Yaqui regard song as a kind of lingua franca of the intelligent universe. It is through song that experience with other living things is made intelligible and accessible to the human community. Deer songs often take the form of dialogues in which the deer and others in the wilderness world speak with one another or with the deer singers themselves. It is in this way, according to one deer singer, that “the wilderness world listens to itself even today.”

FELIPE S. MOLINA grew up in the Yaqui settlement near Marana, Arizona, which is now called Yoem Pueblo. He credits his grandmother, Anselma Angwis Tonopuamea, and his grandfather, Rosario Bacaneri Castillo, who was a famous pahkola, with educating him in the Yaqui language and ways. He has served as governor of Yoem Pueblo, as a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Council, and is at this writing a member of the Pascua Yaqui Language Policy Commission. He is godfather to many Yaqui children and an active deer singer.