 Thus, they differed from their neighbors in the deserts to the east, the Chichimeca who were nomadic and semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers.The Tepehuán, Acaxee, and Xixime to their west shared common traits such as 

The Tepehuán suffered a series of devastating epidemics of European-introduced diseases in the years before the revolt.Epidemics were known to have occurred in their region in 1594, 1601-1602, 1606-1607, 1610, and 1616-1617.