#aph guachichil

[aphmexphil]

Some random rough sketches I did while I was bored. It was originally supposed to be focused on Guachichil and Tlaxcala but I got carried away and added Mex, Phil, and Cuba as children plus my other ocs ^^; The reason I wanted to focus on them was because I was remembering how the colonial government (frustrated at the costly and long running Chichimeca War) tried a new tactic, they hoped that by sending Christianized natives as colonists (most famously the Tlaxcaltecs, but other Nahua and various other indigenous peoples went) they would (in)directly “pacify” them, hoping that the nearby proximity would convince or influence the Guachichiles to convert to Christianity, make them settle down and live as subjects to the crown, and hoped that intermarriage between them (The Tlaxcaltecs in this case) and the Guachichiles would also help speed up the process of “civilizing” and assimilating them. From what I remember: intermarriage between the Tlaxcaltecs and the Guachichiles was uncommon if not rare. Most unions if any were informal. The Tlaxcaltecs did not want to risk losing the privileges associated with their identity, and found the Guachilchiles "primitive" and beneath them. I can imagine that there were also varied issues and tensions that also prevented closer contact between both groups.

(I took these photos a few years ago in front of the Temple of San Francisco in the capital of San Luis Potosí)

(The Church, you can’t really see it because of the trees, but to the left is the mentioned Presbyterian church.)

[aphmexphil]

The Guachichiles (among other spellings) were a *Chichimecan ethnic group who once inhabited large swaths of northern Mexico, including much of modern day San Luis Potosí, and portions of Zacatecas, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. 

Their name comes from the Nahuatl word Quauhchichitl meaning roughly “heads painted red” presumably in reference to their red hair and/or their red feathered headdresses. They were also known to paint their bodies and faces before a battle. Among the Chichimecs, the Spaniards considered them to be the most war-like.

Very little is known with certainty about the Guachichiles as they disappeared as a distinct ethnic group sometime during the colonial period.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much written and what little exists was heavily biased against the Guachichiles, which was used to promote and/or justify military actions against them. Alongside the other Chichimecs, they were considered to be a nuisance and a major obstacle in efforts to colonize the north and open up the lands to large-scale mining, ranching and agriculture. The Guachichiles were one of the many Chichimec groups to participate in the Chichimeca War (1550-1590) and fought fiercely to defend their lands against both the Spaniards and their native allies.

*P.S.: Please note that the Chichimecs were not a singular group, culture or unified territory. Northern Mexico was inhabited by a multitude of various ethnic groups with distinct cultures and languages who had little in common and were often at war with each other.

The term Chichimec was originally used by the Nahua in reference to their own nomadic past before they became sedentary but over time the word came to be used by the Nahua (and later, Spaniards) in much the same way as the Greco-Roman term, “barbarian.” It later stuck to the nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who lived on the northern outskirts of the former Aztec empire whom both the Spaniards and their indigenous allies considered to be savage and primitive.