1711 Manuel Arellano - Rendition of a Chichimeca, a Native of the Province of Parral
In missionary theater, Chichimecs came to stand for Spanish fears and therefore everything the sedentary Central Mexican tribes should reject…Chichimecs were savages, for they appeared to live in “unstructured groups with no means of exchange, no communication (conversacion) with other groups, no identifiable social organization and no material culture.” Chichimecs threatened Spanish expansion at New Spain’s northern frontier. Said to “infest” the roads surrounding Spanish towns and to attack “with inhuman strength,” they moved about “invisibly, like elves (duendes)”, assaulting churches and priests, Spanish settlers, and the “domestic” Indians and blacks who accompanied them to the region. Colonial officials rendered Chichimecs as “barbarous” indians (indios barbaros) and cancerous sores on the body politic. Settlers felt free to enslave Chichimecs long after Indian emancipation.
Laura A Lewis, Hall of Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft, and Caste in Colonial Mexico (Duke University Press 2003)
