The Acaxee or Acaxees were a tribe or group of tribes in the

Sierra Madre Occidental The Sierra Madre Occidental is a major mountain range system of the North American Cordillera, that runs northwest–southeast through northwestern and western Mexico, and along the Gulf of California. The Sierra Madre is part of the American C ...

in eastern

Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities, and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales. It is located in northwest Mexic ...

and NW

Durango Durango, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Durango, is one of the 31 states which make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, situated in the northwest portion of the country. With a population of 1,832,650 ...

. They spoke a Taracahitic language in the Southern

Uto-Aztecan The Uto-Aztecan languages are a family of native American languages, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The name of the language family reflects the common ...

language family. Their culture was based on

horticulture Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...

and the exploitation of wild animal and plant life. They no longer exist as an identifiable ethnic group., accessed 1 Feb 2011

History

Before Spanish Colonization, the population of the Acaxee was roughly 20,000 organized into many smaller independent chiefdoms. They lived in very low-density farms with homes separated by up to half a kilometer. Early accounts by Jesuit missionaries allege continual warfare and

cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well document ...

among the Acaxee, Tepehuan, and Xixime who inhabited

Nueva Vizcaya Nueva Vizcaya, officially the Province of Nueva Vizcaya (; ; Pangasinan: ''Luyag/Probinsia na Nueva Vizcaya''; ), is a landlocked province in the Philippines located in the Cagayan Valley region in Luzon. Its capital and largest town is Bayo ...

. The Spanish conquered Sinaloa from 1529 to 1531 which included conquering the Acaxee. They were devastated by Spanish introduced diseases and the

encomienda system The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. In theory, the conquerors provided the labourers with benefits, including military protection and education. In pr ...

. In December 1601, the Acaxees, under the direction of an elder named Perico, began an uprising against

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

rule. This revolt was called the

Acaxee Rebellion The Acaxee Rebellion was an insurrection against Spanish rule in Mexico by Acaxee Indians, in 1601. The Acaxee attempted to expel the Spanish from their lands, regain their independence, and retain their traditional culture which was threatened ...

. And eventually ended in a defeat of the Acaxee. They are said to have been converted to the

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

faith by the society of

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

s in 1602. Over the centuries of Spanish rule, the Acaxee were gradually assimilated into Mexican society, and while no longer a separate ethnic group, many in Sinaloa are descendants of the Acaxee.

Culture

Ethnographer

Ralph Beals Ralph Leon Beals (July 19, 1901 – February 24, 1985) was an American anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, a former president of the American Anthropological Association, and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship Gu ...

reported in the early 1930s that the Acaxee played a ball game called "''vatey'' r''batey''" on "a small plaza, very flat, with walls at the sides".Kelley, J. Charles. "The Known Archaeological Ballcourts of Durange and Zacatecas, Mexico" in Vernon Scarborough, David R. Wilcox (Eds.): ''The Mesoamerican Ballgame''. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press. , 1991, p. 98. Kelley quotes Beals: Beals, Ralph J. ''The Acaxe, A Mountain Tribe of Durango and Sinaloa'' (Iberoamerican 6) University of California Press, Berkeley: 1933.

History

Culture

Subdivisions

See also

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References

Further reading