2 About the Rarámuri

2  About the Rarámuri

The Rarámuri are a group of native people of the Sierra Madre Occidental of about 85,000 individuals settled, mainly, in the region known as Sierra Tarahumara of Chihuahua, in the northern part of Mexico. Its history is one of resistance against different moments of plunder from the colonialism of the 16th century to the present day when it continues to operate in various forms, such as the extension of drug trafficking gangs that impose their law and illegally exploit the forests. 

Faced with these situations, the Rarámuri have opted for strategies to defend their culture, which values silence and isolation in the remotest reaches of the Copper Canyon. Thus, they strive to preserve their ceremonial dances, their rich cosmology, their titanic running races, self-government structures, artisan techniques, traditional agricultural and grazing practices, and their ancestral language. All this framed in a belief of the existence of an unbreakable continuous line that unites the human being with nature and the universe. In this way, they advance collectively to maintain a way of life and shape a vision of the future that we cannot afford to lose.