Last year at this time I wrote about the huge pilgrimage and fiesta of San Francisco in Magdalena, Sonora, which is celebrated in the days leading up to October 4.
Today, let’s take a look at the reclining statue of San Francisco Xavier, which provides the devotional focus for this event, even though October 4 is the feast day of quite a different saint, Francis of Assisi. But that’s another story.
Legend tells us that the original statue was brought to Magdalena by Father Kino himself. This seems to be true, as far as we can tell; Kino’s personal patron was St. Francis Xavier. Be that as it may, the statue in Magdalena is surrounded by legends. For example, I wrote last year how the image itself chose the village it wanted to stay in.
Fast forward to 1935, when a militantly anticlerical state government attempted to eradicate Catholicism in Sonora. Churches were closed, and priests either left the state or went into hiding, saying clandestine household masses.
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Groups of activists called los quemasantos (the saint-burners) entered churches and removed and destroyed many of their images. In Magdalena, the statue of San Francisco was taken to Hermosillo and burned in the furnaces of the Sonora Brewery.
Grim tales are told of what happened to the people who did this. The man who drove the truck that carried the statue to its fate in Hermosillo was himself struck and killed in Magdalena… by a truck from Hermosillo. Another man who dressed a burro in religious vestments and paraded it around inside the church was being driven to Hermosillo years later when his car ran into a group of burros. One of them was thrown into the air, fell through the roof of the car and killed the passenger.
However, there were some people who couldn’t believe that their beloved image had been taken and burned, and I have been told that the priest smuggled the statue out of the church and gave it to faithful O’odham, who carried it to one of their desert villages near the border. I’ve also been told by O’odham that it rained while this journey took place, both to confuse the pursuers and to bless the undertaking. And it is true that a few years later a San Francisco statue appeared in a village near the border. However it doesn’t look like the pictures of the original statue.
These and other stories are still alive in our desert land, adding depth and color to our landscape and history. I’m always eager to hear more; drop me an email!
