Part 2

The first secular priest assigned to Santo Tomás reflected the now traditional and self-sufficient character of _Hispano_ culture at Abiquiú.[33] He was the independent-minded Don Antonio José Martínez. Born in Abiquiú, Don Antonio later became an ambitious spiritual and political leader in Taos, where he fought to preserve traditional _Hispano_ culture from Anglo-American influences.

The mission served by Father Martínez in Taos bore resemblance to that at Abiquiú. Both missions rested on much earlier Indian settlements, but the Taos pueblo was still active. Furthermore, Taos and Abiquiú were buffer settlements on the frontier, where Indian raids as well as trade occurred. In 1827 a census by P. B. Pino listed nearly 3,600 persons at Taos and a similar count at Abiquiú; only Santa Fe with 5,700 and Santa Cruz with 6,500 were larger villages.

At this time, an independent element appeared in the religious activities of the Santa Cruz region. In 1831, Vicar Rascon gave permission to sixty members of the Third Order of St. Francis at Santa Cruz to hold Lenten exercises in Taos, provided that no "abuses" arose to be corrected on his next visit.[34] Apparently this warning proved inadequate, for in 1833 Archbishop Zubiría concluded his visitation at Santa Cruz by ordering that "pastors of this villa ... must never in the future permit such reunions of _Penitentes_ under any pretext whatsoever."[35] We have noted, however, that two generations earlier Fray Domínguez had commended similar observances at Santa Cruz and Abiquiú, and it was not until the visitation of Fray Niño de Guevara, 1817-1820, that Church officials found it necessary to condemn penitential activity in New Mexico.[36]

In little more than two generations, from 1776 to 1833, the Franciscan missions were disrupted by secularization and excessive acts of penance. In the second half of the 19th century, the new, non-Spanish Archbishops, Lamy and Salpointe, saw a relation between the Franciscan Third Order and the brotherhood of _penitentes_. When J. B. Lamy began signing rule books (_arreglos_) for the _penitente_ chapters of New Mexico,[37] he hoped to reintegrate them into accepted Church practice as members of the Third Order. And at the end of the century, J. B. Salpointe expressed his belief that the _penitente_ brotherhood had been an outgrowth of the Franciscan tertiaries.[38]

Abiquiú shared in events that marked the religious history of New Mexico in the last three quarters of the 19th century. We have noted the secularization of Santo Tomás Mission in 1826; by 1856 the village had its _penitente_ rule book duly signed by Archbishop Lamy. Entitled _Arreglo de la Santa Hermandad de la Sangre de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo_, a copy was signed by Abiquiú's priest, Don Pedro Bernal, on April 6, 1867.[39] While officialdom worked out new religious and political relations, villagers struggled to preserve a more familiar tradition.

Occupation of New Mexico in 1846 by United States troops tended to solidify traditional _Hispano_ life in Abiquiú. In that year, Navajo harassments caused an encampment of 180 men under Major Gilpin to be stationed at Abiquiú.[40] Eventually, the Indian raids slackened, and a trading post for the Utes was set up at Abiquiú in 1853.[41] Neither the U.S. Army nor Indian trading posts, however, became integrated into Abiquiú's _Hispano_ way of life, and these extracultural influences soon moved on, leaving only a few commercial artifacts.

With a new generation of inhabitants occupying Abiquiú between 1864 and 1886, the village on the Rio Chama lost its primary function as a buffer settlement against nomadic Indians and settled down into a well-established cultural pattern, which in part was preserved by the _penitentes_. Kit Carson had rounded up the Navajos at Bosque Redondo, and two decades later, by 1883, the Utes had been moved north. In preparation, the Indian trading post at Abiquiú was closed in 1872 and moved to the new seat of Rio Arriba County, Tierra Amarilla,[42] 65 kilometers northward. Within two generations, Abiquiú's population had fallen to fewer than 800 from a high of nearly 3,600 in 1827.[43] As a result, many _Hispanos_ at Abiquiú withdrew into the _penitente_ organization, which promised to preserve and even intensify their traditional ways of life and beliefs. These attitudes were materialized in the building of the _penitente moradas_.

[19] DOMÍNGUEZ, _Missions_, pp. 121 (ftn. 1), 200.

[20] AASF, Patentes, 1700, forbids friars to buy _genízaros_ even under the excuse of Christianizing them since the result would likely be morally dangerous.

[21] H. H. BANCROFT, _History of Arizona and New Mexico_ (San Francisco, 1889), p. 258.

[22] DOMÍNGUEZ, _Missions_, p. 336.

[23] AASF, Loose Documents, Mission, 1782, no. 7.

[24] DOMÍNGUEZ, _Missions_, p. 122.

[25] Ibid., p. 123.

[26] BANCROFT, p. 279.

[27] AASF, Loose Documents, Mission, 1795, no. 13.

[28] Ibid., 1796, nos. 6, 7.

[29] Ibid., 1802, no. 18.

[30] Ibid., 1820, nos. 15, 21, 38; also R. E. TWITCHELL, _The Spanish Archives of New Mexico_ (Cedar Rapids, 1914), vol. 2, pp. 630, 631.

[31] AASF, Loose Documents, Mission, 1820, nos. 12, 21.

[32] Ibid., 1826, no. 7.

[33] Don Antonio was less than eager to accept his first post; he had to be ordered to report to duty (AASF, Accounts, book lxvi [box 6], April 27, 1826).

[34] AASF, Patentes, 1831, book lxx, box 4, p. 25.

[35] Ibid., book lxxiii, box 7.

[36] AASF, Accounts, book lxii, box 5.

[37] AASF, Loose Documents, Diocesan, 1853, no. 17, for Santuario and Cochiti; other rule books document _penitente_ chapters at Chimayo, El Rito, and Taos.

[38] JEAN B. SALPOINTE, _Soldiers of the Cross_ (Banning, Calif., 1898).

[39] AASF, Loose Documents, Diocesan, 1856, no. 12.

[40] TWITCHELL, pp. 533-534.

[41] BANCROFT, p. 665.

[42] TWITCHELL, p. 447.

[43] Ibid., p. 449, from P. B. PINO, _Notícias históricas_ (Méjico, 1848); and _Ninth U.S. Census_ (1870). The later figure may represent only the town proper; earlier statistics generally included outlying settlements.

_The Architecture of the Moradas_

In a modern map (Figure 2), circles enclose the Mission of Abiquiú and its two _penitente moradas_. The _moradas_ lie 300 meters east and 400 meters south of the main plaza onto which Santo Tomás Mission faces from the north. Between the _moradas_ rests the local burial ground (_campo santo_), a cemetery that serves _penitentes_ as "Calvary" (_calvario_) in their Lenten re-enactment of the Passion.

_Penitente moradas_ share a common system of _adobe_ construction with the religious and domestic structures of New Mexico. While the Indians set walls of puddled earth directly on the ground, the Spaniards, following Moorish precedent, laid _adobe_ bricks on stone foundations. Standard house-size _adobes_ average 15 by 30 by 50 centimeters. _Adobe_ bricks are made by packing a mixture of mud, sand, and straw into a wood frame from which the block then is knocked out onto the ground to dry in the sun. Stones set in _adobe_ mortar provide a foundation. The sun-dried bricks, which are also laid in _adobe_ mortar, form exterior, load-bearing walls and interior partitions.

Spanish _adobe_ construction also employs wood. Openings are framed and closed with a lintel that projects well into the wall. These recessed lintel faces often are left exposed after the plastering of adjoining surfaces. Roofs are transverse beams (_vigas_), which in turn hold small cross branches (_savinos_) or planks (_tablas_). A final layer of brush and _adobe_ plaster closes the surface cracks. Plank drains (_canales_), rectangular in section, lead water from this soft roof surface (Figure 3).

Domestic _adobe_ structures differ from ecclesiastic buildings in scale and in spatial arrangement. Colonial New Mexican churches are relatively large, unicellular spaces. Their simple nave volume often is made cruciform by a transept whose higher roof allows for a clerestory. A choir loft over the entry and a narrowed, elevated sanctuary further articulate the space at each end of the nave. In contrast, _Hispano_ houses consist of several low rooms set in a line or grouped around a court (_placita_) in which a gate and porch (_portal_) are placed. Rooms vary in width according to the length of the transverse beams, which usually are from four to six meters long.[44]

The everyday living spaces inside Spanish-New Mexican houses tend to combine domestic activities and to appear similar in space and decor. Inside a _Hispano_ church, however, areas of special useage are marked off clearly within the volume. Celebration of the mass requires a special spatial treatment to indicate the sanctuary. This area is emphasized by an arched entry, lateral pilasters, raised floor, and characteristically convergent side walls. These slanting walls provide better vision for the congregation and easier movement for the celebrants. The convergent wall of sanctuaries is often visible from the exterior. It is noteworthy that both the contracted sanctuary of local churches and the linear arrangement of domestic interiors appear in the _penitente moradas_ of Abiquiú.

In the plans of the Abiquiú _moradas_ (Figure 4), the identical arrangement of the three rooms reveals an origin in the typical _Hispano_ house form. George Kubler has observed that the design of _moradas_ "is closer to the domestic architecture of New Mexico than to the churches."[45] Bainbridge Bunting confirms the houselike form of _moradas_ but notes their lack of uniformity.[46] In comparison to _moradas_ of the L-plan,[47] and even of the pre-1856 T-plan structure at Arroyo Hondo,[48] the two _penitente_ buildings at Abiquiú preserve a simple | shape with one significant variation--a contracted chancel.

The basic form of the Abiquiú _moradas_ (Figures 5 and 6) is a rectangular box that closely resembles nearby houses. Even the long, windowless north facade of both Abiquiú _moradas_ recalls the unbroken walls of earlier _Hispano_ houses in hostile frontier regions. The Abiquiú _moradas_, however, possess one exception to the domestic form--a narrowed, accented end. On each _morada_ the west end is blunted and buttressed by a salient bell tower of stones laid in _adobe_ mortar and strengthened by horizontal boards (Figures 7 and 8). This innovation in the form of the Abiquiú _moradas_ appears to be ecclesiastic in origin.

Plans of churches built close to Abiquiú in time, distance, and orientation could have served as sources for the design of the _moradas'_ west ends (Figure 9). Only five kilometers east of Abiquiú stood the chapel dedicated to Santa Rosa de Lima. As shown in Figure 9F, the sanctuary in its west end had a raised floor and flanking entry pilasters, features found in the east _morada's_ west end. This chapel was dedicated about 1744 and was still active as a _visíta_ from Abiquiú in 1830.[49] Through this period and to the present, the popularity of Saint Rose of Lima has persisted at Abiquiú. Her nearby chapel would have been a likely and logical choice for the design of the _morada's_ sanctuary end.

A second possible source for the contracted ends of the Abiquiú _moradas_ would be the south transept chapel of the Third Order of St. Francis at Santa Cruz (Figure 9E). It was completed shortly before 1798[50] and served Franciscan tertiaries into the 1830s. Plans compared in Figure 9 indicate that the dimensions of this left transept chapel at Santa Cruz measure only five percent larger than the chapel room of the east _morada_ at Abiquiú, and the plans also reveal contracted chancel walls at both locations.

The concept of a constricted sanctuary as seen in Abiquiú _moradas_ originated in earlier Spanish and Mexican churches. In 1479, architect Juan Guas used a trapezoidal apse plan in San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo and, by 1512, the design found its way into America's first cathedral at Santo Domingo. Within the first century of Spanish colonization, contracted sanctuary walls appeared on the American mainland in Arciniega's revised plan for Mexico City's Cathedral (post-1584)[51] and, again, in New Mexico, where it first appeared at the stone mission of Zía, built about 1614 (Figure 9C). Once established in the Franciscan province, the concept of converging sanctuary walls survived the 1680 Indian revolt and returned with the reconquest of New Mexico in 1693. Spaniards raised and rebuilt missions from the capital at Santa Fe (San Miguel, rebuilt 1710; Figure 9D) north to Taos (San Geronimo, 1706). Throughout the 18th century, in a three-to-one ratio, the churches of New Mexico used the contracted, as opposed to the box, sanctuary.

In the early 19th century, churches at Ranchos de Taos (1805-1815[52]; Figure 9G), Chimayo (about 1810; Figure 9H), and Córdova (after 1830; Figure 9I) continued to employ the trapezoidal sanctuary form. By midcentury, _penitente_ brotherhoods are known to have been active in these villages, and the local ecclesiastic structures could have acted as an influence in the design of the _penitente moradas_ at Abiquiú.

In summary, the _moradas_ at Abiquiú are traditional regional buildings in material and in basic form. The pointed west end of each building, however, is an ecclesiastic innovation in an otherwise typical domestic design. These _moradas_ provide a significant design variant in the history of Spanish-American architecture in New Mexico.

[44] The "Hall of Everyday Life in the American Past" in the Museum of History and Technology (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.) displays an interior typical of a Spanish-New Mexican _adobe_ house of about 1800.

[45] GEORGE KUBLER, _The Religious Architecture of New Mexico_ (Colorado Springs, 1940), p. viii.

[46] BAINBRIDGE BUNTING, _Taos Adobes_ (Santa Fe, 1964), P. 54.

[47] L-plan _moradas_ are pictured by Woodward [see ftn. 13] in a 1925 photograph at San Mateo, a different _morada_ from that illustrated in CHARLES F. LUMMIS, _Land of Poco Tiempo_ (New York, 1897), as well as in another Woodward photograph [see ftn. 13] taken on the road to Chimayo. L. B. PRINCE, _Spanish Mission Churches of New Mexico_ (Cedar Rapids, 1915), shows an L-plan _morada_ near Las Vegas. Was the L-plan house an unconscious recall of the more secure structure that completely enclosed a _placita_?

[48] BUNTING, p. 56. After 1960 the Arroyo Hondo _morada_ became the private residence of Larry Franks.

[49] AASF, Loose Documents, Mission, 1829 (May 27).

[50] KUBLER, _Religious Architecture_, p. 103.

[51] GEORGE KUBLER and MARTIN SORIA, _The Art and Architecture of Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominions, 1500 to 1800_ (Baltimore, 1959), pp. 3, 64, 74.

[52] E. BOYD, interview, April 1966. Building date of about 1780 usually is given for the present church. Boyd, however, states that documents in AASF support the tree-ring dates given in KUBLER. _Religious Architecture_, p. 121, as 1816±10.

_Interior Space and Artifacts_

The plans of the two _penitente moradas_ of Abiquiú (Figure 4) reveal an identical arrangement of interior space. There are three rooms in each _morada_: (1) the longest is on the west end and, with its constricted sanctuary space, acts as an oratory; (2) the center room serves as a sacristy; and (3) the east room is for storage. The only major difference between the two _moradas_ is the length of the storage room, which is nearly twice as long in the east _morada_. The remarkable similarities in design suggest that one served as the model for the other; local oral tradition holds that the east _morada_ is older.[53]

Internal evidence indicates that the east _morada_ is indeed the older one. As shown in Figure 2, the south _morada_ is located farther from the Abiquiú _plaza_, suggesting it was built at a later date--perhaps nearer 1900, when public and official criticism had prompted greater privacy for Holy Week processions, which were considered spectacles by tourists. In addition, the lesser width of the south _morada_ rooms, the square-milled beams in the oratory, and the fireplace in the east end storage room indicate that it was built after the east _morada_. In contrast, the two corner fireplaces of the east _morada_ are set in the center room, while another heating arrangement--an oil drum set on a low _adobe_ dais--appears to have been added at a later date.

The east _morada_ was the obvious model for the builders of the later one on the south edge of Abiquiú. Local _penitentes_ admit that there was a division in the original chapter just prior to 1900[54] but deny that the separation was made because of political differences, as suggested by one author.[55] The older members say that the first _morada_ merely had become too large for convenient use of the building.

The three rooms in each _morada_ are distinguished by bare, whitewashed walls of _adobe_ plaster, hard-packed dirt floors, two exterior doors, and three windows. A locked door is located off the oratory in the north face of the south _morada_. Figures 10 and 11 show the sanctuaries in the south and east _morada_; and Figure 12, the back of the east _morada_ oratory. Its open door leads into the center room, where the members would not remove the boards on the windows for me to take photographs. The east end room in each _morada_ serves for storage of processional and ceremonial equipment.

STORAGE ROOM IN BOTH MORADAS.--In the south _morada_ (Figure 13), there are cactus scourges (_disciplinas_), corrugated metal sheeting used for roofing, and three rattles (_matracas_; Figure 14), also used for noise-making in _tinieblas_ services. Situated here also are black Lenten candelabrum, a ladder, a cross with silvered Passion emblems, and massive penitential crosses (_maderos_; Figure 15). The Lenten ladder and cross are shown next to the exterior entry (Figure 16). A corner fireplace is flanked by locally made tin candle sconces (Figure 17). Two 19th-century kerosene lamps appear on the fireplace mantle, and a tin-shaded lantern with its silver-plated reservoir hangs from the ceiling (Figure 15).

In each _morada_ storage area, there is a tub built on the floor that serves to wash off blood after penance. Figure 13 shows the tub in the south _morada_. In the older, east _morada_, the tub (Figure 18) is a wood- and tin-lined trough pushed against the north wall and plastered with _adobe_.