ABSTRACT
About two thousand Guarijio (Varojió, Warihio, Huaraijió) live in the foothills, low mesas, banks (barrancas), and mountain slopes along the upper Río Mayo, on the western side of the Sierra Madre Occidental in southern Sonora, Mexico. This area, northeast of Navajoa, Sonora, varies from lowland desert to steep mountainsides covered with trees and shrubs, predominantly oak at lower elevations and pine forests at higher ones. Possibly the least known of all the indigenous peoples of Mexico, the Guarijio are members of the Sonoran Tara-Cahitan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family (Miller 1983). The majority live in the state of Sonora; those who live on the highest peaks dwell in the state of Chihuahua. This distribution is important, not for governmental demographic reasons, but because environmental considerations functionally divide the Guarijio into upland and lowland dialects. Ceremonially and musically, however, these groups celebrate the same rites with the same instruments and songs.
