WHY ISLETA’S CHURCH HAS A WOODEN FLOOR
We had trailed spring up from Texas through Arizona, timing our
progress so cleverly that it seemed as if we had only to turn our
radiator’s nose down a desert path for blue lupin and golden poppies
to blaze up before us. At last we reached the meeting of the Rockies
with the Rio Grande in New Mexico, led by the devious route, sometimes
a concrete avenue, but oftener a mere track in the sand, of the
old Spanish highway. El Camino Real is the imposing name it bears,
suggesting ancient caravans of colonial grandees, and pack-trains
bearing treasure from Mexico City to the provincial trading-post of
Santa Fé. Even today what sign-posts the road displays bear the letters
K T, which from Mexico to Canada stand for King’s Trail. The name
gave us a little thrill, to be still extant in a government which had
supposedly repudiated kings this century and a half.
From San Anton’ on, as we left behind us the big mushroom cities of
Texas, the country became more and more sparsely settled. The few
people we met, mostly small farmers ploughing their fields primitively,
bade us a courteous good day in Spanish, for in this country Mexico
spills untidily into the United States. We soon forgot altogether
that we were in the States. First we came upon a desert country, vast
and lonely, with golden sand in place of grass, spiny, stiff-limbed
cactus for trees, and strangely colored cliffs of lemon and orange
and livid white. After days of this desolation we emerged upon the
valley of the Rio Grande where its many tributaries rib the desert as
they run from snowy peaks to join its muddy red waters. The air here
is crystal keen, warmed by intense sun, cooled by mountain winds, and
sweetened by millions of piñons dotting the red hillsides. Lilac and
blue mountains ring the valley on both sides, and from them emerald
fields of alfalfa, sparkling in the sun, slope down to the old, winding
stream. Because its silt is so fertile, one race has succeeded another
here--cliff-dwellers, Indian, Spanish, Mexican, and American--and a
remnant of each, save the earliest, has clung where living is easy. So
we came all along the Rio Grande for a hundred miles to little groups
of towns, each allotted to a different race keeping itself to itself,
Mexican, American, and Indian.
It was under the deep-blue night sky that we saw our first pueblo town.
Out of the plains, it came surprisingly upon us. Solitary meadows with
bands of horses grazing upon them, a gleam of light from an adobe inn
at a crossroad, a stretch of darkness, strange to our desert-accustomed
senses because of the damp breath from the river and snow-capped peaks
beyond--then the barking and yelping of many mongrel dogs, and we were
at once precipitated into the winding, barnyard-cluttered alleys of
Isleta, feeling our way through blind twists and turns, blocked by
square, squat gray walls of incredible repose and antiquity, caught in
the mesh of a sleeping town. Instantly we had a sense, though no light
was struck nor any voice heard through the darkness, of Isleta awake
and alert, quickening to our invasion.
We were already a little awed by our encounter with the Rio Grande.
Since twilight and quickly falling night came on, we had crossed and
recrossed the sullen brown waters many times, feeling its menacing
power, like a great sluggish reptile biding its time, not the less
because the suspension bridges above it creaked and swung and rattled
under our weight. The mystery of driving after dark in an unfamiliar
country sharpened our susceptibilities to outside impressions. We
felt the river waiting for us, like a watchful crocodile; a sudden
misturn in the shadows, or a missing plank from a bridge, and our
vague sensation of half-fear, half-delight, might at any moment be
crystallized by disaster. It was a night when something dramatic might
fittingly happen, when the stage-setting kept us on the sharp edge of
suspense.
The Pueblo Indian, we had heard, differed from other Indians, being
gentler and more peaceably inclined than the Northern races. We were
not such tenderfeet as to fear violence, scalping, or sudden war-whoops
from ochre-smeared savages. But it was our first experience with
Indians (the first in our lives, in fact), save those tamed nomads who
peddle sweet-grass baskets and predict handsome husbands along the
New England beaches. We were a little expectant, a little keyed to
apprehension. We knew, as if we had been told, that a hundred or more
of this alien race had waked from their sleep, and lay with tightened
muscles waiting for the next sound. Increased yelping from the mongrel
pack might bring them swarming about our car, and we had no experience
in dealing with them; no knowledge of their prejudices or language to
trade with. In our haste we circled through the town twice, threading
corrals and back yards. Suddenly, the town still tensely silent, we
emerged into a shallow plaza. Crossing directly before our lights came
a young man, tall and supple, his straight short locks bound with a
scarlet fillet, his profile clear and patrician, and over his shoulders
a scarlet robe, covering his white cotton trousers. As he passed us,
unmoved and stolid, he spoke one word of salutation, and continued on
his way across the silent plaza.
Simple as was the incident, the flash of scarlet against the blue-black
sky, the dignity and silence of the Indian, made the climax we had been
awaiting. Nothing else happened. But it had been a night whose setting
was so sharply defined, its premonitions so vibrantly tense with drama,
that only that little was needed to carve it on our memory.
We saw the town later, in broad daylight, swept by an unclean
sand-storm, pitilessly stripped of romantic atmosphere. But the romance
was obscured, not obliterated, for its roots are sunk deep in the past.
Isleta has one of the finest built-up estufas of the pueblo towns.
It has a thousand inhabitants, whose proximity to the railroad gives
them the blessing or curse of the white man’s civilization. It has
a church, whose ancient adobe flanks have been topped by two wooden
bird-cages for steeples, for when the Indian adopts our ideas, his
taste is rococo; when he clings to his own art, he shows a native
dignity and simplicity. Lastly, Isleta has a ghost, well authenticated,
and attested to by a cardinal, an archbishop, a governor, and other
dignitaries, to say nothing of Juan Pancho, a man who does not lie. It
is probably the oldest ghost in the United States.
About the time of the first Spanish penetration into the Southwest, a
friar made his way to the Pueblo country through the hostile tribes to
the east. In one of the towns north of Santa Fé, probably Tesuque, he
found shelter and a home. The friendly Indians, although keeping him
half-prisoner, treated him kindly. He soon gained their respect and
affection, as he applied his knowledge of medicine to their physical,
and as a priest administered to their spiritual needs, without giving
offense to the Pueblos’ own beliefs. He seems to have been a gentle
and tactful creature, who won his way by the humane Christianity of
his daily life. Gradually, as they became better acquainted with
him, they admitted him to the inner circle of village life, even to
the sacred ceremonies and underground rituals of the kiva. He was
taught the significance of their medicine and of their tribal and
religious symbols. Almost forgetting his alien blood, they had made
him one of themselves on the day, twenty years later, when news came
of the approach of armed conquistadores, with Coronado at their head,
seeking plunder and the treasures of Cibola the legendary. Whether
such treasure existed has never been known. If it did, the secret was
closely guarded by the Indians. Perhaps the monk had been made their
confidant. At any rate, he knew enough to make certain factions in
the tribe regard him as an element of danger, when he should again
meet with men of his own race, hostile to the people of his adoption.
Would he remain true, thus tempted? It was a question of race against
individual loyalty, and one Indian, more fanatic and suspicious than
his brothers, cut the Gordian knot of the difficulty with a dagger,
planted squarely in the back of the God-fearing friar.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH AT ISLETA. A church, whose ancient adobe
flanks have been topped by two wooden bird-cages for steeples.]
The gentle Pueblos, horrified by this act of personal treachery,
which they regarded not only as a violation of their sacred laws of
hospitality but as a crime against a medicine-man with powerful if
strange gods, were in terror lest the approaching Spaniards should
hear of the monk’s fate and avenge the double crime against their race
and religion on the entire village. What the Spaniard could do on such
occasions was only too well known to the Pueblo tribes. At nightfall
the chiefs of the village placed the body, wrapped only in a sheet,
on a litter, which four swift runners carried seventy miles south to
Isleta.
There under the dirt floor of the old church, whose walls have since
been destroyed and replaced by the present structure, they placed
the padre without preparing his body for burial or his soul for
resurrection. If they had only said a prayer for him, they might have
spared much trouble to their descendants. But they were in a hurry.
They buried the corpse deep, six feet before the altar and a little to
one side of it, and pressed down the dirt as it had been. The Spaniards
came and went, and never learned of the murder.
This prelude to the story came from Juan Pancho, one of the leading
citizens of Isleta. The sand-storm which had turned the sky a dingy
yellow gave signs of becoming more threatening, and a flat tire
incurred as we stopped at his house for directions seemed to make
it the part of wisdom to stop overnight in the little town. When we
inquired about hotels, he offered us a room in his spotless adobe
house, with the hospitality that is instinctive in that part of the
country. We found him an unusual man with a keen and beautifully
intellectual face. In his youth, he told us, he was graduated from
one or two colleges, and then completed his education by setting type
for an encyclopedia, after which he returned to his native village
and customs. He can speak four languages--Spanish, English, baseball
slang, and the Isleta dialect which is his native tongue. When he came
home after his sojourn with the white man, he discarded their styles
in clothing, and adopted the fine blue broadcloth trousers, closely
fitting, the ruffled and pleated white linen shirt which the Indian
had adopted from the Spaniard as the dress of civilized ceremony. On
his feet he wore henna-stained moccasins, fastened with buttons of
Navajo silver. He took pride in his long black hair, as do most Pueblo
Indians, and, though he wore it in a chonga knot during business hours,
in the relaxation of his comfortable adobe home he loosened it, and
delighted in letting it flow free.
His house Mrs. Juan kept neat as wax. They ate from flowered china,
with knife and fork, though her bread was baked, delicious and crusty,
in the round outdoor ovens her grandmothers used as far back as B. C.
or so. She had not shared Juan’s experience with the white man’s world,
except as it motored to the doors of her husband’s store to purchase
ginger ale or wrought-silver hatbands. But she had her delight, as did
Juan, in showing the outside world she could put on or leave off their
trappings at whim. She was a good wife, and how she loved Juan! She
hung on his every word, and ministered to his taste in cookery, and
missed him when he went away to his farms--just like a white woman.
[Illustration: HER BREAD WAS BAKED, DELICIOUS AND CRUSTY, IN THE ROUND
OUTDOOR OVENS HER GRANDMOTHERS USED AS FAR BACK AS B. C. OR SO.]
Juan’s ranch is near the new church, which has stood above the
foundations of the older church only a century and a half or less. It
befits his rank as one of the leading citizens of the village that his
property should have a prominent location on the bare and sand-swept
little plaza. He loves his home and the life he has returned to.
“I have tried them both--you see I know English? I can talk books with
you, and slang with the drummers that come to the trading-store? I have
ridden in your trains and your motor-cars, and eaten at white men’s
tables, and bathed in his white bathtubs. I have tried it all. I have
read your religious books, and know about your good man, Jesus. Now I
have come back to the ways of my people. Well! You know me well enough
to know I have my reasons. What is there in your ways for me? I have
tried them all, and now I come back to Great Isleta, where are none of
those things you white men must have--and life is full as before. I
have what is inside me--the same in Isleta as anywhere else.”
He fastened his piercing eyes on us, a trick he has when he is much
in earnest. Those eyes see a little more than some people’s eyes. To
him the aura that is hidden to most of us is a commonplace. He allows
himself to be guided by psychic manifestations to an extent a white
man might not understand. I heard him say of two men, strangers, who
came to his ranch: “When they came in, I saw a light about the head of
one. All was white and shining, and I knew I could trust him. But the
other had no light. It was black around him. The first man can be my
friend--but the other, never! I do not trust him.”
Moonshine? But the odd thing is that Juan’s judgment, so curiously
formed, became fully justified by later events. The second man is not
yet in jail, but there are people who know enough about him to put him
there, if they cared to take the trouble. This trick of seeing the
color of a man’s soul is not unique with Juan. Many Pueblo Indians
share it, as a matter of course, but it is a thing which they take for
granted among themselves, and seldom mention.
Mrs. Juan had cleared away the supper dishes, and sat by a corner of
the fireside. She had removed from her legs voluminous wrappings of
white doeskin, symbol of her high financial rating, and sat openly
and complacently admiring her silk-stockinged feet, coquettishly
adorned with scarlet Turkish slippers, which she balanced on her
toes. Pancho eyed the by-play with affectionate indulgence, and sent
a long, slow wink in our direction at this harmless evidence of the
eternal feminine. The talk had drifted to tales of wonder, to which we
contributed our share as best we could, and now it was Juan’s turn. He
leaned forward earnestly, his black eyes somber and intense.
“You know me for an honest man? You know people say that Juan Pancho
does not lie? You know that when Juan says he will do a thing, he does
it, if it ruins him?”
We nodded. The reputation of Juan Pancho was a proverb in Great Isleta.
“Good! Because now, I am going to tell you something that will test
your credulity. You will need to remember all you know of my honesty to
believe what I tell you now.”
We drew forward, and listened while he narrated the story of the good
monk of the time of Coronado, as I have told it in condensed form.
“Well, then! You’ve been in that church where they buried the monk--six
feet from the altar, and a little to one side. Most Indian churches
have a dirt floor, but the church of Great Isleta has a plank floor,
very heavy. Now I will tell you why.
“The Spaniards came and went, without learning of the padre who slept
with the knife wound in his back, under Isleta church. Five years went
by, and one day, one of our old men who took care of the church went
within, and saw a bulge in the earth, near the altar. It was of the
size of a man’s body. The bulge stayed there, right over the spot where
they had buried the padre, and day after day it grew more noticeable.
A year went by, and a crack appeared, the length of a man’s body. Two
years, three years--and the crack had widened and gaped. It was no
use to fill it, to stamp down the dirt--that crack would remain open.
Then, twelve years maybe from the death of the padre, the Isletans come
into the church one morning, and there on the floor, face up, lies
the padre. There is no sign of a crack in the earth--he lies on solid
ground, looking as if he had died yesterday. They feel his flesh--it is
soft, and gives to the touch of the finger, like the flesh of one whose
breath has just flown. They turn him over--the knife wound is fresh,
with red blood clotting it. Twelve years he has been dead!
“Well, they called in the elders, and talked it over, and they bury
him, and give him another chance to rest in peace. But he does not stay
buried. A few years more and the crack shows again, and at the end of
twelve years, as before, there he lies on the ground, his body as free
from the corruption of natural decay as ever. They bury him again, and
after twelve years he is up. All around him lie the bones of Isletans
who have died after him. The soil he lies in is the same soil which has
turned their flesh to dust and their bones to powder.
“So it goes on, until my own time. I have seen him, twice. There are
old men in our village who have seen him half a dozen times, and have
helped to bury him. They don’t tell of it--it is a thing to keep to
oneself--but they know of it. The whole village knows of it, but they
don’t talk. But the last time he came up we talked it over, and we
decided we had enough. This time, if possible, we would make him stay
down.
“I saw him--in 1910 or ’11 it was--and so did many others. The priest
of Isleta saw him. We sent for the governor, and he came and saw.
And the archbishop of Santa Fé came, and with him a cardinal who was
visiting from Rome itself; they all came. What is more, they drew up
a paper, and made two copies, testifying to what they had seen, and
signed it. Then they took one copy and placed it with the long-dead
padre in a heavy oak coffin, and nailed it down. And the other copy the
visiting cardinal took back to Rome to give to the pope. My signature
was on it. Then we buried the coffin, deep, and packed the earth hard
about it and stamped it down. Then we took planks, two-inch planks,
and laid a floor over the entire church, and nailed it down with huge
nails. We were resolved that if he came up, he would at least have to
work his passage.”
“I suppose you’ve heard the last of him, then?”
Juan leaned forward. His eyes sparkled.
“We hope so. We hope so. But----”
He stood up and faced us.
“You are good enough to say you believe the word of Juan Pancho. But I
will not test your credulity too far. You shall judge for yourselves.”
Juan took a lantern from a nail, and lighted it.
“Come and see for yourselves!”
We followed him across the deserted plaza, whose squat houses showed
dimly gray under a windy, blue-black sky. He unlocked the heavy door
with a great key, and entered the church. Feeling our way in the dark,
bare interior, we advanced to within six feet of the altar, and he
placed the lantern on the floor, where it shed a circle of yellow
light among the black shadows. We knelt, and touched the nails. The
heads were free of the floor. On them were no tool-marks. No hammer
had loosened them. We bent down further, and laying our heads aslant
the planks, sighted. In the lantern light, we discerned a slight but
unmistakable warp in the timbers, the length and width of a man’s body.
In silence we returned to Juan’s warm, lighted living-room, where Mrs.
Juan still sat by the fire admiring her red slippers. If it is humanly
possible, I intend to be in Great Isleta about the year 1923.