Although illiteracy rates are high among older people and women especially, there are many highly-educated Purepecha: priests, doctors, nurses, lawyers, linguists and anthropologists. Most children attend at least the first few years of elementary school, of which the first two grades are taught in Purepecha. Many traditional dances, such as the Danza de los Viejitos ("Old-folks' dance", pictured above), are well preserved from precolonial times and are presented at special occasions. There are dozens of Purepecha music tapes and CDs available in the area. Many songs are popular elsewhere in Mexico, for example the song Flor de Canela ("Cinnamon flower"), which is Tsitsiki Urhapiti in Purepecha. Nearly all women wear shawls, but many use western clothing.
Some villages take pride in their distinctive dress, including ornately stitched aprons and blouses. These are marketed in towns and cities, and some even internationally. Nearly all villages specialize in some particular cottage industry: furniture, copper products, guitars, violins, pottery, ceramics, bricks, adobe, wooden utensils, hats, mats, masks, etc. The rainy season is from the end of May to September, and at higher elevations January and February bring frost but rarely snow.Īlmost all villages now have electricity and most have water. Temperate climate, fertile soil and pine forests dominate the area. The elevation of the Tarascan villages varies from 5200 feet (1600 meters) above sea level to over 8200 feet (2500 meters), with Lake Pátzcuaro (Mexico's highest lake) at 7200 feet (2200 meters).
Pride in the language and culture seems to be on the rise, with governmental encouragement. Catholic church services are held in Purepecha in many of the villages occasionally, and regularly in some where the priest is Purepecha himself. Several newspapers publish sections in the language, and at least one periodical is predominately Purepecha. The Purepechas have their own flag, which consists of pink, blue, green and yellow squares with a clenched fist and arrows in the middle, representing the unity of the Purepecha region. The Summer Institute of Linguistics has completed work in one of the two main varieties but continues working in the other. The language has been studied and continues to be studied by both Mexican and foreign linguists. The dialectal differences are relatively recent, though, and the speakers identify all of the variants as being part of the same language.
Speakers take pride in keeping their "native" variety even if they have moved to another part of the region. Speakers can easily identify each other by their speech as to their region, and even their home village. There are two main variants and perhaps a dozen minor variants, the main divider being the lake area vs. It is spoken in the state of Michoacan near Lake Pátzcuaro and the Paricutín volcano. The Purepecha language, previously known as Tarascan, is a language isolate that is not even provisionally linked with any other language.
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