(Zarco Guerrero) The Yaqui masks were the first the first ceremonial masks I saw used as a young boy and have become a major influence on my own mask-making style. Please turn and look at the Yaqui, Mayo and Tarahumara Indian masks from Sonora on the wall directly behind you.
Felipe Molina, a member of the Yaqui (Yoeme) tribe of Tucson, Arizona, tells us about the use of masks by native people in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico.
(Felipe Molina) Somewhere in the Yoeme community, there's always a ceremony going on. And the masks are used in those ceremonies. It is a household or a community, ceremony, the masks are involved, especially the ones that you have on display. Those are the Pahkola masks.
And other kind of masks are used, but are only for during Lent. Those are the ones that they use for the different ceremonies around Lent. But, those never are displayed because those are very—to us, they have deep meaning and they cannot be displayed anywhere. And they're usually burned on holy Saturday. They burn those masks. It's like many of the tribal groups that you see down in Mexico, they have their ceremonies and then after the holy week ceremonies, they usually burn them or destroy them.
(Zarco Guerrero) Music that accompanies Yoeme dances typically includes violin, other stringed instruments and bells on the dancers' feet.
(Yoeme music)
(Zarco Guerrero) Martin Kim, Program Coordinator and Director of the ASM store:
(Martin Kim) The Yaqui cultures in northern Sonora and the Mayo cultures in the Mayo river region are adjacent to one another. They share the same language basin. So, of course, they share very much the same ceremonies, too. But, there are some variations, as you can see in these two.
The length—the longer length of the horse hair or goat hair, conventional to both, on the Mayo mask somewhat distinguishes them from the shorter-haired versions of the Yaqui.
But, here in the villages like old Pasqua, here in Tucson, itself, there are other differences that I've come to appreciate. The green color that you see on this mask from the northern Sonora area, I understand, is a very, very bad color to paint a mask, if you're from any of the Tucson villages.
So, you'll see variations practiced down there that you won't see practiced up here. One of the most distinct variations is the fact that I have this mask at all. I could never buy a Yaqui mask from a village in Tucson itself. The act of making a mask is considered sacred. And, as a sacred object, you know, we take our guidelines from the cultures we represent. And so, I would never even attempt to buy a mask from a Yaqui carver here.
But, down in northern Sonora, mask makers who are generations of mask makers, those families will make a mask for sale. Because, there, until a mask is danced, it's not considered sacred.
Special Thanks to Gateway for their support of this project.
Many thanks also to the University of Arizona Disability Resources Center for transcribing the tour episodes.
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