AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1 9 6 6 double issue - Desert Magazine of ...

After a century
of mystery
Kino's grave has
been found.
Here is the
story, exclusive
for DESERT,
written by a
member of the
excavation party
52 / Desert Magazine / August-September, 1966
KINO'S GRAVE IS FOUND!
NOT MANY vacation-bent tourists
venture from the main highway of
Mexico to explore the dusty little town of
Magdalena. Most are in a hurry to reach
fishing resorts at Guaymas and Mazatlan,
or to continue south to exotic Mexico
City, or Acapulco. In any event, all who
enter Mexico through the Arizona border
town of Nogales soon arrive at Magdalena,
Sonora, a quiet little hamlet on the
Magdalena River. Occasionally a different
breed of traveler comes to the town, turns
off the Carretera International and disappears
into one of the narrow streets
leading to the Plaza and Church. These,
for the most part, are historians, archeologists
or just plain devotees coming to
pay tribute to a great pioneer, Father
Faisebio Francisco Kino.
Kino, a Jesuit missionary, came in 1687
to Pimeria Alta, an area reaching from
northern Sonora to the Gila River in Arizona.
On his shoulders fell the task of
developing and exploring this great region
of tierra incognita. He domesticated
wild Indians, introduced cattle and agriculture
and established the first semblance
of civilization and Christianity in this part
of the North American continent. To
Kino is also credited the eventual verification
of a land passage to the Californias.
He died in Magdalena in 1711, after
25 years of laborious tasks, and was
buried in a chapel in Magdalena he had
come to dedicate, the chapel of San Franciscos
de Xavier, Kino's patron saint.
That much is known to history. What
hasn't been known—until now—is the
exact location of this chapel with his
grave. Time and elements long ago eliminated
all vestiges of the Capilla de San
Francisco de Xavier. The Jesuits were
expelled soon after Kino's death and
Franciscan fathers who filled their posts
completed unfinished churches and built
new ones where needed. Records are
Exposed foundation of old Franciscan convent is at front, right of city hall. Legend
claimed it teas built over ruins of fesuit chapel which held Kino's grave. This clue led
excavators to follow foundations of different structure to the correct site. Kino's grave
is under large canopy at right. The small one covers grave of Indian neophyte buried
near Kino.
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