The Oral Histories of Coyote Iguana and Dolores Casanova Among the Comcaac

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• The Oral Histories of Coyote Iguana and Dolores Casanova Among the Comcaac
• Alberto Mellado Jr. (bio) Translated by Gary Paul Nabhan (bio)

The Birth and Childhood of Jesús Ávila

Around the year of 1828, in a remote place on the small island Cofteecöl—or San Esteban Island as the Mexicans will call it later—those of us who were there saw the birth of a special little one of our kind. On that happy day, we celebrated with his parents, whose names we still remember after nearly two centuries: the father, Juan Ávila, and the mother, Mariana Sánchez, both Comcaac people. Some of us still remember that Juan Ávila was the brother of Coimaxp. It was he who told Juan Ávila to take his wife to the island of Cofteecöl or San Esteban, for there, they could readily harvest and eat maguey and iguanas. There, because our caves on the island were safer and more protected from the cold, their son could be born in comfort. So, Juan Ávila and his wife, Mariana Sánchez, left for that small island in the middle of the sea, where they lived during the winter of that year, caring for their newborn son.

At that time, there was no way that the parents could even imagine that the little boy they held in their arms would one day in the future possibly become the most widely known man in the history of our tribe. The Spanish name they gave him was Jesús Ávila, but at some point in his life he would become known throughout Sonora as Coyote Iguana.

When Jesús Ávila was only one month old, his parents ventured westward across the Gulf to take him to the island we call Coof Coopol Iti Iihom, or San Lorenzo Island, as the Mexicans would call it. [End Page 469]

Late in 1829, those of us who were on Tiburón Island saw a balsa boat arrive on the west shore of Tiburón Island. We recognized them as the family of Juan and Mariana, coming from Coof Coopol Iti Iihom, bringing little Jesús Ávila along with them. He was now about one year old. They stayed with us during the season when the saguaros give us their large white flowers, camping with us in the place that we call Cyajoj.

In those days they moved like all of us to other camps on Tiburón Island, in the camps we call Hant Copni and Xtasi, where they lived for some time.

We then saw the family of little Jesús Ávila sail north, across the sea to the camp that our people call Hast Pizal, one that the Mexicans will later call Puertecitos. It is on the Baja California peninsula we call Hant Ihíin. It is a fishing camp that many of our families stayed at, about a hundred miles northwest of the Xazl Iimt, the island that the Mexicans would call Angel de la Guarda. The eyes of little Jesús Ávila saw the large sandy, blue-water bay where many fish congregate below the rocks at the edge of the sea.

After camping there, the Ávila family lived for a while on the Xazl Iimt, Isla Angel de la Guarda. Sometime later, they came back to Tiburón Island to stay with us in the camp where people arrive from the other islands; we also call the camp itself Isla Angel de la Guarda.

The Story Before the Legend

Around the year 1844, those of us who lived on Tiburón Island saw that Jesús Ávila was already so young, strong, and full of life that he was ready for his vision quest and rite-of-passage. He ascended into the caves of the hill we call Inámx, in the mountainous region of Tiburón Island we also call Tahejöc. He went there to obtain the kind of spiritual power that in those days was so necessary, for we lived under constant fire and oppression. The days passed for him in the cave, but the spirit came to him at last. A...