Description
The Tepehuan are an indigenous people of Mexico. They live in Northwestern, Western, and some parts of North-Central Mexico. The indigenous Tepehuán language has three branches: Northern Tepehuan, Southeastern Tepehuan, Southwestern Tepehuan. The heart of the Tepehuan territory is in the Valley of Guadiana in Durango, but they eventually expanded into southern Chihuahua, eastern Sinaloa, and northern Jalisco, Nayarit, and Zacatecas. According to figures from the last population census of the 37,953 Tepehuanes, 18, 699 speak Spanish in addition to their native language and 3,573 are monolingual.
Language
O'otham
Culture
The habitat of both the Northern and the Southern Tepehuan is rugged and mountainous. The people are agricultural, growing corn (maize) and beans in small plots. The Northern Tepehuan keep a few chickens, turkeys, and goats and add to their diet a good deal of wild food. The Southern Tepehuan herd goats and eat a considerable amount of goat cheese and, occasionally, goat meat. Settlements are usually scattered, towns and villages being little more than governmental centres or mestizo population centres. Houses are stone or adobe for the Southern Tepehuan, log or plank among the Northern Tepehuan. Northern Tepehuan women weave blankets; otherwise, no traditional crafts are practiced.