1 Lumholtz apparently did not directly observe Tarahumara hunts, but he reported that the Tarahumara hunt deer and other animals by running them down over long distances. He describes Tarahumara individuals who can run 170 miles without stopping, others who carry more than 100 pounds for 100 miles in 70 hours, and one who ran 600 miles in five days. Lumholtz’s characterization of the Tarahumara is generally careful, but his description of their endurance capabilities sometimes verges on hyperbole. The most influential of these early reports was the monograph Unknown Mexico ( 1905) by the Norwegian explorer Carl Lumholtz. Most of these accounts convey a similar sense of astonishment and sometimes incredulity. There is no evidence that Schwatka observed any Tarahumara running events, but he noted briefly that the Tarahumara hunted deer by running them down, and he marveled at accounts of their ability to run footraces as long as 90 miles in 11 hours 20 minutes, faster than would be possible for a horse.Įver since Schwatka, visitors to the Sierra Tarahumara have recorded additional and sometimes divergent details about Tarahumara running. Schwatka, who by his own account did not have extensive contact with the Tarahumara and considered them “savages,” reported that Tarahumara “foot runners” had phenomenal endurance and were employed as couriers, capable of traveling great distances up and down the canyons much faster than could be traveled by mule. The first European to write a popular account of Tarahumara running was Frederick Schwatka, who described his travels through the Sierra Tarahumara in his book In the Land of Cave and Cliff Dwellers ( 1893). Tarahumara running has been deservedly famous for over a century to anthropologists and others interested in Native American culture, and their ability and propensity to run long distances received additional worldwide attention from the 2009 book Born to Run (McDougall 2009). The Tarahumara (who call themselves Rarámuri) are a Native American people from the Sierra Madre Occidental of northwestern Mexico, also known as the Sierra Tarahumara. Although the Tarahumara do not train to run in any traditional Western sense, and not all of them are great runners, the Tarahumara, like many Native American peoples, consider running, along with other endurance-based activities, to be important social and spiritual pursuits. Long-distance running is also related to endurance dances that have important spiritual dimensions. Running during hunting, moreover, is linked to men’s and women’s footraces, and both kinds of running are considered powerful forms of prayer. We detail how running played an integral role in persistence hunting, in which groups of hunters employed a variety of methods to chase animals on foot. Some characterizations of Tarahumara running are also based on stereotypical views of athleticism among non-Western peoples, here labeled the “fallacy of the athletic savage.” To place Tarahumara running more appropriately into its larger social and functional contexts, we combined our own observations and ethnographic evidence with interviews of 10 elderly Tarahumara runners about running during hunting as well as during footraces. The Tarahumara (Rarámuri) are a Native American people from Chihuahua, Mexico, who have long been famous for running, but there is widespread incredulity about how and why they run such long distances. Aaron Baggish is Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Cardiovascular Performance Program, Massachusetts General Hospital (55 Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA). Ian Wallace is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico (502 West Redondo Drive, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA).
Nicholas Holowka is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo (380 Fillmore Academic Center, Ellicott Complex, North Campus, Buffalo, New York 14261, USA).
Silvino Cubesare Quimare is a Tarahumara farmer and runner who lives in Huisuchi and Guachochi, México (Calle Concido, Guachochi, Chihuahua, Mexico 67243). Mickey Mahaffey is a farmer and project coordinator for various support programs for Tarahumara (23 Lake Drive F1, Hendersonville, North Carolina 28739, USA). Daniel Lieberman is a Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University (11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA ]).