Econ 295 / SOAN 291

For my thesis I want to use archaeological data to reconstruct the life on a proposed Franciscanmission site in Mexico. However, the rocks and broken artefacts and only say so much. I really had to talk to someone who is currently living this. I needed to talk to a Franciscan friar who lives in a mission that serves an Indian community if I really wanted to see what I was expecting on the site in Mexico. I understand that evangelization has “progressed” from the 18^thcentury to modern day but there must be an underlying modus operandi in the order that would ensure some continuity and uniformitarianism.

 

There did seem to be. Ponchie mentioned how he was there a guide. He never proselytized but rather catechized those who came to him, but he never went to them. He mentioned how this was a basis for the Franciscan order where instead of preaching, a missionary would go live with the “heathens” and then they eventually come to him. I found this interesting but I don’t think this would have always been the case, especially during the colonial era. Kino was Jesuit, not Franciscan, so the Tohono first had a different approach tried on them. Either way, it proved effective, with about 85% of the native population identifying as catholic. Ponchie did mention how while they are “Catholics” there is still a very strong influence of their culture and have never really been instructed fully in the catechism. For example, he was asked why he baptized a cow during Easter. He was originally taken back by the comment but then he remembered he said grace over the cow before it was killed and butchered for the dinner.

 

There was also the time he was asked to re-baptize a teenager. The mother came in with her son pleading he be re-baptized (a huge no-no for Catholics, it’s literally in the Creed). Again, his first reaction was “WTF”, but then he had to talk to her down and refuse, offering the anointment of the sick in the place of a baptism. She was pissed. This seemed to happen all the time. They are “Catholics” almost in name only. The Tohono still seem to have their own beliefs and they follow them in conjunction with at least exterior catholic influences.

 

Also, Ponchie went to Berkley. That’s awesome. He mentioned that’s where he learned to deal with more diverse opinions.

 

I also asked Peter about my other question, are the O’odham actually biologically descendant of the Hohokam? He shrugged and said “they say they are”. He mentioned the lack of real evidence to establish a very clear chronology of the settlements of the area. Quite frankly, I don’t think given the current archaeological evidence we can ever make solid determination. Especially with the rise of SAGPRA, this issue has come into question. Should the modern O’Odham have a legitimate claim to the burials of Hohokam if there is no solid evidence establishing them as the historic next of kin? This is further ethically compounded when you take into account the removal of archaic and prehistoric (Clovis) era human remains from what is now the nation. Do the O’odham have a legitimate claim to these artifacts? Should they have a claim to any and all artefacts found on what is now their reservation, including Spanish and American historical artefacts? Who knows if there is a right answer to these questions?

Lastly, I asked if there is any current DNA work being done on the artefacts or the modern O’odham themselves. This may be the only way to establish a link between these two groups as well as provide invaluable evidence that could be vital to healthcare of an medically underprivileged group. He mentioned how there is currently a complete moratorium on all genetic research on both of these groups. They discussed it as a tribe for the same reasons and decided against it. There was no rational provided for this decision but there is the growing trend against such work calling it “bio-colonialism”.

I got to talk to Peter today, the de facto archaeologist for the TO nation. It was awesome to have an in-depth conversation with a person who shared my niche interest of historic and colonial era archaeology. My first question regarded the recent work of the small mission site that was discovered half on the nation and half on adjacent land. The site represented almost a chapel as opposed to a mission site like that of San Xavier, but was known to be founded by Father Kino on his first trip to the area but the exact location had been lost due to the adobe being eroded by the rain over the last 3 hundred years. When it was finally discovered, it was done using an aerial survey technique, where a Franciscan and Jesuit friar went up in a plane and flew in circles over the proposed site as described in the oral history of the people of the area. They found long straight lines in the middle of a flattened out area of the desert and sure enough, it was determined to be evidence of human habitation after ground proofing via pedestrian survey. While this discovery, made by friars working for the Arizona State Museum, was made over 30 years ago, they missed something huge. The site was actually used previously as an Amerindian religious gathering place since the Pleistocene and into the archaic period with continued use through the Hohokam and the O’Odham. This dude Kino literally plowed over the past 9,000 years of religious history to set up a auxiliary chapel.

 

On a more technical note, I was very curious about the ability to perform a ground resistivity survey in the area due to the very low level of moisture in the soil and subsurface. Despite single digit percent humidity, it’s not only possible, but the results on Spanish constructions of the colonial era are incredible provided they not be in the foothills of magnetite or ore-rich soils. This is due to the earth-packing system that was used to stabilize the foundation of wattle-and-daube structures, like early iterations of churches and dormitories.

I’d forgotten the difference being unable to contact the outside world has on a person. Entering the reservation, I lost all signal, that coupled with no Wi-Fi left my phone useless, and I couldn’t be happier.

 

I left the mission to go walk around and explore. I found an old adobe single room house full of the slippers the coyotes and smuggles use to hide their tracts. Walking back, I saw a half buried wagon that looked from the 19^thcentury on a back lot of a modern house. It was right next to what looked to be an old ramada. Both of these finds showed that we were without a doubt in the modern wild west. The one thing however that I feel (sadly) would distinguish this site from a gold rush ghost town was the abundance of plastic Old English 32 oz beer bottles around the site. I do not exaggerate when I say that I passed hundreds on my 2hr walk. They were everywhere and in every state of decay. Some where sun-bleached from countless days in the sun while others look like they could have been left last night.

 

 

The most impactful moment however happened completely by accident on my back to the mission apartments. I met a lady who had taken her 2 children to play on the swings. I was coming out of the thicket and just said hi and waved. She did the same thing then as I got closer asked her children to do the same. She was young, only 29 years old, and as soon as I got within speaking distance, she asked who I was. I told her I was a student doing research on the reservation and that I was staying here with a class but has just gone out to take some pictures. She smiled, approvingly, and struck up a conversation. She was visibly drunk, and for the duration of the encounter she continued to drink from a large opaque cup. She introduced her children as sunshine and lady. In almost the same breath she mentioned how they were getting out of a meeting to endorse the new candidate for chairman, but how she was unable to vote due to her being on parole. She did not elaborate, and I did not prod. When she spoke, she swayed a bit, but she looked at me directly in the eye. I have never met an Indian that has done that. In Mexico and in Texas, they either look away or look down, each with a serious face. This time I was greeted with a warm smile and a “dude”. She spoke unprompted on death. The death of her parents. She told me she had a feeling the day it happened, they didn’t look well that morning. Then she spoke about the death of her boyfriend’s parents, who were in a van trafficking 7 illegal immigrants to Tucson when a pickup truck swerved into their lane and killed the everyone except the mother, who died two hours later at the hospital. She asked me where I was from and I responded Texas, and then asked if I was a Sprus fan, to which I replied yes. To which she replied that a book had been written about the death of the community members as well as the migrants and that Texas was a nice place because her sister’s boyfriend is from there.

 

She mentioned how the reservation is a time bomb, waiting for the government to decide it wanted the land or to let the people on it die. She mentioned the safety concerns of living on the “rez”, while breaking eye contact for the first time to look at her children. She mentioned the drugs and the alcohol and that yes, she partakes, but she knows her limits now that her parents are no longer around to ration her per cap so she won’t spend it on a case a night. (I assume she meant the tribal disbursement per capita) I mentioned we share may of the same problems on the reservation of our people, and then told her I was Kickapoo. Her face lit up and she welcomed me in her language with a big toothless smile. She mentioned how she doesn’t typically smile because people might ask if she’s part of “Indian love” where she said that the men beat the women constantly. “I lost my teeth from cavities, dude, not because not man knocked them out.”

 

At this point, the children ran away and towards a man walking towards us. This was her boyfriend. She called him over to talk to me, and he did so, very politely after a very soft handshake. When he spoke to me, he did so like every other Indian I had met. He looked at the mountain ranges and when he spoke, he did so towards the ground. He was a basket weaver and his girlfriend a traditional turquoise jewelry maker. He loved to play the guitar and loved Guns and Roses but could play Beethoven better. He left after a few minutes of small talk, never looking directly at me, never smiling, but always very pleasant. He shook my hand weekly as he departed. I spoke to his girlfriend a few more moments, and then said good bye. She did the same but with a smile.

When thinking of the litany of issues facing people of the desert today, “heat” usually isn’t one of the primary topics brought up. But when we visited the Water Resources Office on the reservation, increasing heat in the form of global warming was one of the more prevalent issues. Upon deeper than cursory consideration, the issue makes sense; desert agriculture is already somewhat of a precarious, fickle business, and more changes will just make it that much more difficult to carry out. Temperature increases have been found to greatly through off agriculture worldwide; why should it be any different in the already scorching desert?

Now, Selso, the man we were speaking with, did make a point to mention            that even among the O’odham (primarily the elderly population) a similar disbelief about rising temperatures harming O’odham practices exists. He reported that, in the style of walking to school “uphill both ways,” the older O’odham retorted that of course the desert was hot, and that doesn’t mean anything because of who the O’odham are and that the kids these days are just getting soft. More recently however, as Selso reported, even these people have begun to realize that this is new heat, with new problems.

Selso also shared insight outside the scope of water resources. One of the more compelling topics he spoke on was his own return to the nation and the return of outside educated O’odham in general. Selso had gottent about as far away from Sells, Arizona as he could by the time he attended Yale for his masters. But even he, like many of his generation, couldn’t sit idle and act like he had the capacity to forget about the place that made him and the O’odham. So he came back…and his coworker, who’d been making a lot of money in the oil industry, also came back… and others, far flung by a desire to leave the reservation behind all came back to try to help. The land and the people, even in this modern day, still hold on to each other as best they can.

Placecenteredness. Belonging. Your lands.

 

I have many places that I call home. Washington and Lee University. New Orleans, Louisiana. Muskegon, Michigan. And, soon, St. Andrews, Scotland. While all of these places hold a special place in my heart that often pulls me back, I yearn for them the way I yearn for crawfish from New Orleans or to swim in Lake Michigan again. While I have a sense of loyalty and favoritism for these places, I see them as a part of me, not necessarily me as a part of them.

 

I do not have the ideology that is rooted in the Tohono O’odham perspective on their land. To them, the land has been there since the beginning and it is where they belong. They do not exist without their land and its Creator. However, I have felt since I was young that I would leave New Orleans and not return. Not because I do not love it, relish in the food, or miss my family that lives there, but because it is not inherently and crucially a part of who I am. I felt that I would find myself in the world outside of New Orleans, likely in lots of different places. No matter where the Tohono O’odham live, whether on the reservation, in a nearby town, or across the country, the feeling is that they are always connected to Baboquivari, to the saguaro, to the desert.

 

Perhaps in 10 years or more, I will find myself returning to New Orleans the same way that the assistant director of the Tohono O’odham Department of Water Resources did when he quit his job as a petroleum engineer at Exxon to return to his home. However, as of now, I still am content with wandering further from home, though, of course, never forgetting where I have come from.

On Saturday we visited the mission at San Xavier and observed the beautiful Catholic Chapel established by Father Kino. Overlooking the church was a religious mound with a cross upon the top. It was here that we had the privilege of meeting with a prominent member of the Tohono O’odham tribe: Angelo Joaquin Jr. He gave us our first in-person experience of the culture of the tribe and advocated for a return to the traditional ways for his people.

Listening to him, it was hard to disagree with what he was saying. He cited multiple negatives that his tribe had experienced since their modernization. For example, diabetes is extremely prevalent, traditional ceremonies are becoming more and more infrequent, and the language is beginning to disappear. It struck me listening to him how many people he was talking for. It genuinely seemed like his only objective was improving the overall status of his tribe and his commitment was remarkable.

His talk and the whole of the experience at San Xavier was a fantastic introduction to the reservation and a great way to ease into the culture. I look forward to delving deeper into the lands and experiencing even more.