by Yemeli Ortega
The village of Creel was the site of narco-killings in broad daylight that shocked Mexico's conscience last year, but the Tarahumara Indians' subjugation to the cartels extends to even the most remote corners of their rugged lands, reports Yemeli Ortega. (Photo: ThierryB / Flickr)
The region with the richest biodiversity in North America is located in Mexico's far north, at 1420 meters of elevation, in the heart of the Western Sierra Madre. These lands, rugged and inhospitable, have been inhabited by Tarahumara, "the light-footed people," for close to 2,000 years. Today, these peaceful people are threatened by narco-trafficking which threatens the very essence of their culture and the equilibrium of their environment.
"Narco-trafficking violence is a thousand-headed snake. When you cut one head off, a hundred grow in its place," explains a Tarahumara Indian, who intends to stay alive, and, consequently, to remain anonymous. "Don't think my word is worthless," he defends himself, "but what I'm going to relate to you could cost me my skin."
After a silence as pregnant as his gaze, the Indian ends up talking:
"They come; they kill the trees and afterwards we have to choose: either we leave our lands or we stay to grow their drugs."
The Tarahumara people pay a heavy price to defend their forests, which hold the ancestral secrets of their culture, their cosmology and their very lives. "People don't commercialize their family. No one can sell what belongs to Mother Earth and Father God," says the outraged Indian, who draws most of his food and medicinal plants from the forest.
"The forest is the soul of the fire," he continues as he watches wood burn in the hearth. It's also the soul of music: without wood, there would be no more flutes, violins, or drums, indispensable elements for traditional rites and dances.
