Embroidered Flowers: Yaqui Women Commemorate Forced Labor

Antje Gunsenheimer
BCDSS Ombudsperson

The traditional dress of the Yaqui women in northwestern Mexico stands out with its wide, colorful floral embroidery on the border of the wide white batiste skirt. The top, a white blouse, is also embroidered with flowers. This was not always the case, as Yaqui women report today. According to them, their great-grandmothers and grandmothers adopted the embroidery tradition of the Yucatec Maya women during their years of forced labor on henequen plantations on the Yucatán Peninsula. As not only the memories of the women today but also black and white photographs show, the Yaqui women originally wore plain skirts and blouses made from coarse cotton fabric (fig. 1). During the Yaqui Wars (1867 – 1929), they and their children were captured by Mexican troops as companions of the men – on the run or away from combat – as can be seen in figure 2.

Fig. 1: A woman in Pótam (Yaqui territory, Sonora, Mexico) shows the progress of her embroidery for a skirt (photo: A. Gunsenheimer, 2011).

Fig. 2: 30 Yaqui women and children as prisoners under guard in the port city of Guaymas, Mexico, ca. 1910 (photo: California Historical Society Collection, 1860–1960; CHS-1512 >> Creative Commons).

Background of the Yaqui Wars

The first wave of industrialization reached Mexico in the second half of the 19th century. Liberal governments sought to increase agricultural productivity through the mostly violent appropriation of indigenous settlement areas, which were converted into private estates. Due to a lack of other income opportunities, the now landless indigenous settlers then became day laborers on the farms.

The Yaqui Valley in the south of the present-day state of Sonora was attractive, it offered the opportunity to grow cereals and vegetables and raise livestock in the otherwise semi-arid and mountainous northwest of Mexico via artificial irrigation.

The eight core Yaqui settlements established by the Jesuits in the 17th century defended themselves against expropriation by militarizing themselves and making colonization in their settlement region more difficult through attacks (fig. 3 + 4).

Fig. 3: Sonora, State of Mexico (drawing: A. Schüssler, 2024. After: Padilla Ramos, Raquel, 1995. Yucatán: Fin del sueño yaqui. Hermosillo, Sonora: Instituto Sonorense de Cultura, p 95.).

Fig. 4: Wheat field in the Yaqui Valley near Vicám Estación (photo: A. Gunsenheimer, 2011).

Deprivation of Rights, Persecution and Forced Labor

To overcome the resistance of the Yaqui communities, the men were deprived of their civic rights at the end of the 19th century. They also had to take up employment on one of the farms and keep the corresponding papers on their person at all times.

Anyone picked up on the street without papers could be arrested without further ado. Due to the shortage of workers in various regions of Mexico at the end of the 19th century, the Yaqui were not sent to prison but assigned between 6 and 12 years of forced labor on private estates. Their family members, women and children, were mostly captured and consigned to the same fate. Families could be separated at any time (fig. 5).

Fig. 5: Mural painting in the Governor’s Palace in Hermosillo (capital of the state of Sonora). The painter depicts the scene of women and children boarding a train (photo: K.-H. Dürsch Dürsch, 2009).

Transport, Death and Plantation Work

The newly built railroad between the inland city of Ciudad Obregón and the harbor city of Guaymas was used to transport prisoners. A station was built for this in the Yaqui region.

From Guaymas, transport took place via ship to the south, then back overland to central Mexico or onward to the Gulf Coast or to Yucatán (fig. 6a + b).

Fig. 6a: Deportation route (drawing: A. Schüssler, 2024. After: Padilla Ramos, Raquel, 1995. Yucatán: Fin del sueño yaqui. Hermosillo, Sonora: Instituto Sonorense de Cultura, p 95.).

Fig. 6b: View of the now abandoned train station outside the village of Vícam Estación (photo: K.-H. Dürsch, 2013).

The transport conditions were characterized by a shortage of space, food, and water. The rapidly spreading illnesses caused high death rates during transport, a situation that continued in the cramped conditions on the plantations.

The Yaqui were used in the development of wheat production in central Mexico, in Veracruz and in henequen processing in Yucatán. Research assumes that approx. 4,000 Yaqui did not survive the forced labor, out of an estimated total of 12,000 – 15,000 members in the Yaqui communities at that time.

Henequen Production

The henequen plant, a member of the agave family, experienced a boom in the 19th century, as it was the basis for all kinds of ropes and packaging. At this time, the plantations on the Yucatán Peninsula developed into the main producers of the material and supplied to the whole world (fig. 7).

Fig. 7: Henequen plantation in Tankuché (Campeche state) with the central manor house built in French style (photo: K.-H. Dürsch, 2013).

Work on the Plantations

Working the fields, in which the four-crowned agave species Agave fourcroydes grew, was hard work and fell to the men. Women and children worked in the halls processing the cut agave leaves on machines.

The plantations usually had a village-like structure with a general store at their center. The plantation owners paid wages, mostly below the usual daily rate or in a self-printed currency that was only valid on site. The families grew food in small gardens on the side. They would purchase goods such as candles, fabrics, or medicine in the store on site at inflated prices. This often caused the families to go into debt, which, in turn, led to an extension of their employment contracts to the benefit of the plantation owner (fig. 8).

Fig. 8: Processing hall in Tankuché next to the manor house (photo: K.-H. Dürsch, 2013).

Yaqui Settlement Region in Tankuché

When the first Yaqui arrived in Tankuché, they were given a settlement site in an orange grove outside the village. According to some of the village inhabitants (2013), they continued performing their usual rituals there such as the deer dance and pascola dance.

However, there were also soon marriages between the local Yucatec Maya and the Yaqui, which were endorsed by the plantation owners (fig. 9).

The Yaqui settlement can no longer be found today. The last female Yaqui speaker in Tankuché, Doña Angela, died in 2005.

Fig. 9: Administrative wing with classroom in Tankuché behind the manor house (photo: K.-H. Dürsch, 2013).

Living and Learning Together

Children who grew up on the plantations were taught to read and write, as was the case in Tankuché. Women worked together and exchanged information, as did the men.

Yaqui women thus adopted parts of the Yucatec female dress. Although they did not adopt the form of the Yucatec huipil, the traditional women’s dress consisting of an underskirt and overdress, but instead continued to make the skirt and blouse separately, they adorned them with colorful floral arrangements at the hem of the skirt and at the neckline, similar to the Yucatec floral borders (fig. 10 + 11).

Fig. 10: The singing group of the school of K’anxook (Yucatán). The girls are dressed in the traditional huipil (photo: A. Gunsenheimer, 2010).

Fig. 11: Today’s Yaqui costume (photo: A. Gunsenheimer, 2024).

Epilogue

With the Mexican Revolution, forced labor was abolished. The Yaqui in Yucatán, Veracruz, and in central Mexico were free to decide whether they wanted to continue working for a wage on the plantations – where these still existed – or return to Sonora.

Many Yaqui, both men and women, returned to Sonora, some of them even covered long distances on foot.

To this day, Yaqui women embroider their clothes with wide floral borders on blouses and skirts. At first glance, the floral borders are a cheerful feature of the women’s dress. However, they are also a reminder of the fate of their ancestors, who worked as prisoners in Yucatán (figs. 12).

Fig. 12: Pótam flower embroidery on a cloth for warming wheat tortillas (photo: A. Gunsenheimer, 2011).

Comment:

‘Yaqui’ or ‘Yoreme’: ‘Yoreme’ is the name the people usually call themselves, while ‘Yaqui’ dates back to the Jesuit missionaries. As a generalization, “la tribu” = “the tribe” is often used. However, members of the Yaqui communities consider the use of the term ‘Yoreme’ by non-Yaquis to be offensive, especially as the history and present day of the Yaqui are characterized by attacks by Mestizo and European settlers. The article thus uses the name “Yaqui”, which continues to be commonly used in academic literature.