Invisibilisation of the Yaqui (HIIN=37)
Delawares, Kickapoos, and Seminoles joined a flow of local southwestern Apaches, Kiowas, Comanches, Pimas, and others to cross
south into Mexico and, along the 49th parallel, Nez Perce, Sioux, Iroquois and countless others entered Canada, for fear of their
lives. However, there are two examples of Amerinds who, in the mayhem, went in the opposite direction and entered the United
States.
In the 1880s Yaquis, from Mexico crossed into Arizona while Chippewas and Crees entered Montana from Canada. Following
long, often hopeless efforts as, 'foreign Indians', they uniquely obtained tribal status and their own reservations.
The Yoeme (the Yaqui or Hiaki are other, incorrect names) now live in the Southwestern United States and in
the Río Yaqui valley, in the Mexican state of Sonora. They speak an Uto-Aztecan language, called after the Ute tribe of
Utah and the Nahuan/Aztecan languages of Mexico. The important Pascua Yaqui Tribe is based in Tucson. There are
communities mainly in Chihuahu (the largest state of Mexico) and Durango, in the far west of Sonora, where the Las Quebradas
area contains silver and gold deposits. From the 1800s, viruses carried by European miners killed native groups like the
Acaxes and Xiximes. Statistics on the Yaqui are not available.
When the Spanish first came to the Yoeme pueblos, they saw only fertile lands and a free labour force. Forcing the Yaqui to
accept an inferior position led to the purloining of native resources and the erection of physical and cultural borders. Indian
nations were kept sundered and unable to organise. This policy has not changed.
Settler colonization and cultural genocide use administrative and technological capacities to suppress people. The existence of a
unified Yaqui nation and their struggle to remain within the Yaqui homeland are prevented. Mexico takes pride in indigenous
antiquities - such as the Aztecs and Mayans - whilst keeping their descendents under foot.
In line with 'Mestizaje' (the mixing ethnic and cultural groups), the Sonoran State has used Yaqui culture to promote
national pride, taking the deer dancer as a symbol of the Aboriginal Sonora. Throughout the State, Yaqui guerrilla warfare
leaders are placed to illustrate Sonoran history. However, in actuality, official policies suppress the Yaqui and Yaqui and
ignore their legal rights. Today, the Yaqui do not struggle against an army but rather against invisibilisation -
crushing social and economic impoverishment.
Under an accord with the Mexican government, signed in 1937 by President Lázaro Cárdenas, the Yaqui won rights to
50% of the water from the Rio Yaqui (and lost 60% of their land). The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, 1992) resulted
in the replacement of traditional farms by agriculture on an industrial scale. The waters of the Yaqui River sustain the
activities of large industrial, multi-billion-dollar corporations such as Heineken, the Ford Motor Company and Pepsi, while also
producing electricity. A migrant Yaqui labour force was so produced and Yaqui territory depopulated.
The implementation of NAFTA and the loss of the communal land ejido system (ie commonage), in 1994, meant the
safeguards which protected communal lands no longer existed. With the consequent sale and purchase of Yaqui land, which followed,
a rift developed in the Yaqui communities, between those suffering from high rates of cancer, stillbirths, skin diseases,
congenital disabilities and sterilization, and those who, no matter the cost, were committed to staying in the Yaqui homeland.
In 2006, Brenda Norrell drew attention to a study on mothers in Yaqui pueblos, which showed high levels of
multiple pesticides in the umbilical-cord blood of new-borns and in their mothers' breast milk. Stillbirths, stomach ailments
and cancer were common. There was a high price to be paid for unregulated, large-scale agricultural depredation. Women were
disproportionately being affected by the community's dependency on polluted water. Rampant ill-health resulted from contaminated
water. Many people were, once again, displaced to other regions in Sonora and Southern Arizona.
In 2010, Sonora began building the Acueducto Independencia, to supply water to the State Capital, Hermosillo, diverting
in excess of 50% of the Rio Yaqui from southern Indians farmers.
Mexico's Supreme Court affirmed Yaqui rights: the judgements were ignored.
In May, 2013, the Yaqui had to face the further diversion of Rio Yaqui waters. These, in any event, had become polluted with
pesticides. There was no running water nor indoor plumbing. The Federal Highway 15 (built in 1952), was blockaded in protest,
causing increased settler violence. Yaqui men have been targeted and imprisoned. Two political activists,
Mario Luna Romero and Fernando Jimenez, were both charged with murder and jailed. With no evidence against them,
they were released, after two years. Since 2014, Yaqui men have resisted further degradation of their land. Their womenfolk are
demeaned and abused by Settlers. The criminalization and dehumanization of the Yaqui continues.
Poisons entering the River caused the total migration of local fauna. Indigenous communities were curtailed from practicing
traditional, cosmological rituals, making up ancestral medicines and hunting. Yaqui men used to farm to make a living.
Without clean water, many families had to relocate or work as hired hands on agricultural operations.
The traditional agriculture of the Yaquis is so affected, indeed, that cultivating crops may stop. In February 2018, Irrigation
District councilor, and president of the irrigation Módulo 4-P-8, said: "We always said that the
Independencia Aqueduct would affect us and this is already happening. The drought is hitting us hard... if it doesn't rain
this summer, producers will have to forego planting seeds for the winter."
The other major threat is the Sonora Pipeline. The Mexican IEnova (Infraestructura Energética Nova) company
wanted to run a gas pipeline through Yaqui land. In August 2017, after members of the Loma de Bácum faction of the
indigenous Yaqui tribe removed a section of the pipe. In February 2018, there was a second explosion during tests.
The Sonora Pipeline connects with the Kinder-Morgan pipeline in Pima Country, Arizona, which runs alongside the
Tohono 'O'odham reservation and crosses the border in S´sabe. It travels through river systems and beside
the Gulf of California through Sonora to its terminus in the State of Sinaloa (known as "Mexico's Breadbasket", also
home to the Sinaloa Cartel, known for drug trafficking and money laundering)). The IEnova company is a division of Sempra Mexico,
which is one of around five subsidiaries of Sempra Energy, in San Diego
The town of Loma de Bácum, as well as other Yaqui village defenders, oppose the IEnova pipeline. The people clearly
rejected the pipeline in 2015, in consultations with the authorities. In April 2016, a court injunction was issued against
construction in Yaqui territories. Despite the ruling, the pipeline was finished by April 2017, passing through 90 kilometers of
Yaqui territory and crossing the Rio Yaqui
The Yaqui people continue to struggle against the Independencia Aqueduct and the Sonora pipeline. Rosemary Toña-Aguirre,
is a member of the Yaqui nation in Arizona, and on the Board of Directors for the Alianza Indígena (Indigenous
Alliance). She says: "It is genocide because they're poisoning the river with fertilizer and pesticides from big
agribusinesses, many of them American owned, and they're stealing the water for use in Hermosillo and other places. That's money
and food taken away from the Yaqui". David Jaimez of the Yoeme Human Rights Commission explains: "This is a body of water
named after the people themselves ... They've been living there since before the invaders ... It's utterly immoral"
Mexican settler colonization never stops encroaching upon Yaqui territory. Today, the Yaqui may no longer carry arms,
nevertheless, their struggle - like that of all indigenous and other suppressed peoples around the world - is one that can only
truly end in Justice.
'Bay p'ay tday, bay p'ay tday' are Kiowa words which mean 'nil desperandum'.
Fanaigí lán le dóchas - an Irish version
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