Yoreme

The Yoreme, known as the Mayo, meaning people of the river bank, were an Indigenous people of the valleys between the Mayo River in southern Sonora and the Fuerte River in northern Sinaloa. They farmed and fished, and their language belongs to the Cahita branch of the Uto-Aztecan family and is close to Yaqui.

The Yoreme defended their country in a loose network with the Yaqui, Pima and other neighbours. Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán's raid of 1531 opened the wars of conquest, but they held out until 1599, when the captain Diego Martínez de Hurdaide defeated them and Jesuits led by Pedro Méndez began their evangelization.

In 1740 they joined the Yaqui rising led by Juan Calixto. After its suppression nearly a century of enforced peace and assimilation followed, during which Catholic feast cycles such as the full observance of Lent were woven into Yoreme life.