Ancient ties, cross-border links
Yuman Indian Peoples of the Western Borderlands

by Michael Wilken-Robertson, CUNA

For thousands of years before the artificial border line was drawn between the United States and Mexico, native people in the Arizona-Californias region shared languages, cultures, and oral traditions that traced their shared histories back through time. The earth itself, not today’s border, defined territories: the up-thrust backbone of sierras, inhospitable deserts, great rivers, and watersheds. These natural spaces and barriers also shaped the ranges of plant and animal communities, with stands of oak in the valleys and piñon in the mountains, agave and prickly pear in the deserts, deer in the hills, and rabbits and quail in the chaparral. They influenced the coming and going of humans as well, who, though extremely adaptable to different ecosystems, were profoundly aware of and responsive to the rhythms of their environment. The modern boundary between Mexico and the U.S., however, does not reflect these natural parameters.

Native people adapted their lives to the arid borderlands environment by specializing in gathering plant foods and hunting small game such as rabbits and birds. Occasionally they might bring down a deer, bighorn sheep, or antelope. Their lifestyles were based on seasonal cycles and interaction with a series of distinct ecozones—coasts, inland valleys, mountains, and deserts—requiring a high level of mobility and an intimate knowledge of the natural environment, which they acquired through generations of habitation on the land. Those living a more sedentary lifestyle along the Colorado and Gila rivers practiced agriculture, cultivating beans, corn, squash, and other crops.

Ancient Ties

Strong linguistic connections between native people of modern-day Baja California, southern California, and Arizona reflect this shared history. The origin mythologies of many of these groups allude to a common ancestry that is also evident in the continuity of cultural traits like ceramic technology, the extensive use of acorns and pine nuts, gourd songs and dances, keruk commemoration ceremonies, and coyote stories, just to name a few. Ancient pathways of communication and trade networks linking native people of the peninsula with their northern relatives still criss-cross the region, which only very recently in its history has been occupied by the U.S. and Mexico and bisected by the border.

Territorial and cultural conflicts with invading European cultures led the region’s indigenous groups to eventually settle permanently in inland valley, mountain, and desert enclaves where many of their communities remain today. In Baja California, the only groups that managed to survive—the Kumiai, Cucapá, Paipai and Kiliwa—all live in the northernmost section of the peninsula, where conquering cultures arrived later and were more successfully repelled by alliances among native peoples.

These groups, together with their counterparts in southern California and Arizona, collectively constitute what is known as the Yuman peoples—whose traditional lands cover an area stretching from the coasts, deserts, and mountain ranges of northern Baja California and southern California, along the Colorado River, up through the Grand Canyon, and which include much of western Arizona. Each one of the Baja California groups has a special relationship with native people north of the border—the Kumiai with the Kumeyaay of California; the Paipai with the Yavapai, Hualapai, and Havasupai of Arizona; the Cucapá with the Cocopah of Arizona; and the Kiliwa, more distantly, with all of the Yuman groups, including the Quechan, the Mohave, and the Maricopa.

Crossing the Line

Until the mid-1900s, Native Baja Californians were able to cross the border with relative ease. However, as immigration restrictions tightened, it became practically impossible for them to acquire the Mexican passport and U.S. visa necessary to traverse their own ancestral lands. Few Indians, born and raised in remote villages or ranches, could produce birth certificates, utility or rent receipts, paycheck stubs, or other documents requested by authorities. As a result, contact between related groups became increasingly difficult as families and cultures were split up by the border.

"That border wasn’t our idea; we didn’t put it there," explains Paipai elder Benito Peralta. "In the old days, people from the different tribes here would go by foot or on horseback to a place called Wakuatay—nowadays, I think they call it Campo, California—taking items like suede, antlers, and pine nuts to trade for flour, sugar, and other provisions. They would also go and visit their relatives, maybe work for awhile, or just visit for a few days when there was a funeral or peon games. Nobody needed a passport; the border guards knew the Indians and respected their right to cross."

The division caused by the imposition of an international boundary has resulted in highly divergent recent histories for the surviving Yuman groups of Baja California and their relatives north of the border. In general it can be said that groups north of the border have enjoyed the benefits of economic development at the cost of a more rapid process of acculturation by the dominant society, while groups south of the border have maintained much of their traditional culture—use of the indigenous language, gathering of wild plant foods and medicines, practice of pottery and basketry manufacture and so on—but remain economically and geographically marginalized.

Today the situation appears to be changing. In the Tohono O’odham and Kickapoo regions divided by the border, efforts are currently under way to establish mechanisms for border crossing. At the request of U.S. Indian tribes, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is working toward trinational agreements between the United States, Mexico, and tribal governments. Furthermore, U.S. tribes have stepped up support for medical, cultural, and humanitarian assistance programs for the Baja California tribes, while elders of Mexican tribes are playing an important role in a growing number of cultural exchanges with their northern relatives: sacred ceremonies; classes in medicinal and edible plant use, pottery, and basketmaking; traditional gatherings of gourd singing and dancing; and language preservation workshops.

Preserving the Environment

Tribes on both sides of the border continue to adapt to the many changes in their world, seeking to manage the few remaining natural and cultural resources available to them through economic activities as diverse as agriculture and livestock ranching, handicrafts, and gaming enterprises. On the U.S. side, several reservations have formed their own tribal Environmental Protection Agencies, giving them an important role in the management of tribal lands. The Campo and Viejas Kumeyaay communities are both carrying out successful wetlands restoration projects, and the Campo band has also been providing technical assistance to water quality testing and wetlands restoration projects in Kumiai communities in Baja California.

The 1998 survey, Indian Groups of the California-Baja California Border Region: Environmental Issues, edited by Dr. Alan Kilpatrick as part of a project of the Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy, documented a number of environmental challenges facing tribes on both sides of the border. Overarching regional issues include water quality and quantity, waste management, illegal dumping, loss of traditional habitat, and lack of protection for sacred sites. North of the border, air pollution is a concern for some U.S. reservations. South of the border, natural resource management, soil erosion, and land tenancy represent priority concerns for Mexican indigenous communities. The study pointed out the critical need for the development of comprehensive environmental management plans for sustainable development, taking into consideration traditional indigenous stewardship of natural resources, environmental monitoring, and the development of geographic information systems (GIS).

In 1998 the Native Cultures Institute of Baja California (CUNA) carried out the study Sustainable Development in the Indigenous Communities of Baja California, compiling baseline information for sustainable development, including community input; a diagnostic analysis of environmental, social and economic factors; GIS maps; and identification of potential strategies for appropriate economic development. CUNA and two indigenous communities have also collaborated with the Ecosystems Management Program of the Autonomous University of Baja California to develop environmental management plans and GIS for the tribes that have already proven to be highly effective tools for community empowerment.

Currently a binational project sponsored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and implemented jointly by CUNA and the Campo band of Kumeyaay highlights student drawings and essays from four Indian communities as a basis for an environmental education curriculum. Paipai member Carmen González, director of the Paipai Primary School, explains: "We hope that our students, like our ancestors, will become stewards of the land and its ecosystems for future generations."

Michael Wilken-Robertson is the director of the Native Cultures Institute of Baja California (CUNA), a Mexican nonprofit association based in Ensenada, Baja California.

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