Mostly the Mexicans are gregarious, keeping to their own quarters in Santa Fé, and their own villages further out in the country, often near an Indian pueblo of the same name, as at Taos and at Tesuque, famed for its grotesque Indian godlets. All about Santa Fé these little adobe towns, Chimayo, Teuchas, Cuamunque, Pojoaque, Espanola, Alcalde and Pecos, lie in some fertile river valley, surrounded by their fruit trees and alfalfa fields. The Mexicans, though indolent, understand truck farming thoroughly. Like their occupations, their recreations are primitive. They have their own dances, where the men sit on one side of the room and the girls, giggling and shoving, at the other, until some bold swain sets the ball rolling. Then it does not cease to roll, fast and furious, till morning, often ending in some tragic fray, where a knife flashes.
AGAINST A SHADY WALL, ALL BUT TOO LAZY TO LIGHT THE INEVITABLE
CIGARETTE, SLOUCHES, WHEREVER ONE TURNS, A MEXICAN.
They have their own schools and churches;—and almost always, at the end of the town, a little windowless house which looks like a church. The Americano is unwise who attempts to enter, or even ask questions concerning this building. It is the morado, or brotherhood house, of a secret sect called the Penitentes, who have been described briefly in certain books on this locality, but are almost unknown to the outside world. The sect is entirely Mexican, not Indian, as has frequently been misstated. Only a very few Indians have ever become Penitentes, and most of the race hold the idea in abhorrence. Survival of a cult which flourished in Spain four centuries ago, the practice was brought to Old Mexico, of which New Mexico was then a part, by some Franciscans who followed the conquistadores. In Lisbon, in 1801, a procession of flagellants went through the streets. This seems to have been the latest outbreak in Europe, yet in our own United States it stubbornly persists today, despite the utmost the Catholic church can do to discourage this horrible self-torture.
We had the very good fortune to enter Santa Fé during Holy Week. All along our route, through the little Mexican towns bordering the Rio Grande, church bells were ringing, and Mexicans in gala array riding to special services on pintos, burros, or in carts laden with entire families of eight or ten. When we reached our hotel, three miles out, for adequate hotels for some strange reason do not exist in Santa Fe, we were invited to go “Penitente Hunting.” The sport is not without its dangers. Strangers who venture too near the mysterious processions have been shot, and only the most foolhardy would seek to go near the morado.
We learned that while the members are quiescent during the year, committing whatever laxities of conduct seem good to them, Holy Week heaps on them, voluntarily, the ashes of bitter atonement. On Monday, they gather in their morado, and enter on a week of fasting, ritual, and self-inflicted torture. To a few selected by the high priests of the order is given the honor, from their point of view, of taking upon themselves the sins of all. They endure incredible torments; some lie on beds of cactus the entire week, others wear the deadly cholla bound on their backs or inserted under the flesh. Every Penitente bears on his back the mark of the Cross, slit into his skin with deep double gashes at his initiation into the sect. These wounds are re-opened each year. Weak from flogging, with blood raining from their backs till old wounds mingle with the new, eating only food brought to the morado at nightfall by their women, these vicarious sufferers come forth on Good Friday to the culmination of their agony.
Santa Fé was agog with rumors. At one town we heard the penitentes would not leave their morado, resenting the growing publicity their rites attracted. Another, further from civilization, was to show a crucifixion, with ghastly fidelity even to the piercing of hands and feet,—a fate for which the honored victim begged. Loomis has related this circumstance as a fact, and rumor of the year previous to our arrival gave it confirmation.
A MEXICAN MORADO, NEW MEXICO.
The Americano is unwise who attempts to enter or even ask questions concerning this building.