Chichimec

Chichimeca () is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajio region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the meaning as the Roman term "barbarian" that described Germanic tribes. The name, with its pejorative sense, was adopted by the Spanish Empire. For the Spanish, in the words of scholar Charlotte M. Gradie, "the Chichimecas were a wild, nomadic people who lived north of the Valley of Mexico. They had no fixed dwelling places, lived by hunting, wore little clothes and fiercely resisted foreign intrusion into their territory, which happened to contain silver mines the Spanish wished to exploit." In spite of not having temples or idols, they practiced animal sacrifice, and they were feared for their expertise and brutality in war.

The Spanish invasion resulted in a "drastic population decline of all the peoples known collectively as Chichimecas, and to the eventual disappearance as peoples of all save the Pames of San Luis Potosí and the related Chichimeca-Jonaz of the Sierra Gorda in eastern Guanajuato." In modern times, only one ethnic group is customarily referred to as Chichimecs, namely the Chichimeca Jonaz, a few thousand of whom live in the state of Guanajuato.

Etymology

The Nahuatl name ''Chīchīmēcah'' (plural, pronounced ; singular ''Chīchīmēcatl'') means "inhabitants of Chichiman," ''Chichiman'' meaning "area of milk." It is sometimes said to be related to ''chichi'' "dog", but both ''is in ''chichi'' are short, and both in ''Chīchīmēcah'' are long. That changes the meaning, as vowel length is phonemic in Nahuatl.

Ethnohistorical descriptions

In the late sixteenth century, Gonzalo de las Casas wrote about the Chichimec. He had received an ''encomienda'' near Durango and fought in the wars against the Chichimec peoples: the Pame, the Guachichile, the Guamari and the Zacateco, who lived in the area known at the time as "La Gran Chichimeca." Las Casas' account was called ''Report of the Chichimeca and the Justness of the War Against Them.'' He described the people, providing ethnographic information. He wrote that they only covered their genitalia with clothing; painted their bodies; and ate only game, roots and berries. He mentioned, in order to prove their supposed barbarity, that Chichimec women, having given birth, continued traveling on the same day without stopping to recover.

In the late 16th century, according to the Spanish, the Chichimeca did not worship idols as did many of the surrounding indigenous peoples.

Wars with the Spanish

Chichimeca military strikes against the Spanish included raidings, ambushing critical economic routes, and pillaging. In the long-running Chichimeca War (1550–1590), the Spanish initially attempted to defeat the combined Chichimeca peoples in a war of "fire and blood", but eventually sought peace as they were unable to defeat them. The Chichimeca's small-scale raids proved effective. To end the war, the Spanish adopted a "Purchase for Peace" program by providing foods, tools, livestock, and land to the Chichimecas, sending Spanish to teach them agriculture as a livelihood, and by passively converting them to Catholicism. Within a century, the Spanish and Chichimeca assimilated.Powell, Phillip Wayne (1952), ''Soldiers, Indians & Silver'', Berkeley: U of California Press, pp. 182-199
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References

Sources

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* Gradie, Charlotte M. "Chichimec." In Davíd Carrasco (ed).
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
'. : Oxford University Press, 2001.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chichimeca
Indigenous peoples of Aridoamerica
Pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico
History of Coahuila
History of Guanajuato
History of Jalisco
History of Michoacán
History of San Luis Potosí
History of Zacatecas
History of Sonora
Barbarians
Nomadic groups in the Americas