[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 166 (Friday, October 5, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1366]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





     CONGRATULATING THE PASCUA YAQUI TRIBE ON ITS 40TH ANNIVERSARY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 5, 2018

  Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Pascua 
Yaqui Tribe on its 40th year anniversary of being federally-recognized.
  The Pascua Yaqui tribe descended from the Uto-Aztecan people, who 
occupied a large area of the Southwest regions and west coast of 
Mexico. Yaqui culture and spirituality are important elements to the 
tribe. The Pascua Yaqui tribe is best known for the deer dancer and 
Pascola, along other cultural ceremonies and Yaqui symbols such as 
``Our Father Sun;'' the Tribe has successfully preserved its cultural 
relations through valued oral lore throughout the years. Today, the 
tribe has communities spanning across Southern Arizona surrounded by 
richly vegetated and scenic desert lands.
  The Pascua Yaqui Tribe provides unique insight that adds diverse 
cultural heritage to Arizona's desert community. The tribe is well-
known for its design and manufacture ceremonial paraphernalia such as 
artistic Baskets, reed crowns, wood mask carving, rattles, stuffed-deer 
heads, and notable arts unique to the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. At present, 
there are about one hundred hamlets and villages within the Yaqui 
territory, assigned for political, religious, and ritual purposes. The 
linguistic classification of the Tribe is a surviving language derived 
from the Cahita ethnicity, one that the Yaqui and Mayo people still 
preserve. The Yaqui were, and part still remain, settled 
agriculturists, depending on summer rainfall due to the desert 
lowlands.
  Mr. Speaker, please join me and all of Arizona's Third Congressional 
District in expressing our sincerest congratulations to the Pascua 
Yaqui Tribe on their 40th anniversary as a Federally-recognized tribe. 
I am grateful for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe's dedication to their culture 
and representation of the Southwest Native American roots.

                          ____________________