Museum Gallery 2, Jesuit era - Public Domain image, National Parks Gallery

Jesuit Priests, starting with Father Eusebio Kino, were the first Europeans to make contact with the O’odham. Covering great distances on horseback, they traveled throughout the Pimería Alta (upper Pima Indian lands) on their mission to bring Christianity and Spanish culture to the native people. The missionary depicted by the life-cast statue at the entrance to gallery two has just dismounted from his horse in the evening and is looking northward at the landscape he hopes to traverse in the morning. He might be Father Kino, Father Campos, Father Torres Perrea, or any of a number of other early Jesuit missionaries.