Tepehuán people

The Tepehuán, Tepeguán, O'dam, Audam, or Ódami Indians (Tepehuanes or Tepehuanos, from Nahuatl meaning “Mountain Dwellers” or "Mountain People", "tepe" coming from tepetl meaning "mountains" and "huan" coming from nemohuayan meaning "dwelling" or from macehualtin meaning "people", in Nahuatl Tepehuán is spelled Tēpēhuanih, Tepēhuāntin, Tepehuatecah, and/or Tepēhuahcān)(or as they refer to themselves as O'dam, Audam, and Ódami meaning "We The People" or "People of This Land" in their native languages Northern Tepehuan, Southeastern Tepehuan, Southwestern Tepehuan) are Indigenous Mexicans of Northwestern, Western, and some parts of North-Central Mexico whose villages at the time of Spanish conquest spanned a large territory along the Sierra Madre Occidental. The heart of the Tepehuan Nation is in the Valley of Guadiana (Durango). The Tepehuanes live in Ranchería in present-day Mexico. The Tepehuan Indians have the largest territory in Aridoamerica. They originated in the state of Durango, but their territory grew to south of Chihuahua, east of Sinaloa, and north of Jalisco, Nayarit, and Zacatecas. Ódami (Northern Tepehuán), Audam (Southwestern Tepehuán), and O'dam (Southeastern Tepehuán), each with their own language, culture, and beliefs. The southern Tepehuán community included an isolated settlement (Azqueltán) in the middle of Huichol territory in the Bolaños River canyon, were historically referred to as Tepecanos. The Tepehuánes have divided into three Nations: