MCGEE] THE FRANCISCAN MISSION 1772 81 



necessary for the Kiug to constantly supply provisions, else tbe converts 

 would have a pretext for wandering around and avoiding attention to 

 the cateL'hism." But the governor was obdurate, and only complained 

 to the viceroy and the Queretaro college. Between tires, JTray Crisos- 

 tomo yielded, and on IS^ovember 2V>, 1772, proceeded to Carrizal and 

 established himself as a minister, without company or escort .save a 

 little boy to serve as acolyte. "With the aid of the Indies Tiburones 

 the friar erected a jacal [or hut bower] ' to serve as a church, and a tiny 

 hut as a habitation, and began immediately, with tbe greatest kindness, 

 to convoke the people for religious instruction, only to see that the 

 desires they had expressed to the governor to become Christians were 

 not deep enough to bring them from their island to attend services — 

 except a few who came and took part in the prayers when they thought 

 fit. But as the congregation at the place was only nominal, and with 

 only three jacales under control, so also was the instruction they 

 sought: and because of both the condition of the land and their wan- 

 dering instinct, which is in them almost a necessity and more excusable 

 than in other Indians, because neither within their island nor on the 

 coast is the territory fit for cultivation, and still less for the stability 

 essential to civil and i)olitical life", the missionary naturally despaired 

 of substantial progress; indeed, "the only fruit for which he could 

 hope, under his mode of living, was reduced either to a child or an 

 adult whom he could, in special circumstances, shrive in extremis." In 

 this disheartening condition the friar spent the winter from near the 

 end of ^November to jNIarch 6, 1773. Then, as ajjpears from an official 

 declaration, there came to him by night an Indian called Yxquisis, 

 with a trumpery tale about a revolt on the part of the Piato and 

 Apache, which led the guileless friar away from the poor shelter of 

 his'jacal under the guidance of the Indian. At the inquest Yxquisis 

 confessed, although with many falsehoods ("con muchas mentiras"), 

 that he had stoned the friar, but "without stating any motive for com- 

 mitting such an atrocious crime". Yet even before the story reached 

 Horcasitas two "Indios del Tiburon'', supposed to be implicated, were 

 beaten' to death with sticks on the spot in whicli the friar's body was 

 found,- and the body was buried by a chief of the tribe. And so ended 

 the mission of Carrizal in the land of the Seri. 



Traditions of this Franciscan mission still linger about Hermosillo 

 and at Rancho San Francisco de Costa Eica, and they, like Arricivita's 

 account, indicate tliat tlie churchly Jacal was planted eitlier hard by 

 Pozo Escalante or at a traditional Ujito Carrizal (Aguaje Parilla, not 

 found in the surveys of 1895), supposed to lie a few miles farther north- 

 westward. All the probabilities point to Pozo Escalante as the site, 

 despite the fact that no cane now grows there ; the topographic 

 description applies exactly, while the state of the padre's remains, 



'Doubtless the structures approached the conventioual Seri pattern, illustrated in the accompauy- 

 ing jilate VI, from photographs taken on Tiburon in 1895. 

 2 Arricivita, op. cit., pp. 426-429. 53U-524. 

 1 7 E'I'H 6 



