Ranchería

In one of the rancherías was met a native of Cíbola, who gave mucli information about its seven towns, Ahacus being the largest—exaggerated though in a sense tolerably accurate descriptions of the since well-known Pueblo towns.

Houses were scattered as much as a half mile apart, and the group occupying the scattered houses often shifted from one ranchería location to another in the course of the year. The ranchería peoples were all agriculturalists and for them farming was a major activity.

La Pérouse [i.e., Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse] thought warfare so dominant that it constrained Indian movement, stating of one ranchería “as their people are at war with their neighbors, they can never travel further than twenty or thirty leagues.”

The Wayúu live spread out, their rancherías passed down matrilineally.

Tijuana is the city of my true heritage: Both my parents are from here, and my grandparents emigrated from other regions of Baja and northern Mexico to help populate the ranchería that was barely even a stop on the road when it was founded about 150 years ago.