San Xavier Nativity Built on O’odham Culture and Franciscan Simplicity

Nativity Scenes continue to be handmade treasures of divine inspiration of a treasured holy family. Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity are blessed to pray before the San Xavier Del Bac Mission Creche in Tucson, Arizona. In 1982 Franciscan Friar Father Celestine Chin and Jane Harrison Ivancovich, a long-time mission benefactress, invited San Xavier villager Tom Franco to create a Nativity Scene from desert materials. The finished work consists of eleven hand-carved pieces. The set has a ramada or “wah-toe,: three sheep, one shepherd, an angel playing a flute, a village dog, a clay pot or “olla” and the Holy Family.  The figures are hand-painted and have human hair and clothing of cloth. Some of the figures have movable arms, and the dog actually has a red tongue. Most of the statues are less than a foot in height, since the artist used sauaro cactus ribs that measured about one foot in length. Yucca and mesquite, real wool was glued on the mesquite-fashioned sheep. Glue, string and paint were the only store-bought materials

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