Pablo Tac, Indigenous Scholar: Writing on Luiseño Language and Colonial History, c. 1840 by Lisbeth Haas (review)

Lisbeth Haas, a California social historian, has made available translations of the writings of Pablo Tac, a Luiseño (Payomkowishum) Native American who was born and raised at Mission San Luis Rey in Southern California in the early-nineteenth century. The first section includes Haas’s essay on Tac’s life in colonial California from birth at the mission in 1820 and his departure at the age of twelve for Europe with Father Antonio Peyri to his death in 1841 at the Vatican. Haas succinctly presents the picture of Tac’s life during the uneasy transition of California from a Spanish colonial territory to a province in the new Mexican republic. Another transition, from rural colonial outpost to the European continent and the heart of the Roman Catholic Church, is covered vividly and with a deep understanding of the 1830s. She provides the reader with necessary information to understand the context of Tac’s writing and at the same time their utter uniqueness as he moved to Rome and studied for the priesthood. The foreword was written by Melvin Vernon, tribal chair of the San Luis Rey Luiseño community, honoring Tac for his contributions and demonstrating that his people remain in the place Tac called home—Cheehnajuisci. James Luna, Luiseño performance artist and cultural commentator, adds insight and images in a separate chapter. Showing his installation in Venice on Pablo Tac and a series of ethnographic photos contrasted with contemporary photos he produced brings Tac into the present and places him among the line of elders who maintained traditions and the living culture through hard times.

The second part of the book consists of Tac’s writings. This begins with grammatical notes on the Luiseño language in Spanish, Latin, and Luiseño. Interspersed is a “history” of the Luiseño people—a rare, first-person mix of history, narratives, descriptions of Native culture, and personal observations. Tac produced these writings at the request of the Vatican librarian, Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, providing multiple variations of the stories with changes in emphasis and detail containing an indigenous approach to narrative that has rarely been recorded, an insight into the Native Californian culture. Here also is Tac’s Luiseño-Spanish dictionary covering the letters A through C (that is, words beginning with the sounds A, K, and Ch)—many further terms may be found as examples in the grammar exercises. Tac’s original manuscript is provided in full on the left pages with English translation on the right.

Haas’s work on Tac is an invaluable volume for anthropologists and Native scholars, going far beyond the truncated version of his texts prepared by Minna and Gordon Hewes (Indian Life and Customs at Mission San Luis Rey. A Record of California Mission Life by Pablo Tac, an Indian Neophyte [San Luis Rey, CA, 1958]). This will be the definitive work on Tac for historians hoping to understand California’s Franciscan mission system from a Native perspective and aspects of Hispanic colonial history, as well as for those who care to hear the voices otherwise nearly absent in California historical narrative.