This well-researched exploration of the development of patron saint feast days among the 19 Eastern Pueblo peoples of New Mexico, the Hopi of Arizona, and the Ysleta del Sur in El Paso, Texas, provides important insights into this tradition, a fascinating blend of Native and Spanish Catholic symbolism and practices that McComb Sanchez argues exemplify how Pueblo people negotiated, adopted, and appropriated Catholicism, making it uniquely their own.
Through archival and primary sources, anthropological records and her own fieldwork, McComb Sanchez traces the historical origins of the patron saint feast days, which she contends arose no earlier than the late 18th to early 19th century, much later than most scholars have thought, showing how and why Pueblo people incorporated selected aspects of Catholicism into their traditional ways, not as a “veneer,” since this was a time when the missionaries’ influence had greatly diminished, but as an important addition to their ancestral practices. She introduces the concept of “bounded incorporation” to describe how Pueblo people maintained flexible boundaries around their traditional practices, successfully resisting the eradication of their cultural and spiritual traditions through the incorporation of Catholicism into their Indigenous framework. This approach is exemplified through patron saint feast days. In this way, McComb Sanchez celebrates Native agency as they negotiated Spanish Colonialism, U.S. rule, and Protestant missionaries—and later, inquisitiveness by anthropologists and tourists.
A beautifully written tribute to the long-standing Pueblo traditions, this book should be read by anyone who desires a more complete understanding of Eastern Pueblo history, including a valuable overview of language, societal structure, ceremonies, and general beliefs. It provides a framework for understanding early Spanish colonization of New Mexico, especially the role of religion in colonization and the religious responses of the Pueblo people, who “appropriated Catholicism to suit their needs, making it a valued part of their religious life on their own terms.”
