Opata people (Amerind tribe)
Nation | Active
1500 CE to 1971 CE
Opata (pronounced óh-pah-tah) is the collective name for three indigenous peoples native to the northern Mexican border state of Sonora.
Opata territory, the "Opateria", encompasses the mountainous northeast and central part of the state extending to near the border with the United States.
Most Opatan towns are situated in river valleys and had an economy based on irrigated agriculture.
In the 16th century when they first meet the Spanish, the Opata are the most numerous people in Sonora.
As an identifiable ethnic group, the Opata and their language are now extinct, or nearly extinct
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Eusebio Kino, born (date unkown) Eusebius Franz Kühn (or Kuehn; the name Kino was the version for use in Spanish-speaking domains; other sources cite his name as Eusebio Francesco Chini), was baptized on August 10, 1645 in Taio, Val di Non, Bishopric of Trent (present-day Italy), which explains why sources differ as to Kino’s nationality.
Educated in Innsbruck, Austria, Kino had joined the Society of Jesus on November 20, 1665 after recuperating from a serious illness.
He had received religious training from 1664 to 1669 hat Freiburg, Ingolstadt, and Landsberg, Bavaria, and had taken his vows as a priest on June 12, 1677.
Although Kino had wanted to go to the Orient, he had been sent instead to New Spain.
Due to travel delays across Europe, he had missed the ship on which he was to travel and had to wait a year for another ship.
While waiting in Cadiz, Spain, he had written of his observations of a comet, Exposción Astronómica de el Cometa.
This volume will later be the subject of a sonnet by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.
Kino's first assignment had been to lead the Atondo expedition to the Baja California peninsula of the Las Californias Province of New Spain, where he had established the Misión San Bruno in 1683.
After a prolonged drought there in 1685, Kino and the Jesuit missionaries were forced to abandon the mission and return to the viceregal capital of Mexico City.
Father Kino on the morning of March 14, 1687, leaves Cucurpe, a town once considered the "Rim of Christendom, to begin his career in the Pimería Alta (upper land of the Pimas) at the request of the natives.
Kino quickly establishes the first mission in a river valley in the mountains of Sonora.
Subsequently, he travels across northern Mexico and to present day California and Arizona, following ancient trading routes established millennia prior by the natives, later expanded into roads.
His many expeditions on horseback will cover over fifty thousand square miles (one hundred and thirty thousand square kilometers), during which he will map an area two hundred miles (three hundred and twenty kilometers) long and two hundred and fifty miles (four hundred kilometers) wide.
Kino is important in the economic growth of area, working with the already agricultural indigenous native peoples and introducing them to European seed, fruits, herbs and grains.
He also teaches them to raise cattle, sheep and goats.
Kino's initial mission herd of twenty cattle imported to Pimería Alta will grow during his tenure to seventy thousand.
Historian Herbert Bolton refers to Kino as Arizona's first rancher. (Bolton, H.E., Padre on Horseback, Loyola Press, 1963.)
In his travels in the Pimería Alta, Kino has interacted with sixteen different tribes.
Some of these have land that borders on the Pimería Alta, but there are many cases where tribal representatives cross into the Piman lands to meet Kino.
In other cases, Kino travels into their lands to meet with them, encountering the Cocopa, Eudeve, Hia C-ed O'odham (called Yumans by Kino), Kamia, Kavelchadon, Kiliwa, Maricopa, Mountain Pima, Opata, Quechan, Gila River Pima, Seri, Tohono O'odham, Sobaipuri, Western Apache, Yavapai, and Yaqui (Yoeme).