Through Our Unknown Southwest Part 14

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 shimmers. 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 shimmering 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 worship. 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 worship? 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 shimmering 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]

When the American Government took over Arizona, San Xavier went under the diocese of New Mexico. From Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Tucson was 600 miles across desert mountains and canons, every foot of the way infested by Apache warriors; and the heroism of that trail was marked by the same courage and constancy as signalized the founding and maintenance of the other early Spanish Missions.

It would be a mistake to say that San Xavier has been restored.

Restoration implies innovation; and San Xavier stands to-day as it stood in the sixteen hundreds, when Father Kino, the famous mathematician and Jesuit from Bavaria, came wandering up from the Missions of Lower California, preaching to the Yumas and Pimas of the hot, smoking hot, Gila Desert, and held ma.s.s in Casa Grande, the Great House or Garden of Eden of the Indian's Morning Glow. A lucky thing it is that restoration did not imply change in San Xavier; for the Mission floats in the shimmering desert air, unearthly, eerie, unreal, a thing of beauty and dreams rather than latter day life, white as marble, twin-towered, roof domed and so dazzling in the sunlight to the unaccustomed eye that you somehow know why rows of restful, drowsy palms were planted in line along the front of the wall.

Perhaps it is that it comes on you as such a complete surprise. Perhaps it is the desert atmosphere in this cup of the mountains; but all the other missions of the Southwest are adobe gray, or earth color showing through a veneer of drab whitewash.

There is the giant, century-old desert cactus twisted and gnarled with age like the trees in Dante's Inferno, but with bird nests in the pillared trunks, where little wrens peck through the bark for water. You look again. A horseman has just dismounted beneath the shade of a fine old twisted oak; but beyond the oak the vision is there, glare, dazzling, white, twin-towered and arched, floating in mid-air, a vision of beauty and dreams.

Life seems to sleep at San Xavier. The mountains hemming in the valley seem to sleep. The shimmering blue valley sleeps. The sunlight sleeps against the glare white walls. The huge old mortised door to the church stands open, all silent and asleep. The door of the Mission parlor stands open--sunlight asleep on a checkered floor. You enter. Your footsteps have an echo of startling impudence--modern life jumping back into past centuries! You ring the gong. The sound stabs the sleeping silence, and you almost expect to see ghosts of Franciscan friar and Jesuit priest come walking along the arcaded pavement of the inner courtyard to ask you what all this modern noise is about; but no ghosts come. In fact, no one comes. San Xavier is all asleep. You cross through the parlor to the inner patio or courtyard, arched all around three sides with the fourth side looking through a wonderfully high arched gateway out to the far mountains. Polly turns on her perch in her cage, and goes back to sleep. The white Persian kitten frisks his white-plumed tail; and also turns over and goes to sleep. Two collie dogs don't even emit a "woof." They arch their pointed noses with the fine old aristocratic air of the unspoken question: what are you of the Twenty Century doing wandering back into the mystery and mysticism and quietude of the religious sixteen hundred? But if you keep on going, you will find the gentle-voiced sisterhood teaching the little Pimas and Papagoes in the schoolrooms.

San Xavier, architecturally, is sheer delight to the eye. The style is almost pure Moorish. The yard walls are arched in harmony with the arched outline of the roof; and in the inner courtyard you will notice the Spanish lion at the intersection of all the roof arches. In front of the Mission buildings is a walled s.p.a.ce of some sixty by forty feet, where the Indians used to a.s.semble for discussion of secular matters before worship. On the front wall in high relief are placed the arms of St. Francis of a.s.sisi, and in the sacristry to the right of the altar you will find mural drawings and a painting of Saint Ignatius. Thus San Xavier claims as her founders and patrons both Franciscan and Jesuit.

This is easily explained. The Franciscans came up overland across the Desert from the City of Mexico. The Jesuits came up inland from their Mission on the Gulf of California. Father Kino, the Jesuit, from a Bavarian university, was the first missionary to hold services among the Pimas and Papagoes, and if he did not lay the foundations of San Xavier, then they were laid by his immediate successors. The escutcheon of the Franciscans on the wall is a twisted cord and a cross on which are nailed the arms of the Christ and the arm of St. Francis. The Christ arm is bare. The Franciscan's arm is covered.

Unlike other Missions built of adobe, San Xavier is of stone and brick.

It is 100 by thirty feet. The transept on each side of the nave runs out twenty-one feet square. The roof above the nave is supported by groined arches from door to altar. The cupola above the altar is fifty feet to the dome. The other vaults are only thirty feet high. The windows are high in the clearstory and set so deeply in the cas.e.m.e.nt that the light falling on the mural paintings and fresco work is sifted and softened.

Practically all the walls, cupola, dome, transept, nave, are covered with mural paintings. There is the coming of the Spirit to the Disciples. There is the Last Supper. There is the Conception. There is the Rosary. There is the Hidden Life of the Lord.

The main altar has evidently been constructed by the Jesuits; for the statue of St. Francis Xavier stands below the Virgin between figures of St. Peter and St. Paul and G.o.d, the Creator. On the groined arches of the dome are figures of the Wise Men, the Flight to Egypt, the Shepherds, the Annunciation. Gilded arabesques colored in Moorish sh.e.l.l tints adorn the main altar. Statues of the saints stand in the alcoves and niches of the pillars and vaults. Two small doors lead up to the towers from the main door. Look well at these doors and stairways. Not a nail has been driven. The doors are mortised of solid pieces. The first flight of stairs leads to the choir. Around the choir are more mural paintings. Two more twists of the winding stair; and you are in the belfry. Twenty-two more steps bring you to the summit of the tower--a galleried cupola, seventy-five feet above the ground, where you may look out on the whole world.

Pause for a moment, and look out. The mountains shimmer in their pink mists. The sunlight sleeps against the adobe walls of the scattered Indian house. You can hear the drone of the children from the schoolrooms behind the Mission. You can see the mortuary chapel down to the right and the lions supporting the arches of the Mission roof.

Father Kino was a famous European scholar and gentleman. He threw aside scholarship. He threw aside comfort. He threw aside fame; and he came to found a Mission amid arabs of the American Desert. The hands that wrought these paintings on the walls were not the hands of bunglers.

They were the hands of artists, who wrought in love and devotion. Three times, San Xavier was dyed in martyr blood by Indian revolt.

Priests, whose names even have been lost in the chronicles, were murdered on the altars here, thrown down the stairs, cut to pieces in their own Mission yard. Before a death which they coveted as glory, what a life they must have led. To Tucson Mission was nine miles; but to Tumacacori was eighty; to Old Mexico, 900. Occasionally, they had escort of twelve soldiers for these long trips; but the soldiers' vices made so much trouble for the holy fathers that the missionaries preferred to travel alone, or with only a lay brother. Sandaled missionaries tramped the cactus desert in June, when the heat was at its height; and they traversed the mountains when winter snows filled all the pa.s.ses. They have not even left annals of their hardships. You know that in such a year, Father Kino tramped from the Gulf of California to the Gila, and from the Gila to the Rio Grande. You know in such another year, nineteen priests were slain in one day. On such another date, a missionary was thrown over a precipice; or slain on the high altar of San Xavier. And always, the priests opposed the outrages of the soldiery, the injustice of the ruling rings. Father Kino pet.i.tions the royal house of Spain in 1686 that converts be not forcibly seized and "dragged off to slavery in the mines, where they were buried alive and seldom survived the abuse."

He gets a respite from the King for all converts for twenty years. He does not permit converts to be taken as slaves in the mines or slaves in the pearl fisheries; so the ruling rings of Old Mexico obstruct his enterprises, lie about his Missions, slander him to the patrons who supply him with money, and often reduce his missions to desperate straits; but wherever there is a Mission, Father Kino sees to it that there are a few goats. The goats supply milk and meat.

The fathers weave their own clothing, grow their own food, and hold the fort against the enemy as against the subtle designs of the Devil. These fathers mix their own mortar, make their own bricks, cut their own beams, lay the plaster with their own hands. Now, remember that the priests who did all this were men who had been artists, who had been scholars, who had been court favorites of Europe. Father Kino was, himself, of the royal house of Bavaria. But jealousy left the Missions unprotected by the soldiers. Soldier vices roused the Indians to fury; and the priests were the first to fall victims. Go across the Moki Desert. You will find peach orchards planted by the friars; but you cannot find the graves of the dead priests. We considered the Apaches a dangerous lot as late as 1880. In 1686, in 1687, in 1690, Father Kino crossed Apache land alone. I cannot find any record of the Spanish Missions at this period ever receiving more than $15,000 a year for their support. Ordinarily, a missionary's salary was about $150 a year.

Out of that, if he employed soldiers, he must pay their wages and keep.

Well, by and by, the jealousy of the governing ring, kept from abusing the Indians by the priests, brought about the expulsion of the Jesuits.

The Franciscans took up the work where the Jesuits left off. Came another political upheaval. The Franciscans were driven out. San Xavier's broken windows blew to the rains and winds of the seven heavens. Cowboys, outlaws, sheep herders, housed beneath mural paintings and frescoes that would have been the pride of a European palace. Came American occupation; and San Xavier was--not restored--but redeemed. It was completely cleaned out and taken over by the church as a Mission for the Indians.

To-day, no one worships in San Xavier but the little Indian scholars.

Look at the drawings of Christ, of the Virgin, of the Wise Men! Look at the dreams of faith wrought into the aged and beautiful walls!

Frankly--let us be brutally frank and truthful, was it all worth while?

Wouldn't Kino have done better to have continued to grace the courts of Bavaria?

In the old days, Pima and Papago roped their wives as in a hunt, and if the fancy prompted, abused them to death. On the walls of San Xavier is the Annunciation to the Virgin, another view of birth and womanhood. In the old days, the Indians killed a child at birth, if they didn't want it. On the walls of San Xavier are pictured the wise men adoring a Child. Spanish rings and trusts wanted little slaves of industry as American rings and trusts want them to-day. Behold a Christ upon the walls setting free the slaves! Was it all worth while? It depends on your point of view and what you want. Though the winds of the seven heavens blew through San Xavier for seventy years and bats habited the frescoed arches, it stands to-day as it stood two centuries ago, a thing unearthly, of visions and dreams; pointing the way, not to gain, but to goodness; making for a little s.p.a.ce of time on a little s.p.a.ce of Desert earth what a peaceful heaven life might be.

THE END