotecas: Binni ZáaMacario Matus.
• Nayar, Michelangelo Menéndez

General bibliography

• Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, 2007): "Mexico", in The World Factbook, consulted on 9 March 2007.
• Díaz del Castillo, Bernal (1998): True history of the conquest of New SpainPorrúa, Mexico.
• Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI: 1998): "Indigenous languages of Mexico" Archived on September 15, 2019 at Wayback Machine., on the website of the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI), consulted on March 9, 2007.
• De las Casas, Bartolomé (2007) [1552]: [3]on the Internet Seva City, consulted on 9 March 2007.
• Rodríguez Piña, Javier (1990): Caste war: the sale of Mayan Indians to Cuba 1848-1861Conaculta.
• Cifuentes, Barbara (1998): History of the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico: Multilingualism through HistoryINI
• Brice Heath, Shirley (1986): The policy of language in Mexico: from colony to nationINI
• Zolla, Carlos and Zolla Márquez, Emiliano (2004): "The Indigenous Peoples of Mexico: 100 Questions", Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.