THE SAGA OF FATHER KINO

Two hundred and fifty years ago the pioneer padre of the Southwest died. He was Father Eusebio Francisco Kino who came to this unknown country to explore its lands and convert its people to the Cross of Christ. For twenty-four years he blazed trails in Northern Mexico and Southern Arizona. This was his parish, Pimería Alta-50,000 square miles! When he took his final rest in 1711, he had established twenty-four missions, nineteen ranches, and made more than fifty major journeys to gather materials for maps and reports to Europe. Apostle and hero, Kino wrote a tale of epic proportions into the history of the Southwest. When he carried the Cross of a missioner and the flag of an explorer from Spain into Pimería Alta, he presented them in one gesture to the Indians. In his outstretched arms they saw strong protection and friendship. Winning the confidence of the Indians, he became their defender and publicist. They, in turn, helped him to plant the Cross and the flag in fertile valleys and crusted desert wastelands of his parish. Kino's burning ambition was to create a chain of missions from Sonora, Mexico, to the Pacific coast. His vision included such hard realities as journeys into unknown lands, instructing natives in ranching and farming, working with them in building churches and riding the desert under attack of the fierce Apache. Kino had to learn the native languages without benefit of textbooks. He even had to overcome the opposition of Spanish officials and false reports. To do all this, frequently alone, but always with optimism, is the story of his life. The time is apt for retelling it. The Kino story was obscured for a time just as the crumbled adobe walls of his missions were hidden behind the brambled bush of mesquite. But men of our century, as devoted to scholarship as they are to the history of our Southwest, pieced together diaries, reports, descriptions and ecclesiastical records. Men like Professor Herbert E. Bolton of the University of California discovered documents in the archives of Mexico City that had been lost for two centuries. These he photographed, copied, translated and collected for the Bancroft Library in Berkeley. From these he wrote the great biography of Kino, Rim of Christendom. Writing from the University of Arizona, Frank C. Lockwood in 1934 summarized his own research with an epitaph on Kino: "Our most eminent and beloved Southwestern pioneer." To Bolton, Lockwood, Rufus Wyllys and Father Engelhardt of our day; to José de Ortega, Miguel Venegas, Captain Manje and others from the past, we are indebted for the facts and insight into the life and times of Kino. They give us the history of a man, a people, and an era. This is the Saga of Kino. Father Kino was an Italian by birth as the villagers of Segno would be glad to prove by showing his baptismal record under the date of August 10, 1645. For years even his nationality has been called into question because he studied in Germany, called himself a Tyrolese, and carried into Mexico the flag of Spanish Conquistadores. However, history has chiselled into marble for all to read on the front wall of the church of Segno the fact of Kino's birth place and a tribute to him: Missioner of the Society of Jesus who carried the Latin Civilization with the Light of the Gospel into the awesome Lands of California. Untiring explorer, who transmitted to future generations precious documents of those unexplored lands. In one of these precious documents called HISTORICAL MEMOIRS OF FAVORES CELESTIALES, Kino recalled a few facts of his boyhood. In 1663, while he was critically ill, he turned his prayers to St. Francis Xavier, patron of all the Missions and apostle of the Orient. He begged for a death in God's grace or a life as a missioner among the Indians. In 1699 Kino listed Xavier's intercession in that sickness as one of the "celestial favors" he received to make possible his work in Pimería Alta. His gratitude to Francis Xavier is re-echoed whenever a mother uses his name to call her little Francisco at play or when a visitor near Tucson repeats his name as he seeks directions to Mission San Xavier del Bac. His own devotion to Xavier was as well known as a mark from his branding iron. He too added Francisco to his own name. Between 1665 and 1678 the young Jesuit Kino, as a student for the priesthood, petitioned six times for overseas duty as a missioner. These letters to his Superior, quoted by Lockwood, reflect maturity which waited on obedience but also a sparkling zeal to meet the challenge of the missions. He speaks of his "great joy of soul" and the "long standing desire for the difficult mission to the Indians." And on May 6, 1678 he received his appointment-not to China and the Orient of Xavier but to Mexico and Baja California. Kino faced three years of delay before touching foreign soil in Vera Cruz, Mexico. His preparations and his two Entradas into Baja California make a full biography of the man up to 1687. However, we pass over those years except to acknowledge them as important years of preparation. Baja California initiated him into pioneering and exploring. He experienced the problem of instructing natives in an unwritten language. Working with men of experience like Goni, Atondo, Guzman, he checked maps and made new ones, rode a fast mustang, learned to rope and brand a calf and plant wheat. Scaling the Sierra Giganta, Kino endured the heat, thirst and the pack because he was looking

for souls. Even on this trip he counted as ample reward a few baptisms and a few blue shells from the Pacific Slope. In those California days with Spanish officials he learned the art of diplomacy which was to contribute very much to the efficient running of his missions in Pimería Alta. Here, too, he charmed the children with trinkets and horseback rides; he inspired loyalty and friendship in the chiefs both by treating them with superb dignity and giving them "canes of authority" from the King of Spain. Our part of the Kino Saga opens in 1686. Kino went to Guadalajara, Mexico, to petition the Royal Audiencia for a special law to protect the natives of Pimería Alta during the next five years from enforced labor by the Spanish in their mines or on their ranches. Pioneers in these lands had exploited the Indians, beat them and enslaved them, he graphically explained to the Audiencia. However, they were not able by such means to convert the natives or to civilize them. His proposal was to win the natives to the Spanish flag by protecting them from greedy individuals and build into a new nation "this new Kingdom of Nueva Navarra, scene of conquests and new conversions which are . . . at the heart of all this North America."

The Royal Audiencia listened attentively to Kino's petition because lack of soldiers and funds at this time had halted exploration for a land route to the Pacific. Perhaps Kino, the Audiencia thought, could at least contact the Upper Pima Indians and prepare a way for later exploration. Kino won the case and had a law drawn up to protect all the pagan Indians of his mission area for the next five years. Kino found a bonanza in Guadalajara-not of gold or silver but of royal influence. The King had already informed him that he would not be able to finance the work in Pimería Alta. However, the King contributed more than money to the mission when he sent to "The Presidents and Judges of my Royal Audiencia of Mexico, Guadalajara and Guatemala . . . this my cédula (Royal Proclamation)." This decree, issued on May 14, 1686, arrived in Guadalajara in time for Kino to arm himself with its good tidings before leaving for Sonora. Don Carlos II complained that the principal obligation of the work in the new world, the conversion of the Indians, was being neglected and therefore: I have agreed to issue this present cédula:.. conversions (should) be undertaken with the mildest and most effective

THE AUTHOR

The imagination of the author of the SAGA OF KINO was first enflamed with the heroism of the Pioneer Padre of the Southwest in 1936. Not until 1956 was he able to walk in the footsteps of Kino. At that time he was assigned to work in Arizona in much the same way that Kino was assigned in 1686. Rev. Edwin J. McDermott, S.J., is principal of Brophy College Preparatory, a Jesuit high school of 507 boys in Phoenix. When holidays permit, he packs a car with boys and Kino maps and heads for Del Bac, Nogales, Magdalena and the land of Kino. Following the Kino maps, the boys count off the miles in Spanish leagues and imagine the Padre riding horseback along the trails. At the same time Father McDermott reads them the description of the rivers from Kino's Historical Memoirs and Manje's Diary and quizzes the boys on the ancient and modern names of the Indian tribes, the mountains and the villages. The diaries and letters of the men of this drama of Kino are still extant and critically annotated. These are the main documents used in the research of this article. The investigation of source materials took Father McDermott to the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California and to the Arizona Pioneers Historical Society in Tucson. He said, "A modern Jesuit does not realize how many friends he has in the Southwest until he mentions the name of Padre Kino."

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

David Muench tells us he posed for his first picture at the age of thirty hours. It appeared on the announcement of his arrival in the home of his parents, Joyce and Josef Muench. Accompanying them, as he has, on photographic jaunts from the time he was a few months until old enough to make solo trips, it was natural for him to decide to become a freelance photographer. He says that his travels all over the West, as far afield as Western Europe, and most particularly over the varied terrain of Arizona, has "spoiled him for any other kind of work." After graduation from high school in Santa Barbara, where he took pictures for the weekly newspaper and school annual, his training has included a year at Rochester Institute of Technology, a four-year course at Art Center School in Los Angeles, as well as life-long tutelage under his father. His pictures have already appeared in a variety of publications here and abroad. The front and back cover pictures for ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, January issue, 1955, were David's first answer to a question we had put to a twelve-year-old some years before when he was visiting our office with his father: "David, when are you going to take some pictures we can use in ARIZONA HIGHWAYS?" This month the young man is amplifying his answer, and we know these pages in the future will often carry the credit line of David Muench. We know his famous photographer father, Josef Muench, will be proud.

THE ARTIST

The artist, Ted De Grazia, has for many years been an ardent and devout admirer and student of Father Kino. He has followed the trails of Kino through Northern Sonora and Southern Arizona, and knows Pimeria Alta about as well as the average person knows his own back yard. The paintings reproduced in this issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS are dramatic high lights in the life and times of the great explorer-colonizer priest. They are but four of a series of twenty pointings the artist has devoted to the Kino theme. He considers this series to be among his best and most serious work. De Grazia was born in Morenci, Arizona, in 1909. His father was a copper miner. He attended the public schools of Morenci and at the age of eleven went with his family to Italy, where he lived for four years. The family returned to Morenci, where De Grazia finished his grammar school and high school education. He was twenty-three years of age when he received his diploma. Later he went to the University of Arizona, where he received his two B.A. degrees, one in music and one in art. He later received an M.A. degree, his thesis being the relation of color to sound. As an artist Ted De Grazia is gaining in stature each year, and his fame now is Nation and world-wide.

By means, entrusting it to the ecclesiastics most satisfactory to them and of virtue and spirit required for so important a matter; promising in my name to all new converts they will not be required to give tribute, or to serve on estates or in mines for the first twenty years after their conversion since this is one of the reasons why they refuse to be converted.

Kino was triumphant. He envisioned this new law and this royal cédula as a Magna Carta for building a chain of missions for the protection and conversion of the Indians. He intended to present them to the Indians as new reasons for attaching themselves to a permanent settlement, built near the watch tower of a mission church. Armed with these decrees Kino headed north from Guadalajara into Sonora. The year was 1687.

The northwestern part of Mexico and Southern Arizona was an unmapped wilderness. History called it Pimería Alta but the gallant Captain Manje called it in his diary, TIERRA INCOGNITA. The Upper Pima Indians had lived here for centuries growing corn, beans and melons in irrigated fields. They were a peaceful nation of many tribes. The Sobaípuris tribe lived in fortified villages along the San Pedro and the Santa Cruz rivers.

These became strong in battle from frequent skirmishes against the Apaches. In Kino's day these Pimas often shared the unfavorable reputation of the fierce Apache and the warlike Jocomes because they lived near Apachería.

The Papago tribes, even in the seventeenth century, planted as they do today the same little areas near the creeks during the spring; in the summer they moved towards the mountains to hunt for game and to escape the heat. Along the Gila River and the Colorado many more Indians lived, though often without social regard for their neighbors. The Yamas, Cocomaricopas, Quiquimas of this area were counted by Captain Manje in 1699 and he reported officially that 1800 men and as many women lived here at that time.

When Kino rode out from Cucurpe, one hundred and ten miles south of Nogales, he crossed a line of civilization which historian Bolton calls the "rim of Christendom." His uncharted parish began fifteen miles north of Cucurpe. It was two hundred miles long and two hundred and fifty miles wide. His instructions were to ride north along the Rio San Miguel to Cosari and there in this Indian village beyond the signs of civilization and culture to establish an outpost for the King of Spain.

On March 13, 1687, Kino arrived at the rich valley and was greeted by the people of Cosari. He inspected the broad vegas and already imagined the bearded wheat, standing tall for harvest to feed the flocks ready for baptism. He rode northward where the San Miguel breaks through the canyon, and on the western slope, overlooking the whole valley and above the churning waters of the river, he saw a mesa. "That will be the site for Mission Nuestra Señora de los Dolores." And on that day this mission became Kino's headquarters for the next twentyfour years.

The Indians of Cosari for many years had begged for a padre to come to them with water for baptism and with oil for anointing their dying. Other villages immediately began to send invitations from near and far, even from villages two hundred miles to the north. They continued to send messengers and requests during Kino's lifetime.

Without losing a day Kino made his first exploration on March 14. When he returned to Dolores he etched into our modern maps names that we recognize today. There was Caborca, 60 miles south of Nogales, which today bears the name Kino gave it, San Ignacio. Next was San José de Imuris, a busy crossroad on Highway 15 with a sigupost pointing east to the mining center of Cananea. The Indian name, Imuris, is more common today. Then Cocóspera and Remedios, hidden from the main highway by the mountains of Pinitos and Comedio. The chain of missions was being formed. The church at Dolores on Christmas day, 1690, was "new and capacious although it was not finished." However, the time seemed ripe to Kino for an exploration into the Altar Valley and along its river. Kino tells us that Padre Salvatierra, the Jesuit inspector of this mission field, accompanied him on his trip. Together they counted "seven hundred souls who received us with great pleasure." Again history is recorded. From now on men would be able to identify on Kino's maps such a name as Magdalena, 62 miles south of Nogales on Mexican Highway 15. Along the Altar River names were written for all to read: El Tupo, Tubutama, Sáric, Búsanic, Tucubavia.

Before they left Tucubavia, some couriers of the Sobaípuris nation arrived after a journey of about one hundred and twenty miles from the north. They came to the padres carrying crosses. When they met Kino and Salvatierra, they fell on their knees to petition the priests to visit their ranches at del Bac and Turmacacori. Kino was so pleased with the gift of the crosses that he promised to follow this symbol of Christianity deeper into the unknown land. The padres and the guides set out for the southern part of Arizona between Nogales and Tucson.

A description of Southern Arizona is preserved in Kino's diary under date of January, 1691. "Whereupon we ascended to the Valley of Guébavi, a journey of about fifteen leagues (39 miles) and arrived at the ranchería of San Cayerano del Tumacácori where there were, some of the Sobaípuris headmen. In San Cayetano they had prepared three arbors, one in which to say mass, another in which to sleep, and a third for a kitchen." After this first entrance into the state of Arizona the names of Guébavi, Bac and Tumacácori grew in importance as ranches and missions.

To return to Dolores by way of Cocóspera, Kino travelled the Santa Cruz River and saw for the first time future mission sites: San Luis Bacoancos, Santa María, San Lázaro. All these names of villages and missions, plus the rivers and the mountains, are part of the first maps published by Kino.

On his next trip in August, 1692, Kino inspected del Bac. Eight hundred Sobaípuris lived in this village, twelve miles south of the smaller village of Tucson. They were so anxious for religious instruction that Kino hoped to make this his next headquarters. He implied his interest in del Bac by naming it after his patron, San Francisco Xavier del Bас.

With zealous pen Kino kept expanding the maps of our Southwest. He located Quiburi (Fairbanks) on the San Pedro, described his ride through the Babocómari Ranch and along the Huachuca Mountains. In 1693 the lower part of the Altar Valley was visited and to the names of the Indian villages he added a saint's name. Henceforth, the people of Europe knew these villages as San Antonio de Oquitos, San Diego Pitiquito (Pirqúin), La Concepción del Caborca.

Kino was equally active in petitioning his superiors for additional priests to staff these new missions. In a detailed report to King Philip V he did not ask for four or five, but fifty priests; and proceeded to tell the king how such an expansion would be profitable to the realm. Then with superb flattery he quotes from the Roman Breviary, "The Gentiles, desiring to see the Savior, came to Philip." He implies that Philip was the only one who could bring these people to a belief in Christ.

Kino wrote with a heavy heart the twenty-page account of the martyrdom in 1695 of Padre Saeta in Caborca. However, he did not fail to include an appeal to Europe for more helpers. Kino also found time to write an indignant letter in defense of his Pima Indians when they were falsely accused of stealing cattle and of joining forces with Apaches in the sudden raids on Spanish mining towns.

He wrote notes to encourage Salvatierra in Baja California and promised him cattle and grain whenever needed. Most of his letters, diaries and maps were finished by a candle light in the adobe hut next to the church of Dolores. No one should accuse Kino of dodging harder chores of mission life by writing these documents of our past. For this was but an extension of his daily duties into the silent hours of the night. After writing, often in triplicate, he knelt in his adobe chapel before his home-made altar and prayed.

Some of the prayers were official prayers of the church, like the Roman Breviary, which were formal, detailed and daily. Other times he knelt in silent prayer of adoration without word or rule. He frequently prayed for the Pima Indians whom he called his children. These children were anxious to please the Padre in sowing and reaping and learning the ways of community living. But Kino knew that only prayer, sacrifice and grace of God could move their minds and hearts to embrace the truth of his crucifix. For their conversion he added penances to his prayers and penances to his travelling. Each night before he allowed himself a few hours of sleep, he checked the supply of wine and hosts for the morning mass.

His great prayer was the mass because it was the prayer of Christ. His whole life revolved around it. Even the primitive native sensed this, though he could not explain it. Hence, in every village on the route of this Padre on horseback the Indians spontaneously prepared a special arbor for his altar and his mass.

Accompanied by only a few natives, Kino in 1694 explored the Gila River and confirmed the report of Casa Grande "forty-three leagues beyond and to the northwest of del Bac." He said mass at the Casa which he described as "a four-story building, as large as a castle. Close to this Casa Grande there are thirreen smaller houses, somewhat more dilapidated, and the ruins of many

THE EXPLORATIONS AND FOUNDING OF MISSIONS IN THE UNKNOWN UPPER PIMERIA ALTA BY FATHER KINO

1701-KINO'S OWN MAP OF UPPER PIMERIA ALTA SHOWING BAJA CALIFORNIA AS A PENINSULA. CONFIRMING EARLIER REPORTS THAT IT WAS NOT AN ISLAND.

KINO'S 1705 MAP OF UPPER PIMERIA ALTA WAS NOT IMPROVED UPON FOR 100 YEARS.

Others.. There are seven or eight more of these large old houses and the ruins of whole cities with many broken metates and jars, charcoal, etc. These certainly must be the Seven Cities mentioned by the holy man, Fray Marcos de Niza." Manje, during the 1697 visit to the Casa, added this detail about Kino: "We arrived at noon, at the Casas Grandes within which Padre Kino, who had not yet breakfasted, said mass."

The Indians did not understand many of the white man's actions. They had reason to mistrust his promises and doubt his sincerity except when that white man was Padre Kino. They believed him. They trusted him. When confused or in trouble, they came to him.

man's actions. They had reason to mistrust his promises and doubt his sincerity except when that white man was Padre Kino. They believed him. They trusted him. When confused or in trouble, they came to him.

To prove that the Pimas were not horse thieves, Kino rode his mustang into the present county of Santa Cruz, Arizona. He collected facts and figures about the natives. When he returned, he proved that the Pimas were not only law abiding but they were allies of the Spaniards in the constant struggle against the Apaches. The Spanish authorities acknowledged the success of such an alliance and saw it grow stronger in proportion to the influence of the Padre. They even called him "equal to a garrison of soldiers on the frontier."

Kino showed his confidence in the natives by founding new ranches and putting their own villagers in charge of them. He sent new herds into del Bac, Quíburi, Santa Maria, San Luís and Guébavi. One can almost detect a pious vaunting when he reported in 1696 that sheep and goats were herded one hundred miles from Caborca to Tumacácori by the very Indian tribe that had murdered Padre Saeta in 1695. For the church at Santa Maria he supplied the "vestments for mass, five hundred head of cattle, almost as many sheep and goats, two droves of mares and droves of horses and oxen."

Because Señor Captain Bernal did not trust the Sobaípuris, he wanted to delay further exploration along the San Pedro and the Gila rivers. He insisted on waiting for two hundred soldiers. Father Kino put him at ease by replying, "One could penetrate to the last of the Sobaípuris as safely as one could go to Sonora, for the principal captains, El Humari, his two sons and others, had come to be catechized and baptized after Easter [1697]. Captain Humari had been named Francisco Eusebio, and his sons, Francisco Xavier and Oracio Po-llici."

Bernal experienced a second proof of Pima loyalty when he arrived in the middle of a celebration at Quíburi, the stronghold of Chief Coro. The warriors, still covered with war paint and the dust of battle, were dancing over the scalps and the spoils of fifteen Jocome Indians. These were enemies of the Pima and intent on plunder and destruction of the Spanish towns. Kino reports the Captain's pleasure at this victory and that "Bernal, the Señor Alferez, the sergeant and many others entered the circle and danced merrily in company with the natives."

The exploration of the San Pedro was begun on schedule. Kino's good friend, Chief Humari, came to meet and guide the group along the San Pedro, a journey of ninety miles north of Quíburi. Both Captains Manje and Bernal give a more detailed account of this trip: types of crops, description of houses, size of ditches for irriga-tion. They, too, tell of the reconciliation brought about between Él Coro and El Humari, who had been long-time enemies. As usual, the natives were counted in each village along the San Pedro and two thousand people were reported living in fourteen villages. Such was the work of opening new frontiers.

When El Coro wanted to supply evidence of his loyalty to priest and soldiers, he sent to the Padre in April, 1698, a long stick with a notch on it for every dead Apache enemy. The skeptics at the town of Real de San Juan would not believe the details of the battle nor the victory until Kino and soldiers travelled the forty miles to certify and notarize the investigation. In Quíburi the warriors rehearsed the battle for Kino. They set up ten braves to represent the Apaches and to stand opposite ten Pimas. Then with blood-curdling howls before each swift movement of their bodies, the Pimas pretended to parry the arrows of the Apaches and to move in among them with their lances. Soon nine prostrate bodies told the story of nine Apaches. The climax of this dramatic rerun was the final struggle between a Pima Indian and the chief of the Apache. The Pima seized the arrow of Chief Capotari and then in fierce hand to hand struggle he threw the chief "to the ground and beat his head with stones." Kino and the soldiers memorized each detail. The Padre had to make an official count of the dead, and wrote to headquarters that he personally counted fifty-four dead Apaches. Manje added that another one hundred and sixty-eight victims of poisoned arrows were found along the trail for twenty miles. The Real de San Juan rejoiced in such a great victory and its General, Jironza, sent the Pimas clothing, costing five hundred pesos, as a gift and a reward. Others offered Presents and congratulations to El Coro. Kino's first step was to notarize his report to protect his friends. Then, he offered holy mass in thanksgiving that of the Pima Nation only "five died and nine were wounded but re-covered." Not everyone agreed with Kino in his demands to keep Pimería Alta freed from land seekers. Kino planned that the missions should maintain a life of their own. He wanted them to own their own land and work their own fields without exploitation or Spanish domination. Agitation to secularize the missions broke like a summer storm over a desert. As the dry arroyo can suddenly turn into a vicious torrent of muddy water and destroy years of work, so, too, the greed of men was threatening the very framework of mission life. They proposed to liberate the Pima from economic and political control of the missions. Actually they were preparing the way to rob the Pimas of their land and their peace, leav-ing them poor and spiritless. Kino fought to protect his children from such a fate. Before civil and ecclesiastical superiors he described the evil outcomes of such secularization so vividly that they

WITH PHOTOGRAPHER AND ARTIST IN THE LAND OF KΙΝΟ OPPOSITE PAGE "MISSION BELL OF TUBUTAMA" BY DAVID MUENCH.

In the Upper Altar Valley the quiet village of Tubutama is huddled around its church. Padre Kino first rang his mission bell for the Pima Indians of this village in December, 1690. The mission saw its period of growth and decline, bloody revolts and Apache raids, the building of new churches and periods of peace. The villagers are proud of the eight bells in the tower of their church and like to tell visitors the history of their valley. They begin their story with "Padrecito Kino."

FOLLOWING PAGES "EXTERIOR-TUBUTAMA MISSION" BY DAVID MUENCH.

Whitewashed and gleaming in the sun, the façade of the church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Tubutama, Sonora, dominates the whole landscape. The village is thirty-five miles northwest of Magdalena. Although the church stands today as a Franciscan restoration, its importance in history recalls Padre Kino's first visit in 1690, his gifts of grain and cattle and his instruction in Christianity. Kino enlarged the church in 1706. Today one enters the church from the south side, under a scalloped archway built of heavy brick and ornamented with designs not found in other missions.

"INTERIOR-TUBUTAMA MISSION" BY DICK CARTER.

The lower walls of the interior of Tubutama's church are whitewashed. The vault and upper walls are covered with light patterns and designs, indicating that at one time all the walls and ceiling were frescoed. Perhaps the vault had been covered with gold leaf. The old and the modern stand together in the church: a handsome carved bookstand of mission days next to plastic flowers, a factory made statue next to a well-preserved oil painting of St. Peter. The windows are so recessed that they protect from the heat and subdue the light.

"EXTERIOR-CABORCA MISSION" BY DAVID MUENCH.

Templo Historico de Caborca was called by Kino Mission La Concepción. In 1694 he brought a very young Jesuit, Xavier Saeta, to establish the mission and ranch at Caborca. Within a few months, when the wheat had grown tall and was nearly ready for harvesting, the Pima Indians from the Upper Altar country rode into Caborca with hate and destruction. They turned a friendly meeting with Father Saeta into a murder and in April, 1695, he became the first priest to suffer martyrdom in Pimería Alta. La Concepción is similar in all the main detail to Mission San Xavier del Bac. Both were built under the direction of Franciscans and Ignacio Gaona was the architect. The façade of Caborca is not as ornamental as del Bac's. Hence, the straight lines of the towers grow naturally out of the graceful flying buttresses and the supporting columns at the sides of the entrance. Both of the towers are completed at La Concepción. The apse and transept were washed away by the Rio de la Concepción some years ago but were rebuilt by the government. This is a monument not only of mission days but of the days of skirmishes for Mexican independence.

"INTERIOR-PITIQUITO MISSION" BY DICK CARTER

On the Caborca page; it is the picture of the inside of the church at Pitiquito). The church at Pitiquito, seven miles from Caborca, is dedicated to San Diego. Although it is simple in design and decoration, the masonry pillars and huge barrel vault create an impression of heaviness and bulk. The nave is plain; the walls are bare. Above the center of the altar is a statue of San Diego and on each side is a statue of an angel. "LEY" from an oil painting by the artist, Ted DeGrazia. Among the great contributions to the Indians of Pimería Alta that Father Kino was responsible for were the herds of cattle he brought to them from the south. He established ranching in the land.

CENTER PANEL "MISSION AT EL ALTAR" BY DAVID MUENCH. The

valley and the town between Magdalena and Caborca are named after a mountain which looks like an altar. In Kino's day this was a crossroad but not a village. His tours between Caborca and Tubutama went through El Altar and the martyred body of Father Saeta was returned to Mission Dolores along this route. El Altar received name and notice when Captain Bernado de Urrea established a presidio after the Pima Indian revolt of 1751.

"COCÓSPERA MISSION" BY DAVID MUENCH. Half way

between Îmuris and Cananea the crumbling ruins of the Mission of Cocóspera speak of days of splendor and defeat. A new white chapel stands next to it, a memorial to its indomitable spirit. From 1689 to 1704 Kino struggled to establish a church and a ranch in this valley. The biggest setback came on February 25, 1698, during an Apache raid. The church was destroyed; the herds killed. The Pima Indians fled. Kino called his people back again to Cocóspera in 1700 and built them a large cruciformed church. In January, 1704, he invited Spanish nobles and Indian chiefs to attend the dedication of the church and prepared three days of celebration both to reward the natives and to demonstrate their cooperation with the Spanish rule. Forty-two years later the mission was again burned and again rebuilt and again abandoned. To enter the ruins a visitor must stoop under the scalloped arch over the door and climb over mounds of dirt that cover the original flooring. The towers have crumbled. Most of the vaulted roof has collapsed. Designs and ornaments covered most of the walls and are still visible. A mesquite beam juts from the back wall, the only remnant of an elaborate choir loft. Cocóspera is the most impressive ruin in Northern Sonora.

"OQUITOA MISSION" BY DAVID MUENCH. Five miles

north of El Altar, the church of San Antonio overlooks the town of Oquitoa. It stands on a steep slope above the main street of this quiet village in the Altar Valley and is surrounded by a cemetery. The church of Kino's time seems to have been built on this same crest but to the left of the existing building. Recently replastered and whitewashed, the façade looks sturdy and clean. However, the side walls and the back are still the rough adobe. The roof is made from mesquite beams and ocotillo poles, covered with adobe.

"PITIQUITO MISSION" BY DAVID MUENCH. Pitiquito is

Although fifteen miles from El Altar and seven miles from Caborca. Although Kino visited the natives here and carried on his apostolic work, he did not set up a mission station nor did his immediate successors. Pitiquito remained a visita until the latter part of the eighteenth century. The present church has been called "an anomaly of mission architecture" because it does not follow conventional lines nor conform to patterns. Stark and bold, it is perched on a steep slope. It seems massive in comparison to the little adobe homes of the people of Pitiquito.

"CHURCH AT MAGDALENA" BY DAVID MUENCH.

Magdalena, sixty-two miles from Nogales, is an important town of 10,000 inhabitants. The church is dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. It is more famous for the reclining statue of St. Francis Xavier, visited by thousands annually. In Kino's day Magdalena was a visita from San Ignacio and under the care of Father Campos. On March 15, 1711, Padre Kino, while visiting the town to dedicate a small chapel in honor of his patron, became critically ill and died.

Three centuries ago the good Father Kino came this waylooked more like a portrait of mission life in 1843 than a prediction in 1698. His eloquence won the day; he had championed the Pimas' case successfully.

The year 1700 was a year of dreams and physical activity for his Pimas. On March 29, a native official of the Cocomaricopas along the Colorado sent Kino a cross with a string of twenty blue shells. This was no ordinary gift. Kino saw the shells and remembered those he had picked up along the sandy beach of Baja California on the Pacific slope. How did the Cocomaricopas find blue shells? They were not along the Colorado. They were not found in the Gulf. Could these Indians bring him to the Pacific slope again, this time north of the thirtysecond latitude? Was there a land passage to the Pacific? Was California really a peninsula and not an island?

These questions inflamed Kino's imagination. His religious superiors wanted an answer. The military awaited a clue. Kino was so bent on discovering the truth of the shells that he was willing to question every Indian along the Gila and the Colorado about the discovery of the blue shells. He writes: "For this reason and in order at the same time to cast a glance at the spiritual and temporal condition of the three newly formed missions of the north and northwest, I determined to go inland for a few days."

On April 21, 1700, he left Dolores with ten Indians and fifty pack animals. He arrived at Remedios before evening. During the next few days he inspected the churches, took count of his growing herds at his ranches, travelled to Cocóspera, San Lázaro, San Luís, Guébavi and Tumacácori. He baptized and preached at each village. Towards evening on the twenty-fifth of April he arrived at del Bac.

Early the next morning he explained to the chief of del Bac that he planned to hold a council meeting of all the leaders of the Pimas, Cocomaricopas and the Yumas about the blue shells. Couriers had been sent to all the villages. The invitation, coming from the Padre, was a passport of safety.

While the chiefs were assembling, Kino was busy. "On April 28 we began the foundations of a very large and capacious church and house of San Xavier del Bac, all the people working with pleasure and zeal." This is the founding date for the most celebrated mission of the Southwest.

On April 30, he visited the sick at Tucson and San Agustín and performed ten baptisms. He rode back to del Bac in the late afternoon, for this was the night for meeting the visiting chiefs. El Humari and one of his sons arrived from the east. Delegates from Santa Catalina and Casa Grande and the northern part of the Gila River were on hand. The Cocomaricopas held an important spot in the convention. The Yumas were the far-western delegates from the Rio Colorado.

The cool desert moon was like an off-stage prop. Its light outlined the crouched figures of the chiefs and governors on the hillside but did not identify them. Like barrel cactus they sat silent and still. The campfire was a footlight on Kino's stage; and it burned brightly next to a boulder, nature's rostrum.

The delegates did not need the warmth of the fire, for the night air had conserved the heat of the day and added fragrance from the mesquite bush in bloom. Late April and early May brought to the desert a springtime-not of blossoms and morning dew on the rose, but an air charged with vigor and peace.

Kino took his cue from nature and his opening words were about peace and quietude and the happiness of Christians who love the one true God. He told these chiefs that his account was the same as Santiago, who had come centuries before to instruct Spain. What Santiago had given Spain, Kino wanted to give the leaders of all the Pima nations.

The blue shells were not forgotten. In response to Kino's eager questions each tribe told what their group knew about the origin of the shells. The next night the second session was called because more information had arrived from the Cutganes, across the Colorado. The evidence became more and more simplified until delegates and chairman were convinced that all the blue shells came from the Pacific Slope of California by a land route of ten or twelve days.

There is a rocky hill near del Bac. Kino had worked there during the day, hauling tezontle stone for the walls of his new church. He climbed that hill after the delegates had left and he looked westward. He envisioned a chain of mission churches and visitas and ranches stretching from Dolores to the Pacific. Each village would have its mission bell and yet each would be a haven for the frontier traveller and the caravan of supplies from Mexico City. Kino saw a new kingdom springing up in the state of Arizona and he called it "The Heart of all North America."

His restless spirit knew there must be a way through the mountains and the desert. And as the first rays of day touched the hills of del Bac, Kino's prayer was finished. His prayer was a decision. It was a pledge to find that passage, and to God's greater glory to line the route with the mission crosses.

On May 2, Kino set out for Dolores after a busy morning with baptisms and marriages. In his charge went the twelve-year-old son of del Bac's captain. The boy was travelling to Dolores to learn prayers and doctrine. If this young rider could keep up with the Padre, he would learn examples of charity and endurance not described in a catechism. On May 3, at sunrise, Padre Kino was vested for mass in the small adobe chapel at Tumacácori. Before he approached the altar, an urgent messenger from Padre Campos, Kino's companion in exploration and mission work, begged Kino to hasten to San Ignacio. A poor Indian had been seized in a crime and the soldiers had determined to make a lesson of him. On May 4, they decreed, he would be flogged to death.

Kino sent a reply that he would be in San Ignacio on time. Then in the Valley of the Santa Cruz, he said the mass of the day in honor of the Sanctae Crucis. He wrote an important letter and then took to his saddle.

Kino must have been a seasoned cowboy or an endurance rider. He pushed his mustang in a direct ride from Tumacácori through canyons and over mountains. At midnight he arrived at Îmuris, no less than sixty-two miles south of Tumacácori. Before sunrise he mounted again and rode the last eight miles to San Ignacio in time for morning mass.

What happened when Kino went to the commandant in charge of the soldiers and the prisoners? Were there amicable or hostile feelings? Did they acknowledge Kino's authority in this area or resent the interference of the priest? History is silent and Kino made no mention of The natives of San Ignacio did not send smoke signals to their brothers in the north. The Butterfield Stage did not carry letters to the Altar Valley or the Colorado River. No wireless message was intercepted by the Sobaípuris. Yet all the Pimas knew that the Padre had saved the life of a brother Indian.

They knew, too, that they were eating regular meals all year because he had shown them how to reap a good harvest and store their grain. They thanked him for the meat supply he prepared for them in the nineteen ran-cherías and were proud to be Arizona's first cowboys. They crowded around him when he explained a picture or spoke about his cross. One hundred walked with him from Dolores to Tuape for the Holy Week services. Chiefs of the far north and the west came hundreds of miles when he called. They were decked out in their finery for the dedication of the churches at Dolores, Remedios and Cocóspera. Because he nodded to the needs of war as allies of Spain, they were decked out in tribal colors to fight the Apaches.

Each tribe loved him. They ushered him into their villages through long parallel columns. All held crosses in their hands or beckoned him on with a waving branch. They begged him to come; they begged him to stay. They ended each visit with the cry: “Come back, Padre-cito Kino.” He did come back. Kino made fourteen major trips into Arizona. At the turn of the century, although he was fifty-six years old, he made a twenty-six day trip on horseback in September and October, averaging forty miles a day. This was an exploring and mapping expedition from Dolores through the center of Arizona, up to the Gila River and over to the Colorado. Again he was looking for the land passage to the Pacific.

On October 7, 1700, he arrived near Yuma and his pet dog caused quite a stir among the natives. A year previously his Spanish-Barb mustang had frightened them but this year they were brave enough to throw grass along the path for the horse to eat.

Kino climbed a hill and through a “long range telescope” saw the broad flat valley near Yuma, the juncture of the Gila and the Colorado Rivers, and California. California was not surrounded by a sea, he wrote; it was just across the river. The Yumas would not say farewell to Father Kino until he had gone all the way to the Colorado. Here he met more of these exceptionally tall Indians. Three hundred swam across the river to listen to Kino talk about religion.

Padre Kino came again to the Colorado in November, 1701. This time the Quiquimas were his hosts. They were not satisfied with describing California to the priestly pioneer. They wanted him to cross the river with them.

By noon the chief of the Quiquimas had directed the building of a raft. A basket was lashed to it and Kino stepped into the basket, curled up his legs and squatted, as proud of his vessel as any owner of a yacht. He was without fear and added in his diary that he took “only my breviary, some trifles and a blanket.” Six of these tall and fair skinned natives dove into the Colorado and swam into position around the raft. Some pulled the raft with long ropes, others pushed. They shouted and called to one another in a festive spirit. Their chief had declared a holiday with tribal dances and entertainment. The western shore was lined with Indians. A few had begun the dances. Others were arranging the gifts for the Padre-maize, beans, pumpkins, and the inevitable gifts of the blue shells.

“I preached to them through an interpreter, here and on the road,” Kino reported. “Everywhere the word of God and the Christian dogma were well received.” He estimated that ten thousand lived in or near the vicinity. As ambassador of the Spanish King, he gave “canes of authority” to the captains of the Quiquimas and the Cut-ganas. He wrote a description about a new tribe, the Cócopas, and sent them greetings. On maps and in diaries he preserved for posterity these discoveries and experience. Juan Bautista Anza, in the middle of the century, read the Kino Report and from it took courage to follow his trail beyond the Colorado to the coast. Anza found water at the spots marked by Kino along the Camino del Diablo and rested as the Padre had at the Colorado. So

not only is Arizona under obligation to this black robed priest; but California, too, is in debt to him for colonization made possible from Tubac under Anza.

Many men during the last two hundred and fifty years have started out from Sonoyta at the Mexican Border, but not all arrived at their destination along the Colorado. For many it was not a road but a graveyard. Hot winds blew sand across the road and hid its piteous signposts so that others wandered off the road into the Gran Desierto to lie in death without benefit of rite or marker. All pioneers suffered thirst on that trail but they could reach water stored in nature's stone basins on a few of the mountain sides. The beasts of burden, however, could not climb these steep cliffs. They went for days without water or grazing. The road is open, burning, dry and barren. It made the pioneers fear the pain of hell and so they called it, Camino del Diablo.

Three times Kino traveled this Devil's Highway. Although we can imagine the hardships, we cannot detect a whimper from him. Manje accompanied the Padre through those gates of hell but he was not always as resigned to the hardships. Manje's Diary on March 11, 1701, reports the scarcity of water, the difficulties and the afflictions. Kino felt the same heat but did not bother to write about it. Traveling with Kino on this trip, Padre Salvatierra was carrying, as he always carried, a picture of our Lady of Loreto. Kino made this entry in his diary:Many parts of this road were made pleasant and beautiful with the different colors of roses and flowers so that it seemed as if nature had placed them there for the reception of our Lady of Loreto.

Almost all day we were praying and chanting various prayers and praises of our Lady in different languagesin Castilian, in Latin, in Italian, and in the California language.These trips over the Camino del Diablo were his short cut to the Colorado. He had promised to return and he did. Each trip convinced him that California was a peninsula and in 1702 he wrote, "I have discovered with all minute certainty and evidence, with mariner's com-pass and astrolabe in my hands, that California is not an island but a peninsula, or isthmus, and that in thirty-two degrees of latitude there is a passage by land to Cali-fornia."

The war situation in Europe began in 1704 to affect the life of the missions in distant Pimería Alta. The Spanish fleet could not keep schedules. Priests had died and no replacements arrived from Europe. Special provisions were delayed or lost. Further attempts to mark the complete route from the Colorado River to Baja California and the Pacific Slope were postponed. Kino never returned to the Quiquimas or the Yumas. He sent them "wheat to sow at the Colorado River to see if it would yield." He sent gifts and greetings but the 1702 exploration was his last trip to the Colorado and the Gila.

He made a sixth and last trip to del Bac. In 1704 and 1706 he traveled to Guaymas, the Gulf Coast west of Caborca and climbed the Sierra Santa Clara. However, from 1703 to his death, his main work was establishing churches. I applied myself to building with all efficiency and speed the two churches, and in a little more than a year, they were finished: Remedios and Cocóspera, with two spacious chapels which form transepts with good and pleasing arches. I managed almost all year to go nearly every week through these three pueblos, looking after both the spiritual and temporal things.

These were years for building churches at Búsanic and Sáric, the first in honor of St. Ambrose and the second in honor of St. Gertrude. He "began a large church of La Concepción" at that quiet little village of Caborca. In 1706 Kino directed the remodeling and enlarging of the church at Tubutama. This is the Kino legacy: the permanent foundation stones of Christianity in the Southwest. Explorer and empire builder, he was above all else a worker in the harvest field of souls. He brought thirty thousand natives to the friendship of Spain and the church. Of these he baptized four thousand and complained that the laborers were too few to preach to more. When his brother-priests in later years came to the Land of the Upper Pimas, his name was exalted like a legendary hero.

Indian chiefs settled arguments by quoting the Padre. Whereas chiefs of old would cut out the heart of an heroic enemy to feed their sons with bravery and cour-age, after Kino's day the chiefs demanded in baptism the name of Francisco or Eusebio or Kino for their oldest sons to pass on to them heroism and strength.

Up to the end Padre Kino worked and prayed for his children. In 1711 Father Campos, the rector of the church at Magdalena, invited Kino to officiate at the dedication of the new chapel in honor of St. Francis Xavier. Although he was sixty-six years old at the time, he accepted the invitation with joy.

It was early in March, when the Padre set out for Magdalena over the Sierra del Comedio (del Torreón). The air was crisp and clear; it was full of spring. The brittle branches of the mesquite trees were turning green and limber. The burst of color on their thorny limbs made even this desert wayfarer look lacy and lazy.

The natives of Magdalena were in a festive mood and crowded around the Padre when he arrived. They brought their children for him to touch even as he walked through the church to inspect the new side chapel in honor of St. Francis. Kino knelt before the statue.

This statue showed Xavier reclining in death and wearing the priestly vestments for mass. The casket, brilliantly gilded, was the pride of the missions. This shrine was planned as a place of pilgrimage. Thousands would come each year to to give thanks thanks to to St. Francis for favors obtained through his intercession.

Early on that March day Father Kino put on the special gold vestments for this solemn mass. The choir of native voices began the opening prayers as the Padre approached the altar. He bowed in prayer; he read from the Missal; he sang certain parts. Then suddenly the voice became weak. Padre Kino leaned on the altar, desperate to finish the Sacrifice. Before the actual dedication was finished, Kino collapsed.

His co-laborer, Father Campos, carried him to his room. Kino would not allow himself even in death the comfort of a bed. He motioned to the floor, his mattress of two sheep skins and the pack saddle that was his pillow for twenty-four years.

Together they said the prayers for the dying and the prayers of faith in God's mercy. Campos put into his hands the crucifix and held it for the Padre to see and kiss. Then with a prayer of love, the heart of Kino burst its mortal bonds. It was March 15, 1711.

EPILOGUE

Time tries to efface the reminders of yesteryear. She slips a boulder into a stream and forces the waters to dig a new course through hard rock and over monuments made by man. She quakes the earth and leaves productive years a crumbled mass. She sends a winged creature in flight over a ruined village or an abandoned church so that it will drop the fruit of a saguaro or a seed of a mesquite tree into the new top soil. And while the saguaro grows or the tree takes root in an old civilization, time persistently tries to hide the past.

I purposely have tried to re-live the history of Arizona's mission days by following the routes on Kino's map. From Casa Grande to Tumacácori we saw the mountains and the streams familiar to the padre. At del Bac we saw the beautiful mission. The name of the church is Kino's but we are told that time has hidden the actual adobe bricks that Kino made on April 28, 1700.

Driving south from del Bac we visited Tumacácori, now in honor of San José instead of Kino's San Cajetano. The mission is the history of the Franciscan period even though a story lingers on that a bell, hidden in the desert by the blackrobed Jesuits, rings out in the stillness of the night. Time again has hidden the work of Kino and his brick and his adobe are lost with the Jesuit bell.

No one knows for sure if Kino helped build the broken walls at Guébavi as we see them today. Time has directed wind and rain to erase such signposts from history and leave only generic facts and legends about the mission and its people, the Sobaipurís.

Dolores, the greatest of them all, is a small heap of rubble. Remedios is only a marker. Cocóspera is exquisite as the evening sun forms a back drop for this specter from the past. But it is only a ruin caused by time and the Apaches.

San Ignacio has been frequently restored and has preserved the mission spirit-the shell ornaments on the belfry, the spiral staircase of mesquite wood, the bold carvings on the mission doors.

Magdalena is old in name and a pilgrimage spot for hundreds of years. But Magdalena has covered its past with a new façade and ceramic tower.

The trail of Kino next turns north along the upper part of Altar River and this part of the route is most rewarding. The churches are Franciscan restorations. The spirit of the valley and the friendliness of the people reopen the past and one can imagine the spirit of Kino riding again. Traveling these dirt roads in the Altar Valley we feel the meaning and the message of the pioneer Padre.

My group camped along the Altar River in the fateful month of March-the month that Kino came to Pimería Alta and the month that he left the valley in death. At six in the morning we rolled out of our sleeping bags and drove back to the village on the hill. Tubatama is hidden in the landscaping of rolling hills and tall cotton wood trees. For miles around the only sign of a village is the long white façade of the mission church with its tower and dome.

When we drove into the village, the population seemed limited to a man on horseback and a woman at an open door. Many low-squatting adobe homes clustered around the church and the plaza, but no one seemed interested in the arrival of our Toyota Jeep.

The front of the church and all the walls of the interior were whitewashed. The recessed windows did not permit much light especially in the sanctuary. Two kerosene lanterns were burning on each side of altar. Their thin light showed an oil painting on the side wall of St. Peter, patron of this mission.

A little old lady greeted me and pointed to an old chest of drawers on a raised platform and made it obvious from a sweeping gesture that I could use the excellently carved book stands and the mission vestments for mass. Then she disappeared.

Within a few minutes the mission bells of Tubatama were ringing out a message to the people. Mass was about to begin. The oldest bell, a little flat in tone, was inscribed 1742 and dedicated to Santa Barbara. I finished vesting for mass and walked to the sanctuary. I was startled. The church, empty but a few minutes before, was filled with men on one side and the women on the other. Posterity had kept the ancient faith alive, and these children of the mission era repeated aloud an act of faith at the consecration of the mass that Kino had taught their greatgreat grandparents.

Although the mission buildings of Kino are broken monuments or lost memories, the living faith he brought to our land grows in each generation. From Caborca to del Bac the cry of history is, "Come back, Padre Kino." The land he once envisioned as the "Heart of this North America" still reveres his shadow, his cross and his bell.