The Tepehuan are one of the most ancient and spiritually rich Indigenous nations of Mexico. The name Tepehuan comes from the Nahuatl word meaning “people of the mountains.” Their ancestral lands are located in what is now known as Durango, Chihuahua, Nayarit, and Jalisco, which is right along the Sierra Madre Occidental. This nation has existed for thousands of years, and have contributed to ancient Mexico through leadership, cosmology, and complex agricultural knowledge. Their legacy has existed for many centuries including cultural resilience, spiritual knowledge, and resistance against colonization, yet their identity remains overlooked and obscured due to forced assimilation and generations of silence.

Prior to Spanish arrival, the Tepehuan lived as autonomous skilled survivalists, herbologists, and spiritual agriculturists who had a deep and sacred connection to the land. They believed in animism which emphasizes the interconnectedness between land, people, and spirit. This is the worldview that inspired their resistance against colonial domination.

A DIVINE DREAM ABOUT ORIGINS

There are oral traditions spoken among, not only the Tepehuan, but also other Uto-Aztecan-speaking peoples who say that we came “from the land itself” and not migrants. This is highlighted in their creation stories that talk about emerging from mountains or from the Earth.

Upon finding this historical fact, it reminded me of a dream I had around the late 2010s. I was in this natural landscape as I felt the presence of God near me. I couldn’t see Him but I could sense Him as He was explaining to me His inspiration behind the creation of mankind.

I remember noticing opened bags of soil, each one displaying a different shade of brown, representing the different parts of the world where God was preparing to plant His seeds.
Then, a voice spoke to me saying, “You know how I said that I made man out of dust. These soils are particles that I breathed life into. You can tell the identity of a people by looking at the hues of the soil that they stand upon, and then various shades would emerge from them, displaying a beautiful array of genetic diversity.”

He continued to tell me about how mankind emerged from the Earth, and that is why the first humans resemble the darker shades of the most fertile soils.

Then, various shades of brown and beige began to come from them, and it was intended to form harmony within the family lines. The same minerals and elements you find in the soils are also found within, but the difference is that God breathed life into man.


CLARIFYING INDIGENOUS ORIGINS

For the past centuries, some anthropologists classified Native Americans under the “Northeast Asian” label that suggested migration from Siberia through the Bering Strait land bridge. Although, that may apply to certain people, particularly those with close proximity to where the land bridge used to be, like in Alaska and Canada. However, that concept does not account for the origins of certain Indigenous peoples including the Tepehuan.

Modern genetic and linguistic evidence, as well as oral history supports that many Indigenous groups originate from the very land they’ve been living in since ancient times.

Recent archaeological and genetic research has challenged the Bering Strait migration theory that had been mainstream for so long, but mainstream doesn’t mean truth. In White Sands, New Mexico, human footprints dating back as far as 23,000 years were discovered, along with genetic data proving that these diverse Indigenous lineages have existed far longer than when the Bering Strait migration took place (Bennett et al., 2021; Nakatsuka et al., 2020).

This means that there are Indigenous American tribes who did not originate from Siberia. Oral history has preserved this truth for many generations, and the anthropologists are just now catching on to the reality that this is a historical fact.
Reading about this also reminded me of the time I asked mi ‘Apa about the Bering Strait migration. He went on to say, “Those people from Asia… those are other people, not us. We were always here.” He said his elders never spoke of anything related to crossing from Asia, and added that it didn’t even make any sense to believe that about our ancestors.

THE ENCOMIENDA SYSTEM AS A FORM OF LEGALIZED ENSLAVEMENT

Around the 1500s was when the Spanish invasion took place. They arrived in what is now known as Durango, Chihuahua, and Nayarit, and immediately realized the beauty and wealth of those lands, furthering their insatiable greed.

Their agenda was to enrich themselves by extorting minerals through the use of free labor from the people the land originally belonged to.

The Spanish colonizers used religion as a disguise to appear like they had good intentions, when in actuality, they used it as a weapon for psychological warfare to slowly erode the sovereignty of the Tepehuan. To say that the colonizers came to “civilize” them is historical gaslighting at its finest. They implemented a brutal system, known as the encomienda system, that scarred the spirits of Indigenous nations.

The encomienda system was a colonial tool used for economic exploitation and spiritual control. It allowed the Spanish settlers (referred to as the “encomenderos”) to receive so-called land grants where they basically seized land and became the overseers of a group of Tepehuan people, claiming that the Spanish settlers were commanded to “protect” and “instruct” them, in exchange for their free labor and obedience. Religion was weaponized heavily against them, and we know for a fact that those Spanish colonizers abused their power as they used uncivilized acts to “civilize” them.

They tried to make the encomienda system sound so good on paper, but in reality, it was legalized enslavement and justified cruelty.
The Tepehuan, along with many other Indigenous nations, were forced to work in mines where they were subjected to harsh conditions, build roads, harvest the colonizer’s crops, and serve the very people who oppressed them. They were beaten, starved, raped, relocated, displaced, worked to death, and spiritually stripped all under the guise of “doing a good ol’ Christian duty” by “converting them to Catholicism” in order to “civilize” them.”

What began as a religious justification quickly became a racial caste system where the Indigenous people were considered inherently inferior and in need of European guidance. And that is the lie that justified the exploitation and dehumanization of the Tepehuan people among many others who have suffered the same way.

Unlike the Aztecs and Inca centralized empires, the Tepehuan lived in smaller, decentralized communities scattered across the rugged terrain of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains. This enabled them to thrive in isolation where their autonomy made them harder to dominate since there was no single figurehead to target and overthrow. However, their dispersed location did have some disadvantages. It left them more vulnerable to “divide and conquer” tactics which included manipulative alliances, missionary coercion, and military pressure.

Spanish settlers placed Tepehuan communities under the surveillance of missionary-run estates and royal encomiendas. This caused families to be separated and moved into colonial settlements (known as “reducciones”) where they could be monitored and controlled. Children were taken away from their parents and forced to be raised under Catholic indoctrination. Women were used as domestic servants or concubines for the Spanish elite.

Men were forced to work in the mines where they were often deep underground for weeks at a time. Reading about this reminded me of when mi ‘Apa told me that he’d worked the mines in those same lands ever since he was about seven years old. This had to be around the late 1970s. So even though the encomienda system had long been abolished, its legacy still echoes as it continues to exploit impoverished children, especially those of Indigenous descent, whose lives were treated as expendable labor.

In Mexico, slavery was abolished in 1829 by President Vicente Guerrero. However, indentured servitude, debt slavery, and forced labor systems continued well into the late 19th and even 20th centuries under different names and hidden in different disguises. By then, they’ve grown so accustomed to being under this system that they accepted it as a reality “Ay que siempre trabajar” (you have to always work) only to end up with “nada.”

THE TOLL OF FORCED LABOR

The Spanish encomienda system was also biologically deadly as it brought forth waves of diseases like smallpox, measles, and influenza to spread throughout. In addition to malnutrition and chronic fatigue that destroyed immune systems, causing infant mortality rates to skyrocket as mothers were overworked and underfed. The Tepehuan were worked to death. Mass suicides were reported as the elders chose death over cultural extinction, causing sacred knowledge to nearly be lost, but not entirely “porque la sangre llama,” so nothing could ever be lost.
The Tepehuan population in some areas dropped by over 80-90% within the first century of Spanish colonization. Entire family lines vanished, but the Tepehuan did not remain silent. Eventually, they rose up against the colonial powers.

THE TEPEHUAN REVOLT OF 1616: A SACRED RESISTANCE

After decades of abuse, the Tepehuan of southern Durango launched one of the most significant Indigenous uprisings in colonial Mexico in 1616. After years of forced conversion to Catholicism, epidemic diseases brought by the Spanish, land usurpation, resource extraction, and brutal labor exploitation, they decided they’ve had enough. The uprising spread rapidly like wildfire all across Durango, killing Spanish soldiers, missionaries, and settlers. They burned missions, killed colonial officials, and attempted to reclaim their lands and dignity.
To understand that moment is to understand that faith and freedom are not mutually exclusive, especially when religion has been weaponized against you for the sole purpose of oppressing and robbing from you.

Even though the Tepehuan Revolt was suppressed with brutal force, causing thousands of casualties, it marked a pivotal moment in Mexican history. It exposed the cost of colonization and the strength of Indigenous resistance and how it is rooted in spirituality and identity. That is why the colonizers worked diligently to sever the unity among the people.

The revolt was not just political, but it was also spiritual. It was sparked by divine dreams and guided by the wisdom of their spiritual leaders, most notably Quatlatas, who urged them to reclaim their identity and kick out the colonizers.

QUATLATAS: THE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTIONARY THEY FEARED

Quatlatas was a Tepehuan shaman and spiritual revolutionary leader who defended Indigenous sovereignty, making him a threat to the colonial powers who sought to dominate Mexico.

He was also a living symbol of resistance against the psychological and spiritual conquest of the Tepehuan people. He understood the deep psychological warfare embedded in colonization, and he saw through the manipulative tactics used to enslave the mind.

Through his divine dreams and visions, he sought to restore the identity and dignity of his people who were being spiritually broken.
However, most surviving historical accounts of Quatlatas were written through a colonized lens where he was demonized and painted in a negative light. They basically labeled him a “sorcerer” and “devil worshipper,” not because he was evil, but because he was powerful. And he had the power to awaken his people and restore the land to its rightful owners.

How could Quatlatas be evil when his visions were not only accurate, but his overall purpose was to free his people?

He served a noble cause. He foresaw what the colonizers planned to do which was enslavement, oppression, erasure, and resource extraction. He literally prevented a genocide.

They say he “incited violence,” but what they’re really saying is that he dared to defend his nation. Wasn’t it the colonizers who started that violence in the first place? With the brutality, rape, enslavement, and destruction all in the name of greed?

Quatlatas wasn’t inciting violence, he was resisting it.

His role in the 1616 Tepehuan Revolt was not the beginning of violence, it was a response to decades of it. To call this revolt unjust is to ignore the reality of what the Tepehuan faced which was the theft of sacred land, forced conversions, cultural annihilation, and being worked to death in the mines that lined Spanish pockets with silver that was stained in Tepehuan blood.

The colonizers couldn’t allow someone like Quatlatas to live, not because he was a “sorcerer,” but because he was spiritually gifted and courageous. They needed to destroy him and his story, so they painted him as dangerous, heretical, and irrational. Let me guess, they called him “crazy” too, right?

But you know what wicked leaders always do when someone exposes them?

They burn the records, destroy the temples, kill the leaders, and then rewrite the history to make themselves look righteous, making their acts of atrocities appear justifiable by destroying all the evidence that would prove otherwise.

When Quatlatas called the Catholic God “false,” he wasn’t rejecting the Creator. He was rejecting the colonial God, which is a false god, the weaponized version used to enslave minds.

He was rejecting the idea that his people needed spiritual permission from their oppressors to speak to the Creator. That’s not blasphemy. That’s freedom.

What is blasphemy is how the Spanish colonizers used religion against them, and cherry-picked scriptures to justify their evil acts against the Tepehuan just like they’ve been doing to so many other people.

In actuality, we can have a direct connection to God by spiritual bond not bound by religion, especially not the type of religion that’s been distorted to keep you subjugated.

They called his intuitive visions “witchcraft” with no proof, only fear. What they truly feared was his clarity, his accuracy, and his ability to see right through them. His visions were too real, too unsettling for their lies to survive. If he was truly practicing “witchcraft,” wouldn’t it make sense for them to preserve any evidence of such? Yet instead, they erased their tribal records and suppressed their identity. How does that make any sense?

Colonizers exhibit the traits of religious narcissists because they slander the seers and anyone spiritually gifted who can expose them, labeling them a “witch,” but it was never about magic, it was about power and influence. Visionaries like Quatlatas held a power they could never control which was the truth.

The truth is, Quatlatas was ahead of his time, he saw what was coming before it happened, and he tried to stop it. That’s why they eliminated him, and slandered his name to justify his execution. And it is for that reason that we must remember him.

You don’t have to agree with me, but this is a pattern that has been going on and on with various nations and people. Ask yourself this: Since when has a colonizer ever told the truth about the people they enslaved, oppressed, and stole from?

I’ll wait…

COLONIAL ERASURE & IDENTITY SUPPRESSION

After the revolt, the Spanish colonial authorities created a system to erase Tepehuan identity because they recognized the profound spiritual power behind their strong sense of unity and resilience. It all stemmed from their identity. In order to conquer them fully, they had to find a way to neutralize them by severing the root of their power until they can ultimately break them down.

This same system was implemented across the Americas among certain Indigenous groups whose identities have been erased, and made to believe they’re outsiders in their own ancestral lands.

The Spanish colonizers also relocated communities into mission towns, banned ceremonial practices, forcibly removed children from their families, mistranslated oral histories, and erased tribal names. Many Tepehuan ended up adopting the Spanish language, names, and Catholic customs for survival, though in private, some kept their ancestral practices in secret and their identity in mind.

Many Tepehuan people were racially reclassified during colonization, and it was not based on lineage or bloodline. It was based on how colonizers chose to perceive and categorize them. This system of reclassification was not unique to the Tepehuan. Many Indigenous people were forced into boxes like “Indio,” “Negro,” or “Mestizo.”

THE LASTING IMPACTS OF COLONIZATION

Over time, many descendants were disconnected from their ancestral roots, and were often made to feel they were no longer “Indigenous enough” to claim them. This fragmentation didn’t happen by accident. It’s part of a wider pattern of cultural genocide.

To this day, many Tepehuan descendants suffer from land dispossession, poverty, marginalization, and generational trauma. The colonial policies that enforced “mestizaje” (meaning “race-mixing”) have blurred Indigenous identities, making it difficult to trace their roots openly and safely.
Colonial caste systems like the “Sistema de Castas” were methods of classification and control, ensuring Spanish domination. These color-based hierarchies reduced entire bloodlines and tribal nations to racial labels determined by appearance, not culture, not lineage, not kinship, or ancestry.

It deliberately confused bloodlines and used outer appearance and phenotype over kinship and genealogy, fracturing Indigenous identities to break down unity.
The encomienda system of enslavement attempted to strip the Tepehuan of everything but yet they survived.
Their purpose was to erase Indigenous identity and sovereignty, impose foreign control, and justify land theft through forced assimilation and hiding the truth, but there is an awakening going on.

A spiritual revolution.

To know the Tepehuan is to know that Indigenous Mexico is far more diverse than the Aztec or Maya alone. To understand Mexico and all of the Americas, we have to call out the systems that stole lives, identities, lands, and languages.

Despite centuries of colonization, the Tepehuan people are still alive; them, along with their descendants who may or may not still live in those lands.

The blood of the Tepehuan still runs in the veins of those who remember, including my own, despite being mixed and despite being one of the first generations to grow up in an urban environment in the so-called “Divided” States of America. I will always honor my father’s lineage.
“La sangre siempre llama, no importa la distancia,” meaning the blood is always calling, no matter the distance. That is the power of our DNA when we awaken, and it is something no one can take away.

“Gloria a Yahawa que nos trae el agua.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

There are historical accounts of the Tepehuan, but keep in mind that many were written through a colonial lens by missionaries, settlers, or institutions that often misrepresented and misunderstood Indigenous people. Remember the reasons behind why they had to control the way history would be written, so for those who want to do further research are encouraged to do so by thinking critically and reading between the lines. The following sources are considered some of the closest to offering a decolonized perspective.

Burkhart, L. M. (1989). The slippery earth: Nahua-Christian moral dialogue in sixteenth-century Mexico. University of Arizona Press.

Deloria Jr., V. (1995). Red earth, white lies: Native Americans and the myth of scientific fact. Fulcrum Publishing.

Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous peoples’ history of the United States. Beacon Press.

Smith, A. (2005). Conquest: Sexual violence and American Indian genocide. South End Press.

Tinker, G. E. (2004). Spirit and resistance: Political theology and American Indian liberation. Fortress Press.

Trask, H.-K. (1999). From a native daughter: Colonialism and sovereignty in Hawai’i (Rev. ed.). University of Hawai‘i Press.

Bennett, M. R., Bustos, D., Pigati, J. S., Springer, K. B., Urban, T. M., Berryman, A., … & Reynolds, A. C. (2021). Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum. Science, 373(6562), 1528–1531. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg7586

Nakatsuka, N., Lazaridis, I., Barajas-Olmos, F., Ávila-Arcos, M. C., Rasmussen, S., White, S., … & Reich, D. (2020). A paleogenomic reconstruction of the deep population history of the Andes. Cell, 181(5), 1131–1145.e21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.015

Cajete, G. (1994). Look to the mountain: An ecology of Indigenous education. Kivaki Press.

Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). Zed Books.

Alfred, T. (2005). Wasáse: Indigenous pathways of action and freedom. Broadview Press.

Matthew, L. E., & Oudijk, M. R. (Eds.). (2007). Indian conquistadors: Indigenous allies in the conquest of Mesoamerica. University of Oklahoma Press.

Chance, J. K. (2000). Race and class in colonial Oaxaca. Stanford University Press.