They have been called the toughest race on Earth. “The greatest race the world has never seen (Christopher McDougall). ” They are a mysterious, peaceful and spiritual race of people who live off the land and have largely resisted the exploitatve advances of modern day civilization and a commercial economy. They can drink excessive amounts of corn beer well into the night, wake up the next morning and effortlessly run barefoot sixty miles or more through treacherous mountain terrain (you wouldn’t want to see me the morning after excessive drinking). They have been called the greatest runners on Earth. They are the personification of the notion of a simple life, wildly juxtaposed with our desire to accumulate material possessions and complicate our life with the stresses of modern day society.
Who are they? They are the Tarahumara Indians.
They live in what some travelers call a hostile and unforgiving landscape, the Sierra Madre Occidental or Sierra Tarahumara mountain range in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. They number about 70,000 and most still practice a traditional lifestyle, living in cliff overhangs, caves, or in some cases small cabins constructed of wood or stone.
Their staple crops are corn, beans and squash and they rarely eat meat, knowing that if their supply of food gets destroyed by the elements or rodents, they may need to trade a sheep or goat for more food supplies. Since their average life span is forty-five years, a live goat could mean the difference between life or death.
In less than a day, a 95-year-old Tarahumara man once hiked twenty-five miles over rugged mountainous terrain carrying a load of supplies that weighed almost as much as he did. Why? No one told him he couldn’t do it.
Carl Sophus Lumholtz, a Norwegian explorer, spent nearly three years living among the Tarahumaras in the 1890’s. He had this to say of them:
“The Tarahumara in his native condition is many times better off, morally, mentally, and economically, than his civilised brother: but the white man will not let him alone as long as he has anything worth taking away. Only those who by dear experience have learned to be cautious are able to maintain themselves independently; but such cases are becoming more and more rare.”
“It is the same old story over again, in America, as in Africa and Asia, and everywhere. The simple-minded native is made the victim of the progressive white, who, by fair means or foul, deprives him of his country. Luckily, withal, the Tarahumara has not yet been wiped out of existence. His blood is fused into the working classes of Mexico, and he grows a Mexican. But it may take a century yet before they will all be made the servants of whites and disappear….Their assimilation may benefit Mexico, but one may well ask: Is it just? Must the weaker always be first crushed, before he can be assimilated by the new condition of things?”
But, more than a hundred years later, the Tarahumara has not been wiped out. They still live a largely traditional existence, dogged and determined to maintain their way of life. Although they are a peaceful people, they are also known to be ferocious warriors when thrust into a battle to preserve their culture. Early Spanish conquistadors found out the hard way the Tarahumara are a force to be reckoned with when they are violated.
But maybe Lumholtz was right. Maybe he only missed the time frame. Currently, the Tarahumara traditional existence is under attack by the drug trade and the ruthless violence and exploitation that accompanies it. The Sierra Madre mountain range is one of the most productive drug growing regions on the planet for marijuana crops or opium seeds, the source of many narcotics. Some Tarahumara farmers are being forced to grow opium or marijuana as oppsed to corn.
According to Borderland Beat, “Stories of terror in Guadalupe y Calvo Municipality, located in the Tarahumara Mountains, repeat themselves day after day, without municipal, state or federal authorities doing anything about it.”
According to the September 27, 2012, website report, …”violence is the daily bread” in the region. Recently, a crime group “executed a young man,” decapitating him “in front of his relatives. Before they cut his throat, the murderers made a 16 inch cut on his chest.”
With the escalating violence in the region, one would have to have balls of steel to venture there now to study the Tarahumara people. A few years ago, I spent a couple of months in the state of Chihuahua and travelled by train up into the Copper Canyon region and the village of Creel, an area inhabitated by the Tarahumara. The next day, I took an organized tour, another potentially damaging and exploitative enterprise that threatens Tarahumara culture, and ventured into the outback, visiting some of the villages and caves where they reside. A peaceful Tarahumara woman occupied one of the caves and smiled shyly as I, along with other tourists, invaded her home and purchased some of her handmade crafts.
A few days later, leaving the village of Creel, I couldn’t help but wonder if we, in our shameless pursuit of material gain, had perhaps gotten it all wrong. Or some of it wrong. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something deeply spiritual and connected to life and love that we could learn from this mysterious race.
It made me question everything; from our justice system, to the so-called core values we hold dear to our hearts. That line of questioning led me to interview an educated Mexican man ( source to be revealed at a later date) who had conducted a number of studies on the penal system in Guadalupe y Calvo. He had spent a lot of time interviewing Tarahumara men ( seemingly somewhat integrated into a so-called civilized society) imprisoned for crimes including murder. Except they didn’t view it as murder.
Were they retaliating against humankind’s exploitative advances into their peaceful and simple way of life? Their brand of justice was nothing like ours.
In one of his reports, he detailed an account of a man who was at a friend’s sitting at a kitchen table when another man entered, and for no apparent reason, or at least reasons that are unclear in the report, began beating him up. The victim being pummeled finally extracted a pen knife and threatened his attacker. When the attacker backed off, he told him in no uncertain terms that we would kill him for the assault. He tracked down the attacker a short time later, shot and killed him with a pistol.
Interviewed while incarcerated for the murder, the man had an interesting take on his actions. Translated from Spanish, here is the question and answer excerpt from the interview:
Q: “Do you feel responsible for what you did?”
A: “No, I was only defending myself.”
Q: “Is your sentence just?”
A: “No because it was a fight between the two of us that didn’t deserve a prison term.”
Q: “Are you afraid to return to your home when you’re released from prison?”
A: “No, I don’t have any enemies. I didn’t and don’t have problems with homicide.”
You can certainly see from this interview, the Tarahumara brand of justice, at least in this case, goes well beyond an eye for an eye. It’s more like a head for an eye or a life for an eye.
My experiences and research inspired the birth of the novel, A Head for an Eye ( a working title subject to change). To be released in April or May of 2013, the story will explore the Tarahumara people, their culture, religion and brand of justice and juxtapose it with the modern North American justice system and culture. It will try and answer some of the nagging questions that plague human consciousness about the nature of our existence.
It’s an ambitious project that involves a lot of research, much of which I’m still conducting. For example, I’m painstakingly translating a 56,000 word study of the penal system in Guadalupe y Calvo in relation to the Tarahumara people. And, although it will be a horror novel, it represents somewhat of a departure from typical William Blackwell fare, particularly in the amount of research it involves. I’ll probably be researching it for another two months before I put pen to paper.
Perhaps the most important thing, I’m passionate about the subject matter, have first-hand experience with it and I believe it’s a story that needs to be told. If the finished product makes only one person question the things we hold dear to our our hearts, revisit the often fragile moral fibre of human nature, and change for the better, than it will have been an effort well worth the undertaking and more satisfying than anything that money can ever buy.
Perhaps author Christopher McDougall, in his best-selling novel Born To Run, said it best: “Left alone in their mysterious canyon hideaway this small tribe of recluses had solved nearly every problem known to man. Name your category–mind, body, soul–and the Tarahumara were zeroing in on perfection.”
Watch for A Head for an Eye. It will educate, influence, entertain and, with any luck, inspire positive change.
As always, thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day.