Running in Tarahumara (Rarámuri) Culture: Persistence Hunting, Footracing, Dancing, Work, and the Fallacy of the Athletic Savage

1. What they did

The Tarahumara, who call themselves Rarámuri, are a Native American people from the mountains of northwestern Mexico, famous for running very long distances. Many accounts of their running are exaggerated, and some rest on what the authors call the “fallacy of the athletic savage”: the old stereotype that “primitive” people are naturally athletic and do not feel pain or tiredness like others.

To place Tarahumara running in its real social and practical setting, the authors:

• Interviewed elders. Two of the authors, Mickey Mahaffey (who has lived in Tarahumara communities for 20 years) and Silvino Cubesare Quimare (a Tarahumara farmer, ultramarathon runner and footrace champion), interviewed 10 Tarahumara men aged 50 to 90 in 2015 and 2016. All had taken part in footraces and persistence hunts. The 61 questions were drawn up with help from Louis Liebenberg, an expert on persistence hunting and tracking. Interviews were in Rarámuri, recorded, and translated into English.
• Added their own observations. The authors have organized, run in and watched many races, and measured running speeds with Global Positioning System (GPS) devices.
• Drew on published ethnographies of Tarahumara hunting, racing, dancing and daily life.

The article was published with comments from seven scholars and a reply from the authors.

2. What they found

Persistence hunting

• Eight of the 10 men had taken part in persistence hunts when young, without dogs or bows and arrows. None had hunted this way after 1980; the last hunt they knew of was in 2011 near Huisuchi. Persistence hunting has all but disappeared since rifles, mining and logging arrived and wildlife declined.
• Hunts started by searching for tracks where animals drink and forage. Once fresh tracks were found, the chase began.
• Two main strategies: corralling, in which runners along the bottom and sides of a ravine drove a deer onto hidden, sharpened wooden stakes (or into a river or cave); and running the deer to exhaustion, after which it could be killed with rocks or clubs.
• Hunts were done in groups of 3 to 15 people. One experienced hunter said the best was at least nine runners: three in the ravine bottom and three on each side.
• Hunts usually lasted 2 to 6 hours, sometimes 2 to 3 days. On long hunts the men ran until it was too dark to see tracks, rested, and picked up the tracks again next day.
• Running was at a moderate, steady pace (about 9.6 km per hour, a gentle jog), faster when tracks were clear and slower when looking for them. Hunters walked often, especially when they lost the tracks.
• Most consultants reported few or no failed hunts. When a deer escaped to unreachable ground, hunters said “It was not the deer’s time to die.”
• Opinions differed on the best season: one preferred hot, dry months when deer tire quickly and there is less underbrush; another preferred winter and the rains, when tracks are easy to see in wet ground.

Tracking

• Hunters called tracking just as important as running, and their greatest challenge. They spoke of great respect for deer: “The deer is very smart and knows how to confuse humans,” for example by reversing direction or stepping in the same tracks.
• Hunters said they could read speed and tiredness from tracks. When a deer tires, its tracks become smaller because it walks on the tips of its hooves or the hooves have worn down. The spacing and depth of tracks show whether it is walking or running, strong or tired. Near the end of a hunt they looked for blood in the tracks.
• They said the deer’s path was impossible to predict, so hunting needed not just tracks but the skill to interpret them. They had learned this as boys from their fathers and other elders.
• Hunts were social and enjoyed. Meat fed families and community festivals; skins and antlers were used for drums, clothing, tools and dance headdresses.

Footraces

• In men’s races (rarajípare), teams of about 5 to 10 runners kick a wooden ball along laps of about 5 km. Shorter races were about 25 to 30 km; the longest may have reached about 150 km, running through the night. Women’s races (ariwete), with a hoop flicked by sticks, were 25 to 45 km.
• The runners must track the dusty ball along the course. Whole communities join in, carry torches, bet, and care for runners. Before races, teams dance yúmari; races are seen as a powerful form of prayer.
• Some consultants said that in the past runners did not know until the night before whether they had been called for a race or a hunt.

Daily life

• None of the consultants said they had ever trained to run. Most Tarahumara are hard-working farmers who walk long distances in steep country, often carrying loads of up to 40 kg; the elders said they still walk about 50 km a week.
• Dancing is the most common non-work physical activity, with dances of 12 to 24 hours or more.
• Only a few Tarahumara run long distances, and even the best suffer exhaustion, cramps and injuries.

3. What they concluded

• Tarahumara running is one of the last remnants of a widespread Native American running tradition, with practical, social and spiritual roles.
• Their running is probably rooted in persistence hunting. Footraces may once have helped train men for hunting: the authors suggest that tracking the dusty ball during a race may teach runners to track footprints and other spoor while running.
• The Tarahumara are not great runners because of special “aboriginal” talents or unique biology, but because of hard work, active lives, determination, and the spiritual and social value they give to endurance running. Not all Tarahumara are great runners.
• Persistence hunting does not always rely on driving animals to heatstroke: hunters also drive animals into traps or toward other hunters, but all methods combine running and tracking.
• In reply to the commentators, the authors agree the 10 men are a tiny modern sample that cannot represent an ancient culture, and that studies of women runners are long overdue.

4. How tracking was or was not used

Tracking was a subject of the interviews, not a method of the study. The elders described finding fresh deer tracks at drinking and feeding places, following them on the run, reading tiredness from track size, spacing and depth and from worn hooves, looking for blood in the tracks, and picking up tracks again after a night’s rest. They described the deer’s path as impossible to predict.

In his commentary, Louis Liebenberg distinguishes systematic tracking (following tracks step by step) from speculative tracking (predicting where the animal is going). He suggests that rocky canyon country and the hunters’ remarks about the deer’s cleverness point to speculative tracking too, and that answers to the tracking questions may have been lost in translation or forgotten. The authors reply that they lack the information to test this, but agree both kinds are probably important. Jerome Levi’s commentary describes a two-day hunt in the mid-1980s in which Rarámuri men followed fresh deer tracks, lost them, and picked up the spoor again the next day.

5. Tracker or observer certification

Reported but not validated. The hunters learned tracking from their fathers and elders, and one is described as very experienced, but their tracking skill was not tested. Co-author Silvino Cubesare Quimare took part in persistence hunts with his father as a young boy.

6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

• GPS devices used to measure average running speed during runs with Tarahumara runners.
• A 61-question interview guide (published as an online appendix), drawn up with Louis Liebenberg from his work with Kalahari hunter-gatherers.
• Interviews conducted in the Rarámuri language by a Tarahumara co-author.

7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

• There is an urgent need to document Tarahumara running traditions before they are lost. The region is changing fast through roads, tourism, logging, drug trafficking and migration to cities, and wildlife has declined rapidly since rifles, mining and logging became common.
• Tarahumara runners have been exploited to market products and coerced by narcotics gangs to carry drugs. The authors and commentators call for respect for the people behind the stories.