“Not all of them. There are Catholics, Christians, and those who worship Mahomet. There are the Israelites,—they have the strangest religion! They worship a calf’s head. In their church they put on the queerest garments, gather round a great calf’s head in the middle, and sing such a curious hymn, ‘Wow, Wow!’ It sounds like that. It would make you laugh, only they will not let you into the synagogue, and if you do just manage to peep in, they drive you out.”
I told her of the wailing of the Jews outside the wall of Jerusalem, hoping to rouse some sympathy for them, but Concepcion could feel none.
“Though,” she acknowledged, “our Lord was an Israelite. He did not become a Catholic till he was thirty-three years old, when He had Himself baptized by San Juan Battisto. Before that He occupied Himself with preaching His religion.”
I asked Concepcion which of the saints was her especial patron.
“The blessed saints are all very good,” she answered, “but I myself do not put much dependence on them. I place all my hopes on the Virgin.”
As Concepcion talked, the sun went down; long shadows fell across the plaza. The pale rose-colored Giralda glowed a deeper pink in the sunset, and then faded. The new moon came up in the faint lavender sky and hung, a golden scimitar, the evening star beside it, over the tower. In the minaret where the muezzin once cried his shrill “Allah il Allah,” San Miquel and el Cantor, rocked and pealed, saluting each float as it passed.
“See, the crescent and the star over the Giralda,” said Pemberton; “the cross gleams red on the cathedral. Mary reigns in Mahomet’s place, and her robe is worked in the arabesques of the Moors.”
Walking home, we came upon a paso at rest in a side street. The velvet hangings that fall from the base to the ground were parted. We caught a glimpse of the hidden motive power, twenty-five or thirty men, with quaint, padded turbans on their heads, the ends hanging down and covering the shoulder. The water seller in his white garments was in attendance. He filled and refilled his glass, passing it to the thirsty bearers, who drank, and mopped their faces silently. The masked penitentes stood at ease, fanning themselves, the Nazerenos trimmed their torches.
“Vamos!” The leader struck the ground with his silver staff; the velvet hangings fell in place (the embossed pattern was so contrived that the air holes were invisible), and the heavy paso moved steadily down the calle on the heads and shoulders of those hidden men.
In the processions of Holy Thursday and Good Friday afternoons, the mysteries of the Passion were represented again and again with endless variations. The pasos seemed to grow more splendid, the dresses and accessories more lavish. The brotherhoods, called hermandads or cofradias, have charge of the floats, called pasos or andas, the statues, and all the paraphernalia of the pageants. There is a certain rivalry between them; some excel in one particular, some in another. One of the treasures I remember was a huge and very beautiful crucifix of tortoise shell and silver. The dresses of penitentes and Nazerenos were never alike; some were in white with blue masks, some in black and silver. They all followed the same plan, the head and face were so disguised that it was impossible to recognize the man in the penitent’s dress. The Hermandad of Nuestro Padre Jesus de la Passion, founded in the sixteenth century, is the oldest brotherhood. In its early days the Hermanos de Sangue scourged themselves as they walked barefoot through the streets. Those who carried the torches were distinguished from the flagellants by the title Hermanos de Luz.