page_title: Philipp Segesser
section_title: New Spain
hierarchical_section_title: Philipp Segesser / New Spain
caption_attribution_description: English: Hide painting sent to Switzerland from Sonora, Mexico in 1758 by Philipp Segesser (1 September 1689 - 28 September 1762) depicting European and Plains Indian warriors. Assumed to represent the 1720 defeat of the Villasur expedition.
context_page_description: Philipp Segesser was a German-speaking Swiss Jesuit missionary who spent much of his career in Sonora, Mexico.
context_section_description: Segesser spent nearly thirty years as a missionary in different parts of the Pimería Alta.
  Segesser and his fellow missionaries had to overcome what the Jesuits saw as barbaric practices. They also had to deal with the severe climate, where drought destroyed their plantations in some years, and in another year flooding from the Yaqui River destroyed entire mission villages.
  In 1734 he moved from the Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi to Cucurpe to recover from an illness. He was in San Francisco de Borja de Tecoripa in 1737, and for several periods in the years that followed was the rector of the Jesuit school there. From 1750 to 1754 he was visitator of Sonora. In 1755 he became missionary superior. He died on 28 September 1762 in Ures at a time when his mission was suffering severe damage from attacks by Apaches and Seris.
  Segesser was hard-working, practical and effective. He wrote many letters that described his daily life and the geography, fauna and flora of Sonora. They give valuable information about the local people and their lifestyle, including their beliefs, culture and way of life.
  In 1758 Segesser sent his brother in Switzerland "three colored skins", or hide paintings.
  They depict Spaniards, Frenchmen, Oto, Pawnee, Apache and Pueblo Indians.
  They provide important information on the dress and weapons of Plains Indian fighters.
  The paintings appear to depict the 1720 battle near the Loup River between the Villasur expedition and a force of Pawnees and Otoes.
  Segesser gave no indication of how he had acquired the paintings or of their significance, simply calling them "curiosities".
  Over the years the buffalo hide paintings were moved from one Swiss castle to another, and were cut so they could fit the available space.
  By 1988 the connection to the battle was posited, and the hides moved to the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe, New Mexico (the town from which Tomas Jiron de Tejeda, Fray Angelico Chavez' favoured candidate as to the artist, had a base of production).
caption: Detail of one of the hide paintings to Segesser sent to Switzerland in 1758
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