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The two honors that meant the most to Mike, and which still inspire awe amongst his
friends and colleagues, were his award of the Order of the Aztec Eagle in 1985, the high-
est honor Mexico can bestow. This is normally reserved for Mexico’s own poets and
Presidents, and rarely extended to foreigners, especially
norteamericanos
.Twenty years later,
in 2005, Mike was similarly honored by Spain, with the Order of Isabel la Catolica.This
was, again, the highest award offered to Spanish writers, artists, and patriots, seldom if
ever given to non-penisulares.
Mike was the best kind of historian, not only completely enamored of his subject, but
not confined nor constrained by it either. He knew more about the archaeology of Baja
California than most archaeologists, and more about its ethnohistory than most anthro-
pologists. Mathes was instrumental in persuading the Mexican government to establish
an INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) office in Baja California,
specifically so as to administer the historic archaeology associated with its missions. Baja
California being, at the time, the only major portion of the Mexican Republic without
INAH representation. Mike loved to talk to his historical counterparts wherever he
found them, be they in La Paz, Mexicali, México D.F., or at the Real Academia Española.
He also loved to talk to Indians,
charros
, and
licenciados
, it made no difference to him who
you were provided that a mutual interest in the past was evinced.
Mathes was very generous with his time. He was a conscientious editor and proofreader
when he honored you by going over the draft of something you thought might interest
him. Some errors, definitely within the category of pet peeves in both speech and writing
were certain to set him off: using the term “baja” (an adjective) instead of
Baja
California
would, for example, trigger an historico-political lecture guaranteeing that
the compound term would exclusively be used henceforth. Similarly, misuse of the word
“Spanish” for the people who came from the Iberian peninsula (“Spanish” is the
language that the
Spaniards
spoke, Mike would invariably insist) would have him gritting
his teeth just as much as the incautious use of “South America” to include Mexico by the
geographically challenged.
In the early 1990’s, Mike generously donated much of his own library, comprising
45,000 books, manuscripts, and historical documents, which became the core holding at
the Colegio de Jalisco, in Zapopan, now accessible to scholarly
charros
from all over
Mexico.The institution has named the library after Mike, the historian who was a librarian
long before he became a teacher.
Upon his retirement at the University of San Francisco in 1993, Mike left California for
Plainview,Texas. Mike became, if anything, more active than ever in his Mexican research
ventures. Besides writing and editing, he also began to lead tours up and down the mission
chain of Baja California.
We must be content with what he shared with all of us for so many years.Without his
presence and his voice, we are left to treasure his memory, and his amazing contribution
to scholarship that will outlive all of us.
Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D