A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY

The Sierra Tarahumara of Northern México is named for the people who have lived there for centuries. The Tarahumara to outsiders. In their own language they are the Rarámuri, or foot runners.

The largest indigenous group North of México City with the exception of the Navajo, they are also the least affected by the outside world. Perhaps because they can run so fast, so tirelessly far. For centuries they have run from countless invaders, religious and otherwise, who would alter their culture, tame their wildness, sanitize their ancient and uncommon view of the world they live in. A view so well suited to the powerful physical presence of their home, Las Barrancas del Cobre, the Copper Canyon.

Here, three rivers have cut four main gorges or barrancas, to create a system of 20 interconnecting canyons of immense proportions that are in places more than 6,000 feet deep. At least five canyons are longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Within this mystical landscape live the Tarahumara, growing their corn and beans and squash while herding their goats in the sierra from April to October. Many, still nomadic, winter in the warmth and lushness of the barrancas below. Living much as their ancestors in modified caves and simple stone and rough-hewn timber dwellings they share parts of the sierra with Mestizo farming families, weathering decade long droughts without electricity or running water.

To be in the Sierra Tarahumara is to walk back in time, to witness an ancient culture still surviving within an overwhelming and unparalleled landscape, in places bountiful and mothering and in places harsh and threatened by forces from within and without. On numerous expeditions, with the insightful guidance and support of Sierra Tarahumara guide Santiago James Barnaby, I have traveled by foot, horseback, and pick-up when feasible, to explore and photograph the many layered world that exists here. I have come to love and respect the Tarahumara and Mestizo people who accept and embrace their world of few material rewards and cling to a life rich in tradition, family and sharing. On countless occasions I have been treated with kindness and generosity by those who have very little and owe me nothing.

It has been a rare gift to be within this holy place and I am eternally grateful for the privilege of photographing these inspiring people and their precious homeland.  Change, though not always for the better, is inevitable and the Sierra Tarahumara is not immune. So it is my hope that these images will convey some impression of this fragile world and possibly help to preserve in time the magic I have witnessed here. This magic inhabits every soul, every rock, every shadow of this enchanted, timeless place.