LA CORUA

Digital art from a Sonoran heart.
La Corúa is a mythical guardian water serpent from a vanishing stream of Sonoran folklore. 
Serpents appear also in Tohono O'odham and Yaqui (Yoeme) mythology, and are sacred in aboriginal cosmologies throughout the Americas.  All are connected to earth, water and rain.   Honoring La Corúa is my way of keeping this serpent spirit alive, and to help remember what ancients always knew:
Water is Life. 
This site is not a business and none of my work is for sale.  
I'm retired, I tinker a lot  and I never know when a new  surge of inspiration is going to strike. 
Thanks for bearing with me.

 Guardians of Tucson's Birthplace
Before the arrival of Spanish missionaries and long before the invasion of Europeans, this spot along a precious desert river was a small O'odham settlement called S-cuk Son, meaning "Black Hill" for the small black-rock covered mountain nearby.  When Padre Eusebio Franciso Kino and others established missions in the Pimeria Alta, they pronounced it "Tucson", and named the life-giving river the Santa Cruz.  Centuries later, now part of the United States, an anglicized version morphed from this ancient indigenous name: "TOO-sahn."  The signature black rock hill that defines Tucson was later named Sentinel Peak and is now affectionately called "A" Mountain - after the University of Arizona.
For original residents - Mexican, Native, Chinese and African Americans - remaining in their home barrios around the A-Mountain area today is challenging; as poverty continues its downward grind on residents with few or no resources. Arizona's libertarian laws cater to high-end investors (often out-of-state) and have made massive changes to the Greater Tucson area through the years. It is a system long favoring whites over minorities, and eclipses all local laws and ordinances. Existing inhabitants have been evicted or bought out on the cheap-- taking with them the cultural richness and living history that made their real estate so coveted by outsiders.
Yet, silently, eternally, guardians of The People, and of The Earth are here. They do not prevent changes, but they are here and are not forgotten.  And they have been here since the beginning. They plant the seeds of survival and wisdom in every new generation.

En Memoriam

Los que viven en la memoria nunca mueren. / Those who live in memory never die.

A collection of works honoring asylum seekers who didn't survive the rigors of the American Border. 2019.
My largest single project.

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*  La Corúa  was a large water serpent that lived in springs of water and protected them. They say it had a cross on its forehead and cleaned the veins of water with its long fangs or tusks. It was a shy creature, but could sometimes be caught sunning on the rocks of the spring.  According to Sonoran folk beliefs, if one killed the Corúa, the spring would dry up.  Vanishing water sources and economic pressures have pushed the folklore of La Corúa to the dustbin of history on this side of the border, but La Corúa remains in the minds and memories of elders in the Pimería Alta. Serpents have been sacred for millennia to indigenous peoples throughout the Americas and are respected as guardians of water sources and bringers of rain.

Background header painting:  Baboquivari Peak - the monolith landmark defining the Baboquivari mountains southwest of Tucson. The center of Tohono O'odham cosmology, it is sacred and is the home of I'itoi, their Creator and Elder Brother. The peak is visible from Casa Grande in the northwest, south into Mexico.  (I'itoi is also the figure in the O'odham 'Man in the Maze' design.)

* Beliefs and Holy Places - A Spiritual Geography of the Pimeria Alta  -  James S. Griffith, University of Arizona Press, 1992
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