Tarahumara (Mexico)
- Name of sport (game): Lucha Tarahumara also Najarapuami, Narajapuame, Tarahumara running
- Place of practice (continent, state, nation):
There are currently about 50,000 Tarahumara living in the Sierra Madre Occidental in northwestern Mexico. They live in small isolated clusters with most the population concentrated in the Barranca del Cobre, or the Copper Canyon. The Tarahumara indians are part of the Uto-Aztecan indian lineage and are closely related to the Apaches of the Southwestern United States. The area of Northwest Mexico that the Tarahumara lives in is very rugged and unforgiving. The Barranca del Cobre is a chain of five very deep canyons surrounded by very tall mountains that reach almost a mile and a half above sea level. Three of the five canyons are deeper than the Grand Canyon of the United States. The area is different though because it receives much more rainfall and is covered with more vegetation. The terrain is very rugged, so much as to lead to the fact that the area has never been thoroughly mapped or explored (Lutz 66). The area is one of th e coldest in Mexico and soil conditions are very poor. It is because of this that the Tarahumara are semi-nomadic and are cave dwellers for part of the year.
Source: https://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/art.htmlTarahumara Region of Chihuahua
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/TARAHUMARA-REGION-OF-CHIHUAHUA_fig1_262259575 - History:
The statement that, "The Tarahumara may be the finest natural distance runners in the world", made by University of Arizona archeologist Michael Jenk inson, offers some insight into just how good the indians are at running. The Tarahumara routinely run distances only covered by only the most advanced ultramarathon runners today. To these indians, running is more than sport, running is literally life. The Tarahumara live in very rugged land and travel by wagon or horses is usually impractical. Because of this, foot travel is more often than not the best option for getting from one place to another and it is usually the quickest. While on foot, the Tarahumara do not stroll from one place to their destination, running is used to perform everyday tasks. It is not uncommon for a Tarahumara to travel between fifty and eighty miles everyday at a "race" like pace.
Running is very important to the Tarahumara culture, although there is no formal training. Quite the opposite, the Tarahumara smoke and drink before each race. While even the children participate, it is not something taught to them. The Tarahumara call themselves "raramuri" which means fleet foot or foot runner. They take great pride in their running abilities and the best runners receive great status in society. They center the entire society around their running. Says anthropologist John Kennedy, "Running is more than a game to the Tarahumara. Though obviously a pleasant diversion, it is also an economic activity, a force for social cohesion, and a channel of aggression....If this institution were removed from Tarahumara life, the total cultural imbalance resulting would be greater than if some sporting activity were dropped from our own complex culture".
Source: https://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/art.html
Source: https://borgenproject.org/the-tarahumara-runners/ - Description:
Tarahumara running is based on endurance not speed. This fact is exemplified by their hunting practices. In order to catch such wild animals as deer, wild turkeys, and rabbits, the Tarahumara simply chase after the animal until the animal drops from exhaustion. Their hunting practices are widely known in Mexico and ranchers have been known to hire the indians to chase down wild horses . It is also said that a Tarahumara once ran six hundred miles in five days to deliver a very important message. Their endurance and conditioning has become k nown worldwide. Says Dale Groom, M.D., "Probably not since the days of the ancient Spartans has a people achieved such a high state of physical conditioning." This phenomenon has led to the inevitable question of, "Are the Tarahumara genetically special when it comes to running?" After many scientific tests, doctors have come to the conclusion that the Tarahumara's endurance is based more on conditioning than on heredity. Experts believe that there are two main causes for the Tarahumara's amazing endurance; physical conditioning and cultural importance. Diet also seems to play an important role in their running. The Tarahumara diet is practically meatless and consists mostly of complex carbohydrates. They eat approximately 10 percent proteins, 10 percent fat, and 80 percent complex carbohydrate. Balanced diet is believed to be one factor behind the Tarahumara's resiliency. The Tarahumara take cooperative farming to the extreme and agriculture is a project for the entire village. They consume livestock for meat but mostly use it as a source of fertilizer. The mainstay of the Tarahumara is corn but they also eat squash, beans and chili. They also utilize all plants of the Barranca del Cobre and have even been known to domesticate some wild plants as to make them more accessible for consumption. Pinole, a fine powder of toasted corn is the most common food. Meat is rarely eaten but on special occasions they eat goat, mice and fish. The Tarahumara method of fishing is very unusual. They throw sticks of dynamite into the water to stun the fish and then dive down to collect them. If they are hunting small game, they chase after it and then throw rocks a t it. The Tarahumara is very accurate throwers and practice from childhood. These extreme eating habits seem to contribute to lower pulse rates and blood pressure. These factors may allow them to cope with oxygen debt at high altitudes, such as a mile and a half above sea level.
The Tarahumara culture involves two very significant features that deal with running, the rarajipari and the dowerami, which are races in which people of the same sex compete. The rarajipari is for men and is the more competitive of the two. It is a race run between two teams each of three to ten men. The intriguing thing about the race is that men on the teams kick along a wooden, baseball-shaped ball as they run. Each man takes his turn dribbling the ball in a style similar to soccer and the total distance run may be up to one hundred and fifty miles. The races take place over very rugged terrain. The courses are either not marked or marked with rocks and sticks. The races are very competitive because they are run between neighboring villages and much pride is involved. Much betting goes on and cheating often takes place. There is also a lot of ritual and superstition involved during the race and in pre-race competition. Each team has there own medicine man who is responsible for conjuring up special potions to help the runners and to cast bad luck on the opposing team. Runners smoke and drink right until the day of the race. They ritualistically drink tesguino, an alcohol made of corn the night before the race. Runners often smoke a combination of tobacco and dried bats' blood to help them run faster and keep away the other team's spirits. The medicine man also digs up a dead person's shin bone, crushes it into a powder and spreads it over the race course. The man's spirit supposedly casts bad luck on the runners from the other team. Runners are very superstitious and drop out of races from fear, but never from exhaustion. Team members also avoid contact with women for several days before the race.
The women also run a similar race called the dowerami. The difference between the two races is that women throw and catch interconnected loops while they run. Most rules still apply but the women's race is less important to their society. Both types of races are major social events and are very fun to the Tarahumara. Everyone comes out to watch and offers food to runners.
Source: https://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/art.html - Current status:
Tarahumara public racing began at the 1928 Olympic marathon. The two indians that were running were not aware of the distance and when they finished, they were not tired and said, "Too short! Too short!" The Tarahumara first appeared on the Ultramarathon circuit in 1992 at the Leadville 100-mile run in Colorado. They were brought from Mexico and funded while they were here by Rick Fisher, operator of Wilderness Research Expeditions. Fisher is disliked in the Ultra community because he is thought to be loud, outspoken, and rude. It is also believed that he uses the plight of the Tarahumara simply to gain attention for himself and for his organization. In their first race, none of the Tarahumara finished. In 1993, Fisher tried again but this time he familiarized the indians with the course, the equipment and the American racing customs . In 1992 the Tarahumara had many problems. First, they were unfamiliar with the course. Second, they did not know how to use the equipment. At night, they ran with their flashlights pointing up likes the torches that they are used to. Third, at aid stations they simply stood there and therefore received little nutrition and became weak and dehydrated. In their culture is not polite just to take food. They wait until it is offered. In the 1993 Leadville they fared much better. Tarahumaras took first, second and fifth place. The most amazing thing about the indians was their pace. The winner was fifty-five years old and only ran the second half of the race twenty minutes slower than he ran the first! Another thing that shocks the ultra spectators is Tarahumara footwear. They wear sandals called huaraches made out of old tire tread and leather straps. A Tarahumara won Leadville again in 1994. Later that same year in Utah at the Wasatch 100-Mile run, the Tarahumara were part of a controversy. Someone did not pay their entry fees so they weren't allowed be official runners. They ran unofficially and a Tarahumara was the first to cross the finish line. This greatly upset race officials and the second person to cross the finish line had to be declared the official winner. The undertaking of the Tarahumara runners was at the Angeles Crest 100-mile Endurance Run in September 1996. They did not fare well and only one of four entrants finished, in fourth place. It is believed that they went out too fast and became dehydrated .
Source: https://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/art.html - Importance (for practitioners, communities etc.):
The Tarahumara are still running and will continue to do so until their extinction. They are a very unique group of people with very different ideas about the way to live life. They are a society which many can learn from, not only in the running world but in many other areas of life. The Tarahumaras should be respected for the feats they have accomplished and be left alone to live in peace.
Source: https://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/art.html - Sources of information :
Books:
Cassel, Jonathan F. 1969. Tarahumara Indians. Gainesville, FL: Naylor
Fontana, Bernard L. 1979. Tarahumara: where night is the day of the moon. Flagstaff, AZ: Northland.
Irigoyen-Rascón, Fructuoso, and Jesus M. Palma-Batista. 1994. Rarajípare: the kick ball race of the Tarahumara Indians. Chihuahua, Mexico: Centra Librero de la Prensa, Sucursal Universidad.
Tarahumara medicine: ethnobotany and healing among the Rarámuri of Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Tarahumara of the Sierra Madre. Pacific Grove, CA: Asilomar.
McDougall, Christopher. 2009. Born to run: a hidden tribe, superathletes, and the greatest race the world has never seen. New York: Knopf.
Merrill, William. 1988. Rarámuri souls: knowledge and social process in northern Mexico. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Nabokov, Peter. 1981. Indian running: Native American history and tradition. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra.
Pennington, Campbell W. 1963. The Tarahumara of Mexico. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press
Pintado Cortina, Ana Paula. 2004. Tarahumaras. Mexico: Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo.
Los hijos de Riosi y Riablo, fiestas grandes y resistencia cultural en una comunidad Tarahumara de la Barranca. Mexico: Instituto National de Antropología e Historia
Thord-Gray, Ivor. 1955. Tarahumara-English, English-Tarahumara dictionary. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press
Lutz, Dick and Mary. The Running Indians. Salem, Oregon: Dimi Press, 1989Articles:
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/708810
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https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/tarahumara-runners-study/: https://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/art.html
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/tarahumara-runners-study/Balke, Bruno, and Clyde Snow. 1965. Anthropological and physiological observations on Tarahumara endurance runners. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 23:293–301.
Bennett, W. C., and R. M. Zingg. 1935. The Tarahumara: an Indian tribe of northern Mexico. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Champion, J. R. 1955. Acculturation among the Tarahumara of Northwest Mexico since 1890. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 17(7):560–566.
Christensen, Dirk L., Imelda Alcalá-Sánchez, Irene Leal-Berumen, Miguel Conchas-Ramirez, and Soren Brage. 2012. Physical activity, cardio-respiratory fitness, and metabolic traits in rural Mexican Tarahumara. American Journal of Human Biology 24:558–561.
Clegg, R. S. 1972. Tarahumara Indians. Rocky Mountain Medical Journal 69:57–58
Goldberg, Ryan. 2017. The drug runners. Texas Monthly 45:77–138
Groom, Dale. 1971. Cardiovascular observations on the Tarahumara Indian runners: modern day Spartans. American Heart Journal 81:304–318.
Irigoyen-Rascón, Fructuoso, and Alfonso Paredes. 2015. Tarahumara medicine: ethnobotany and healing among the Rarámuri of Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. [FSW]
Kennedy, John G. 1963. Tesgüino complex: the role of beer in Tarahumara culture. American Anthropologist 65:620–640
La carerra de bola Tarahumara y son significacíon. América Indigena 29:17–42
Inapuchi: una communidad Tarahumara gentil. Mexico City: Instituto Indigena Interamericano.
Kummels, Ingrid. 2001. Reflecting diversity: variants of the legendary footraces of the Rarámuri in northern Mexico. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 66(1):73–98. [FSW]
Levi, Jerome M. 1998. The bow and the blanket: religion, identity, and resistance in Rarámuri material culture. Journal of Anthropological Research 54:299–324.
Hidden transcripts among the Rarámuri: culture, resistance, and interethnic relations in northern Mexico. American Ethnologist 26:90–113
Tarahumara (Rarámuri). In The Oxford encyclopedia of Mesoamerican cultures, vol. 3. David Carrasco, ed. Pp. 183–185. New York: Oxford University Press.
Tarahumara shamanism. In Shamanism: an encyclopedia of world beliefs, practices, and culture, vol. 1. Mariko Namba Walter and Eva Jane Neumann Friedman, eds. Pp. 453–461. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO
John Kennedy and the Tarahumara. Anales de Antropología 47:163–171
Strike type variation among Tarahumara Indians in minimal sandals versus conventional running shoes. Journal of Sports Health Science 3:86–94.
Norman, James. 1976. The Tarahumaras: Mexico’s long distance runners. National Geographic 149:702–708.
La carrera de bola entre los Rarámuri de México: un problema de difusión. Originally 1970 América Indígena 30(1). Chihuahua, México: Energía=Control, A.H., Ediciones
Plymire, Darcy C. 1983. The legend of the Tarahumata: tourism, overcivilization, and the white man’s Indian. In Native Americans and sport in North America. C. Richard King, ed. Pp. 17–29. London: Routledge.
The legend of the Tarahumara: tourism, overcivilization and the white man’s Indian. International Journal of the History of Sport 23(2):154–166. [FSW]
Rivera-Morales, J., L. A. V. Guadarrama, and S. Sotuyo. 2019. Una mirada antropológica a la resistencia física de los rarámuri. Anales de Antropología 53(1):89–99. [FSW]
Wallace, Ian J., Elizabeth Koch, Nicholas B. Holowka, and Daniel E. Lieberman. 2018. Heel impact forces during barefoot versus minimally shod walking among Tarahumara subsistence farmers and urban Americans. Royal Society Open Science 5:180044
The semiotics of powerful places: rock art and landscape relations in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Research 67(3):387–420. [FSW]
Severance, Peter, The Legend of the Tarahumara, in Runner's World. Dec . 1993, p. 74
Williams, Kitty, The Incredible Feat (Or is it feet?) Of the Tarahumara, Ultrarunning. October 1993, p. 8
Daniel E. Lieberman, Mickey Mahaffey, Silvino Cubesare Quimare, Nicholas B. Holowka, Ian J. Wallace, and Aaron L. Baggish, "Running in Tarahumara (Rarámuri) Culture: Persistence Hunting, Footracing, Dancing, Work, and the Fallacy of the Athletic Savage," Current Anthropology 61, no. 3 (June 2020): 356-379.Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BS9qVo6plA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xeH0KAqiqISource of photos used in this article and gallery:
http://www.norawas.com/about-ccum
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