Millennial pieces are exhibited in the museum of the University of the Yaqui People

Vicam, Son., The Yaqui ethnic group chose the University of the Yaqui People (UPY) as the headquarters to protect their sacred antiquities. These are 24 pieces of rituals from the collection Maaso Koba (Cabeza de Venado), which were for more than 100 years under the protection of the National Ethnographic Museum of World Culture, in Gothenburg, Sweden, and which have returned to their territory as part of the Justice Plan for the indigenous nation settled in southern Sonora.

Among these stands out the famous Maaso Koba (Deer’s Head), a central piece in the tribe’s rituals, as well as a collection of pascola, chapayecas and matachines masks, fundamental elements of traditional ceremonies and dances that constitute the soul of their worldview.

Crescencio Buitimea Valenzuela, rector of UPY, proudly expressed the meaning of this cultural recovery: We are lucky enough to have the famous Maaso Koba that was brought from Sweden, accompanied by other elements that identify our culture. These relics, more than 100 years old, are symbols of resistance and memory that were rescued from oblivion.

The story behind these pieces is as complex as the Yaqui people’s fight for their land and survival. For decades, these sacred objects remained in the Swedish compound, after being collected by European researchers in the 1930s. In those years, the Yaqui tribe, after being violently displaced from Sonora, was dispersed throughout various regions of Mexico, especially Tlaxcala, where it coincided with foreign expeditions that took with them an invaluable part of their cultural heritage.

It is said that when the Yaquis joined the wars, they took all the elements to preserve their culture. The pieces were taken to Europe for decades, and with the justice plan for the ethnic group they were recovered and returned to the indigenous nation.added the UPY rector.

Members of the tribe point out that the return of the sacred objects, as part of the Justice Plan for the Yaqui Nation, promoted by the federal government, is a triumph not only for the ethnic group, but for all those who fight to defend their roots.

This management had the participation of the Secretariats of Foreign Affairs and Culture of the Government of Mexico, through the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) and the authorities of the eight towns. Yaquis, who authorized the repatriation of the sacred objects by signing a minute of agreements on December 7, 2020.

The director of the INAH Sonora Center, Zenón Tiburcio Robles, and the restorer assigned to this agency, Rodolfo del Castillo López, attended the call issued by the INPI, to verify the state of conservation of the pieces that, since November 2022, have been They were under the protection of the second, in Mexico City, after their repatriation from Gothenburg, Sweden, in June 2022.

For the Yaqui ethnic group, the return of objects represents the recovery of a spiritual legacy, a tangible link with the Yaqui worldview, where each object has life, a deep meaning that transcends time and space. The deer dances, the rituals of the pascolas and the ceremonies of the matachines are not mere folkloric expressions; They are, in essence, a dialogue with the divine, a manifestation of the relationship between the Yaquis, nature and their ancestors.

There was no other space more suitable than the UPY to house these relicssaid Buitimea Valenzuela. Here we share our history, everything that has to do with our tradition, our art and culture, in the best possible environment: an institution created from and for our people..

The University of the Yaqui People is not only a center of higher education, but a space where the identity of the Yaqui nation is nourished and strengthened. With more than 450 students from the eight native towns of southern Sonora, the courses offered – education, medicine and community health, law and engineering in sustainable production processes – are designed under a worldview that privileges ancestral knowledge and language. Yaqui.

The exhibition of the sacred pieces further consolidates the cultural preservation efforts promoted by the university.

This Saturday, Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo will make her first visit to Sonora as president of Mexico, she will officially inaugurate the UPY and reaffirm her commitment to the indigenous peoples, as well as the continuity of the Justice Plan for the ethnic group settled in the south of Sonora.