Sobaipuri

The Sobaipuri were a Piman group who occupied southern Arizona and northern Sonora (the Pimería Alta) in the 1400-1800s. They were a subgroup of the O'odham or Pima, surviving members of which include the Tohono O'odham and the Akimel O'odham.

Debate still surrounds whether the Sobaipuri and other O'odham groups are related to the prehistoric Hohokam (ho-ho-KAHM) who occupied a portion of the same geographic area and were present until about the 1400s. This question is sometimes phrased as the Hohokam-Pima or Salado-Pima continuum, phraseology that questions whether there is a connection between the prehistoric Hohokam and the first historic groups cited in the area. A key piece of the puzzle has recently been found when it was discovered that there were O'odham/Sobaipuri present in the 1400s (Seymour 2007a). Chronometric dates from multiple sites on the San Pedro and Santa Cruz rivers have produced evidence of Sobaipuri occupation in the 1400s (Seymour 2007, 2008; www.sobaipuri.com). The position is no longer defensible that no one was present after 1400 and that there was a substantial population decline in the prehistoric period (Seymour 2007c,d).

Sobaipuri Archaeology and Sobaipuri History

The Sobaipuri were present when the first Europeans visited the area in the middle 1500s, thereby playing an important role in European contact and later the European colonization of Arizona. Marcos de Niza probably encountered this group along the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona in 1539, although when Francisco Vázquez de Coronado followed less than a year later his party of explorers seems to have turned northeast before reaching the Sobaipuri settlements (Seymour 2008c). When Father Eusebio Kino first arrived in the area in 1691 he was greeted by leaders of this group. Headmen from San Cayetano del Tumacacori and perhaps other villages had come to Saric, Mexico from the north to ask that Kino visit them. Kino traveled north along the Santa Cruz River to San Cayetano del Tumacacori (later moved to the modern location of Tumacácori National Historical Park and renamed), where he found three native-made structures that had been constructed specially for him: a house, a kitchen, and one for saying mass (Bolton 1948). This visit to this first of the Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert north of the current international border made this native Sobaipuri settlement the first mission in southern Arizona, or the first Jesuit mission in Arizona, but, contrary to popular notions, not the first mission in Arizona--a role that goes to the Hopi pueblo of Awatovi. This original native Sobaipuri settlement of San Cayetano del Tumacacori has been located archaeologically on the east side of the river (as shown on Kino's historic maps), providing evidence of a densely packed, well-planned, long-occupied village (Seymour 2007a).

Kino then stopped by Guevavi (later referred to as Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi), which is located to the south along the Santa Cruz River. Here he later (1701) established a "neat little house and church" which he ordered whitewashed. The location of this native settlement and this formal church has been identified (Seymour 1993, 1997, 2008b). This native settlement later became the cabecera or head mission for this region.

The Sobaipuris were initially friendly with their neighbors, including the Apache, Jocome, and Jano (Seymour 2007b, 2008a). They traded with one another and they were cited sometimes raiding together. They even intermarried, probably creating the unique character of the Sobaipuri or Soba Jipuri. Later they sided with the Europeans which seriously stressed their relationship with this unconverted tribes because they went into battle against them.

The last Sobaipuri died in 1932 (Hoover 1935), while others had intermixed with other O'odham groups and the Apache (Seymour 2007b, 2008a).

Archaeological Research on the Sobaipuri

The Sobaipuri are one of the most-studied protohistoric (or late prehistoric and early historic) groups in southern Arizona, although this is not saying much as the protohistoric (late prehistoric and early historic are less studied than most other time periods, especially in this area). The accompanying list of references shows the upsurge of research in this group by archaeologists in the past 20 years.

Prior to this most of the research was conducted by historians. The first archaeological work was initiated by Charles C. Di Peso (1953, 1956) of the Amerind Foundation who established a program designed to understand the transition from prehistory to history. Although most of his conclusions about sites visited by Father Eusebio Kino have been discredited, Di Peso is recognized as a true scholar and he did define the first archaeological Sobaipuri site, making key contributions to the field, some of which are only recently being recognized. The other sites he thought might be Sobaipuri turned out to be late prehistoric sites representing Puebloan and other culture groups or the remnants of a later Spanish fort (Santa Cruz de Terrenate).

Archaeologist Deni Seymour has studied the Sobaipuri for 20-plus years, revisiting some of the issues raised by Di Peso. On the San Pedro, Santa Cruz, and tributary drainages Seymour has documented more than 30 archaeological sites occupied by the Sobaipuri (Seymour 1989, 1990, 1993a). She has mapped portions of their extensive irrigation systems and noted how their agriculture-based villages drifted along the river margins as groups grew and splintered through time (Seymour 1990, 1993, 1997, 2003). Excavations on several Sobaipuri sites have led her to revise conclusions that have arisen from use of the documentary record alone.

In the early 1980s, archaeologist Bruce Masse (1981) excavated Sobaipuri sites on the lower (northern) San Pedro River, revising many of Di Peso's original perspectives and summarizing the state of knowledge about this group to that date.

Only a few residential sites have been found away from the rivers. Archaeologist Bruce Huckell (1994) documented three archaeological sites in the shadow of the Santa Rita Mountains north of Sonoita, Arizona. These sites were probably used seasonally for hunting and gathering or possibly as refuge sites to escape Spanish, or possibly Apache, domination.

The Sobaipuri, like many O'odham groups, are sometimes portrayed as wooden characters in a cliché role about a fantacized past. However, now that more archaeological work has been conducted many of the roles played in this cultural historical script are being fleshed out. It is becoming possible to understand more about the actual lifeway of this group.

References

*Bolton, Herbert E., 1948 Kino's Historical Memoir of Pimeria Alta. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
**Bolton, Herbert E., 1960 [1936] Rim of Christendom: A Biography of Eusebio Francisco Kino Pacific Coast Pioneer. Russell & Russell, New York.
*Brew, Susan A., and Bruce B. Huckell, 1987 A protohistoric Piman burial and a consideration of Piman burial practices. The Kiva 52(3):163-191.
*Burrus, E. J., 1965 Kino and the Cartography of Northwestern New Spain. Tucson, AZ: Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society.
**Burrus, E. J., 1971a Kino and Manje: Explorers of Sonora and Arizona. In Sources and Studies for the History of the Americas, Vol. 10. Rome and St. Louis: Jesuit Historical Institute.
*Di Peso, Charles, 1953 The Sobaipuri Indians of the Upper San Pedro River Valley, Southwestern Arizona. Dragoon, AZ: Amerind Foundation Publication No. 6.
**Di Peso, Charles, 1956 The Upper Pima of San Cayetano del Tumacacori: An Archaeohistorical Reconstruction of the Ootam of Pimeria Alta. The Amerind Foundation, Inc. Dragoon, Arizona.
*Doyel, D. E., 1977 Excavations in the Middle Santa Cruz River Valley, Southeastern Arizona. Contribution to Highway Salvage Archaeology in Arizona, Number 44. Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson.
*Hoover, J.W., 1935 Generic Descent of the Papago Villages. American Anthropologist 37(2):257-264.
*Huckell, Bruce B., 1984 Sobaipuri Sites in the Rosemont Area. Chapter 3 in "Miscellaneous Archaeological Studies in the Anamax-Rosemont Land Exchange Area," edited by M.D. Tagg, R.G. Ervin, B.B. Huckell. Tucson, AZ: Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series 147(4) Tucson, pp. 107-130.
*Karns, H. J., 1954 Luz de Tierra Incognita. Tucson, AZ: Arizona Silhouettes.
*Kessell, John L., 1970 Mission of Sorrow: Jesuit Guevavi and the Pimas, 1691-1767. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
*Masse, W. Bruce, 1981 A Reappraisal of the Protohistoric Sobaipuri Indians of Southeastern Arizona. In The Protohistoric Period in the North American Southwest, A.D. 1450-1700. David R. Wilcox and W. Bruce Masse, editors. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University Anthropological Research Papers No. 24, pp. 28-56.
*Robinson, William J., 1976 Mission Guevavi: Excavations in the Convento. The Kiva 42(2):135-175.
*Seymour, Deni J., 1989 The Dynamics of Sobaipuri Settlement in the Eastern Pimeria Alta. Journal of the Southwest 31(2):205-222.
**Seymour, Deni J., 1990 Sobaipuri-Pima Settlement Along the Upper San Pedro River: A Thematic Survey Between Fairbank and Aravaipa Canyon. Report for the Bureau of Land Management. On file at the Arizona State Museum.
**Seymour, Deni J., 1993a Piman Settlement Survey in the Middle Santa Cruz River Valley, Santa Cruz County, Arizona. Report submitted to Arizona State Parks in fulfillment of survey and planning grant contract requirements.
**Seymour, Deni J., 1993b In Search of the Sobaipuri Pima: Archaeology of the Plain and Subtle. Archaeology in Tucson. Newsletter of the Center for Desert Archaeology. Vol. 7, No. 1, pp 1-4.
**Seymour, Deni J., 1997 Finding History in the Archaeological Record; The Upper Piman Settlement of Guevavi. Kiva 62(3):245-260.
**Seymour, Deni J., 2003 Sobaipuri-Pima Occupation in the Upper San Pedro Valley: San Pablo de Quiburi. New Mexico Historical Review 78(2):147-166.
** Seymour, Deni J., 2004 Thirty-Two Degrees North Latitude: the Protohistoric Period in the Southern Southwest. Book manuscript.
**Seymour, Deni J., 2007a A Syndetic Approach to Identification of the Historic Mission Site of San Cayetano Del Tumacácori. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 11(3):269-296.
**Seymour, Deni J., 2007b Delicate Diplomacy on a Restless Frontier: Seventeenth-Century Sobaipuri Social and Economic Relations in Northwestern New Spain, Part I. New Mexico Historical Review, Volume 82, No. 4.
**Seymour, Deni J., 2007c An Archaeological Perspective on the Hohokam-Pima Continuum. Old Pueblo Archaeology Bulletin No. 51, December 2007.
**Seymour, Deni J., 2007d The Rancheria-People of Kino’s Congregation: Sobaípuri-O’odham Contexts of Contact and Colonialism. Book manuscript.
**Seymour, Deni J., 2007e Sexually Based War Crimes or Structured Conflict Strategies: An Archaeological Example from the American Southwest. In Texas and Points West: Papers in Honor of John A. Hedrick and Carol P. Hedrick, edited by Regge N. Wiseman, Thomas C. O’Laughlin, and Cordelia T. Snow, pp. 117-134. Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico No. 33. Archaeological Society of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
**Seymour, Deni J., 2008a Delicate Diplomacy on a Restless Frontier: Seventeenth-Century Sobaipuri Social and Economic Relations in Northwestern New Spain, Part II. New Mexico Historical Review, Volume 83, No. 2.
**Seymour, Deni J., 2008b Father Kino’s 'Neat Little House and Church' at Guevavi. Journal of the Southwest 50(4)(Winter).
**Seymour, Deni J. 2008c Evaluating Eyewitness Accounts of Native Peoples Along the Coronado Trail From the International Border to Cibola. New Mexico Historical Review.
**Seymour, Deni J., 2008d Apache Plain and Other Plainwares on Apache Sites in the Southern Southwest. In "Serendipity: Papers in Honor of Frances Joan Mathien," edited by R.N. Wiseman, T.C O'Laughlin, C.T. Snow and C. Travis, pp. . Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico No. 34. Archaeological Society of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
**Seymour, Deni J. In press Beyond Married, Buried, And Baptized: Exposing Historical Discontinuities In An Engendered Sobaípuri-O’odham Household. Chapter in Engendering Households in the Prehistoric Southwest, edited by Barbara Roth. Under review by University of Arizona Press, Tucson.