TARUMARI, tii!roo-mii're, or TARAIIITMART. A numerous tribe of Piman stock (q.v.) occupy ing the Sierra Madre region of Central and Southern Chihuahua, and extending into the ad jacent seetions of Sonora and Sinaloa, Mexico. No reliable statement of their number can be given, but they are variously estimated at from 50,000 to 100,000. On account of the broken character of the country which they inhabit, there is no central organization, each little valley settlement managing its own affairs under a local chief or 'governor.' The language is spoken in several dialects and the people gen erally are classed by the .Mexicans as Christians in the north and 'gentiles' or heathen in the south. Although peaceful and unwarlike in character, the Tarumari have several times revolted against the Spaniards and the Mexicans. In 1648 they rose up and destroyed all the missions, drove every Spaniard out of their territory, and main tained a successful resistance for four years un der their chief Teporaca. In 1690 they again re belled, destroyed the missions, mines, and haci endas, and massacred all the Spaniards, but were finally subjugated in 1692. A local insurrection
in the neighborhood of Temosachic, northwest of Chihuahua City, in 1895, led by a native prophet ess, was suppressed only after a. bloody massacre by Mexican troops.
Physically, the Tarumari are very dark and rather undersized, resembling the Pueblo In dians, and, like them, they are of remarkable strength and endurance. They are fond of music and singing, make pottery and weave elaborate girdles of native cotton, although the men or dinarily go naked except for a cloth about the loins. They are sedentary and semi-agricultural, but depend largely also upon hunting, fishing, and wild products. Much attention is given to the corn crop, nearly all their ceremoni al dances being more or less invocations or thanksgiving for rain. They have a feast of the dead a year after the funeral, and are devoted to the peyote rite, going hundreds of miles on foot to procure supplies of the cactus. Their houses are small thatched huts of logs or stones laid in clay mortar, and they frequently utilize the mountain eaves for dwelling purposes.