Cora (people)
The Cora are an indigenous ethnic group in western Mexico who live in the Sierra de Nayarit and La Mesa de Nayar in the Mexican states of Jalisco and Nayarit . They call themselves náayarite (plural; náayari singular), and that's how they gave today's state its name. The 2000 census counted 24,390 people who were members of a Cora-speaking household (definition: at least one parent or elder speaks Cora). Of these 24,390 people, 67% (16,357) speak Cora, 17% do not speak Cora, the remaining 16% did not provide any information.
The Cora grow corn, beans, amaranth and raise cattle.
history
The Cora were expelled from their ancestral areas in the 16th century by the Spanish Conquistador Nuño de Guzmán and currently live in a much smaller area.
language
The Cora language belongs to the Corachol branch of the Uto-Aztec language family. It has two dialects: El Nayar is spoken in the east, Santa Teresa in the west.
religion
The religion of the Cora is a syncretism that links the religion before the Spanish conquest with Catholicism .
The ancient Cora religion has three main deities:
- The supreme deity is the sun god Tayau ("Our Father"). He travels across the sky during the day and sits on his golden throne at noon. Clouds are the smoke of his pipe. In earlier times the priests of Tayau, the tonatí , were the highest authority of the Cora.
- Tetewan (also: Hurima or Nasisa ), Tayau's wife, is the deity of the underworld and is associated with the moon, rain and the west.
- Sautari ("the flower picker ", also: Hatsikan ("big brother"), Tahás or Ora ), son of Tayau and Tetewan, is associated with corn and the afternoon. In syncretism he is also associated with Jesus Christ .
literature
- Konrad Theodor Preuss : Grammar of the Cora language . Columbia University Press, New York 1932.
- Ambrosio McMahon & Maria Aiton de McMahon: Vocabulario Cora (Series de Vocabularios Indigenas Mariano Silva y Aceves; Vol. 2). SIL, Mexico City 1959.
- Wick R. Miller: Uto-Aztecan languages . In William C. Sturtevant (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 10. Southwest . Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 1983, pp. 113-124.
- Barbro Dahlgren de Jordán: Los Coras de la Sierra de Nayarit. Instituto de Investigaciones Antropologicas, UNAM, Mexico City 1994.
- Phillip E. Coyle: The customs of our ancestors. Cora religious conversion and millennialism, 2000-1722 . In: Ethnohistory , Jg. 45 (1998), Heft 3, pp. 509-542, ISSN 0014-1801 .
- Phillip E. Coyle: Nàyari history, politics, and violence. From flowers to ash . University of Arizona Press, Tucson 2001, ISBN 0-8165-1908-0 .
- Eugene H. Casad: Cora. A no longer unknown Southern Uto-Aztecan language. In: José Luis Moctezuma Zamarrón and Jane H. Hill (eds.): Avances y balances de lenguas yutoaztecas; homenaje a Wick R. Miller (Colección cientifíca; 438). Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Historia, México, DF 2001, pp. 109-122, ISBN 970-186966-4 .
- Jesús Jáuregui: Coras (Pueblos Indígenas del México Contemporáneo). Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI): Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, Mexico City 2004 (PDF; in Spanish).