Mission San Xavier del Bac - Definition and Overview

San Xavier del Bac (Papago Va:k) is a historic Spanish mission about 10 miles (16 km) south of downtown Tucson, Arizona on the Tohono O'odham Reservation. Also known as the "white dove of the desert".

Founded in 1700, the present building dates from 1785. It is open to the public except on Sundays when it is used as a church. The San Xavier Festival is held the evening of the Friday after Easter and features a torch-light parade of Tohono O'odham and Yaqui tribal members.

The interior is richly decorated with ornaments showing a mixture of New Spain and Native American artistic motifs.

One of the more interesting historic features of the mission is that it is "unfinished". Early taxation rules dictated that missions under construction could not be taxed, so the mission was never finished, as noted by the absence of one dome.

External link

• Online book on the mission (http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/online.bks/mission/titlmiss.htm)
• Official site (http://www.sanxaviermission.org)