Making Ways: Historical Insights into Accommodation and Resiliency

Knowledge comes to us from various sources and in innumerable forms and is most valued when it provides a glimpse into previously untapped aspects of a topic or theme. Sometimes the emphasis given or the way questions are asked substantially change the narrative at hand, allowing for new insights into presumably settled topics. In some instances, fresh perspectives raise questions that we did not know to ask, reminding us that curiosity initiates inquiry while successful inquiry flows from appropriately formulated problems.

This special issue of KIVA includes voices outside the norm, on topics that have only tangentially been included in recent pages of this journal. This is nowhere more apparent than in the first contribution about the Hiaki (Yaqui), written by a Hiaki scholar. This article demonstrates that the way questions are posed can substantially alter understanding and that to comprehend the basis of native practices, especially those such as ritual and ceremony that are often shielded from outside view, sometimes requires understanding from an emic perspective. Application of an analytical framework without this understanding can result in mischaracterization or superficial treatment of a topic.

This Hiaki example is especially pertinent to this KIVA issue in that Hiaki or Yoeme from the nearby Tucson and Marana communities celebrate seasonally in front of the San Xavier del Bac church. The perception natives imbue on these traditional ceremonies often differs substantially from the views of onlookers. In this I am reminded of a story by a Wa:k O’odham woman wherein I was told that she loved the historical reenactments that were once celebrated in front of the church depicting horseback Spaniards coming into the village for the first time. Surprised I asked why she would welcome the celebration of the arrival of Spanish conquerors and colonists, and she responded that in addition to the elaborate display, the event always ended with the horsemen riding away from the village, and this reminded them that even as others come and go, they as a people remain, they are still here.

In the second article, we hear from an art historian on interpretation of an aspect of the façade at San Xavier del Bac. While the preceding contribution demonstrates that some questions are effectively addressed by stepping outside disciplinary boundaries, this next paper reminds us that sometimes the most useful insights are provided when guided by disciplinary rules of evidence. This paper facilitates appreciation that each discipline has specialized ways of approaching topics that employ a unique set of evaluative criteria. The broader analytical framework and specialized knowledge brought to bear on the issue of the statue that crowns the façade reveals how carefully assessed evidence can provide answers when only fragmentary evidence remains.

The final paper focuses on a historical archaeological problem that in drawing on multiple sources of evidence reveals an eighteenth-century defensive O’odham village in front of the Franciscan San Xavier del Bac church. Historical photographs and illustrations are supplemented by narrative descriptions, all of which correspond to a description from 1780 that tells us of this defensive arrangement of adobes. While clearly visible in these many sources, it was not until the evidence was appropriately aligned that this village and its historical importance was revealed.

Each of these articles conveys how people embedded in the traditional and customary made new ways, not of whole cloth but as a patchwork of past and future via the immediacy of the present. The Hiaki accommodated Roman Catholic missionaries in regionally specific ways, yet as Pagán notes, despite this, there is a case to be made that Hiaki religious practice remains mostly Hiaki. Further, his thesis centers on the notion of resilience in ritual knowledge, pointing to something more than appropriation.

A similar message is conveyed by Umberger with reference to the façade and symbolism of the San Xavier del Bac church where Franciscans took over after the Jesuits but retained many of the Jesuit saints and symbolism. As Umberger notes, the result is a local response to a complex historical situation, wherein we see expressed a violation of custom, but not of Church canon. She describes a juxtaposition of saints and symbols from two distinct religious orders, indicating that how this was perceived depended on the knowledge of viewers, natives versus religious. She contends that modern scholars have over-emphasized St. Francis Xavier’s Jesuit affiliation, whereas this aspect of this historical identity was probably intentionally muted in the Franciscan church, though both were likely retained for the benefit of the congregation.

The late nineteenth-century O’odham residents of Wa:k also modified their village layout, housing style, and the location of their village to address regional violence and the demands instituted as a result of the change in religious order. Yet, after little more than a generation they abandoned their defensive village and returned to their traditional housing forms and layout, demonstrating that change does not proceed in a single inevitable direction. Even then, however, early images show the juxtaposition of traditional houses and rectangular ones that were made of sun-dried adobes. The new was interspersed with the old, tradition incrementally but selectively was giving way to donated elements from outside the community, demonstrating the gradual process of culture change–all part of the process of making new ways through accommodation and resiliency.