Oquitoa
Encyclopedia
Municipalities of Mexico
Municipalities are the second-level administrative division in Mexico . There are 2,438 municipalities in Mexico, making the average municipality population 45,616...
in the northwest of the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
state of Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
.
Area and Population
The municipal area is 636.64 km² with a population of 402 registered in 2000. http://www.inegi.gob.mx/inegi/default.aspx Most of this population lives in the small municipal seat. It is located at an elevation of 579 meters.Neighboring Municipalities
Neighboring municipalities are AtilAtil
Atil , literally meaning "Big River", was the capital of Khazaria from the middle of the 8th century until the end of the 10th century. The word is also a Turkic name for the Volga River.-History:...
to the northeast; Trincheras
Trincheras
Trincheras is a town, and the surrounding municipality of the same name, in the north-west of the Mexican state of Sonora. It was founded in 1775 by Bernardo de Urrea. The municipal area is 3,764.26 sq. km. and the population in 2000 was 1,788...
to the southeast, and Altar
Altar, Sonora
Altar is small city in Altar Municipality in the Mexican state of Sonora. It is located in the northwest region of the state at . Surrounding municipalities are Sáric, Tubutama, Atil, Trincheras, Pitiquito, Caborca and Oquitoa. The northern boundary is with Pima County in the U.S...
to the west.
History
It was founded in 1689 by the Jesuit missionary: Eusebio KinoEusebio Kino
Eusebio Francisco Kino S.J. was an Italian Roman Catholic priest who became famous in what is now northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States in the region then known as the Pimaria Alta...
. One theory is that the name Oquitoa means "white woman" in the Piman language. Another, taken from the 1910 publication "New Trails in Mexico" by Karl Lumholtz is that the name Oquitoa is taken from the O'odham or Piman Phrase, Hukit'o, "next to" or "nearby"(Lumholtz, p. 391, 1990) in reference to the nearby San Ignacio river. Louis Alphonse Pinart's Vocabulario de la Lengua Papaga, 1897, collected in Pitiquito Sonora Mexico from Trinidad Peralta and the Papago governor, Mattias Parra of the Papago community of Pitiquito corroborates Lumholtz's definition of Oquitoa as "hukit'o" Oks Toha, or Oquitoa as defined by the first theory as white woman, literally means 'woman white' that even in the structure of Piman grammer is awkward and is therefore highly unlikely.
Health and education
There were only two primary schools and one doctor in a small health clinic in 2000. http://www.e-local.gob.mx/work/templates/enciclo/sonora/municipios/26046a.htmEconomic Activity
Agriculture covered 901 hectares (2000), most of which were not irrigated. Main crops are alfalfa, beans, corn and the production of fodder for the cattle industry. http://www.sonoraturismo.gob.mx/oquitoa-sonora.htmCattle raising was carried out by most of the work force (2000).
Tourist Sights
Of touristic importance is the San Antonio Paduano del Oquitoa mission, the only still-used church in the region of Jesuit (pre-1767) construction. Oquitoa is considered by many to be the gem of the Kino missionsSpanish missions in the Sonoran Desert
The Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert are a series of Jesuit Catholic religious outposts established by the Spanish Catholic Jesuits and other orders for religious conversions of the Pima and Tohono O'odham indigenous peoples residing in the Sonoran Desert...
. Padre Kino first makes mention of San Antonio de Uquetoa on January 19, 1689, when the Father Visitor Manuel Gonzales assigned Father Antonio Arias as its first priest. The church apparently had a facelift by the Franciscans between 1788 and 1797, and was restored in 1920
This simple adobe hall church stands atop a small hill in the midst of the village cemetery. http://parentseyes.arizona.edu/missions/Oquitoa.html