BY BUCKINGHAM SMITH.
HISTORICAL.
This tongue was spoken in the middle of the last century over a region of country principally within Sonora, the northernmost of the seven Provinces then comprising the kingdom of New Galicia under the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The limit of Sonora on the east was continuous along the chain of mountains that divides it from Taraumara,—from Sateche, the farthest of the Indian settlements in that district, southwardly eighty leagues to Bacoa Sati the first of its towns. On the west the Province was washed by the sea of Cortez from the mouth of the Hiaqui to the Tomosatzi, or Colorado, the waters of the Hiaqui forming its limit to the south; and on the north by a course from the Mission of Baseraca westwardly through the Presidio de Fronteras to that of Pitic (Terrenate), a distance of seventy leagues. According to the opinion of a Jesuit Father, the author of an anonymous work in manuscript on that country, written in the year 1762 at Alamo, it was thought also to be the most important among the many Provinces of Mexico, whether for fertility of soil, gold washings, or silver mines; and not less distinguishable for the docility and loyalty of those aboriginal inhabitants who had early given their adhesion to the government to secure religious instruction.
The Missions of Sonora included moreover a section to the south bounded by the River Chico within the Province of Ostimuri. To the north, within the religious precinct, was the Pimeria Alta through the Sobahipuris up to the junction of the river of that name, (otherwise the San Pedro,) with the Gila; thence for a distance of more than one hundred and thirty leagues, after passing
among rancherias of Pima, Opa, and Cocomaricopa, and having received in its course the Asumpcion, or Compuesto—from its being formed by the united waters of two streams, the Salado and Verde—it enters the Tomosatzi, closing that Pimeria of innumerable tribes described by the missionaries as sealed in productive places, and in a genial climate. Other Indians of the same names, the Yuma also and Papapootam (Papago) lived beyond, as appears from the accounts given by the spiritual invaders of those remote regions, chiefly the Fathers Kino, Keller, and Sedelmayer.
The two principal nations of Sonora are spoken of as the Opata and Pima, since the Eudeve should be reckoned with the Opata, for the reason that its language differs as little from that of the other as the Portuguese from the Castilian, or the Provençal from the French; and likewise should also be added the Jove, who, having mingled with the Opata, no longer use their own tongue, except in some instances of the aged. It is one difficult to acquire, and different from any other in the Province.
The Opata are the best of the native Christians, having never turned upon their teachers, nor once risen against the royal authorities; nor do they, like other Indians, make the women bear the heavier share of the labor in the fields. They are industrious husbandmen; but they are not any the less wanting in valor on that account, having oftentimes shown their good conduct when bearing arms with the king’s forces at the expense of the Missions. Individuals there were, and perhaps still are, who did the work of blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors, stone cutters, masons, learning any craft readily, and practicing it with skill. They and some of the Endeve, although in a less degree, are to the other Indians what the people who live in towns are to those in the country, still for all it was remarked, they were none the less Indians. Such was the general character of the Opata, which is the same that is given of them in our time by that curious and instructive observer, John R. Bartlett, in his narrative of an expedition into that country.
The Jove were a rural people, quite the greater number of them, unwilling to be brought together in communities, lived in chasms among the ridges where they were born, proof to the solicitations of kindness and conveniences of civilized life. The other portion of them dwelt in Ponida, Teopari and Mochoba. The good missionary at Bacadeque endeavored to bring into towns those who inhabited the rancheria
of Sathechi and the margins of the Mulatos and Arcos, rivers to the south, without avail. They live among briars, owning a few animals, subsisting on wild fruits and vegetables, gathering an occasional stalk of maize or a pumpkin that nature suffers to grow in some crevice here and there made by torrents bursting from the mountains.
These nations, the Pima and the Opata, Eudeve, Jove, forming two people, occupy the greater portion of Sonora, seated far inward to the west from the Cordillera. The limit on the south is where stood the deserted town of Ivatora thence to Arivetze, Bacanora, Tonitzi, Soyopa, Nacori; on the west from Alamos, through parts of Ures and Nacomeri to Opedepe, and Cucurpe; on the north from Arispe, Chinapa, Bacoquetzi, Cuquiaratzi to Babispe, and from that Mission of Babispe on the east by mountains of low elevation returning to Natora.