Part 14 (1/2)
Augustine Mission, where heroes shed martyr blood, is now a saloon and dance hall, but where rags and tatters flaunted from the clothes lines of negro and j.a.panese and Chinese tenant, I could not but think of the torn flags that mark the most heroic action of regiments.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Mission of the San Xavier at Tucson, Arizona, one of the most ancient in the New World, has an almost Oriental aspect]
From the Spanish Town of Tucson, which any other nation would have treasured as a landmark and capitalized in dollars for the tourist, you pa.s.s modern mansions that wisely follow the Spanish-Moorish type of architecture, most suited to Desert atmosphere.
Then you come on the Tucson Farms Company Irrigation project, now sagebrush and cactus land put under the ditch from Santa Cruz River and turned over to settlers from Old Mexico--who were driven out by the Revolution--for $25 an acre. You see the lonely eyed woman pioneer sitting at the door of the tent flap.
Moisture steams up from the river like a morning incense to the sun. The Tucson Range of mountains s.h.i.+mmers. Giant cactus stand ghost-like, centuries old, amid the mesquite bush; and in the columnar hole of the cactus trees you see the holes where the little desert wren has pecked through for water in a waterless season.
Then, before you know it, you are in the Papago Indian Reserve. The finest basket makers of the world, these Papagoes are. They make baskets of such close weave that they will hold water, and you see the Papago Indian women with jars--ollas--of water on their head going up and down from the water pools. Basket makers weave in front of the sun-baked adobe walls where hang the red strings of chile like garlands. On the whole, the Indian faces are very happy and good. They do not care for wealth, these children of the Desert. Give them ”this day their daily bread,” and they are content, and thank G.o.d.
Then the mountains close in a cup round the s.h.i.+mmering valley. In the center of the valley rises an island of rock, the rock of the Grotto of the Virgin; and a white dome and twin towers show, glare white, almost unearthly, with arches pointing to Heaven, and lions in white all along the roof typifying the strength that is of G.o.d. There is a dome in the middle of the roof line--that is the Moorish influence brought in by Spain. There are twin towers on each side; and in the towers on the right hand side are three bra.s.s bells to call to work and matins and vespers. It may be said here that the French Mission may always be known by its single spire and cross; the Spanish Mission by its twin towers and bells. The French Mission rings its bell. The Spanish Mission strikes its bells with a hammer or gong. One utters cheer. The other sounds a rich, low, mellow call to wors.h.i.+p. The walls and pillars and arches are all marble white; and you are looking on one of the most ancient Missions of the New World--San Xavier del Bac, of Tucson, Arizona.
The whole effect is so oriental as to be startling. The white dome might be Indian or Persian, but the pointed arches and minarets are unmistakably Moorish--that is, Moorish brought across by Spain. The entrance is under an arched white wall, and the courtyard looks out behind through arched white gateway to the distant mountains.
Here four sisters of St. Joseph conduct a school for the little Papagoes; and what a school it is! It might do honor to the Alhambra.
Palms line the esplanade in front of the arched, walled entrance.
Collie dogs rise lazily under the deep embrasures of the arched plazas.
A parrot calls out some Spanish gibberish of bygone days. A snow-white Persian kitten frisks its plumy tail across the brick-paved walk of the inner patio; and across the courtyard I catch a glimpse of two Shetland ponies nosing for notice over a fence beside an ancient Don Quixote nag that evidently does duty for dignitaries above Shetland ponies. An air of repose, of antiquity, of apartness, rests on the marble white Mission, as of oriental dreams and splendor or European antiquity and culture.
I ring the bell of the reception room to the right of the church entrance. Not a sound but the echo of my own ring! I enter, cross through the parlor and come on the Spanish patio or central courtyard.
What a place for prayers and meditation and the soul's repose! Arched promenades line both sides of the inner court. Here Jesuit and Franciscan monks have walked and prayed and meditated since the Sixteenth Century. By the hum as of busy bees to the right, I locate the schoolrooms, and come on the office of the Mother Superior Aquinias.
What a pity so many of us have an early impress of religion as of vinegar aspect and harsh duty hard as flint and unhuman as a block of wood. This Mother Superior is merry-faced and red-blooded and human and dear. She evidently believes that goodness should be warmer, dearer, truer, more attractive and kindly than evil; and all the little Indian wards of the four schoolrooms look happy and human and red-blooded as the Mother Superior.
A collie pup flounders round us up and down the court walk where the old missionary monks suffered cruel martyrdom. Poll, the parrot, utters sententious comment; and the Shetland ponies whinny greetings to their mistress. All this does not sound like vinegar goodness, does it?
But it is when you enter the church that you get the real surprise.
Three times, the desertion of this Mission was forced by ma.s.sacre and pillage. Twice it was abandoned owing to the expulsion of Jesuit and Franciscan by temporal power. For seventy years, the only inhabitants of a temple stately as the Alhambra were the night bats, the Indian herders, the border outlaws of the United States and Mexico. Yet, when you enter, the walls are covered with wonderful mural painting. Saints'
statues stand about the altar, and grouped about the dome of the groined ceiling are such paintings as would do honor to a European Cathedral.
The brick and adobe walls are from two to six feet thick. Not a nail has ever been driven in the adobe edifice. The doors are of old wood in huge panels mortised and dovetailed together. The latch is an iron bar carved like a Damascus sword. The altar is a ma.s.s of gilding and purple. To be sure, the saints' fingers have been hacked off by wandering cowboy and outlaw and Indian; but you find that sort of vandalism in the British Museum and Westminster Abbey. The British Museum had careful custodians. For over seventy years, this ancient Mission stood open to the winds of heaven and the torrential rains and the midnight bats. Only the faithfulness of an old Indian chief kept the sacred vessels from desecration. When the fathers were expelled for political reasons, old Jose, of the Papagoes, carried off the sacred chalices and candles till the _padres_ should return, when he brought them from hiding.
Gothic temples are usually built in one long, clear arch. The roof of San Xavier del Bac is a series of the most perfect groined domes, with the deep embrasures of the windows on each side colored sh.e.l.l tints in wave-lines. Because of the height and depth of the windows, the light is wonderfully clear and soft. The church is used now only by Indian children; and did Indian children ever have such a magnificent temple in which to wors.h.i.+p? To the left of the entrance is a wonderful old baptismal font of pure copper, which has been the envy of all collectors. One wonders looking at the ancient vessel whether it was baptized with the blood of all the martyrs who died for San Xavier--Francesca Garcez, for instance? There is a window in this baptistry, too, that is the envy of critics and collectors. It is set more deeply in the wall than any window in the Tower of London, with pointed Gothic top that sends shafts of sunlight clear across the earthen floor.
From the baptistry I ascended to the upper towers. The stairs are old timber set in adobe and brick, through solid walls of a thickness of six feet. The view from the belfries above is wonderful. You see the mountains s.h.i.+mmering in the haze. You see the little square adobe matchbox houses of Papago Indians, with the red chile hanging against the wall, and the women coming from the spring, and the men husking the corn. You wonder if when San Xavier was besieged and besieged and besieged yet again by Apache and Navajo and Pima, the beleaguered priests took refuge in these towers, and came down to die, only to save their Mission. Against Indian arms, it may be said, San Xavier would be an impregnable fortress. Yet the priests of San Xavier were three times utterly destroyed by Indians.
When you come to seek the history of San Xavier, you will find it as difficult to get, as a guide out to the Mission. As a purely tourist resort, leaving out all piety and history, it should be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to Tucson. Yet it took me the better part of a day to find out that San Xavier is only nine miles and not eighteen from Tucson.
And this is typical of the difficulty of getting the real history of the place. Jesuit Relations of New France have been published in every kind of edition, cheap and dear. Jesuit Relations of New Spain, who knows?
The Franciscans succeeded the Jesuits; and the Franciscans do not read the history of the Jesuits. It comes as a shock to know that Spanish _padres_ were on the Colorado and Santa Cruz at the time Jacques Cartier was exploring the St. Lawrence. We have always believed that Spanish _conquistadores_ slaughtered the Indians most ruthlessly. Study the mission records and you get another impression, an impression of penniless, friendless, unprotected friars ”footing” it 600, 700, 900 miles from Old Mexico to the inmost recesses of the Desert canons. In late days, when a friar set out on his journey, twenty mounted men acted as his escort; and that did not always save him from death; for there were stretches of the journey ninety miles without water, infested every mile of the way by Apaches; and these stretches were known as the Journeys of Death. When you think of the ruthless slaughter of the _conquistadores_, think also of the friars tramping the parched sand plains for 900 miles.
While Fray Juan de la Asuncion and Pedro Nadol are the first missionaries known in Arizona about 1538, Father Kino was the great missionary of 1681 to 1690, officiating at the Arizona Missions of San Xavier del Bac and Tumacacori. There are reports of the Jesuits being among the Apaches as early as 1630--say early as the days of the Jesuits in Canada; but who the missionaries were, I am unable to learn.
Rebellion and ma.s.sacre devastated the Missions in 1680 and in 1727; but by 1754, the missionaries were back at San Xavier and had twenty-nine stations commanding seventy-three different pueblos. In 1767, for political reasons, the Jesuits suffered expulsion; and the Franciscans came in--tramping, as told before, 600 and 900 miles. It was under the Franciscans that the present structure of San Xavier was built. Garcez was the most famous of the Franciscans. He spent seven years among the Pimas and Papagoes and Yumas; but one hot midsummer Sunday--July 17, 1781--during early ma.s.s, the Indians rose and slew four priests, all the Spanish soldiers and all the Spanish servants. Garcez was among the martyrs. San Xavier, as it at present stands, is supposed to have been completed in 1797; but in 1827-9, came another political turnover and all foreign missionaries were expelled. Tumacacori and San Xavier were always the most important of the Arizona Missions. Originally quite as magnificent a structure as San Xavier, Tumacacori has been allowed to go to ruin. Of late, it has been made a United States monument. It is a day's journey from Tucson.
To describe San Xavier is quite impossible, except through canvas and photograph. There is something intangibly spiritual and unearthly in its very architecture; and this is the spirit in which it was originally built. At daybreak, a bell called the builders to prayers of consecration. At nightfall, vesper bells sent the laborer home with the blessing of the church. For the most part, the workers were Mexicans and Indians; and as far as can be gathered from the annals, voluntary workers. The Papagoes and Pimas at that time numbered 5,000, of whom 500 lived round the Missions, the rest spending the summers hunting in the mountains.
[Ill.u.s.tration: On top of the world--a Moki city on a Mesa in the Painted Desert. At the left are the ends of a ladder leading from an underground council chamber]