The Pala Campanile
Every lover of the artistic and the picturesque on first seeing the
bell-tower of Pala stands enraptured before its unique personality.
And this word "personality" does not seem at all misapplied in this
connection. Just as in human beings we find a peculiar charm in
certain personalities that it is impossible to explain, so is it with
buildings. They possess an individuality, quality, all their own,
which, sometimes, eludes the most subtle analysis. Pala is of this
character. One feels its charm, longs to stand or sit in contemplation
of it. There is a joy in being near to it. Its very proximity speaks
peace, contentment, repose, while it breathes out the air of the
romance of the past, the devoted love of its great founder, Peyri, the
pathos of the struggles it has seen, the loss of its original Indians,
its long desertion, and now, its rehabilitation and reuse in the
service of Almighty God by a band of Indians, ruthlessly driven from
their own home by the stern hand of a wicked and cruel law to find a
new home in this gentle and secluded vale.
As far as I know or can learn, the Pala Campanile, from the
architectural standpoint, is unique. Not only does it, in itself,
stand alone, but in all architecture it stands alone. It is a free
building, unattached to any other. The more one studies the Missions
from the professional standpoint of the architect the more wonderful
they become. They were designed by laymen--using the word as a
professed architect would use it. For the padres were the architects
of the Missions, and when and where and how could they have been
trained technically in the great art, and the practical craftsmanship
of architecture? Laymen, indeed, they were, but masters all the same.
In harmonious arrangement, in bold daring, in originality, in power,
in pleasing variety, in that general gratification of the senses that
we feel when a building attracts and satisfies, the priestly
architects rank high. And, as I look at the Pala Campanile, my mind
seeks to penetrate the mind of its originator. Whence conceived he the
idea of this unique construction? Was it a deliberate conception,
viewed by a poetic imagination, projected into mental cognizance
before erection, and seen in its distinctive beauty as an original and
artistic creation before it was actually visualized? Or was it mere
accident, mere utilitarianism, without any thought of artistic effect?
We must remember that, to the missionary padres, a bell-tower was not
a luxury of architecture, but an essential. The bells must be hung up
high, in order that their calling tones could penetrate to the
farthest recesses of the valley, the canyons, the ravines, the
foothills, wherever an Indian ear could hear, an Indian soul be
reached. Indians were their one thought--to convert them and bring
them into the fold of Mother Church their sole occupation. Hence with
the chapel erected, the bell-tower was a necessary accompaniment, to
warn the Indian of services, to attract, allure and draw the
stranger, the outsider, as well as to remind those who had already
entered the fold. In addition its elevation was required for the
uplifting of the cross--the Emblem of Salvation.
It is evident, from the nature of the case, that here was no great and
studious architectural planning, as at San Luis Rey. This was merely
an _asistencia_, an offshoot of the parent Mission, for the benefit of
the Indians of this secluded valley, hence not demanding a building of
the size and dignity required at San Luis. But though _less_
important, can we conceive of it as being _un_important to such a
devoted adherent to his calling as Padre Peyri? Is it not possible he
gave as much thought to the appearance of this little chapel as he did
to the massive and kingly structure his genius created at the Mission
proper? I see no reason to question it. Hence, though it does
sometimes occur to me that perhaps there was no such planning, no
deliberate intent, and, therefore, no creative genius of artistic
intuition involved in its erection, I have come to the conclusion
otherwise. So I regard Pala and its free-standing Campanile as another
evidence of devoted genius; another revelation of what the complete
absorption of a man's nature to a lofty ideal--such, for instance, as
the salvation of the souls of a race of Indians--can enable him to
accomplish. One part of his nature uplifted and inspired by his
passionate longings to accomplish great things for God and humanity,
_all_ parts of his nature necessarily become uplifted. And I can
imagine that the good Peyri awoke one morning, or during the quiet
hours of the night, perhaps after a wearisome day with his somewhat
wayward charges, or after a sleep induced by the hot walk from San
Luis Rey, with the picture of this completed chapel and campanile in
his mind. With joy it was committed to paper--perhaps--and then,
hastily was constructed, to give joy to the generations of a later and
alien race who were ultimately to possess the land.
On the other hand may it not be possible that the Pala Campanile was
the result of no great mental effort, merely the doing of the most
natural and simple thing?
Many a man builds, constructs, better than he knows. It has long been
a favorite axiom of my own life that the simple and natural are more
beautiful than the complex and artificial. Just as a beautiful
woman, clothed in dignified simplicity, in the plainest and most
unpretentious dress, will far outshine her sisters upon whose costumes
hours of thought in design and labor, and vast sums for gorgeous
material and ornamentation have been expended, so will the simply
natural in furniture, in pottery, in architecture make its appeal to
the keenly critical, the really discerning.
Was Peyri, here, the inspired genius, fired with the sublime audacity
that creates new and startling revelations of beauty for the delight
and elevation of the world, or was he but the humble, though
discerning, man of simple naturalness who did not know enough to
realize he was doing what had never been done before, and thus,
through his very simplicity and naturalness, stumbling upon the
daring, the unique, the individualistic and at the same time, the
beautiful, the artistic, the competent?
[Illustration: The Store and Ranch-House at Pala.]
[Illustration: A Suquin, or Acorn Granary, Used by the Pala Indians.]
[Illustration: The Old Altar at Pala Chapel, Before the Restoration.]
In either case the effect is the same, and, whether built by accident
or design, the result of mere utilitarianism or creative genius, the
world of the discerning, the critical, and the lovers of the
beautifully unique, the daringly original, or the simply natural, owe
Padre Peyri a debt of gratitude for the Pala Campanile.
The height of the tower above the base was about 35 feet, the whole
height being 50 feet. The wall of the tower was three feet thick.
A flight of steps from the rear built into the base, led up to the
bells. They swung one above another, and when I first saw them were
undoubtedly as their original hangers had placed them. Suspended from
worm-eaten, roughly-hewn beams set into the adobe walls, with thongs
of rawhide, one learned to have a keener appreciation of leather than
ever before. Exposed to the weather for a century sustaining the heavy
weight of the bells, these thongs still do service.
One side of the larger bell bears an inscription in Latin, very much
abbreviated, as follows:
Stus Ds Stus Ftis Stus Immortlis Micerere Nobis. An. De 1816
I. R.
which being interpreted means, "Holy Lord, Holy Most Mighty One, Holy
Immortal One, Pity us. Year of 1816. Jesus Redemptor."
The other side contains these names in Spanish: "Our Seraphic Father,
Francis of Asissi. Saint Louis, King. Saint Clare, Saint Eulalia. Our
Light. Cervantes fecit nos--Cervantes made us."
The smaller bell, in the upper embrasure, bears the inscription:
"Sancta Maria ora pro nobis"--Holy Mary, pray for us.
The Campanile stands just within the cemetery wall. Originally it
appeared to rest upon a base of well-worn granite boulders, brought up
from the river bed, and cemented together. The revealing and
destroying storm of 1916 showed that these boulders were but a
covering for a mere adobe base, which--as evidenced by its standing
for practically a whole century--its builders deemed secure enough
against all storms and strong enough to sustain the weight of the
superstructure. Resting upon this base which was 15 feet high, was the
two-storied tower, the upper story terraced, as it were, upon the
lower, and smaller in size, as are or were the domes of the Campaniles
of Santa Barbara, San Luis Rey, San Buenaventura and Santa Cruz. But
at Pala there were no domes. The wall was pierced and each story
arched, and below each arch hung a bell. The apex of the tower was in
the curved pediment style so familiar to all students of Mission
architecture, and was crowned with a cross. By the side of this cross
there grew a cactus, or prickly pear. Though suspended in mid-air
where it could receive no care, it has flourished ever since the
American visitor has known it, and my ancient Indian friends tell me
it has been there ever since the tower was built. This assertion may
be the only authority for the statement made by one writer that:
One morning just about a century ago, a monk fastened a cross
in the still soft adobe on the top of the bell tower and at
the foot of the cross he planted a cactus as a token that the
cross would conquer the wilderness. From that day to this
this cactus has rested its spiny side against that cross, and
together--the one the hope and the inspiration of the ages,
and the other a savage among the scant bloom of the
desert--they have calmly surveyed the labor, the opulence,
the decline, and the ruin of a hundred years.
One writer sweetly says of it:
It is rooted in a crack of the adobe tower, close to the spot
where the Christian symbol is fixed, and seemed, I thought,
to typify how little of material substance is needed by the
soul that dwells always at the foot of the cross.
Another story has it that when Padre Peyri ordered the cross placed,
it was of green oak from the Palomar mountains. Naturally, the birds
came and perched on it, and probably nested at its foot, using mud for
that purpose. In this soft mud a chance seed took lodgment and grew.
Be this as it may the birds have always frequented it since I have
known it, some of them even nesting in the thorny cactus slabs. On one
visit I found a tiny cactus wren bringing up its brood there, while on
another occasion I could have sworn it was a mocking-bird, for it
poured out such a flood of melody as only a mocking-bird could, but
whether the nest there belonged to the glorious songster, or to some
other feathered creature, I could not watch long enough to tell.
Other birds too, have utilized this tower from which to launch forth
their symphonies and concertos. In the early mornings of several of my
visits, I have gone out and sat, perfectly entranced, at the rich
torrents of exquisite and independent melody each bird poured forth in
prodigal exuberance, and yet which all combined in one chorus of
sweetness and joy as must have thrilled the priestly builder, if,
today, from his heavenly home he be able to look down upon the work of
his hands.
It must not be forgotten, in our admiration for the separate-standing
Campanile of Pala, and the general belief that it is the only example
in the world, that others of the Franciscan Missions of California
practically have the same architectural feature. While the well-known
campanile of the Mission San Gabriel is not, in strict fact, a
separate standing one, the bell-tower itself is merely an extension of
the mission wall and practically stands alone. The same method of
construction is followed at Mission Santa Inés. The fachada of the
church is extended, to the right, as a wall, which is simply a
detached belfry. And, as is well known, the campanile of San Juan
Capistrano, erected after the fall of the bell-tower of the grand
church in the earthquake of 1812, is a mere wall, closing up a passage
between two buildings, with pierced apertures in which the bells are
hung.