Philip's Law

 

Back in Connecticut Jim was a member of the Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield.  One of its now deceased members – a white-maned Italian gentleman  – was fond of saying that a tree should always be pruned so that “the wind and the birds can pass through it.”  Jim was never quite sure whether what he called “Philip’s Law” was an actual arboreal advice or an aspirational aphorism.  Either way it seemed like good guidance.

Then the other morning a fast moving green-gray-and-white hummingbird, flying like it was on a mission from God, slalomed its way through our desert willow tree en-route to the adjacent orange-colored Agastache plant.  It then flitted from flower to flower sipping rapidly at each one before quickly darting on to the next.  The stems of the Agastache swayed gently, put in motion either by an invisible zephyr-like breeze or the turbulence of the tiny turbo-bird.  It was hard to tell which.

Out here it seems everybody loves hummingbirds.  Which if you know Santa Fe may be a little bit surprising.  If there are only two possible sides to an issue Santa Feans will somehow come up with five or six.  And argue them into the ground on the editorial page of the local paper.  Then refuse to compromise unless everyone gets 100% of what they want.  

But we digress.  So we repeat...

Out here it seems everybody loves hummingbirds.  And why not.  They are cute, fun to watch and demand nothing other than a constant supply of nectar plus a protein punch of small insects.  This has been a good summer for both them and their viewing public.  At our house Marsha provides the little guys with three red plastic feeding stations filled with the sweetest human-made nectar this side of the Mississippi.  Each easily accessible in the flowering crab tree on the placita (patio) of our house.  All replenished several times a week to keep them at their energy-providing peak.  We also have four agastache – three potted and one a volunteer offshoot in the ground next to its progenitor.  All seven of these al fresco dining stations draw equal attention from our near constant dawn-to-dusk inflow of hovering hummers.

 

Back in Connecticut hummingbirds were only a hope for us.  We tried red plastic feeders and several variations of a “pollinator garden” – butterfly bushes, bee balm, coneflowers, etc.  Butterflies came.  Bees came.  Cones came.  (Just seeing if you were paying attention.)  Perhaps one hummingbird came.  Although it just might have been a hummingbird-hawk moth.  Either way that encounter lasted all of two seconds.

First time in New Mexico – totally different story.  We spent several days in Taos at El Pueblo Lodge, a hotel with an outdoor pool surrounded by yellow-leafed cottonwood trees and a comfortably large seating area with lounges and Adirondack chairs.   Plus several hummingbird feeders atop poles all in a row several feet apart.  While we sat, relaxed and read we watched hummingbirds by the dozen aerially queue up in orderly lines for a quick sip at the red containers.  Pretty darn cool!

After each diner had its fill it dutifully returned to the back of the line and slowly edged forward as the feeding operation continued, probably using up most of the energy it had acquired when it led the procession.  Our own community of hummers is considerably smaller in number – two or three at a time – and nowhere near as organized.  But over breakfast coffee or lunch on our placita, equally entertaining.

The hotel is about one mile south of Taos Pueblo – one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States and the only living Native American community designated both a World Heritage Site and a National Historic Landmark.  The hummingbird occupies an important place in the culture and religion of Taos and other New Mexico Pueblos who. e.g., perform hummingbird dances and use hummingbird feathers in rituals to bring rain.  Native legend says the bright colors on a hummingbird's throat came after he fled through the rainbow in search of rain clouds to save the earth from a fire caused by an angry demon.

Taos is also home to a persistent and invasive low-frequency humming, rumbling, or droning noise audible to many but not all people – the “Taos Hum.”   According to livescience.com “a variety of theories have been offered as an explanation, ranging from the mundane to the fantastic, the psychological to the paranormal. Stoned hippies, secret government mind control experiments, underground UFO bases and everything in between have been blamed.”

Not mentioned for some strange reason is the lingering effects of the presence of the Family Trochilidae at the El Pueblo Lodge and Taos Pueblo.  Just sayin!

Hummingbirds are also a big deal in La Cienega, NM in Santa Fe County at El Rancho de las Golondrinas.  Not for their physical presence – but instead, like college athletes, for their NIL – name, image and likeness.  

One of the things we celebrate at the museum is the traditional New Mexican folk art of tinwork.  Among the early Spanish colonists were craftsmen who planned on creating works of art from silver, which they expected to find in Spain’s northernmost colony just as they had around Mexico City.  Not!  But small amounts of tin were available, which they used instead to produce religious items for New Mexican churches.

Then in the 1820s people traveling west on the Santa Fe Trail brought with them large quantities of food and goods (lard, smoked oysters, lamp oil) packed into large tin containers.  These discarded tins were a blessing to resource-starved New Mexicans who could now expand their product-line to include mirrors, candle holders, nichos and children’s toys as well as more elaborate ecclesiastical pieces.  Some of which they shipped back on the Santa Fe Trail to new customers in the eastern United States.  The craft continues today as one of New Mexico’s major folk arts.

Las Golondrinas has its own collection of early pieces – although we unfortunately do not have one like the religious-themed tinwork with the word “LARD” prominently displayed, which we have seen in the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art.   Museum guests also have the opportunity to make their own tin medallions using four different templates we provide – a rose, a floral design, a swallow and a humming bird.

In Spanish a swallow is a golondrina – after which the El Rancho de las Golondrinas was named.  A hummingbird is called a colibri.  In classic, school-taught Spanish that is.  The real world is a little more complicated.

Now neither of us speaks Spanish.  Nor surprisingly do most of the volunteers.  New Mexico is 50% Hispanic and Spanish the normal spoken language of one quarter of the state’s residents.   However not knowing textbook Spanish may not be that much of a detriment

“Due to New Mexico's unique political history and over 400 years of relative geographic isolation, New Mexican Spanish is unique within Hispanic America … unlike any form of Spanish in the world.” (wikipedia)  Among the distinctive features of New Mexican Spanish are the continued use of now-obsolete vocabulary from colonial-era Spanish; words from Puebloan languages such as cíbolo for buffalo (Zuni;) Aztec expressions used by colonists; independent inventions; and refashioned English terms, e.g. telefón.  (This should not be confused with Spanglish, which mixes English with Spanish fluidly shifting from one language to the other sometimes within the same sentence.  E.g. ¿Me enviaste el email? (Did you send me the email?) or ¿Quién me robó el mouse? (Who stole my mouse?))

One of our summer interns – a college Spanish major – tried to apply her learning to our guests with what she described as less than successful results.  

So, frequently we volunteer-interpreters simply ask our Spanish guests how they would say a particular thing.  At medallion-making asking “how do you say Hummingbird?” yielded a variety of responses  – among them colibri, tucusitos, picaflores, chupamirtos, and chuparosas.  The last two being the most frequent.  (Chupa means “suck.”  Mirtos means “myrtles,” as in the flowering shrub.  Rosas are “roses.”  Some of you may have heard of the legendary chupacabra – the vampire-like creature that kills animals such as goats (cabras) by sucking their blood.

 

West Texas, Arizona and New Mexico are at the focal point of the hummingbird’s seasonal resettlement in the southwest United Sates.  In previous years however we felt as if we were barely on the outermost periphery of that hub.  This summer we seem like an integral part of it.  We also are being visited by multitudes of finches, sparrows and other such small birds, groups of which perch on the branches of the flowering crab pecking away at the tree’s purplish-red fruits, even while the chuparosas suck away at the bright red feeders.  

Climate change?  Santa Fe is definitely experiencing warmer weather.  But seeing that slaloming hummingbird the other morning got us we are wondering if it also could be something that we ourselves have done.

We planted the flowering crab in 2022 and the Desert Willow last year – replacing a tree and a bush that were thick with branches and leaves.   Mother Nature seems to have followed Philip’s design specs perfectly when constructing both the crab and the willow.  And this summer’s hordes of hummers and other flocks of feathered foodies offer testimony to the efficacy of that “law.”  To paraphrase the advice given to Kevin Costner in the movie “Field of Dreams” – “if you plant them, they will come.”

BTW     The shrubbery that preceded the Desert Willow and flowering crab were not complete anathema to our avian visitors.  The honeysuckle bush frequently provided a place of warmth and shelter for wintering birds who having been startled by the sudden appearance of one of us would startle us in turn.  And the red maple that provided significant summer shade to our placita was the 2020 site of a well-hidden hummingbird nest, which we accidentally spotted while re-arranging the tiny hoverers’ feeding stations.  Nestling into a thick coat of invisibility can sometimes be a good thing.

Dishing Dirt

 

We have mentioned before in this space that trips to El Rancho de las Golondrinas living history museum frequently evoke (often heartfelt) personal memories in our visitors.  

Although the intensity of the emotions were a bit unexpected – this human connection with material objects from the past was not.  Back in Connecticut when we were clearing out Marsha’s mother’s house we donated several old kitchen items – bowls, etc. – to our local historical society thinking they could go into its annual “Attic Treasures” tag sale fundraiser.  Instead they found their way into the cooking area of an historical house the organization owned and opened to the public.  The artifacts were from the 1940s and 50s and thus within the lifetimes of many if not most of those who toured the building.  And generated similar, albeit less fervent, reactions.  (This was New England after all.)

Some housewares on display at las Golondrinas go farther back in time and yet still can cause these types of reactions.  Other memory triggers are the buildings themselves, sheep, burros, locations used in movie scenes and – one that surprised us – dirt floors.  “My [New Mexican] mother grew up in a house with floors just like these.” or “grandma’s house had dirt floors.”  Spoken by guests younger in age than our own son.  

We personally have never lived with earthen flooring.  Nor did our parents, who grew up in the kind of multi-story wood/cut-stone homes common to 20th century Central Connecticut cities.   As to our grandparents, born in the second half of the 19th century in Europe  – well we’re just not sure.  

Tipperary, Ireland

At that time in Poland buildings of all kinds were made of timber – roofs, walls and flooring.  Budapest Hungary was evolving from a medium-sized settlement to one of the largest cities in Europe, erecting apartments of brick and cut-stone up to four flights in height, and single-floor buildings of the same materials.  Italian housing was commonly two levels with an external masonry stairs and wood floors covered with tiles.  While in Ireland a good number of rural houses were single-room mud cabins with clay floors. So it is possible that one of our progenitors may have beat his feet in the Tipperary mud.

And what of the history of dirt floors in the New England in general?  

Fodor’s Travel Guide tells us that Plimouth Plantation and Old Sturbridge Village living history museums show the “amazing contrast between the dirt-floor hovels of 1630 and the burgeoning technology of Sturbridge, in the early 1800s.”  Ergo, those who came over on the Mayflower may have initially trod on earthen flooring – but not eight generations later.   Meanwhile in New Mexico, which was claimed as a Spanish Colony 32 years before the Mayflower touched shore, dirt flooring was still common into the 20th century.  How come?

      

 

 

Well for one thing – sawmills.  “The first colonial sawmill [in America] was erected by the Dutch in New Amsterdam in the 1620s. The first English sawmill was built in Maine in 1623 or 1624 and the first sawmill was erected in Pennsylvania in 1662.” (engr.psu.edu)  But none until the mid 19th century in New Mexico.  Again, why?

Spain viewed New Mexico as an “extractive colony” caring less about building settlements and more about transferring as much wealth as possible from it back to the homeland.  Supplying technology such as sawmills was not part of the business plan.  Especially given the difficulties of transporting such a facility by ox-drawn carts up the 1,600 mile Camino Real – the trade route on which items from Spain traveled through Mexico City to Santa Fe.  And vice-versa.   

Another reason was Spain’s unwillingness to allow its northernmost New World colony to trade with anyone except itself  – especially not the ever-expanding United States.  New Mexico lived under that embargo from 1598 until 1821 when Mexico won its independence from Spain and with it custody of Nuevo México – which it used as its contact point for commerce with the U.S. via the Santa Fe Trail east and the Old Spanish Trail west.

It was not until 1847 that a lumber processing plant arrived in New Mexico – brought by the occupying U.S. Army to be used in the construction of Santa Fe’s Fort Marcy.  It was converted into a grist mill just five years later, repurposed into a home and studio by the artist Randall Davey in 1920 and later donated to the Audubon Society of New Mexico.  

Sun-dried clay bricks mixed with grass for strength, mud-mortared, and covered with additional protective layers of mud continued to be the basis for traditional New Mexican homes.  And hand sawing could satisfy what demand for lumber there was.  Floors were made of clay that was compressed on top of a stone foundation and sealed, usually with animal blood.  (At las Golondrinas we do not “blood” the floors because of the labor involved and the amount of foot traffic.)  The Spanish had brought this adobe architectural style with them to the New World having learned it from the North African Moors who ruled Spain from 711 A.D. to 1492 A.D.  In New Mexico they came upon the remarkably similar Native American Pueblo structures begun as far back as 1150 A.D.

Then, on July 4, 1879 the AT&SF Railroad, and the associated businessmen from the East and their families came to Las Vegas, NM.  And brought with them the eastern architectural style with which they were familiar– notably multi-story stone-cut brick and lumber Victorian homes.  Plus the railroad technology to more easily transport stone-cutting, saw-milling and other technologies to the building site.  

Las Vegas New Mexico

Likewise Santa Fe was becoming “Americanized.”  “First, they introduced what came to be known as Territorial Style, buildings constructed of brick with straight walls and no step-backs [then added] Neoclassical, Greek Revival, Romanesque, Victorian, and Gothic elements to structures … front porches, pitched roofs, brick copings, and double-hung windows.” (lascruces.com)

Trains brought tourists.  And in the early 1900s Santa Fe’s “powers that be” realized the city’s “centuries-old tradition of Pueblo and Spanish architecture … was an asset they could employ to attract tourism and the flourishing economic benefits that accompany it.”  They decreed an official style called Pueblo Revival, which “imitates traditional adobe pueblo architecture, though many newer buildings use brick and concrete instead of sun-dried mud bricks. If adobe is not used, structures are built with rounded corners and thick, canted walls to simulate it.  Walls are covered with stucco and painted in earth tones.”  (lascruces.com)

Santa Fe "Pueblo Revival”

Dirt floors were not required.  And thanks to the new availability of sawed lumber they began to be replaced by wood flooring even outside of the “historic area” to which the Pueblo Revival edict applied.

But not completely.  At las Golondrinas our late 19th century Sierra Homestead area shows a family compound that would have housed a young couple with children and their elderly parents (his and hers.)   Three houses show the progression of building styles from “Grandfather’s House ... with packed earthen floors [and] logs rather than adobe for the walls – essentially a log cabin covered in mud plaster; to “Grandmother’s House” with the same type of walls but a pitched roof and wooden floor of sawed lumber; to “Mora” House a large adobe home with a pitched wooden roof, covered porch and wood flooring.  (las Golondrinas Guide Book)  A point we mention when interpreting this section is that although more modern building materials and techniques were available Grandfather still preferred living and sleeping in his earthen floor abode after eating with the family in their more contemporary accommodations.

Grandfather’s House

This practice continued well into the 20th century.  As vividly recalled by so many of our Golondrinas guests triggered by the museum’s mnemonic memorabilia. 

Beheadings and Rooster Pulls

 

One of our favorite places to visit back in Connecticut was Hartford’s historic Cedar Hill Cemetery.  Its 270 acres of landscaped woodlands, waterways, and memorial grounds provided the perfect environment for a tranquil walk on a burgeoning spring morning or brisk autumn afternoon.  We also enjoyed the programs put on by the Cemetery Foundation under the directorship of our friend B.  Especially the themed, guided walking tours highlighting the stories of those both notable and less-celebrated who are interred on the grounds, e.g.  “Mark Twain’s Companions and Cohorts.” 

One we particularly liked told of those whose demise was unusual, interesting and (sometimes) illustrative of how the customs and conventions of the time created the circumstances leading to their loss of life.  Two stories still stand out.   And although we have forgotten the names and precise dates, the general time period can perhaps be gleaned from the victims’ sense of fashion.

In the first instance a young Hartford women clad in the de rigueur hoop skirt  of the time came too close to the wood-fueled fireplace in her home.  A spark ignited a fire in the garment, which rapidly gained momentum due to the chimney effect of her outfit’s crinoline cage resulting in her immolation.

Another female of similar age and wardrobe tastes was canoeing with friends in Wethersfield Cove, a natural inlet of the Connecticut River south of Hartford.  She fell into the water, which was just barely too deep for her to gain her footing.  Constrained by the tightness of her corset she was unable to raise her arms above the water’s surface and thus could not grasp either the side of the boat or the outstretched arms of her would-be rescuers – with the expected, unfortunate result.

Tales both disquieting and engaging.  The kind that would qualify for “News of the Weird” – a column that we used to read in the Hartford Advocate newspaper back in CT.   The feature still exists as a web site of the same name – “human eccentricity without embellishment.”   A quick search for New Mexico oddities turned up this.

“22 May 1957   Approximately 4.5 mi south of Kirtland Air Force Base, a grazing cow was killed by a Mark 17 hydrogen bomb accidentally jettisoned from a USAF B-36 strategic bomber aircraft. The bomb was not equipped with components necessary for nuclear detonation at the time, but the conventional high explosives in the bomb detonated on impact, killing the cow and causing a crater about 12 ft deep and 25 ft wide.” 

Interesting, but bovine bombings were not quite what we were looking for.  Fortunately, just like on that Cedar Hill Cemetery tour, we found two winners at an otherwise serious-minded lecture presented by the local chapter of the Santa Fe Trail Association.

The organization’s area of interest is all things related to the eponymous 800-mile trade route from Independence Missouri to/from Santa Fe during 1821 to 1865.  The subject of this talk was the village of Agua Fria, a census-designated place in Santa Fe County.  Agua Fria lies on the historic Camino Real of the Interior, the 1,600 mile trade route from 1598 to 1882 between Mexico City and Santa Fe – and for 61 years the route on which goods from the SF Trail were transported south to Mexico. 

“Spain jealously protected the borders of its New Mexico colony, prohibiting manufacturing and international trade. Missourians and others visiting Santa Fe told of an isolated provincial capital starved for manufactured goods and supplies—a potential gateway to Mexico’s interior markets. In 1821 the Mexican people revolted against Spanish rule. With independence, they un-locked the gates of trade, using the Santa Fe Trail as the key. Encouraged by Mexican officials, the Santa Fe trade boomed, strengthening and linking the economies of Missouri and Mexico’s northern provinces.” (nps.gov)

Agua Fría was named Ca-Tee-Ka – “cold water” by Tewa and Tano Indians living along the Rio Grande and adopted by its 17th century Spanish occupiers.  Recent archaeology suggests hunter-gathers in the area circa 7,000 BCE and settlers in pit houses who used the domestication of turkeys as a way to replace hunter-gathering from 3,000-3,500 BCE. 

The village became an officially recorded settlement in 1693 when Captain Roque Madrid and other soldiers were given land grants on the Santa Fe River for their service in the 1692 Spanish “Reconquest” of New Mexico.   The plots consisted of long, narrow strips ensuring that each landowner had access to water for crops via a communal crisscrossing acequia (irrigation) system.  Farming was so good that for a time the small community became “the breadbasket of the City of Santa Fe.”  The shape of the parcels proved to be a problem however when they were later divided among the children of the landowners.

A company of Civil War volunteers from Agua Fría fought with the Union Army at the Battle of Glorietta Pass (3/26-3/28 1862.)  The “Gettysburg of the West” ended the Confederacy's efforts to capture NM territory and other parts of the western United States.  The Rebels were winning the fight when they were forced to retreat and abandon their entire mission due to the destruction of basically all of their supplies, which they had left unguarded.

The speaker was entertaining and engaging, the talk was informative and we were listening attentively.  But our interest really perked up when the topics turned to the beheading of New Mexico’s tenth Mexican governor, and competitive “rooster pulls.” 

As you may know Spanish cultural tradition includes what some call “blood sports” – bullfighting and cockfighting principally but also one of the two pastimes mentioned immediately above. 

But not this one.  In August of 1837 there was a popular revolt in the Chimayó-Santa Cruz area against the Mexican appointed Governor Albino Pérez in opposition to his policies towards custom officials whose corrupt taxation practices took advantage of the lucrative Santa Fe Trail trade.  Pérez attempted to raise a militia in response but on August 8th he was decapitated in Santa Fe during a raid by a group of  Indians.   His head was displayed in public in and then kicked down the El Camino Real into the Village of Agua Fria.  

The Powerpoint accompanying the talk included this photo of a polished stone plaque reading “Governor Perez was assassinated on this spot on Aug. 9, 1837. Erected by Sunshine Chapter, DAR, 1901.”  New Mexican Daughters of the American Revolution – WTH??  “Any woman 18 years or older who can prove lineal, bloodline descent from an ancestor who aided in achieving American independence is eligible to join the DAR.”  Spain financially supported our Revolutionary War – raising the money in part by taxing all of its citizens.  New Mexico was at the time a Spanish Colony and each New Mexican Spaniard was assessed two pesos.  Every Indian contributed one peso.  Ergo, many modern day New Mexicans, including Native Americans, qualify.

While this method of removal from office hopefully was a one-off, the next event was a legitimate ritual.  The calendar of saints organizes the Christian liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints.  Many days have associated activities.  On St. Valentine’s Day chocolates and flowers are given to certain loved ones.  St. Patrick’s day celebrants quaff pints of green-colored beer.  In New Mexico, on June 24 for St John the Baptist there was the “rooster pull.”

Marc Simmons was an American historian specializing in New Mexican history, writing numerous books and a column in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper – the source of the following.  

“Ancient practices and folkways lend an exotic air to the Southwest and impart a sense of timelessness. They are reminders that history lies at our back door.

“One strange custom, now rare today, is the corrida de gallo, or ‘rooster pull.’ Formerly this ‘sport’ was found in all of New Mexico’s villages and larger towns. It was one of the few aspects of native life which Americans found thoroughly disagreeable.

“A traveler from the East gave a graphic description in the early 1840s. ‘A common rooster or hen … was tied by the feet to some swinging limb of a tree, so as to be barely within reach of a man on horseback. Or the fowl was buried alive in a small pit, leaving only the head above the surface.

“In either case, horsemen racing at full speed grabbed the head of the bird, which, being well greased, generally slipped out of their fingers. As soon as someone succeeded in tearing it loose from the tree or from the pit, he spurred his horse and tried to escape with the prize. He was chased by the whole sporting crew. The first who overtook him tried to seize the fowl, a fight ensured, during which the poor chicken was torn into atoms … Should any of the horsemen escape with the whole bird, he takes it at once to his lady and presents it to her. And she carries the feathered creature that same night to the village dance where she displays it as proof that her man is the best lover in the neighborhood.”

As with the gubernatorial beheading our speaker had a picture to share.  This one an action-photo from Agua Fria circa 1890.

 

 

Marsha could not have abided the earlier constraints on women’s clothing – or other things.  The idea of courting anyone with a battle-scarred chicken just seems ludicrous to Jim.  And yet we find these stories fascinating.

One good thing about history is that you can live it without having to take part in it.  

Vivir mucho y prosperar Josefinas!

 

Living history museums such as Sturbridge Village, Mystic Seaport, Colonial Williamsburg and El Rancho de las Golondrinas recreate historical settings with costumed docents to simulate a past time period.  There are however other entertaining ways to learn about history.

María Josefina Montoya Romero for example.  

According to her Wiki website Josefina® (as she prefers) was “a Mexican girl living on a rancho (ranch settlement) fifteen miles away from Santa Fe during the time when the [New Mexican] territory was under Mexican rule, only a few years after Mexican independence from Spanish colonialism.   Ever since Mamá died, [the summer Josefina turned eight in July of 1823] Josefina and her sisters have bravely met the challenges of the rancho without her. As they watch the new Americano traders arrive from the East, they struggle to hold on to the old ways their beloved mother taught them.”  

 

 

Some of you perhaps noticed the “®” after Josefina’s name.  This is not the cattle brand of the rancho where she lived.  It is instead a “registered trademark symbol” indicating in this case that Josefina is a doll in the American Girls Collection by Mattel, the makers of Barbie – also with an ®.  

Both toys have a series of books about them.  Valerie Tripp, the author of the Josefina stories and Jean-Paul Tibbles, their illustrator did their research at las Golondrinas.  And the museum plays off that connection with a guided tour that brings “Josefina's story to life against the backdrop of our historic buildings, exploring the traditions, cultures, and landscapes that shaped her world.”  

Like Barbie the Josefina doll of course comes with her own “clothing accessories” – among them her Nightgown, Festival Outfit, Navidad Outfit, Desert Primrose Top and Indigo Skirt.  Varying degrees of authenticity – but the American Girl dolls are a curious mix of historicity and youthful imagination anyway.  So dressing the part just furthers the cause.

Josefina Montoya was introduced to the world in 1997.  And, with no reason to know about her for all these years – we didn’t.  For many others however Josefina was both a way of learning and an important part of their personal history.  As we found out this past summer.

In August the two of us and one other person, M, were volunteering in “Golondrinas Placita” the 1700s section of the museum – a courtyard surrounded by a rectangular, multi-roomed Spanish hacienda.  It was in the low 90s and incessantly sunny – a normal summer day in Santa Fe.  Most guests dress for the conditions – tee shirts, shorts, hiking shoes, baseball caps.  We were of course garbed in period-appropriate costumes – long-sleeve white cotton blouse, long black cotton skirt & straw hat (M) and white, cotton, collarless, billowy-sleeved shirt, cotton pants & straw hat (J.)  No matter the weather, you gotta dress the part.  Actors will tell you the proper costume helps them get into character.  At las Golondrinas we do not play any particular individual.  The right outfit does however put us into that Nuevo México state of mind – as well as adding a veneer of authority to the words that come out of our mouths.

 

On this day a group made up of a woman and man late 40s/early 50s and three 20-something women walked into the Placita.  All five wore white long-sleeved tops (his a mock turtleneck.)   Mom had on a long, loose white skirt, dad chino slacks and the siblings black, flowing maxi skirts.  A good-looking, physically fit quintet and possibly the “best dressed family ever” to visit las Golondrinas – if it were not a normal 90 degree, sunny summer day in Santa Fe.  

They split up one, one and three on entering the courtyard and the young women gravitated to the weaving and spinning rooms.  “These rooms show how the Spanish settlers carded, spun and wove wool to make rugs for the floor, blankets for the bed and horses, and clothing— including sarapes (blankets or shawls worn by men) and rebozos (shawls worn by women). These woven goods and sheep were the most important commodity exported from New Mexico.”  (Golondrinas Guide Book)   Marsha was on duty there and asked as we always do, “have you been here before?”  They excitedly told her that they all had been here as younger girls, taken the Josefina Tour, and now were back eagerly relearning the story of wool, weaving and women in 18th century New Mexico and enthusiastically re-embracing their earlier experiences.  They continued to show the same enthusiasm throughout their conversation with Marsha.  After leaving that section the trio drifted off to revisit other favorite spots – and Marsha filled M and Jim in on their backstory.

Sometime later the “Josefinas” (as we were now calling them) entered what is known as the “Servants and Captives” Room – the sleeping/working quarters of that eponymous group of historical residents of the rancho.  Jim followed them in.  The three women had not previously seen this space and he quickly determined that the story of Colonial slavery did not really fit in with their search for remembrances of things past.  They thanked him nicely, exited the room and continued out of Golondrinas Placita and on to other parts of the ranch.

Jim then encountered the mother standing hesitantly at the entrance to the unoccupied chapel room.   He invited her in and explained that the building was a museum recreation of an 18th century New Mexican Catholic village church.  As he sometimes does in order to understand a visitor’s knowledge base Jim asked if she was familiar with Catholicism.  She quickly replied “I am Palmarian Catholic,” and she handed him a business card with contact information for her church.  They spoke a little bit about the chapel and she seemed quite taken by the simplicity and emotion of the paintings and statues (retablos and bultos.)  After thanking him she met up with her family who were in the courtyard and they all left the grounds together.

Jim related his conversation and showed the card to Marsha and our co-volunteer.  Neither had heard of the religion.  Google and its trusted friend Wikipedia of course had.

“The Palmarian Church claims to be the exclusive One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ.”  The impetus for its founding was an alleged series of late 20th century messages from an apparition of the Virgin Mary “favourable to a traditionalist Catholic pushback to the liberalising changes introduced by the Second Vatican Council ... In 1975, the Palmarians founded a religious order known as the Carmelites of the Holy Face and had a number of priests ordained … After the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, Clemente Domínguez claimed that he had been mystically crowned Pope of the Catholic Church by Jesus Christ and was to reign as Pope Gregory XVII.”   The church is headquartered in the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Crowned Mother of Palmar in Andalusia, Spain.  As of 2016, there were 32 bishops, 60 priests, 40 nuns and approximately 2,000 nonclericals with chapels around the world, typically in the homes of lay members – in the USA at Arkdale WI, Chicago IL, Livingston Manor NY, Sonoma CA, Tacoma WA & Yelm WA.  This family was from Washington state.

 

Wikipedia also told us that the “controversial Palmarian Catholic Church” plays a major role in Origin, a 2017 mystery thriller novel by DaVinci Code author Dan Brown.  “An evil, Catholic-adjacent cult” is always “one of Brown's signature themes,” according to New Republic magazine.

Marsha got the 491 page book from our local library.  Jim (a much slower reader) was set to follow suit when they found a copy of it for $2.00 in the Friends of the Library book sale allowing him to read it at his own pace.  Clearly a sign of some kind from somewhere.

Meanwhile Marsha was thinking “this is awfully cult-like.  I wonder if they have a dress code.”

And they do.

“FOR WOMEN:  The dress at least four inches below the knees; not close fitting; not transparent; the sleeves long; not cut low at the neck. The legs covered with stockings, from 14 years of age, while those who are younger will at least wear socks. Trousers are forbidden.  FOR MEN:  Clothing that is dignified and decent (long sleeves, shirt buttoned at the top, and so forth).

Deuteronomy, 22, 5; ‘A woman shall not be clothed with man's apparel; neither shall a man use woman's apparel. For he that does these things is abominable before God.’”(palmarianchurch.org)

As to our concerns about the appropriateness of the clothing for a summer day in Santa Fe.  They also have that covered, so to speak.

 

“You might say, ‘but I feel hot!’ You know how to put up with the heat when you want. Remember the words of Saint Dominic Savio:  ‘If you cannot bear the heat of summer, how will you bear that of Hell which you are out looking for?’” (Apostolic Letter Palmarian Pope Peter III)

No matter the weather, you gotta dress the part.  Especially if you are actually living it, rather than just pretending to.

Our research also tells us that Mattel offered several “gift sets” with Barbie and Ken together with the crew of the Star Trek Ship USS Enterprise.  But no such character co-mingling with the American Girl figures.  Too bad.  We’re certain Señor Spock would be saying, “vivir mucho y prosperar Josefinas!”