2 Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos

Home , Martinez Hacienda, Penitentes (New Mexico)

his northbound tour includes churches between the Santuario de Chimayó (discussed in the previous chapter) and San Francisco T de Asís in Ranchos de Taos. Córdova, Truchas, Ojo Sarco, and Las Trampas are missions of Holy Family Parish in Chimayó; Chamisal, Llano, Picurís, Río Lucio, and Placita are missions of San Antonio de Padua parish in Peñasco; and San Francisco de Asís is the mother church and Talpa a mission of the parish in Ranchos de Taos.

San Antonio De Padua, Córdova

Córdova was initially settled by 1750, but its adobe church, San Antonio, was not built until 1832. The retablos and many of the bultos in the church are works of one of New Mexico’s outstanding santeros, [José] Rafael Aragón. Aragón moved his family to Córdova—then called Pueblo Quemado—after his wife died in 1832. He was about thirty-six at the time, and shortly after, between 1834 and 1838, he was commissioned to oversee a redesign of the church interior and to paint the three altar screens that are still in San Antonio today. A later resident of the village, José Dolores López (1868–1937), pioneered the woodcarving style that is now associated with Córdova. The tradition continues among his descendants and others, and there are signs in the village for home-based workshops and galleries. Visits to San Antonio are generally limited to the exterior unless they coincide with Las Posadas, Holy Week, or the feast day, celebrated on the Saturday or Sunday closest to June 13. There are no regularly scheduled

Historic Churches of New Mexico Today. Frank Graziano, Oxford University Press (2019). © Frank Graziano. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190663476.003.0002 masses. Córdova’s active penitente brotherhood leads services at the church on Good Friday, which is perhaps the best time to visit. The events that day begin in the morning with an encuentro, which reenacts the meeting of Jesus and his mother as represented in the fourth station of the cross. Later that night, after 10:00, the events conclude with tinieblas (known in English by the Latin word for darkness, “tenebrae”), which commemorates the suffering and death of Christ. Tenebrae services—held on Holy Thursday and Good Friday in Córdova—were once repeated for three days in Catholic churches but were discontinued after the reforms that culminated in the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). Some Latin-mass parishes still adhere to the tradition. Angelo, who has been an hermano for some thirty years, since he was eleven, described these events. For the encuentro the hermanos bring Christ in procession from Córdova’s morada and the community brings Mary from the church, “and right in front of my grandma’s house is the center point where they meet.” Afterward the hermanos return to the morada and the community to the church for prayer, in the afternoon prayer continues at stations of the cross, and later at night the church goes dark for the tinieblas. “We leave thirteen candles on, twelve representative of the apostles and the thirteenth is the Christ candle,” in the center. Nuances of the ritual vary from morada to morada, but at Córdova the hermanos pray a four-verse alabado

Photo by T. Harmon Parkhurst. Church at Córdova, New Mexico, circa 1925–1945. Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), negative number 009037.

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 39 in call and response from two sides of the church, with the groups on each side doing half of the verse. “And after every complete verse we extinguish a candle, until we get to the Christ candle.” After the candles are extinguished prayers for the dead alternate with rep- resentation of the calamity at Christ’s death. “What we do is make a lot of noise, which represents when Christ dies and the earth shatters, the earth quakes, so we mimic that in terms of making noises. We use one device call the matraca [literally ‘ratchet’; percussion instruments on this principle have the same name], and we have homemade ones. We used to have this old paddle, it was a big one like one of those things that you would use to take out a pizza from the oven, something like that big around, and then on each side it would have six or seven pieces of wood—long pieces of wood— hanging by pieces of leather, and then you would shake it.” The hermanos also clap, bang on the pews, stomp, and use the mouthpiece of a flute as a whistle. When I arrived at San Antonio for tinieblas on Good Friday, 2018 the church was already half full. The doors had opened at 7:00 and families— grandparents, parents, a lot of children and teens—arrived gradually until the rosary began around 10:00. A few hermanos were on the altar, including Angelo’s uncle Danny, who is the celador (keeper of the rules) for the morada and also the church mayordomo. While we awaited the arrival of the procession he addressed the teens especially, describing his experience as an hermano, conveying his deep faith, and offering an in- formal catechism by asking questions regarding Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The church was overfull when the rest of the hermanos made a proces- sional entrance carrying saints and praying alabados. One hermano occa- sionally spun a ratchet. As they entered the church everyone stood up and on the strength of those alabados the emotion in the room seemed almost palpable, as though you could feel it coming off the voices and pressing against your body. Eventually the hermanos knelt on the altar and in song- prayer recited the rosary in Spanish. The room was dark and only their heads and an Aragón altar screen illuminated by candlelight were visible. The composite—the voices, the people, the ambience—was overwhelming if you let it in, and for me at least the effect was redoubled by the impossibility that this was happening at all, this survival of tradition and priestless deep reverence. Afterward the noisemaking accumulated gradually, and then when all of the candles were extinguished the dark room was suddenly overtaken by whistling, flashing lights, a chain dragged on the floor in the choir loft, and

40 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today many bangings: on wood, on a garbage-can lid, on a brake drum. When the room quieted the hermanos and then the people in the pews began calling out the names of deceased relatives and friends, followed by por el amor de Dios (“for the love of God”; in this case a prayer for the dead). These remembrances were punctuated periodically by resumption of the noisemaking. When everyone who wished to had called out the names of deceased loved ones, the alabados resumed and then the hermanos left the church and lined up in the atrium. People in the pews exited gradually, in a visiting line to greet the hermanos outside. The hermanos then returned in procession to the morada, and you could hear their alabados gradually fading as they turned the corner. Córdova is located in the Quemado Valley, just a minute from Route 76. The village is traditional and its ambience feels timeless. To enter Córdova, make a right onto Route 80. The downhill road levels to a nice drive under cottonwoods, and the same road loops back to Route 76 further northeast. To reach the church, pass Castillo Gallery and then bear right onto Route 0083 (before the gallery there is an earlier turn to Route 0083 that you will pass). The church is on your left a few moments later.

Nuestra Señora del Sagrado Rosario, Truchas

As you approach Truchas there is a penitente morada on your left, across from the road sign that says “Ojo Sarco, Peñasco, Taos.” The high-road route turns left after the morada to follow Route 76, but continuing straight onto Route 75 takes you into Truchas. Within a few moments you will see Tafoya’s Truchas General Store, now closed, on the right. Turn right immediately after the building and park. The back of Truchas’s church, Nuestra Señora del Sagrado Rosario, will be on your left. As you approach the church on foot there are expansive mountain views. Truchas residents were granted the license to build Nuestra Senora del Rosario in 1760, and the church may have been in use before 1796. Other historians date the church to 1805. A sign at the site has 1764. The church and its walled atrium are generally closed, but masses are celebrated on Sunday mornings during the summer months and on the October 7 feast day. Las Posadas events are held at Truchas’ newer church, Holy Family on Route 76, which was built in the 1950s. Father Roca, who was pastor in Truchas and later in Chimayó, was the inspiration behind that construction. He wrote that local volunteers made the adobes in “rosary batches,” one hundred fifty bricks at a time.

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 41 Truchas also has an encuentro on Good Friday. This event entails a procession of hermanos from the morada to Nuestra Señora del Sagrado Rosario, where Carmelitas (members of a female religious society) meet them in the atrium with an image of the Virgen Mary. The hermanos carry a Christ carved by Rafael Aragón, and en route they read biblical passages and pause periodically for prayer in Spanish. The church interior has two exquisite altar screens painted by Pedro Antonio Fresquís (1749–1831), who lived in Truchas. (Fresquís is also known as the “Calligraphic Santero” and the “Truchas Master.”) The smaller of the altar screens, which was once lateral at the sacristy door and now faces the congregation, is dated 1821. The date on the main altar screen was made il- legible by water damage. There are also other noteworthy artworks in the church, including bultos by Aragón and three painted panels rediscovered during restorations in the sacristy. Restoration of the artwork and the church itself were initiated by Annette and Ben, who were married in Nuestra Señora del Sagrado Rosario in 2008. Truchas’ two churches are cared for by a team of mayordomos, and Annette and Ben have assumed primary responsibility for the historic church. In 2011 Annette and two other local women, Nora and Mabel, established the Nuestra Señora del Rosario Foundation to support restoration. Through raffles, events, and grant-writing, they raised sufficient funds to assess and repair the church structure, update the wiring and fixtures, prepare and limewash the interior walls, restore the art, and commission new artworks, among other restorations. The first fundraising event, which raised about $20,000, was the raffling of a Virgin of the Rosary statue made by an outstanding santera from Peñasco, Lorrie. The image is a replica of the Rafael Aragón statue in Nuestra Señora del Sagrado Rosario. The restoration initiative in Truchas was accelerated after a wall collapsed at San Antonio church in Questa. It was a wake-up call, Ben said, because fundraising for gradual restoration over a period of years was feasible, but if the church incurred serious structural damage the community wouldn’t have the resources to save it. Collapsing churches have likewise been the inspiration for decisive action elsewhere. Socorro’s San Miguel was assessed and restored after the collapse of its mission church in Lemitar. During a restoration in Las Trampas in 1986, the mayordoma told a reporter, “If we don’t fix it, the same thing that happened to the El Valle church and the Picuris church [both razed after partial collapse] is going to happen to ours.” Felix, a master santero and Annette’s second cousin, has been conserving the Fresquís altar screens in the Truchas church. He works together with his son Joseph and his daughter Krissa. Art conservation, Felix explained,

42 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today is distinct from restoration. The purpose of conservation is to “maintain or preserve the current state of the art, maintain its integrity, by cleaning and stabilizing,” he said, whereas restoration endeavors to return a damage artwork to its original appearance. Felix described conservation of an altar screen as a delicate and time- consuming process. “The first step is to stabilize it, because in a lot of areas there’s loose pigment, loose paint, that’s coming off the board. So you want to reattach it before you clean it, because if you just start cleaning it then it’s going to fall off. There were areas where it was ready to come off, so we had to reattach these areas where the paint was coming off. That was the first step.” Once the paint is stabilized, “you have to go inch by inch” to clean the artwork. On the first passes Felix uses sourdough bread, “the inside, you make a ball, and then you press on it on the image and it absorbs the dirt and the grime.” Later Absorene, a putty-like cleaner, is applied by the same method. In a few areas, where decorative details around the images were no longer visible, Felix applied and painted on Japanese Washi conservation paper, so that his additions could be removed if later technologies had better solutions for restoration of the original work. “This is all made by hand,” Ben said, and he emphasized the personal investment in the construction of the church but also in its restoration. “There’s been a lot of thought, feeling, and love put into this building, and the art and the objects,” and consequently “you really feel special when you’re in the mass here.” Later, driving home, I was thinking about art and craftsmanship as this dedicated, loving labor that Ben had described, and as the opposite of our more common alienated labor. Humans infuse themselves into their productions, invest their presence in material culture, and this infusion and presence are somehow perceivable by others who use these artifacts and inhabit these spaces. The idea is captured in everyday life by phrases like “I put a lot into that” and “it takes a lot out of me.” Lorrie also mentioned this intangible self-extension in relation to the santos that she carves and paints.

Santo Tomás, Ojo Sarco

After Truchas the road passes through pine forest and then descends to Ojo Sarco. Turn left onto Route 69 and continue for about two miles to reach the village’s simple adobe church, built in 1886. The blacktop will turn to a good dirt road that veers left to cross the valley as you approach the church. If you pass the church and turn left, the road returns in a loop to Route 76; if you

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 43 turn right, the road becomes a scenic back route to Dixon. The church is generally closed except on the July 3 feast day and for Las Posadas.

San José de Gracia, Las Trampas

When you pull off the High Road into the dirt parking area and former plaza of Las Trampas, it’s hard to imagine how something like San José de Gracia was built there and endured for centuries with its quiet nobility. The story of the village and the church began in Santa Fe’s Barrio de Analco, with twelve families on the margins of colonial society. In the seventeenth century that barrio (neighborhood) was inhabited by Tlaxcalan Indians, from central Mexico, who as soldiers and servants accompanied Spanish conquerors and missionaries during the colony’s northward expansion. Describing Analco as “the other side of the tracks” would seem gratuitous if the word itself—analco, in the Nahuatl spoken by these Tlaxcalans—didn’t mean “on the other side of the river.” The reference is to the south side of the Santa Fe River, as opposed to the plaza side inhabited by Spaniards and criollos (people of Spanish origin born in the Americas). Today the centerpiece of Analco is San Miguel Chapel, which was established by Franciscans before 1628 for the barrio residents. The church is open to visits and its events include a monthly mass celebrated with Gregorian chant. Nearby, on De Vargas Street, a small museum known as The Oldest House gives a sense of early Analco residences. The Tlaxcalans fled from New Mexico with the Spaniards during the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, and a few Tlaxcalans—now largely assimilated— returned to Santa Fe after the 1692 reconquest. Thereafter Analco became primarily a neighborhood of genízaros (described below), but also included some Tlaxcalans and their descendants as well as married presidio soldiers, laborers, and craftsmen. The barrio’s racial and ethnic composition was a complex derived from the intermixing of mestizos, Plains Indians, Tlaxcalans, blacks, and mulattos. Those who came to be identified as genízaros entered the New Mexico colony as captives. They were generally Plains Indian youths who had been captured by rival tribes, ransomed by Spaniards, indentured to servitude in payment for the debt of ransom, detribalized and hispanicized during a decade or decades of service, and then released, at which time they became socially identified as genízaros. Children born to genízaros would likewise be identified as such, thereby suggesting a hereditary caste, and broader, imprecise use of the term encompassed others of non-hispanic origin who lived among genízaros.

44 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today The Comanches were particularly active in youth abductions. They brought their captives to the trade fair at Taos for transactions that were am- biguously situated between sale and ransom. In the Spanish point of view, a compilation of laws issued in 1681 included the Christian responsibility to ransom captives in order to save them from execution or the injustice of enslavement. This obligation was given further impetus and funding in 1694, after King Charles II reacted with horror when Navajos decapitated Pawnee children because Spaniards had refused to ransom them. On other occasions, Comanches at the Taos fair publicly raped female captives to co- erce ransom. Slavery and the forced labor of Indians were prohibited by Spanish law, with the exception of Pueblo apostates and hostile Indians (often Apaches, Navajos, and Utes) who were not subjects of the crown and were captured in what was perceived as just war. Many non-Pueblo Indians were also purchased by Spaniards after their capture by native enemies. Some of these captives—particularly youths—might eventually be freed. Others were sold into slave labor at Mexican mines and elsewhere. Captives ransomed at the trade fairs, conversely, had a different civil status. These captives had incurred a debt and owed loyalty and service to the families to which they had been assigned, but eventually—the terms of servitude were inconsistent—they would be freed and enjoy rights as Spanish subjects. The families that received the labor of these servants had the recip- rocal obligations of treating them nonabusively and of Christianizing them. Fulfillment of these obligations varied. Some mistreated servants escaped and became apostates, which subjected them to the corresponding penalties. Genízaros, among others in lower social strata, were landless and had limited access to means of subsistence. Military service was one of their few alternatives to poverty and vagrancy. Some genízaros chose instead to work as comancheros (traders among Plains Indians) or ciboleros (buffalo hunters). Another alternative to urban marginalization—frontier settlements—began to emerge around the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1733 a group of genízaros representing about a hundred families petitioned to resettle Sandía pueblo, which had been abandoned. The petitioners were from Apache, Crow, Kiowa, Jumano, Pawnee, Tano, and Ute ancestry. They argued that the settlement would be an opportunity to escape their poverty and social station while at once serving the kingdom as a forward militia on the Apache frontier. Governor Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora denied the request, but shortly after, in 1740, a genízaro settlement in Belén was approved. Land grants for genízaro settlements gained momentum especially during the first governorship of Tomás Vélez Cachupín (1749–1754). He

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 45 entered office at the age of thirty-two with a viceregal mandate to establish new settlements and to repopulate those that had been abandoned due to Indian attacks. He also understood, like the genízaros in the 1733 petition, that relocation to the frontier had defensive as well as social benefits. The land-grant petition from the settlers of Las Trampas came at a fortui- tous moment, when overcrowding in Santa Fe needed a solution. Fray Juan Augustín de Morfi wrote that the increase in Santa Fe’s population after 1744 was “due to the desertion of the frontier, because the settlers who, harried by the Comanches and Apaches, have not perished in the invasion have taken refuge in the capital.” Governor Vélez Cachupín saw in genízaro petitions an opportunity to remedy that situation by reversing the flow. While others were fleeing into the city, some genízaros were willing to confront the dangers as a means to become landowners and self-determinant. In his rationale for making the Las Trampas land grant in 1751, the governor explained that “the inhabitants of this said city [Santa Fe] have increased to a great extent, many of whom are yet of a youthful age, consequently there is not land or water sufficient for their support, neither have they any other occupation, trades, or means of traffic.” There were, however, unoccupied lands elsewhere in the colony that could be cultivated by these unemployed people. By means of land grants the governor would establish new settlements between population centers and the approaches of hostile nomadic Indians, “as a barrier against their entrance to despoil the interior settlements.” Many other land grants were made to populate defensive buffer zones that would protect the principal settlements at Santa Fe, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, and Albuquerque, as well as the missions at native pueblos. The genízaro- related grants included Abiquiú and Ojo Caliente in 1754, San Miguel de Carnué in 1773, San Miguel del Vado in 1794, and Antón Chico in 1822. A defensive mandate was sometimes explicit in the contingencies of the grants. The San Miguel del Vado grant was made on the condition that all capable men possess firearms within two years. The governor also required that the settlement have a fortified plaza and that its militia muster periodically. In Las Trampas, as at other settlements, the residents originally had no guns. They fought as best they could with whatever weapons they could improvise, against the guns that Comanches were acquiring from the French, via the Pawnees. The twelve families—about fifty or sixty people—that requested the Las Trampas land grant were led by Juan de Argüello, a former soldier at the presidio in Santa Fe. He was around sixty years old when the grant was awarded and the settlement was established in 1751. Argüello probably had come to

46 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today New Mexico with his family from Zacatecas, Mexico, in 1695, when Juan Pérez Hurtado recruited and escorted about forty-five families to help settle the northern frontier. Most of the Las Trampas settlers were related by birth or marriage. Like others in the Analco barrio where they originally lived, the group was mixed ethnically and racially and included genízaros, mulattos, and mestizos. Argüello’s wife, Juana Gregoria Brito, and some of the other original settlers were likely of Tlaxcalan descent. The Las Trampas land grant was about forty-six thousand acres, which included irrigated tracts allotted to the individual families, primarily along the Río de las Trampas, in addition to a vast parcel of common land, known as an ejido. A previous land grantee, Sebastián Martínez, donated a portion of his grant to the Las Trampas settlers in order to increase their arable land along the river and to further populate and fortify the region against Indian attacks. In the years after settlement Las Trampas grew quickly. When Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez took a census during his visit to Las Trampas twenty-five years after settlement, in 1776, the original twelve families had expanded to sixty-three families, with 278 people. Domínguez described the residents as of “low class, and there are very few of good, or even moderately good, blood,” by which he meant Spanish or criollo lineage. Despite these lowlife assessments, and despite their poverty, these settlers built a church that even today marvels visitors. A boxlike chapel could have sufficed, but the designs in Las Trampas were more ambitious. Among the most fascinating aspects of Las Trampas settlement in con- temporary perspective is the seemingly untroubled unity of racially diverse people in common endeavor. The individual and family trajectories are also astounding, notably the journeys of transculturation, imposed by force, that removed Plains Indians from their worlds and situated them abruptly in others, often as children, with no linguistic or cultural competence, and after the trauma of abduction. Despite these precarious beginnings and then indentured labor, genízaros found a way forward to pioneer rural New Mexico and its cultural traditions. The black or mulatto settlers of Las Trampas included the descendants of Sebastián Rodríguez, who likewise had epic familial journeys. Sebastián described his parents as negros bozales, meaning unassimilated slaves re- cently arrived from Africa. He identified himself as from Luanda, Angola, in West Africa, although the reference is likely to his ancestry rather than his place of birth. In 1692, when Sebastián was about fifty years old, he was among the Spaniards in the El Paso area who had fled New Mexico during the Pueblo Revolt. A year earlier he had become the drummer for the newly

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 47 arrived governor, Diego de Vargas, who was preparing for reconquest of the Pueblos. Sebastián was also the governor’s herald, meaning the town crier who announced orders and decrees among civilians and soldiers. After the reconquest Sebastián settled in Santa Fe as the garrison’s drummer, and he continued as such under Vargas’s successor, governor Pedro Rodríguez Cubero (1696–1703). With his last wife, Juana de la Cruz, Sebastián had a son, Melchor, who became one of the twelve heads of family that founded Las Trampas. One of Sebastián’s daughters was married to another family head, Juan José de Argüello, the son of the group’s leader, and Melchor’s son, Pedro Felipe Rodríguez, was also a family head. Tlaxcalans, hispanicized Plains Indians, freed slaves, or their descendants ventured to the frontier where their hardships were redoubled but in ex- change gained land and an identity bound to a quest rather than to impoverished resignation and social marginality. Their accomplishments, including the construction of San José, were extraordinary given their ex- tremely limited resources and the precariousness of subsistence farming at high altitude. Accidents and diseases were suffered without medical remedy, and in 1781 a smallpox epidemic killed fifty-four of the Las Trampas settlers. Their greatest threat to survival, however, were the Comanches, who in the 1760s and 17770s raided frequently in the area. Comanche attacks at nearby Picurís Pueblo, where records were kept, occurred in 1768, 1769, 1772 (five raids), and 1777 (several raids). In 1773 hundreds of Comanches attacked the settlement at nearby El Valle. In 1774 there were five raids in the area within two months. And in 1762 the settlers from Las Trampas and nearby Truchas were forced to take shelter at Picurís Pueblo due to Comanche attacks. Given these circumstances, Las Trampas and other frontier towns were built as fortified plazas. These plazas entailed a square of connected houses situated around an interior courtyard in which livestock could be corralled during attacks. The houses had impenetrable adobe walls with windows only on the plaza side, and elsewhere the complex was walled and had a single entry gate, known as a zaguán. New Mexico’s fortified plazas have long since disintegrated, but remnants of one—the Plaza del Cerro—are in Chimayó, and the Martínez Hacienda in Taos is a fine example of domestic defensive architecture. The churches themselves were fort-like structures where settlers under attack could take refuge, sometimes with livestock. Or men might remain outside to fight from the crenelated rooftops of some churches, while women and children were protected inside. Common to these fortress churches are heavy adobe walls—two to four feet wide is typical, and some are over six feet wide—and windows that are high, few, and often only on one wall. At Santa

48 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today Cruz church in Ojo Caliente, one can still see the small portals that allowed for gunfire through the walls during Ute and Comanche attacks. Many fortified plazas also had a torreón, or watch tower; the remains of one are in Talpa, near Taos. Las Trampas may have had one as well. In the 1960s some Las Trampas residents told a researcher that a torreón in the village had been used as a morada (the original morada was attached—atypically— to the church, at the right transept) when the Penitentes were oppressed by archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy in the nineteenth century. At southern settlements in the El Paso area, such as Ysleta del Sur, fortified plazas were constructed to deter Apache attacks. The always innova- tive Apaches devised a way to overcome the obstacle and rustle the livestock protected behind adobe walls. Quietly, at night, one Apache would climb over the wall with a rawhide rope, throw it to another on the outside of the wall, and then patiently, sawing back and forth with the rope, the two would cut parallel downward lines through the adobes. The adobes between the lines were then removed and the livestock inside the walls was driven out surrepti- tiously. Eventually the settlers became aware of the Apache’s sawing method, and thereafter they mixed pieces of bone and broken glass into the mud of their adobe bricks. In the early years at Las Trampas the settlers had no church and would travel nine miles to Picurís Pueblo’s San Lorenzo to hear mass and receive sacraments. That situation began to change in 1760, when bishop Pedro Tamarón y Romeral—from the diocesan seat in Durango, Mexico—stopped at Las Trampas after visiting Picurís. Tamarón issued a license for construction of a church at Las Trampas, with the contingency that the church be within the walled compound, to protect it from attacks. Construction of churches was a formidable task for settlers and often took decades to complete. In Las Trampas the villagers provided a percentage of their earnings and all of the labor, and Juan de Argüello, the group’s leader, raised additional funds for materials. The church was nearly complete when Domínguez visited in 1776. Las Trampas had no priest in residence, so the Franciscan Andrés Claramonte (who was almost killed in the 1769 Comanche raid) dedicated the church and visited periodically from Picurís for mass, baptisms, marriages, funerals, and feast days. At that time there was a large mural painting—of natural pigments with flecks of mica—behind the altar, around a wooden niche that held a bulto of the patron saint. The fortified plaza of Las Trampas survived into the twentieth century. A WPA guide in the 1930s described Las Trampas as an “adobe-walled town with flat-roofed mud houses” and “a part of seventeenth century Spain and Mexico set down in the heart of New Mexico.” Later, as described in 1986, “Las

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 49 Trampas is still discernible as a walled, defensive village.” Today little of the original plaza remains. In the 1960s a group of architects and later a broader coalition called the Las Trampas Foundation attempted to preserve the entire village and its environs by establishing them as a national monument. That effort failed, but in 1967 Las Trampas was made a National Historic District, and in 1970 San José de Gracia became a National Historic Landmark. The architecture and ambience of the historic plaza are gone, but the church remains and still merits the litany of accolades that is has accumulated: “most perfectly preserved Spanish Colonial church”; “one of the finest examples of Spanish Colonial architecture”; “one of the most-original and best-preserved examples of Spanish Colonial architecture in New Mexico.” The survival of San José de Gracia owes largely to the perseverance of Las Trampas residents. Despite the population decline that has debilitated New Mexican villages, a small coterie of dedicated people have managed to rescue San José from the fate—collapse— that has claimed countless adobe churches throughout the state. In 1986, when Frank (the father of the Frank

Mass in San José de Gracia, Las Trampas, 1943. Photo by John Collier Jr., courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

50 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today mentioned in the previous chapter) and his wife Bernie were mayordomos, San José was in disrepair and local labor resources seemed insufficient to the task. “Maybe there are nine people capable of working” in Las Trampas, Bernie told a reporter, and “the rest are old people. They help too, but we can’t expect too much out of them because they’ve done their share.” Through news articles these mayordomos called for volunteers from outside of Las Trampas, including from Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Los Alamos, to supple- ment local labor. When the seven-month restoration was completed the community celebrated with a mass and procession. In 1988 Frank and Bernie received on behalf of Las Trampas a National Trust for Historic Preservation Award, “for the extraordinary community-wide effort” to restore the church. In 1992 they likewise accepted in Washington, DC the President’s Historic Preservation Award, which is the nation’s highest preservation honor. Today a small group of older residents take care of the church and wonder what will happen when they are gone. The mayordomo, José, was over eighty when he died in 2018. In 2017 he received a lifetime achievement award from Cornerstones Community Partnerships, a not-for -profit organiza - tion dedicated to the restoration of historic buildings. During the summer months one could see him and a few others on scaffolding working in the heat, replastering the church with adobe mud. The work is done in sections over a three-year period, and one cycle barely ends before it is time to begin again. The church is a mission of Holy Family Parish in Chimayó, but for lack of attendance masses are only offered by request at Las Trampas, the archdiocese cannot commit to church maintenance, and the Las Trampas parishioners are encouraged to attend masses at the nearby churches in Peñasco and Truchas. San José is rarely open, except on the March 19 feast day, for Las Posadas, sometimes during one or both weekends of the High Road Art Tour (last two full weekends of September), and when the church is being remudded (usually in July and August, when needed). If the church is open when you visit, the noteworthy architectural features are the clerestory window, which sheds natural light on the altar, particularly in the morning; the original wooden floor, made of hand-hewn slabs in wood frames; and the sotocoro, or area under the choir loft, at the entrance, where the boards overhead are painted with geometric, floral, and animal motifs. The loft’s support beams are deco rated with hand-chiseled molding. From outside the church note the beautiful entry doorway and the inscrip- tion on the lintel: “Del mano de Nicolás de Apodaca” (carved by—literally “from the hand of”—N icolás de Apodaca), flanking a cherub head and wings. The wooden pulpit inside the church was likely made by the same carver.

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 51 When you leave Las Trampas heading north, on the right side just past the church there is a canoa—an irrigation flume made of dug-out logs—that is still in use.

Iglesia Católica de la Santa Cruz, Chamisal

After Las Trampas the road climbs and eventually at a ridge the view opens to the valley at Chamisal. Pass the blue water tank and Chamisal Ancianos, both on the left, and make the first left onto Plaza Road. Continue a quarter mile to the adobe church, Santa Cruz, on the right. The church was built in 1948. It has a charming exterior with spiral viga posts and carved corbels at the entry. The church is closed except for a monthly mass, feast day, and Las Posadas. There is also an annual encuentro in June when local parishioners receive and feed pilgrims who are on a hundred-mile journey from Costilla to the Santuario de Chimayó.

San Lorenzo, Picurís Pueblo

Feast Day

Feast- day vespers at Picurís: The prayers have ended and Jamie, the fiscal, situates a cloth-covered table in the doorway of the church. St. Lawrence, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, and a third saint no one can identify—Father Simeon says probably St. Rita—are situated on the table to await the arrival of the dancers. A former fiscal climbs the ladder to the roof and beats the bell in- cessantly with a mallet. The dancers approach wrapped in blankets, carrying aspen branches, and stopping periodically to dance in formation, two facing groups, before continuing toward the church with singing and whoops. They enter the atrium in a single line and most dancers stop before the saints, bow, maybe touch or kiss, and then continue toward the upper pueblo and slowly advance up the sloped path to the round house. The sight is spec- tacular: low sunlight and shadows, deep voices in song, and the rhythmic movements of the dancers and their aspen branches against the contours of distant mountains. The following morning, feast day, there is mass. Father Simeon officiates with a warmth and gentleness of manner that seems overlooked or under- appreciated. A warmth that somehow gives you the feeling of lantern light. As though the Holy Spirit had settled upon him some motionless quietude. He sang a prayer while outside dancers were preparing and vendors were

52 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today setting up their booths. In the plaza, at the top of a huge pole that Picurís men will climb later, a dead sheep hangs upside down by the feet beside a red bag filled with food. The black and white flag of the clown society flies above them. These images, backdropped by a too blue sky, seemed hallucinatory or worthy of a film scene soundtracked with moog and choral haunts, maybe Popol Vuh. Something eerily otherworldly with drum beats to build the ten- sion. Jamie was explaining the pole climb but I must have had an expression of bewildered abandon, as though I had been transposed to a wooden chair at the center of a stage with the acoustics dead and houselights dim and the black velvet drapery confused. The feeling was something like that. A sense of ineffable emptiness. A dumb look on my face because that beautifully surreal skyward composition—pole, sheep, red bag, flag—somehow aroused in me an awareness that the world had gone terribly wrong and we were witnesses to an implosion in slow motion. The impossibility of seeing what you’re seeing and there it is in front of your face. After mass Marina, who is the sacristan, summoned and choreographed five girls who carried the mentioned saints—two on small litters and one in arms— to a position beside the tribal office, where we awaited the arrival of the dancers from the kiva. A man known as Cat positioned Father Simeon beside the saints. The church bell began ringing and firecrackers exploding as the dancers approached, painted white and whooping. They greeted the saints but not the priest, touching and kissing, and then led a procession up the main road and across the river to a site where barefoot runners— many of them young—raced on the dirt course before us. The saints were situated in a small saint house to attend the races, and later they would be brought to the principal saint house in the plaza, where they preside over the other feast-day events. (The term “saint house” is reminiscent of the Nahuatl santocal, in which saint images were housed by converted natives in colonial Mexico.) After the races the crowd dispersed for lunch while the dancers, accompanied by these saints, returned to the river for rituals.

Chronology of San Lorenzo

First Church

The current church at Picurís is the fourth, or perhaps the fifth, that has been built at the pueblo. Construction of the first church began in 1621 under the direction of Fray Martín de Arvide; it was completed before he left for Jémez Pueblo in 1625. This church was on the east side of Picurís, on high ground

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 53 behind what is now the museum building. Other friars later resumed the Picurís mission but it was interrupted by the revolts of 1680 and 1696. Diego de Vargas, who was governor and captain general, visited Picurís on October 10, 1696. He wrote, “When I had gone by before, I saw that the church was very dirty. I saw now that they had whitewashed the walls, which had been painted with their diabolical figures, and swept it very clean.” The “diabolical figures” were likely representations of kachinas, like those from the kiva at Kuaua Pueblo (Coronado Historic Site), or in a modern version like the Seowtowa paintings in the mission church at Zuni Pueblo. An 1881 report described similar paintings in the church at Acoma. After the 1696 revolt many Picurís, fearing reprisals, fled to the plains to seek refuge among Apaches. This Pueblo connection with eastern Apaches had been established earlier, around the middle of the seventeenth century, when a group from Taos Pueblo relocated to an Apache site eventually known as El Cuartelejo. Sometime after 1664, a Spanish expedition under the com- mand of Juan de Archuleta was dispatched to locate these exiles and return them to Taos. Many Pueblos also fled to live among the Hopi and Navajo. The Picurís exodus to El Cuartelejo was more comprehensive. When Vargas entered Picurís on October 22, 1696, he found the pueblo abandoned. The next morning he and his troops went in pursuit, and two days later they encountered a Taos man walking westward. Through an interpreter the man explained that “he had gone for a daughter he had had with one of the fu- gitive Picurís women. Since they had refused to give her to him, he was returning to his pueblo of Taos.” Vargas obliged the man to scout for the expedition, and a few days later the fleeing Picurís were located. The Picurís were surprised by the encounter and about eighty-four were captured during their attempted flight. “We seized some captives from among the women and children,” Vargas wrote, “and five of the enemy’s horses loaded with their clothing and remaining supplies.” Later the Spaniards captured others, including Don Antonio, who as a leader of the 1696 revolt was executed. “I ordered him shot after the father chaplain . . . had prepared him. He worked hard to do this through his Indian parishioner.” The other captives, primarily women and children, including Don Antonio’s wife, were taken to Santa Fe and distributed as slaves among the soldiers who participated in the expedition. Among those who escaped and continued to El Cuartelejo were Picurís leaders Don Lorenzo and Don Juan Tupatu. The governor of New Mexico, Francisco Cuervo y Valdés, described them as “the two most esteemed Indian chiefs” of all the pueblos. The Picurís exiles settled at El Cuartelejo, which is located in current Scott County, Kansas, about fifty miles east of the Colorado border. Sometime after

54 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today settlement the Apaches overpowered and enslaved these exiles. As Governor Cuervo explained the Picurís situation to the viceroy, “having taken asylum among the savages, they have found that their lot has not improved as they had hoped, but that their travails have doubled.” “They have been and are being held as slaves,” Cuervo continued, so that “they have at various times sent requests to my predecessors that they should send squads of soldiers to bring them back and return them to their old original village.” Those assertions are historically accurate as far as we know—all of the sources are Spanish— but the Picurís motives may have been more complex, and they certainly did not coincide with the Spaniards’ Christian rationale for repatriation. Cuervo sent an expedition for the Picurís, he wrote, “with the sole aim of rescuing those poor apostate souls who have so long lived apart from the flock of our holy mother the Church.” General Juan de Ulibarrí was dispatched together with about twenty-eight soldiers, twelve cit- izen militia men, and a hundred Indian auxiliaries. They departed Santa Fe on July 13, 1706, and the following day arrived at Picurís. “The few Indians who lived there came to me,” Ulibarrí wrote in his journal, to express their gratitude and hope for the return of relatives “held in captivity and oppressed by the barbarous infidel Apache nations of the plains and El Cuartelejo.” The Picurís also provided supplies and two interpreters to accompany the expedition, which was guided by men who had been sent from El Cuartelejo earlier to request the rescue. Upon arrival to El Cuartelejo, Ulibarrí wrote, “I made camp and in it received all the Apache chiefs and the others of their nation with the same warmth, gifts, and kind words, assuring them that we should treat them well and be their true friends, and explaining to them why we had come and that we had been sent for by don Lorenzo, a leading Indian among the Picurís, whom they had enslaved, abusing their trust, and whom, for their defense, had sent to ask us for the aid and protection that, as Christians, we could not deny them.” Later Don Lorenzo “came to our camp very early in the morning and told me that some of the missing Picurís Indians of his nation were scattered among various settlements.” Don Lorenzo asked that these Picurís be gathered because they had no horses, and also because the Apaches might resist their departure. Ulibarrí sent men to three settlements, and at one of these Captain José Naranjo found Juan Tupatu, the son of Luis Tupatu. Luis had succeeded Popé as leader of the Pueblo Revolt during the twelve-year in- terim before the Spaniards returned in 1692. In August 1706, Ulibarrí summarized his successful mission in a letter sent to the governor. “I made them [Apaches] abundant presents of knives, horses, tobacco, hardtack, and pinole. They were satisfied and handed over

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 55 the Picurís; and having sent Naranjo and some others to round up the other Picurís scattered about, I was able to gather them all, and 62 persons, young and old, are coming with me, including Don Juan and Don Lorenzo.” The rescued children were baptized, the adults were given absolution, and the Spaniards rejoiced “at the happy return of so many souls to the bosom of our holy mother the Church.” As Cuervo expressed this Christian view in a letter to the viceroy, “I now hasten to convey the joyful news that my wishes have been fulfilled and relief has been brought to those poor souls who as apostates were living enslaved to Satan under the barbaric oppression of the said infidel Apaches.”

Second Church

While the majority of the Picurís were in El Cuartelejo and elsewhere between 1696 and 1706, a church described as “very small” was built at the pueblo to replace the original church, which was probably unusable. Construction of the small church may have been initiated by Fray Pedro Mata, who was the pastor at San Juan Pueblo (now Ohkay Owingeh) and traveled about thirty miles to minister at Picurís. The ruins of this small church have never been located, and it may have been a very simple or in- formal arrangement.

Third Church

In 1709 Fray José de Lara was assigned to Picurís and remained there until 1716. The third church was likely built during this period, to accommodate a larger congregation after the 1706 repopulation of the pueblo. The mission complex included the church and a convento and was superposed at an angle over the ruins of the first church. The foundations of these two churches were excavated behind the current museum building and are commemorated with markers, but this area is not open to the public. The third church and its convento were improved during the brief tenure at Picurís (1746–1747) of Fray Fernando Duque de Estrada, but a few years later the church declined into disrepair. It was then attacked by Comanches, who sacked the convento in 1769, and was finally razed by order of governor Pedro Fermín de Mendinueta.

Fourth Church

Fray Andrés Claramonte survived that Comanche attack and carried out the governor’s orders to relocate the church. This new church was under

56 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today construction—the walls were about nine feet high—when Domínguez visited Picurís in 1776. As Domínguez described the situation, the governor had “ordered that it be torn down because the pueblo is isolated and therefore indefensible against the continual incursions that the Comanche enemy is making.” This fourth church was built at the location of the pueblo’s current church. The construction was of adobe bricks, a technique introduced by the Spaniards, rather than the traditional puddled adobe layers used previously by the Pueblos.

Fifth Church

The church built under the supervision of Fray Andrés in 1776 endured for centuries. Its condition varied. In 1826 the priest Agustín Fernández de San Vicente was sent from the diocesan seat in Durango, Mexico to assess the missions in New Mexico, and at Picurís he found the church crumbling and moldy. In addition, he wrote, the pastor’s behavior was bizarre, his vestments were filthy, he was engaged in an ongoing sexual relationship, and he was coveting the best land and much of the irrigation water for his own cattle op- eration. Subsequent renovations stabilized the church, but in the mid-1980s it began to show signs of structural damage. Like many historic structures after the mid-twentieth century, the adobes of San Lorenzo were covered with concrete stucco rather than traditional adobe mud. When stucco is watertight it protects adobe, but once water penetrates it gets trapped beneath the cement and the adobe cannot breathe and dry. Water is often drawn downward from the roof and windowsills and also wicks upward into adobe from wet ground. The saturated adobes then slump and repeatedly freeze and thaw until they crack, crumple, and bow under the weight of the structure. After the eventual demolition of the church at Picurís, workers found deep mud and a reservoir of trapped water at the foundation. Initially the structural damage to San Lorenzo was not visible, because it was hidden beneath the stucco. A major crack then appeared and in spring, 1985 part of the west wall collapsed. When restoration work began later, in 1987 and 1988, the extent of the structural damage became apparent and the decision was made to raze the church and rebuild it at the same location. The new church was designed as a replica of the eighteenth-century church that it replaced. Gerald was governor at Picurís Pueblo when the decision was made to build a new church. Earlier there had been years of indecision, lack of consensus, indifference, and unwillingness to commit to a project of that

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 57 San Lorenzo shortly before it was razed. Photo by Richard Erdoes, courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.

magnitude. Gerald attributes the impetus during his tenure to the advocacy of two elders who were committed to the project: Sabinita, who had been the sacristan at the church for as long as anyone could remember (her daughter, Marina, is now the sacristan for as long as anyone can remember); and Tom, a well-respected traditional spiritual leader who, according to Gerald, had an inclination to Catholicism since serving as an altar boy at St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe. A committee, called the Picurís Pueblo Restoration League, was formed and comprised Gerald, Tom, a former governor named Richard, and Sabinita’s grandson, Cat, as the building foreman. Together with others these committee members raised funds, recruited expertise, and organized volunteer labor from within the pueblo and well beyond. Regional residents, college students, motorcycle clubs, and groups from out of state were involved at various times during the project, primarily to make and lay adobe bricks. The work was completed in time for Matachines dances inside the church for Christmas 1992, and the church was dedicated the following year in a ceremony officiated by the archbishop. When I attended a monthly mass and then feast-day services at San Lorenzo in 2017 I was surprised by how few Picurís were in attendance. I asked Father Simeon, the pastor, if that was the norm, and he confirmed that it was. I later asked Gerald why attendance was light, and he spoke for many, at Picurís and other pueblos, when he said that “Christianity doesn’t

58 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today fit into our ways. It was forced upon the villages.” He also explained that the imposed structured religion and its systematized dogma were incompatible with his sense of how one should live. “I just go on this life. Enjoy the solar system, the earth, the running water, the plants, the animals, the insects and all—that’s my life. That’s my bible. It’s not verse but it’s all there, so I don’t have no interest in foreign rites and all this kind of bullshit. I’m just a straight-forward natural man.” In view of that, I asked Gerald why he was so active in initiating and overseeing the rebuilding of the church, which was a formidable commit- ment. “It was just a project that had to be done historically,” he responded. Despite the disregard or distain for Catholicism, the church as a building and as a symbol of an ancestral past was an integral part of the pueblo’s history. Gerald’s wife, Kim, was watering hanging plants and from the porch added, “They don’t own our church. We own our church,” so that the church is attached as much to Picurís autonomy as it is to a Catholic mission. On the one hand the church represents a non-pueblo intrusion by force (“Why do you restore that symbol of our repression?” some people ask when others volunteer to remud the church), and on the other hand the church has been in the pueblo for so many centuries and rebuilt by the pueblo with such great investment that it has been dissociated from Catholicism and is viewed as inherent to Picurís traditions and identity. Maintenance of the church thereby encompasses maintenance of native tradition and of a spiritual continuity that connects current Pueblos with their ancestry. It is perhaps for these reasons that during the Pueblo Revolt at Acoma, and also at Santo Domingo (Kewa), the priests were killed but the churches were left intact and became venues of syncretic religious expressions that continue today. At Picurís these adaptations were recorded in 1696, when the church painted with kachinas had been retrofitted, in effect, for use as a kiva. Gerald also pointed out that that some people at Picurís do go to church, so it’s there for them, and others use the church for funerals. He also underscored the church’s importance to the villagescape: “It’s just like a community building,” one that belongs to everyone and has social relevance and would leave a conspicuous void if it were gone. “People would miss it,” Gerald said of the church, “even though they don’t go to it.” Resistance to Catholicism at Picurís has a long history, dating back to the earliest years of colonization. In 1634 Fray Alonso de Benavides described the Picurís as “the most indomitable and treacherous people of this whole kingdom,” although colonial chronicles also attribute that distinction to Santo Domingo and sometimes Acoma. Regarding Fray Martín de Arvide,

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 59 who initiated the construction of the first church at Picurís, Benavides wrote, “they dragged him around the plaza and almost killed him because he scolded an old Indian who was opposing his son’s desire to become a Christian.” Nearly a century later, in 1706, Fray Juan Alvarez, described the Picurís as “if not openly, then secretly hostile.” Perhaps it is suggestive today that the Picurís feast day, August 10, the feast of the martyred St. Lawrence, coincides with the outbreak of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. San Lorenzo de Picurís can generally be visited weekdays during office hours by request in the nearby tribal office. For a nominal fee paid at the -of fice you can also visit the historic area of the pueblo. The highlight of the old pueblo is the Round House, an above-ground or tower kiva built some four hundred years ago and situated in a spec- tacular setting with great mountain views. Watch for gopher holes as you walk. There are also surface kivas, which you can identify by the ladders coming out of them, some old adobe buildings, and an old scalp house, with wood poles rather than adobe across the front. Originally the front of the building was open to expose the scalps hanging from a rafter, but the scalps were removed and buried around 1950. Earlier in the twentieth century the scalps were taken down on feast days and carried in procession to the round kiva. Sources from the same period mention a skull, covered with cloth, in a niche near the church’s entry, and a gridiron representing St. Lawrence’s martyrdom. There was also a skull in the church at San

San Lorenzo today. Photo by Mark Goebel.

60 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today Felipe, and perhaps at other pueblos. The meaning of these skulls is un- known, but they may have been momento mori (reminders of mortality) in the Franciscan tradition. In parts of Latin America, skulls are used to protect homes and churches. There are two entrances to Picurís Pueblo. If you are arriving from Route 76 heading north, a left turn on Route 75 leads to both entrances. The first entrance and most direct route to the church—about a mile—is by the right turn immediately after García’s Store and the brown Picurís Pueblo/P oints of Interest sign. The second entrance, which offers the best chance of seeing the Picurís bison herd (on the right as you head toward the pueblo), is about 1.5 mile further on Route 75, also indicated by a brown sign. Feast day is on August 9 (vespers) and 10. There are also usually dances on January 6 and 25. (On January 25, note the women blessing the deer dancers with corn- meal). The Picurís museum and restaurant are closed indefinitely.

Sagrado Corazón, Río Lucio

This adobe chapel, built in 1920, is on Route 75 between the two entrances to Picurís Pueblo. The church is closed except for monthly mass from April to October and its feast day, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, nineteen days after Pentecost Sunday.

San Juan Nepomuceno, Llano San Juan

After the defeat and death of the Comanche leader Cuerno Verde and a treaty between the Spaniards and the Comanches in 1786, residents of Las Trampas began to settle in unfortified villages established along rivers and near agri- cultural fields. In 1796 the governor of New Mexico gave permission for settlement of the Santa Barbara canyon area, which included Llano de San Juan (generally referred to now as Llano San Juan or simply Llano), Llano Largo, and Llano de Santa Bárbara (now Rodarte). At the far edge of Peñasco the high-road route curves to the left to follow Route 75. If you bear right at this fork onto Route 73—the rounded Jicarita Peak will be in front of you—a scenic road climbs and switches back before flattening as you approach Llano. Pass the quonset hut and make a left onto Llano Road. A tiny old post office will be immediately to your left, and San Juan Nepomuceno, built around 1832, is just beyond it. An old schoolhouse with a bell is on the right side. The church has monthly masses from April

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 61 to October and on its feast day on May 16. In nearby Llano Largo there is another church, San Acacio, going to ruin in a peaceful setting. Lorrie grew up in Llano. Her parents were often mayordomos at San Juan Nepomuceno and she remembers “going out collecting money for anything that needed to be repaired. We went door-to-door—I did a lot of walking when I was young. We would start at one end of Llano, and we would stop at every house. The majority of the people were Catholic but Protestant people gave too—they understood what we were doing. What was nice about that is I got to know everyone.” On feast days there was a procession around the church after mass. Most of the women were Carmelitas, Lorrie said, “and they’re the ones that carried the banner.” The saints were taken out on a litter, “so the outgoing mayordomos were at the head, and the incoming mayordomos were at the tail end, carrying the saints.” Feast day was actually a feast—“there was so much food, even in small places like Llano, because it was pot luck, everybody brought food to the church, for after mass. And they still do, it’s still part of the tradition, it’s just not attended by as many people as it was before.” Decades ago the fiesta “was part of the year’s cycle. You looked forward to these events.” But now, Lorrie said, “It’s a dying tradition.” Many others throughout New Mexico made similar comments regarding the decline of tradition. The reasons they give include depopulation, secular- ization particularly among the young, mobility, and competition. Angelo said that “easy access to everything else has really decentralized a lot of what we do,” and that for practical reasons—work, residence in cities—the “younger generation is not as apt to be a part of the church community.” In general, he added, there is “a loss of faith, a loss of connection to those ancient ways.” Charles, from Mora, made similar comments. “I hope that we wake up to what we’re losing. Because we’re losing our sense of faith. There’s a huge decline in tradition” and “we’re starting to look for the roots again. Because we sort of lost our way.” Maria, from Doña Ana in southern New Mexico, remembered a time when feast day was still an anticipated event. “We didn’t have many impor- tant places, you know, just the church. I remember that was the only time that we had fiestas, you know, and gathered together and had good times, and it was concerning the church all the time.” Maria, who was born in 1905 and interviewed in 1984, later described the February 2 feast day. “The Bishop used to come from El Paso to celebrate with the priests here. And he didn’t have a car, he came on the train.” He was picked up at the station in a horse- drawn carriage and then would “celebrate the mass with about ten to fifteen

62 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today priests at the same time. It was a beautiful celebration with . . . a big procession through all the town of Doña Ana. They started from the church and it was a round procession, you know, until we reached the church and the bells were ringing all the time and singing and celebrating. It was beautiful.” There was also a sense of community spirit in secular events associated with the church in Doña Ana. “I remember when I was young,” Mary Jane said, “when a person was on their death bed the whole village would go to see that person, and we would bid them farewell . . . . I even remember there was music in the wakes, they played guitar, there was a lot of food, and the people stayed up all night with the vigil, all night.” Angelo pointed out how church-affiliated social events have been undermined by competing options. “One of the things that had the biggest impact here was the casinos.” Angelo remembered participating as a boy in the tradition called dando los días (literally “giving the days”), which for centuries was the manner to bring in the new year in hispanic villages of New Mexico and southern Colorado. “You would start off at the church,” he said, with a service to bring in the new year, and then “you would go to everybody’s house, it was like this big old party, to bring in the new year, and there was a group of musicians and we’d go to everybody’s house and we’d sing, and the adults would drink, and there was food. It was this eight- or nine-hour party, bringing in the new year. But once the casinos came they have all those promotions on new year’s eve and it slowly died out. And then they tried to revive it a couple of years and people weren’t waiting for them [at their houses] any more, so it just died out.”

Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Placita

This charming church, built in 1869, is just off Route 75. After mile marker 19 make a right onto Camino del Medio, across from the green water tower, and the rounded apse of the church will be in front of you. Feast day is celebrated on or around August 15. Lorrie’s mother grew up in Placita, and Lorrie has fond memories of feast day. “We would go early in the morning [ from Llano to Placita] because my mother was one of the head cooks there. We [kids] were free all day long and could go to anybody’s house. My sister and I still remember how much fun we had with the cousins for feast day. Because it wasn’t just the people that lived in La Placita, it was an event where they would come if they lived in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Taos—they came to feast day. They were very

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 63 Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Placita. Photo by John A. Benigno. strict with us but we were free at that time—all the kids running around just having a blast.”

Virgen de San Juan de Los Lagos, Talpa

As Indian raids began to subside, efforts to settle the Taos valley were also resumed. Some residents from Ranchos de Taos eventually ventured to other sites in the valley, including Río Chiquito—now called Talpa—which was established by twenty people in 1823. By 1827 the village had thirty families, and in that same year the community requested permission of the parish priest in Taos to recognize the Virgen de San Juan de Los Lagos as their patroness. The following year one of the wealthier settlers, Bernardo Durán, subsidized the construction of the chapel that is in Talpa today. Ten years later, in 1838, a chapel was built nearby and dedicated to the Virgin of Talpa. This latter chapel has since collapsed but its artworks and a replica of the interior are exhibited in the Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.

64 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today Virgen de San Juan de Los Lagos, Talpa, 1943. Photo by John Collier Jr., courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Virgins of Talpa and of San Juan de Los Lagos are miraculous images that draw huge pilgrimages in the Mexican state of Jalisco. These Virgins were likely discovered by trading expeditions that visited Jalisco from Taos. As is common in devotion to miraculous images, votaries make an offering in gratitude when their miracle petitions are successful. Major miracles, such as survival of a life-threatening danger or illness, are often repaid by building chapels. In other cases chapels are built simply to house an image, to honor a patron, and to provide a place of worship. Talpa’s chapel to the Virgen de San Juan de Los Lagos is off Route 518 on the left, after the “Río Chiquito” sign. The chapel is uniquely charming and well maintained. It is generally closed except for monthly mass on Saturday afternoon, the feast day on or around the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and Las Posadas. Inside there are images by Rafael Aragón and an altar screen by Antonio Molleno dated 1928. About a mile north of the chapel, on the left across from the Green “Ranchos Elementary School” sign, there are the remnants of a torreón.

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 65 San Francisco de Asís, Ranchos de Taos

The architecture of New Mexican village churches is often described as ver- nacular, which is to say that the construction materials (adobe, stone, vigas, latillas) are local; the design reflects local taste, tradition, and resources; the construction standards are idiosyncratic, pursuant to the experience, inclinations, and skills of the builders; and the finished product represents the history and cultural identity of the community. In broad view the style of the adobe churches is an adaptation of Pueblo building methods by Spanish and Franciscan technologies, designs, and religious purposes. San Francisco in Ranchos de Taos, completed around 1815, is one of the outstanding accomplishments of this tradition. The apse has massive buttresses and a sculptural quality that has been interpreted by a roster of photographers and painters. Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, Laura Gilpin, and Georgia O’Keeffe are perhaps the most prominent, but the group also ranges from members of the Taos Society of Artists in the early twentieth century to the amateur photographers who now capture the image daily. “Most artists who spend any time in Taos have to paint it,” Georgia O’Keefe wrote of the Ranchos church, “just as they have to paint a self-portrait.” The intrigue is largely a response to the anomaly of the buttresses. As George Kubler already recognized in 1940, “the function of the buttressing could be satisfied with less material in more commonplace shapes” and “the buttressing seems to satisfy certain formal rather than structural needs.” The purpose of the buttresses, that is to say, seems more aesthetic than func- tional, and the apse has the feel of an enormous folk art sculpture. This aesthetic value is further enhanced by the imperfections, curved corners, soft lines, undulations, changing shadows, mud cracks, perching birds, and the fringe of rocks that keep parked cars from getting too close. The apse is voluminous and rustic but also graceful, with a sense of harmony to its disproportion. Another quality is the church’s relation to the earth of which it is made. As Ansel Adams put it, “The massive rear buttress and the secondary buttress to the left are organically related to the basic masses of adobe, and all together seem an outcropping of earth rather than merely an object constructed upon it.” The church seems more emerging from the earth than superposed on it, and the effect of this earth/sculpted- earth coherence recalls Aristotle’s idea that art completes nature. The organic integration also extends to the church’s environs—the plaza, the sky—which seem part of the composition. The plaza and the sky serve as a kind of niche into which the church is situated, and that situation—together with the history and cultural knowledge that we

66 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today San Francisco de Asís, Ranchos de Taos. bring to our viewing—provide a sense of completion in which the church’s beauty is fully realized. As one scholar put it, in a separate context, “the space around the sculpture is part of that sculpture.” This effect is particularly apparent when we view an isolated rural church. The sculpture (church) and the backdrop (landscape, silence) to a certain de- gree fuse into a single perceptual experience. The continuity of church and landscape together commands our attention subtly with its serenity. Ruins also have this sculptural quality, especially when they are stone. The abandoned buildings seem giant sculptures against the dramatic backdrops of sky, mountains, deserts, cliffs, and valleys. Adobe churches are often said to convey a sense of place, but at the same time they are place-dependent. They absorb and radiate meaning from their geographical context and from the culture that built them into the landscape. If the churches were transposed to the Bronx, Vatican City, Ohio, or the sites of Greek or Aztec temples, the way we see them would be different and their context-dependent meanings would dissipate. There is a certain reciprocity to what the churches take from and give to their context. The aesthetic appeal of the Ranchos church is also affected by synesthesia (the mixing of sense perceptions). The surface of the adobe seems at once visual and tactile, even when it’s not touched, with a visual sense of texture and—paradoxically—smoothness. The solidity seems not rigid but rather soft and malleable, with a swell, and sometimes gives the impression that it

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 67 might be pliant and yielding to the touch. We perceive the church’s volume and mass, its weight, as these come through the sueded surface and visual warmth. The holiness and devotion inside also seem to emanate outward, not perceptibly but cognitively through the knowledge and sometimes faith that is inherent in perceptions. Robbie, who restores churches in Mora county, had an appreciation of adobe tactility and the fusion of components that constitute its complexity. “I like the way the different elements actually work together. You have your sand, you have your dirt, you have your water, you have your straw, and they’re working together. It’s not just how dirt is or how sand is—they all work together into this adobe, which is really strong. It’s not like rigid cement strength, but adobe is more strong at rest, it has a resting sort of strength. I also really like working with my hands, because you can feel, you can feel how you’re molding it.” Working on rock with a chisel “is impersonal,” but adobe you feel, you form, and accordingly Robbie compared adobe work to massage. The churches are also built to human scale, not the cold intimida- tion of skyscrapers or cathedrals, which makes another contribution to this supple sense of interaction. Olfactory sensations at Ranchos and other adobe churches are largely gone now, but in the past the earthy smell of wet adobe made its contributions to the sensuality of church experiences. Lorrie remembered the first time she visited San Francisco, around 1960. “I was maybe in first or second grade. The Ranchos church had this smell—that’s what I remember the most. Of all churches I still get that [she inhales] adobe smell. There are so many competing smells now, but they didn’t have that then. It was earth, it was just the earth.” Lorrie’s great aunt lived near the church, and when she passed away Lorrie attended the funeral. “And I remember the bells tolling. They took her on an anda”—a litter used to carry saints—and “they had her coffin and they walked her to the church. With the bells tolling.” I said to Lorrie it sounds like a movie—you can visualize it—and she replied, “I still do. But more than that, more than the visual thing for me it’s the smell of it. It smelled like when it first rains. Not on cement or tar or anything, it was just earth, just that real strong smell of earth.” The mud plaster surface of the Ranchos church is often described as a skin or as in some sense alive. In the late 1970s the pastor at San Francisco wrote, “Our church is almost human” because it breathes, “it gets old, wrinkles and cracks,” and it is healed by the loving hands of those who remud the exterior. This lifelike quality is enhanced by the warmth of sunlit adobe and by the light and shadows that imbue a sense of movement to the static mass. If you’ve had a large enough dose of mid-af ternoon sun or other intoxicants,

68 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today the apse’s bulk seems to be slowly advancing, dragging its gravity with it. At other moments the motionless walls seem to reserve in their depth a vulner- able permanence. The sense of aliveness is also revived by the annual remudding, known as an enjarre (from the verb enjarrar, to plaster). During the first two weeks in June parishioners and other volunteers gather to recoat the church with adobe mud, often with their bare hands. This puts them in touch, literally, with the walls of the church, but in another way with the deceased relatives who mudded this church in previous decades and with the traditions that contribute to their shared cultural identity. The Ranchos church absorbs and reflects light, but “it also absorbs and reflects human feeling, particularly that of the local parishioners, who have infused this building with their spirit as they have built, plastered, and replastered its sculptural surfaces over the years.” San Francisco in Ranchos de Taos is located on Route 68 about four miles south of the Taos plaza. If you are arriving on Route 518 from Talpa, make a left onto Route 68 and then another left a minute later at the blinking light. Interesting times to visit include the annual remudding in June, the feast day on or around October 4, the midnight mass on Christmas Eve, and the Good Friday pilgrimage. This last event departs and returns to San Francisco and en route stops at the Talpa chapel and three moradas.

Sources

The biographical details regarding José Rafael Aragón are from Frank, Land So Remote, 2/290. The “rosary batches” are from Roca, Long Journey, 96. The 1986 mayordoma quote is from Sandoval, “Church, 200 Years Old.” The Bernie quote is from Engley, “Crumbling Church.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation quote is from a press release. Regarding genízaros I am following Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 130 and 199; Magnaghi, “Plains Indians,” 87–88; and Archibald, “Acculturation and Assimilation,” 209; as well as the land-grant sources noted below. Information on the Comanches is from Pekka, Comanche Empire, 45 and 81; Ebright, Four Square Leagues, 108; and August, “Balance of Power,” 147. Regarding land grants generally and the Las Trampas land grant, I am following Ebright, Advocates for the Oppressed, 241–243; and Ebright, Land Grants and Lawsuits, 146–147. The Morfi quote is from Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers, 91 (translation modified); and the Vélez Cachupín quotes are from Twitchell, Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 1/290.

Historic Churches on the High Road to Taos | 69 Regarding the Las Trampas settlers and settlement, I am following deBuys, “Fractions of Justice,” 72; Ebright, “Santo Tomas Apóstol,” 1– 4; Chávez, Origins, “Argüello”; Arguello, Pioneering Community, 10–11; Domínguez, Adams, and Chávez, Missions, 99; and Chávez, “Vargas’ Negro Drummer,” 131–136. The 1986 description of Las Trampas is from Sax, “Trampas File,” 1412. The Apache adobe sawing details are from Sonnichsen, Mescalero Apache, 63. The torreón-morada is from Harris, Preservation of Art, 66. The Tamarón information is from Tamarón and Adams, Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation, 56; and Bunting, Taos Adobes, 3. Information on the original altar is from Gavin, Mauldin, and Lucero, “San Jose de Gracia, Las Trampas” binder, Museum of International Folk Art Archives, 15. Regarding the chronology of Picurís churches, I am following Schroeder, Brief History, 17–18. The information regarding relocation from Taos to El Cuartelejo and later return is from Thomas, After Coronado, 53 and 261 n. 1. The Acoma painting is from Bergman, “Historic Structures Report,” 6. The information and quoted passages regarding Picurís exiles at El Cuartelejo are from Vargas and Kessell, Blood on the Boulders, 1036 and 1050–1054. I am also following Espinosa, Pueblo Indian Revolt, 54–55; and Benavides, Revised Memorial, 280. The information and quotes regarding the Ulibarrí (also spelled Uribarri) expedition are from Polt, Expedition, 86, 89, 92, 97, 128–129, 137, 139, and 153; and Thomas, After Coronado, 20. The Domínguez quote regarding Picurís church destruction is from Domínguez, Adams, and Chávez, Missions, 92. Details from the Fernández de San Vicente visit are from Cortazar, “Santa Visita,” 40–41. The Benavides quote is from Morrow, Harvest of Reluctant Souls, 42. Regarding the Picurís church demolition and rebuilding, I am following Miller, “Church Rebuilding,” 108–118; and Harold Joe Waldman, Picuris Indians (film). The quotes regarding Picurís hostility toward the Church are from Benavides, Revised Memorial, 70 (regarding Martín de Arvide); and Polt, 151 (regarding Juan Alvarez). The information on scalps is from Brown, “Picuris Pueblo in 1890,” 26. The skull details are from Prince, Spanish Mission Churches, 268; and Hess, “Letters,” 26. The Maria and Mary Jane quotes are from the Doña Ana Oral History Project, in Maria Vasquez, and Lupe Barela, interviews, respectively. Regarding the Talpa chapels, I am following Wroth, Chapel of Our Lady of Talpa, 22 and 24; Romero, “Padre Martinez,” 239–241 and 253; and Miller, “Sacred Places,” 240–241.

70 | Historic Churches of New Mexico Today Regarding San Francisco in Ranchos de Taos, the Georgia O’Keeffe quote is in D’Emilio et al., Spirit and Vision, 15. The Kubler quotes are from Religious Architecture, 45. The Adams quote is from Examples, 91. Regarding the sculptural church in the niche of its surroundings, I am following Rainer Maria Rilke in Martin, Sculpture, 185. The scholar referenced in the next sentence is also Martin, 28. The quoted pastor is Father Michael O’Brien in Pogzeba et al., Ranchos de Taos, ix. The quoted passage regarding absorption and re- flection is from D’Emilio et al., 2.

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