One of the staples of the Christian faith is the sacrament of baptism: the death of one’s former self with the washing away of sins, as a new, holier self is born. Teresita, in Luís Alberto Urrea’s The Hummingbird’s Daughter, goes through the same process, albeit not as a baby in the hands of the local priest. Instead, one morning, Teresita travels to the grove to pray, and then decides to relax in the creek that runs through it. Teresita “(cups) the water in her hands and (runs) it up her legs. It (curls) over her knees and (runs) down her calves in rivulets” (Urrea 314), symbolically baptizing herself after having prayed like a priest over the water that now trickles down her legs. As she emerges to head home she is confronted by the death
