Raya Band of ChichimeKah Nomenclature
Whether we stay in place all year long, constantly roam the land, or some combination of the two, one thing is for certain– humans have always moved together.
When Europeans made their first expeditions through our lands and witnessed our peoples, they noted every gradient on the sedentary/nomadic spectrum. Through their Eurocentric lenses, they placed us into various categories to describe what they were seeing when they looked at us. Some of these terms have stuck, and we use them even today despite what our ancestors may have called themselves.
Tribe, clan, band, and nation
These categories don’t seem to have consistent usages– they vary, sometimes greatly, depending on the people using them. However, there are some general themes that these terms seem to follow.
Generally speaking, a tribe is defined as a large conglomeration of clans or bands sharing cultural traits such as language. These people may or may not have strongly identified themselves with one another prior to European contact. A nation, another popular term, is often a highly political one, describing a tribe or group of tribes’ government and legal territory.
Within these broader classifications, there are various smaller ones– namely “band” and “clan”. They seem to be used in similar ways, but with a slight difference. For instance, within a nation, you might have many tribes, and within a tribe you might have many clans and/or bands. Both denominations refer to a family or otherwise associated group that is smaller than the greater tribe it belongs to. However, the word clan applies more often to sedentary groups, while band is often used to describe nomadic or semi-nomadic groups.
If we apply these European words to Mexican native groups in the pre-hispanic context, In Excan Tlatoyolan (Triple alliance) could be considered a nation, the altepetl (city-state) of tenochtitlan might be considered a tribe, and the calpollis (barrios) therein might be considered clans.
Certain merchant classes of Mexicas might fit into the band category, but the chichimacah of the northern badlands, our ancestors, were known famously throughout the region and beyond as traveling hunters, gatherers, merchants - and therefore were considered bands. Aridoamerica was vividly alive with many known and forgotten bands and tribes of people marked by our movement across our desert landscapes.
Rayados, Borrados, Indios Barbaros - are examples of what Spaniards called us for our tattooed and painted bodies. We reclaim the term Rayados, Raya, as the single stripe descendants of the ancient Chichimeca who have long roamed these lands. We keep alive the practice of marking our bodies. We use the term “band” because we all hail from slightly different peoples who all spoke similar languages, practiced similar lifeways across the region of Aridoamerica, and traveled these terrains extensively with the seasons. Just as our relatives had banded together before, we band together now.