History and Memory around Indigenous Leaderships: Narratives of Yaqui Women

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze yaqui women’s memory as the “trace of an historical thought” (Halbwachs, 1968) in a group which reproduce it, re-elaborate it, and transmit it through its members interaction. Such process is selective and it is built from the actual perspective, which takes into account the interests and practices of the present. The article addresses four yaqui leaders’ characteristics, registered in the local history that recovers the memory through the testimony of three yaqui women about these historical leaders and the present perception of them. The theoretical framework of political anthropology is used to characterize these leaders and the Marshall Sahlins’ leader description. As a result, it is proposed that the leaders selected by the historiography and recovered by the memory are distinguished by their power, gained by their position and authority. Conclusions explain the way the memory and the history interlace through mutual dialogs and interpellations to conform representations of the past in the form of resistance and battle in the present.