Gods Without Men (6 page)

The Mission is directed by Fray Francisco Hermenegildo Tomás Garcés, a wily old Aragonese friar who seems to have been fitted by Almighty God almost to perfection for the reduction of the savages to our Holy Faith and obedience to His Catholic Majesty. I have seen him
squatting in the dust with groups of Indians, eating their food with the greatest appearance of relish, though to a civilized palate it is repulsive and unwholesome. He is fluent in several of their tongues and has become famous in Sonora for his entradas into the country of the warlike gentiles on the far side of the Río Colorado, during which he frequently traveled alone, without an escort of any kind. Fray Garcés shares the stubbornness and secretive nature of his Franciscan brethren, and is highly suspicious of my presence at Bac, which he sees as a possible prelude to the secularization of the Mission. I have been at pains to reassure him that Your Excellency has nothing but respect and solicitude for his holy work.

I am inclined to forgive Fray Garcés his temper, for he has, through faith and determination, transformed a wild and desolate place into a tolerable home for himself and his flock, and has suffered greatly in so doing. When he arrived at San Xavier, despite the Mission being almost a century old, it was unable to furnish even those things most essential for the celebration of the sacred mysteries. His bed was the bare ground, and for his food he had no purveyor but providence, the various temporal possessions of the foundation in the time of the Jesuits having reverted to the savages on their expulsion, and they, like children, having failed to maintain them, allowing the fields to lie fallow, the buildings to decay and the livestock to wander. It is to his credit that in the ten years Fray Garcés has lived in this remote outpost, the Mission has made such progress in agriculture. It now produces a sufficiency of corn, wheat, barley and beans, and in good years is able to generate a small income by selling food to the Presidio. Fray Garcés has also set his neophytes to work in producing candles, tallow, soap and other necessities. There are three looms, on which San Xavier produces a small quantity of sackcloth. This suffices to cover the shameful nakedness of the neophytes, but Fray Garcés also is in possession of several bolts of red-dyed linen imported from Castile. This cloth is much prized by the savages, and the friar uses it to reward and encourage his charges.

Fray Garcés has under his care four hundred Indians, including a small number of mestizos and coyotes, most of whom are the descendants of soldiers stationed here during the Jesuit times. For his own part, he
maintains an absolute prohibition on the fraternization of Españoles and Indians, though this is hard for him to enforce. The Mission is guarded by a corps of eleven soldiers, under the command of a Captain Díaz. This young captain and most of his men are without wives, though they appear to be good Christians, on the whole.

The buildings of the Mission are in pitiable condition. The mean little church is nothing but a flat-roofed adobe hall, built by the Jesuits without a stone foundation, or even adequate leveling of the site. The barracks for the unmarried women, which is supposed to be locked and guarded at night for the preservation of their chastity, is sorely in need of repair, likewise the living quarters for the soldiers. The barracks for the male neophytes is in better condition. The Mission has, at this time, no blacksmith or farrier, relying on the workshops at the Presidio for these and many other services. Besides a small granary, a kiln and a few huts—one of which is occupied by Fray Garcés—a single bell on a wooden scaffold and a tall iron cross make up the remainder of the Mission’s material fabric. The most defensible building is the church, and Fray Garcés and his flock have had frequent recourse to this sanctuary, there being no stockade, curtain wall or other fortification. Fray Garcés makes frequent reference to the relationship between earthly poverty and spiritual riches, and on this point of theology he is no doubt correct. However, for the greater glory of God and the accomplishment of our civilizing task in this country, one could wish things were otherwise. As I write, the good father is much exercised by the delay in delivery from México of a parcel of instructional engravings, which he hopes will excite the minds of the savages more easily than words. He hopes soon to send for certain liturgical items, including a candelabra and a set of hand bells.

The mean condition of Misión San Xavier del Bac is partly due to the Apache raids that have continued, almost unbroken, for the last forty years. The friar tells me a thousand reals would not suffice to replace the goods the savages have stolen in the time of his service alone, though in this I am inclined to believe he exaggerates. Concerning the Apaches, Your Excellency is doubtless aware that the problem is hardly unique to the Pimería Alta, this vagabond nation being astonishingly numerous,
roaming unchecked across the Provincias Internas of Sonora, Nueva Vizcaya, Coahuilla and Nuevo Reyno de León. In an attempt to mitigate their hostility, the Captain of San Agustín del Tucson has allowed, unwisely, in my estimation, a number of Apache to settle in the vicinity of the Presidio. They are given a ration of corn and tobacco and trusted to visit Fray Garcés and receive Christian instruction, which they do not, unless coerced. The good friar, who is a man of great though not infinite patience, does not appear to hold out much hope of bringing them closer to God. They are otherwise allowed to maintain their barbarous customs, including the performance of obscene dances and ceremonies and the contracting of polygamous marriages. Their minor transgressions are tolerated, even the theft of beasts from the presidio herd. No attempt is made to persuade them to farm. They are, in short, disguised enemies being succored at the expense of His Catholic Majesty’s Treasury.

Despite these difficulties, Fray Garcés has established his mission sufficiently enough to make visits to the outlying rancherías of the Papagos, Cocomaricopas and Gileño Pimas without running the risk that in his absence his parishioners will flee or change their beliefs. As mentioned above, he has also made entradas to the country of the gentiles on the far side of the Río Colorado, for the spreading of our holy faith and the increase of His Majesty’s dominions. During these extended absences it is my understanding that the Father Guardian of the Apostolic College of Santa Cruz de Queretáro supplied another friar to take his place at Bac.

To mark my arrival, Fray Garcés assembled his neophytes on the plaza outside the church. I counted a hundred or so, the majority women and children. When I remarked on how few they were in number, the friar informed me bluntly that during the summer many of the neophytes were in the habit of leaving the Mission to gather food and visit relatives. He described this absenteeism as lamentable but necessary. The piñons and acorns they collect on their wanderings supplement the agricultural products of the Mission in times of hunger, and it appears, though Fray Garcés would not say so directly, that only the scarcity of food during
the winter months ties some of the neophytes to the place. I asked whether it were not in his power to prevent straying through the use of incarceration or physical chastisement. He says this had been tried but proved unsuccessful. Parties of soldiers are, however, sometimes sent out to the ranchería to bring back runaways. I asked how the work of the Mission was done when so many of its members were elsewhere, and he laughed, telling me that this was indeed a problem—sometimes there was not even enough firewood to prepare pozole to feed those who remain. I found his attitude remarkable, labor being, according to authorities such as Verger and de la Peña Montenegro, an effective means for the savage to achieve salvation. Fray Garcés conceded this point, and spoke of long roads and short paces. He displays a sort of ecstasy at the poverty of the Indians, which he views as holy, in the Franciscan manner.

Upon observation, I found the Mission’s neophytes little better than their gentile brethren, prone to libertinism, insubordination, idleness, lack of foresight, distrust and instability of spirit. There is a preponderance of old women and orphan children among them. It seems relatively few able-bodied adult men can be induced to leave the ranchería. I refer Your Excellency to my previous remarks about winter food supplies and suggest that in some cases only an inability to feed himself leads an Indian toward God. Whether or not they are sincere in their conversion, the neophytes are much afflicted with sickness and lassitude. According to Fray Garcés the women produce many stillbirths, and neophytes of both genders tend to wither and die without obvious cause. He conjectures that to take them out of their own ranchería deprives them of some subtile vapor necessary to their life.

Though Fray Garcés appears unwilling or unable absolutely to control his charges, discipline is not altogether lacking. During my time at the Mission, I saw one soldier placed in the stocks as punishment for a bestial crime against one of the native women. Also a number of Indians were hobbled as they went about their business, as punishment for fornication, malingering or petty thievery. Though this is commendable, there is a general laxity and tolerance of unsatisfactory conduct
among the neophytes. The one exception to this is during Mass, when a sergeant walks among the rows with a scourge, striking them if they talk or rise from their kneeling position.

Fray Garcés permits the Mission cross to be adorned with votive strings, though he forbids certain other idolatrous practices, such as hanging tobacco and deer meat from its arms. I confess, señor, I do not see the divide between one thing and the other, and would greatly prefer not to see such offerings, but the friar disagrees, viewing the strings as a stepping-stone on the road to true faith. It is my impression that the neophytes’ understanding of the principles of our holy religion is primitive, but this is due to their deficiency of intellect rather than any lack of zeal in instruction. Fray Garcés makes heroic attempts to teach them the catechism in their own languages, and I have spent tedious hours listening to him repeat in a variety of guttural tones that there is only one true God, who is the creator of all the things we see and do not see, that God is the Most Holy Trinity, that God the Son became man in the womb of Holy Mary, that He suffered and died, that heaven is where all good things abide and hell is fire and damnation and so forth. Some young boys (in whom the father takes a particular interest) are able to commit much of this to memory and repeat it on command, but it is doubtful whether they understand when he explains that not only do they have to show themselves obedient, renounce error and observe all the obligations of a Christian, but must also believe with all their hearts. Fray Garcés admits that only a minority of the neophytes can be trusted to make a sincere confession. Few Indians confess voluntarily, and some show fear at the sight of the confessional, refusing to enter. It is rare, however, that Fray Garcés will deny the sacrament of confession to a man on his deathbed. All, he says, shall have food for the journey.

As strict as Fray Garcés may be in the conduct of marriage investigations, interrogating the prospective bride and groom and enjoining them to tell the truth or suffer the pains of hell, the nature of carnal sin is a profound mystery to the savages. This alone should be enough to justify the good father’s use of that authority that God concedes to parents for the proper education of their children, to reprimand and chastise them with the rod. Like the beasts of the field, they have no sense of
shame in their nakedness. I have seen a woman leaving the Mission, and when she thinks she is far enough away not to be observed, shucking off her sackcloth shift like a snake discarding a skin. Whenever Fray Garcés observes his charges in such conduct, he whips them soundly, though in his employment of the lash he is stricter upon himself than upon his children, taking the discipline daily, not merely on those days customary to his order. The Indians’ ignorance of all things is unsurpassed. Having never seen women with the Españoles, the Papagos of the outlying rancherías first conjectured that the friar and his escort were the offspring of their mules.

While recuperating last year at Tubutama, Fray Garcés wrote an account of his wanderings among the gentile nations of the frontier, though, from hints he has given to me in conversation, I believe that, while accurate in most particulars, this manuscript omits much detail, particularly concerning the physical and spiritual trials inherent in such a journey. He claims to have found more than twenty-five thousand Indians on the banks of the Río Gila and Río Colorado, and to have cleansed them, turned them toward repentance and prepared them for receiving the Word of God and vassalage to His Catholic Majesty Don Carlos III, may the Lord preserve His name. It must be noted that on these travels Fray Garcés was frequently alone, hundreds of leagues distant from any other person of reason. His exaltation in holy poverty notwithstanding, I believe that, being far from human sight, he became lax in certain of his observances, and it is perhaps for this reason that he has lately adopted the strictest possible version of the rule of his order, to the extent that the Father Guardian of the Apostolic College of Santa Cruz de Queretáro has three times denied him permission to undertake certain fasts and acts of self-mortification that, in the heat of his ardor, he fervently desired to perform, enjoining him to find other penitential exercises, less deleterious to his health and his ability to discharge his duties at the Mission.

Fray Garcés has declared himself astonished at the roughness of the country on the other side of the Colorado, and the great obstacles God has fixed therein. Water is scarce, and wells must sometimes be dug out of the sand. At one such place he was confronted by a hostile band
of Jamajabs and, having no means to defend himself, was resigned to martyrdom, when God inspired him to display a painting that he carried with him rolled in a wooden tube, depicting the Blessed Virgin and child. At the sight of Our Lady, the Indians prostrated themselves in great wonderment and then departed, leaving him to drink his fill. In celebration of this moment, in which he grabbed his salvation by the forelock, he named the well
Kairos
. Another sign vouchsafed him by the Lord on his wanderings was a representation of the Trinity, in the form of three vast spires of stone, Father, Son and Holy Spirit rising up out of the desert floor as a symbol of divine mercy and grace. At this place, he encountered an angel in the form of a man, who conversed with him and revealed certain mysteries. He appears troubled yet by this encounter, and, having once told me the story, apologized for it, saying certain things ought to remain in silence. Though I bade him continue, he declined, and I am of the opinion that he is uncertain as to whether this apparition came from Our Lord or the Enemy. Though he is reluctant to speak of his own miraculous experiences, Fray Garcés has much to say of the famous religious María de Jesús de Agreda, who was transported by angels to preach to the heathen of Alta California. He himself has met and conversed with old men among the Jamajabs and Chemeguabas who claim to have heard of a flying priest who came a hundred years ago to bless their people in the name of Almighty God. On his wanderings, Fray Garcés became convinced that previous preachers had prepared the souls of the heathen for his arrival, and he has hopes for great conversions once we expand our territory and link the missions of Sonora with those of Alta California.