The Opas of the Great Bend of the Gila in 1770: The Account of Francisco Garcés

From his base at San Xavier del Bac, Francisco Garcés (1738-1781), OFM, undertook a series of explorations (entradas) among Native communities in Arizona, Sonora, and the Californias from 1768 to 1776. Garcés recorded ethnographic information and communicated it to missionary superiors in Querétaro and to the Viceroy in Mexico City. Beginning in 1770, he visited the Great Bend of the Gila River, then home of the Yuman-speaking Opas (modern Piipaa Nyaa), and produced several accounts. In the nineteenth century, the Opas moved away from the Great Bend farther up the Gila, taking refuge with several other Yuman groups among O'odham (Uto-Aztecan-speaking) allies. Over time, the formerly distinct Yuman-speaking communities were absorbed into a combination known as “Maricopas” or “Piipaash.” Thus, the Opas's earlier separate identity became blurred, leaving Garcés's representations as a unique ethnohistorical record. From previously untranslated documents (and a few published sources), this article presents Garcés's Opa ethnography.