Die Franziskaner Missionen des Suedwestens [Franciscan Missions of the Southwest, Vol. 1]
- Sixty-eight page booklet measuring 6 ¾ x 10 inches
- St. Michaels, Arizona: Anselm Weber and Berard Haile, 1913
St. Michaels, Arizona: Anselm Weber and Berard Haile, 1913. Sixty-eight page booklet measuring 6 ¾ x 10 inches. Wear mainly to covers; excellent.. Catholic missionaries—Franciscans in particular—have been present in what is now the American Southwest since the 16th century. For most of this time, these were Spanish missionaries missioning to the Pueblo people, mainly in New Mexico; these missionaries’ presence waned over time. In 1898, several decades after the Navajo were allowed to return to a reservation on part of their former territory, the first permanent Catholic mission to the Navajo was organized. St. Michael’s was founded by Fathers Anselm Weber and Berard Haile, German Franciscans from Cincinnati.
Their approach was different from the Spanish friars’ and that of the United States government primarily in that Weber and Haile advocated learning the Navajo language, understanding the culture, and approaching their conversion from that angle, especially focusing on children, who were more impressionable.[1] Haile in particular became an expert in the language and culture, translating many Catholic texts and producing dictionaries, and writing anthropological studies of Navajo culture and religion.
Offered here is a German-language copy—both Haile and Anselm were German—of the first volume of St. Michael’s yearly publication, The Fransiscan Missions of the Southwest (Die Franziskaner Missionen des Suedwestens). The illustrated journal was published from 1913 to 1922 and discussed the Navajo and Pueblo people and cultures and the activities of the missionaries in the area. Among other topics, this volume contains an article about the Navajo Fire Dance (“Der Feuertanz der Navajo-Indianer") with photographs taken from Haile’s Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navaho Language (1910).
We find sixteen holdings on OCLC of the full run of the journal and three of this specific volume. Of interest to historians of Catholic missionaries to the Pueblo and Navajo people.
[1] Ross Enochs, “The Franciscan Mission to the Navajos: Mission Method and Indigenous Religion, 1898–1940,” The Catholic Historical Review 92, no. 1 (January 2006): 46–73.
Their approach was different from the Spanish friars’ and that of the United States government primarily in that Weber and Haile advocated learning the Navajo language, understanding the culture, and approaching their conversion from that angle, especially focusing on children, who were more impressionable.[1] Haile in particular became an expert in the language and culture, translating many Catholic texts and producing dictionaries, and writing anthropological studies of Navajo culture and religion.
Offered here is a German-language copy—both Haile and Anselm were German—of the first volume of St. Michael’s yearly publication, The Fransiscan Missions of the Southwest (Die Franziskaner Missionen des Suedwestens). The illustrated journal was published from 1913 to 1922 and discussed the Navajo and Pueblo people and cultures and the activities of the missionaries in the area. Among other topics, this volume contains an article about the Navajo Fire Dance (“Der Feuertanz der Navajo-Indianer") with photographs taken from Haile’s Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navaho Language (1910).
We find sixteen holdings on OCLC of the full run of the journal and three of this specific volume. Of interest to historians of Catholic missionaries to the Pueblo and Navajo people.
[1] Ross Enochs, “The Franciscan Mission to the Navajos: Mission Method and Indigenous Religion, 1898–1940,” The Catholic Historical Review 92, no. 1 (January 2006): 46–73.