Walking to Magdalena: Personhood and Place in Tohono O’odham Songs, Sticks, and Stories by Seth Schermerhorn (review)

Written as both an analytical, anthropological work as well as a first-hand account of the author’s own journey across the desert landscape alongside members of the Tohono O’odham nation, Seth Schermerhorn’s Walking to Magdalena is a book that tries to demonstrate how the Tohono O’odham have “made Christianity their own by embedding it within their ancestral landscapes,” exploring both the physical, spiritual, and linguistic elements that have become deeply ingrained in the traditional pilgrimage to Mexico (p. 23).

The book is broken into five chapters which deal with a different aspect of Tohono O’odham life as it pertains to the Magdalena Pilgrimage, an annual event where members of the Tohono O’odham nation travel to the town of Magdalena, Sonora, to honor Saint Francis. The first chapter, titled “Personhood and Place,” explores the complementary relationship between people and places, where individuals such as “saints” or “devils” become associated with particular parts of the landscape, be it natural or man-made. Chapter two examines several different songs to identify how O’odham people map out their traditional landscape through their musical traditions. The third chapter focuses on the walking sticks that “walkers” acquire during their first pilgrimage, and how these sticks become a non-written form of document that chronicles the owner’s numerous journeys across the O’odham landscape. Chapter four places the Magdalena pilgrimage within O’odham ideas of “movement,” and on how it is necessary for an O’odham person to be a “good walker” in order to properly follow the O’odham himdag. Finally, chapter five is dedicated to examining how various Tohono O’odham people embed Christianity into the landscape through their various interpretations of their history.

Schermerhorn brilliantly describes the Tohono O’odham in a manner that demonstrates sociocultural fluidity and adaptability in response to settler colonialism. A particularly poignant example is how Schermerhorn notes that the O’odham believe Christianity to be an O’odham invention, arguing that “I’itoi made it for them at the time of the establishment of O’odham homelands” (p. 124). Thus the Tohono O’odham resisted the idea of cultural destabilization and assimilation by claiming a space intended to be used as a tool for colonialism and altering it for their own purpose and use. In another example, he remarks on finding pilgrim walking sticks inside the cave of I’itoi, the home of “Elder Brother” (the being responsible for creating the O’odham himdag), which demonstrate the Tohono O’odham’s success in seamlessly melding traditional practices with Christianity. Through these examples, Schermerhorn does an excellent job describing how the Tohono O’odham have managed to adapt to the changes in their environment, thus demonstrating the agency of a Native people during times of adversity.

Schermerhorn’s writing is appealing in part because of his willingness to insert himself into the story, describing his own personal interactions with members of the Tohono O’odham nation. Too often scholars try to remove themselves from the stories they tell, placing themselves in the position of an “unbiased observer” who is both detached from his or her subjects, and whose arguments are not influenced by the world around them. The problem with this approach is that it is simply impractical and ignores the basic reality that we scholars, regardless of our training, are still human, and thus still subject to bias. By giving his readers some insight into his own mind, Schermerhorn grants us a tool through which we can identify how he is making his conclusions.

One problem for this reviewer is Schermerhorn’s argument against I’itoi Ki: (the Cave of I’itoi in the Baboquivari Mountains) being the “most sacred O’odham sacred space” (p. 148). In this particular section, he argues that this “popular” depiction of the cave by both O’odham and non-O’odham is...