Chichimeca

Chichimeca(Spanish  [tʃitʃiˈmeka] ) was the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to many bands and tribes of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who inhabited northern modern-day Mexico. Chichimeca carried the same sense as the Roman term "barbarian" to describe people living outside settled, agricultural areas. The name and its pejorative sense was adopted by the Spanish. For the Spanish, in the words of scholar C******te M. Gradie, "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 no clothes and fiercely resisted foreign intrusion into their territory, which happened to contain silver mines the Spanish wished to exploit."