THE CHURCH OF SAN ISIDRO AND ITS FRAGRANT LEGEND
“One particularly lovely Sunday morning, some time after taking up
my abode at Chi-chen Itza,” says Don Eduardo, “I was awakened, as on
other occasions, by the softly melodious chiming of the bells in my
little church on the hill. As I lay in my hammock, idly listening to
the pleasant sound, I could distinguish the different tones of the
several bells and it was a pleasant thought to me to know that I had
equipped the little church with bells having a superior quality of
tone. The sound of them was indeed delightful because while church
bells in Yucatan are as plentiful as millionaires in Pittsburgh, they
are usually cracked and raucous.
“It was still early when I stood before my manor and turned my gaze
eastward toward the little stone church perched cozily on a near-by
gently sloping hillside. Both my manor and the little church had for
many years been in ruins, unused. Extensive repairs had just been
completed on both, to make them habitable. Here and there one of my
Indians, or a whole family, dressed in their Sunday best, were already
churchward bound, and the chimes continued softly to remind the
laggard of his duty. The red rim of the sun was just peeping over the
horizon behind the church, while the birds in every tree and thicket
were voicing their welcome to this glorious new day. A lazy, blissful
breeze laden with the mingled scents of a thousand tropic blossoms
ruffled the tree-tops. Before me stretched a vista of wildly beautiful
country-side with no sign of the handiwork of man other than the little
church. No towering peaks, no gushing streams, no bottomless cañons
greeted my eye; merely a terrain that is just saved from being flat.
Yet it is all divinely lovely—a study in green and blue with here and
there a spot of flaming color. The cloudless sky was of so clear and
vivid a blue that I was tempted to stand on tiptoe and take down a
handful. Foliage of some sort covered every inch of ground and was of
every imaginable shade of green, from the shadowed purple-green where
the rising sun had not penetrated, to the pale green of some of the
tree-tops, turned golden in the first slanting rays. A gorgeous parrot
flashed from tree to tree and disappeared and by his flight brought my
eye to rest on a riot of flame-flower high up in a distant tree.
“The sudden silence of the bells warned me that if I too intended to
go to church there was no time to lose. My little stone church is
not without fame, for in its then-abandoned sacristy that remarkable
traveler and historian John L. Stephens made his abode when he visited
my City of the Sacred Well. It was here that he wrote his notes on ‘The
Ruined City of Chi-chen Itza.’ Though it has been repaired, it looks
almost as he left it one cloudy Sunday morning nearly eighty years ago.
Its cut-stone walls and bell-tower are the same, but its old roof,
bowed with age, has been replaced with a fine new thatch of palm.
“San Isidro is the patron saint of the plantation—for no
well-organized plantation is without its patron saint, whose image is
venerated by all the natives there employed. The image of San Isidro
in this little church on the hill at Chi-chen Itza is of unknown
antiquity and is believed to be possessed of miraculous powers which
are constantly manifested. Veneration for the image, together with
the attraction of the three-belled chimes swinging in their places
in the tiny tower, makes the little church a sacred spot not only
to the people of my hacienda but likewise to the inhabitants of the
near-by village of Pisté and the region for many miles around. Has not
the sacred image and the big stone baptismal font been used by the
archbishop himself? Was not Mat-Ek healed, who was blinded for many
months by the vapor from the _ikeban_ plant, blown into his eyes by the
wind while he was gathering his crops? Was he not given back his sight
in less than a week after he had prayed for aid and kissed the feet of
San Isidro? And did not Mat-Ek, in token of his gratitude, have made an
eye of pure silver and give it to the sainted image—an eye which now
hangs over the altar for all to see? What more can you ask?
“The church was filled to overflowing in token of a great and special
day, for it is only occasionally that the regularly ordained priest
comes all the way from Valladolid, and confessions, christenings, and
marriage bans await his coming.
“As the congregation slowly drifts into place, the gentle rustling
of the unstarched _huipiles_ and _pics_ of the women and the louder
rustling of the stiffly starched trousers and jackets of the men sound
remarkably like the lapping of summer wavelets upon a sandy beach. The
soft laughter of the children outside the building, mingled with the
restrained voices of admonishing Indian elders, all combine to create
an atmosphere in perfect accord with the surroundings and the low-toned
service. Within the chapel many candles of wild beeswax give forth
soft lights and heavy odors which, mingling with the fragrant smoke of
incense, fall with pleasant, soporific effect upon the congregation.
“The chimes ring their tuneful, familiar message—a message come down
the centuries since the Child of Bethlehem was born in a manger; a
message brought across the seas to this little stone church, by some
unknown, long-departed padre. The solemn peals roll out and up to those
gray old temples of another faith, wherein the sacred music of the
ancient Mayas, the sound of _tunkul_, or priestly drum, and _dzacatan_,
once beat in pulsing chorus. These sound symbols of the Sacred Cross
are wafted to the altars, still standing, of the Sacred Serpent, whose
creed once reigned supreme over this land.
“The beloved priest begins the age-old intoned creed and as the
service lengthens through the chants, singing, and sermon, there
comes a penetrating, strangely sweet odor. Stronger and stronger it
grows, filling the church and floating out into the morning air. The
worshipers nod their heads. ‘The _xmehen macales_ have blossomed;
God is good to us,’ they murmur. Six graceful, big-leafed plants
like large calla-lilies had been placed upon the altar, among other
flowering plants. And as I look, the six white buds of these lilies,
each slenderly sheathed in green, open slowly to the light, revealing
blooms of creamy white. They open in unison, as if at the bidding of an
unheard voice. To me it is startling, uncanny. And here is the story
about them that met my eager questions at the close of the service:
“Francisco Tata de las Fuentas, caballero of Castile, blue-eyed and
yellow-haired, was fair of skin as a Saxon. In his youth he was as hot
of blood and of head as a Gascon and traveled the pace with the best
and worst of Castile and all the adjoining provinces. His offerings to
Venus, to Bacchus, and to the little gods of chance were so fervid and
frequent that they soon caused his real castle in Castile to become
as those common ones of the air. And his broad lands on the banks of
the Guadiana passed to more careful guardians. When nothing remained
to him but his horse, Selim, he betook himself with Hernan Cortes to
New Spain. Here, under Cortes, he learned discretion bought by hard
experience, so that he acquired some wealth. With Francisco de Montejo,
trusted friend and lieutenant of Cortes, he came to Yucatan, received a
royal grant of land with many natives, and took to himself a wife, the
lovely and virtuous daughter of a native chief or _batab_.
“Time passed and he was gathered to his fathers, leaving an only
child, a son named for him. The second Francisco Fuentes inherited
the father’s fair skin and bold blue eyes, as well as the gorgeous
gold-and-silver trappings of the once fiery Selim, not to mention half
a dozen big plantations, houses and lands in Valladolid and Mérida, and
scores of minor holdings in several other towns and villages.
“This Francisco Fuentes, or Pancho as his friends called him, had
two sons and a daughter. The sons were stalwart, upstanding fellows,
recalling in their stature and temper their Spanish ancestry, but
showing in their brown skins the admixture of native blood of mother
and grandmother.
“Maria, the one beloved daughter, had the plump figure and the sweet
temper of her mother, but her proud little head was covered with a
wealth of yellow hair and her eyes were of clearest blue, the dauntless
eyes of the first Francisco. And now Maria, the idol of her father and
worshiped by her brothers, darling of the whole village, was slowly
dying; wasting away with a strange fever that could not be abated.
By day her body was cool and her brain clear, but with the setting
sun came the fever that defied all skill of physicians and nurses. At
midnight her frail, fair form was shaken with ague and burned with a
fever almost to sear the hands of those who ministered to her as she
tossed in delirium. Wasted to a shadow, Maria seemed beckoned by the
Grim Reaper.
“The sun again touched the western horizon. The sorrowing family,
father and brothers, were at her bedside. Friends and neighbors
gathered to watch over the last hours of the helpless little sufferer,
for there seemed no hope. A knock sounded at the door, hesitant, timid,
as of supplication.
“‘It is but one of the beggars who constantly impose on Maria,’ said a
sharp-tongued watcher, peering through the window into the dusk.
“Maria, restlessly turning in her hammock in an inner room, heard the
knocking and the words of the watcher.
“‘I think,’ whispered she, ‘it is old X-Euan, come for some milk I
promised her for her orphan grandchild. Fill with milk the clean flask
which is on the shelf behind the door and give it to her.’
“Old X-Euan took the flask of milk, but from her lips did not come the
whining thanks of the mendicant. Instead, from beneath the tattered
folds of her shawl, she brought forth a vase of strange antique make,
in which was growing a broad-leafed plant with a single swelling bud at
its center. Handing the plant to the watcher, the old Maya woman said:
“‘Take this to Maria; place it close by her with the blessing of one
to whom she has done as her kind heart, guided by God, has told her to
do.’ In her voice was a note of command which brought obedience from
those who heard. Old X-Euan departed, but some—those who were nearest
and so should have seen clearest—insisted that a faint glow like a
halo enveloped her head.
“The hour of twilight had passed. The dreaded time of the quickened
pulse and panting delirium had come. Maria lay tossing in her hammock.
Close by her the virgin petals of the flower began slowly to unfold.
A fragrance, at first almost imperceptible, was wafted through the
room. As the blossom opened to full bloom and its perfume permeated the
sick-room, the restless turnings, the feverish mutterings grew less and
less and at last ceased altogether. A dewy moisture appeared on Maria’s
pallid forehead and she sank into deep, refreshing slumber.
“Amid the rejoicing there was a note of awed wonder, for in the very
center of the flower the beautiful calyx seemed to have taken the fever
heat that was Maria’s, and as her fever abated the heat in the heart of
the flower increased, until at midnight it was almost incandescent.
“A week passed. Each night, so the watchers told, the flower took to
itself the heat of the fever, while Maria, feverless, slept soundly.
And on the morning of the eighth day she was convalescent. But the
beautiful blossom was but a withered, brown, shapeless nothing.
“‘_La flor de la calentura_ has performed its task,’ exclaimed the
joyful natives, but Maria, lovely once more with returning strength,
said, ‘Alas! _La flor de la calentura_, the flower that saved my life,
is dead.’
“And thus it was told by Maria to her grandchildren and retold by them
to their grandchildren and is now known by every one in the region.
Surely it must be true! Why shouldn’t it be? At any rate, it is
accepted as literally by my Indians as the less pleasing story of Jonah
and the whale.”