10/12/2026
On this Indigenous Peoples' Day, we'd like to highlight the "Yaqui Mural" project, on view at the city's Vista Del Camino Community Center, which is located just north of New Penjamo, a small neighborhood that is also a contemporary Pascua Yaqui community in Scottsdale.
Organized by Pascua Yaqui tribal member and professional artist Mario Martinez, the mural project includes multiple artworks at the community center, including the first image here, which depicts the Yaqui Talking Tree, part of the tribe's creation story.
The second image, at the top of the second slide, is the main section of the mural and is divided into three sections. On the left, a map shows the path of the Yaqui people, who came out of Mexico to settle in Arizona more than a century ago, while the crosses in the foreground represent the ancestors who fought Mexican forces to retain their original homelands. The middle section is devoted to the Yaqui workers in Arizona, who were integral to the Valley’s economic, social, and cultural development in the 20th Century. And the image on the right depicts three Scottsdale Yaqui villages over the years, with the oldest at the bottom.
The final image, at the bottom of the second slide, shows the Yaqui Deer Dancer at the center with a Yaqui Pascola Dancer to his right. The figures represent traditional Yaqui culture and religion prior to Christianity, while the church on the left side of the image represents the introduction of Catholicism via Jesuits in the early 1600s.
Learn more about these artworks and others in the Scottsdale Public Art Permanent Collection here: https://sarts.co/4oX2pv4
