Dances

This is not a final list

Ancestrally this dance was celebrated in March, but in Nacori Chico it was changed to a week before August 30 to take advantage of the arrival of the absent children from Nacori Chico.

The purpose of this dance was to remember the day in which they had begun to fraternize with the Spaniards. While recognizing the historical meaning of this link, dagüinemaca celebrated the congruence that this pact had with the values of the Ópata society. The name of the dance means in Spanish “give me, and I will give you,” and in its execution, the praised virtues were mutual assistance, solidarity, friendship, and gratitude.

According to the testimony of a nineteenth-century observer, in this dance, it is customary for men and women to dance to the person for whom they feel inclined. They take the sign of some gift (as of a horse, cow, chickens, etc.) and embrace the graceful person, forcing him/her to give one or two turns to the beat of the song, which concludes a treaty of alliance and friendship between both people that only death can end it. These are called noraguas, that is, friends; but these friendships are so sincere and kind, that the Opatas could even leave their children and husband/wife for his/her noragua when he knows that he/she is undertaking a dangerous walk or that I could render him/her some service [32].

Dance of historical character by which we remember “the transit of the Aztecs and the coming of Moctezuma, whom they expect like the Jews to another Messiah” [33]. This dance links in this way the oral traditions of the Opatas with the hope of a more promising future, and not in the messianic sense understood by Ignacio Zúñiga in 1835, but with the illusion of having among his ranks an individual who could claim the primacy of the Opatas and win for their compatriots a better place in Hispanic society [34].

The version of the deer dance from us the Hoi-ra-ua,

This dance is with the motive to assure the rains and the abundant harvests; which began at sunrise and lasted until it was set, it is attended by all peoples, filling the entire plaza with all kinds of seeds, tree branches, animal hooves, antler poles, snails, and other things that were not documented. At the four corners of the square, four huts are formed, from which the dancers come out in turn with a howl and clamor, and disguised in costumes and monteras to the sound of bones and rattles, each one of the dancers arrives at each one of the things that were placed on the square and dance with sad moans, crying, etc.

Melody danced by the matachines of Sahuaripa on August 9 (the seventh dance of the matachines), along with other pieces in honor of San Lorenzo.

This dance is also a game, and it develops in the following way: a wide circle of “sihuatas” or older women is formed, who hum the melody of the dance, marking the beat of six by eight with clapping and persecution instruments, while the rest of the community is placed around the esplanade, ready to enjoy the unique show. Two or three minutes after the beginning of the melody, the ‘liebrona’ (old hare) “parosi” enters the center of the wheel, ‘bandeándose’ (traversing, passing from part to part) and “chicoteándose” (agitated vivaciously) pursued tenaciously by the coyote. Once the “parosi” (old hare) enters into the circle of “sihuatas”, the circle is closed, and that hare begins its exhausting dance, jumping nimbly on its hind legs, measuring the distance that separated it from its pursuer. After five minutes, there is a pause for the hare to rub its eyes and noses. The maximum fun is provided by a kind of pantomime in which, at the end of the show, where the hare runs on one side, and the other side the coyote enters “asoleado” (sunny), panting, looking for the hare and then attacked by everyone with dry “chichicayotas” and clubs of dry “chilicotes” (which do not produce any pain) [Rascón, April 10,1990].

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