Cahita

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A member of an Indigenous people of the Sinaloa and Sonora region of northwestern Mexico ; the Uto-Aztecan language spoken by that people
2. An Indigenous group living in the lowlands of northwestern Mexico along the Sinaloa and Sonora coasts ; a Uto-Aztecan tongue historically spoken by these communities
3. One of the native peoples of northwestern Mexico, known for their farming along river valleys ; the Uto-Aztecan language that was once used among these peoples

Etymology: Speakers of Cahita languages are distant linguistic relatives of the Nahuatl speakers of central Mexico, a connection that is easy to miss given how far apart they lived. Both belong to the Uto-Aztecan family, which stretches from the Great Basin in the United States down into Mexico. The Cahita languages, including Yaqui and Mayo, were spoken along the Pacific coast and river valleys of Sonora and Sinaloa in northwestern Mexico. The name is a collective label used for several related peoples, and it was applied from outside rather than chosen by the groups themselves. The origin of the name is uncertain. Accounts that tie it to a single local word are not well supported, so the safest statement is simply that the term describes a shared language family rather than a single tribe.