Pame people in the context of Chichimeca Jonaz people

Chichimeca (Spanish: [tʃitʃiˈmeka] ) is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajío region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the same meaning as the Roman term "barbarian" that described Germanic tribes. The name, with its pejorative sense, was adopted by the Spanish Empire. "For the Spanish, the Chichimecas were a wild, nomadic people who lived north of the Valley of Mexico. They had no fixed dwelling places, lived by hunting, wore little clothing and fiercely resisted foreign intrusion into their territory, which happened to contain silver mines the Spanish wished to exploit." Chichimeca was used as a broad and generalizing term by outsiders, writing, "[it] was used by both Spanish and Nahuatl speakers to refer collectively to many different people who exhibited a wide range of cultural development from hunter-gatherers to sedentary agriculturalists with sophisticated political organizations." They practiced animal sacrifice, and they were feared for their expertise and brutality in war.

The Chichimeca War (1550–1590) ended with the Spanish making favorable peace terms with the Chichimeca. Spanish/Chichimeca interaction resulted in a "drastic population decline in population of all the peoples known collectively as Chichimecas, and to their eventual disappearance as peoples of all save the Pames of San Luis Potosí and the related Chichimeca-Jonaz of the Sierra Gorda in eastern Guanajuato." In modern times, only one ethnic group is customarily referred to as Chichimecs, namely the Chichimeca Jonaz, a few thousand of whom live in the state of Guanajuato.

Jalpan de Serra (Spanish: [ˈxalpan de ˈsera] ) is a city in Jalpan de Serra Municipality located in the north of the Mexican state of Querétaro. It is located in the heart of an important ecological zone called the Sierra Gorda. It is also the site two of five Franciscan missions, including the first one, to have been built in the mid-18th century, and declared a World Heritage Site in 2003. The municipality is also home to a small but important indigenous group called the Pame. However, the municipality has been losing population since the mid-20th century even though recent events such as the town being named a Pueblo Mágico have worked to create a tourism industry.

Landa de Matamoros is a town in Landa de Matamoros Municipality located in the northeast of the Mexican state of Querétaro in central Mexico. It is part of the Sierra Gorda region, which consists of rugged mountains, canyons and wide diversity of flora and fauna, with the municipality's flora representing about 25% of all the plant diversity in Mexico. In the pre-Hispanic period, the area was heavily influenced by Huastecas and local cultures, later dominated by the Chichimecas, especially the Pames. Complete Spanish domination came late, in the mid 18th century, but two of the five Franciscan mission complexes built to solidify this domination were built in the municipality. Today, Landa de Matamoros remains rural and impoverished with a high rate of emigration out of the area, especially to the United States. Remittances sent by relatives from there now form most of the municipality's economy.