New Mexico (Part 2)

Santa Fe

Five days in Santa Fe. On one of those days, we took a 3 hour tour courtesy of Don Dietz, a fellow who has been living in the area for many years. (You can also take group tours by bus and so on.)

We noticed several things about Santa Fe: the architecture, the mission churches, and the statues. Santa Fe is an artists' community, and we had a chance to tour one of the foundries where they cast the statues found all over the area. The picture on the right is of a large scale, multi-piece statue that commemorated the Santa Fe Trail, which ran from Franklin, Missouri to the town square in the middle of the city.

To the right is one piece of artwork found on the grounds of the New Mexico State Capitol Building. It was created by a Native American artist, and includes the names of tribal groups once living in the United States. Unfortunately, many of the tribes are gone, wiped out during the Western Expansion.

Speaking of the state capitol building: we were touring on a Saturday, so the offices were closed, but we did stand outside the building and learn some of its history. New Mexico became a state in 1912, and the area was originally owned by Mexico. The state's seal reflects this history. It includes two eagles: a large one, representing the United States, and a smaller one, representing Mexico, symbolizing America's acquiring the area from Mexico.

The State Capitol Building is built in the round. Our guide joked that that's to insure that the politicians can't be backed into a corner on any issue.

My mother especially wanted to see some of the mission churches for which this part of the country is famous. We saw three on our tour, and a fourth a couple days later when we headed north to Taos.

The first church was the San Miguel Mission, which is the oldest continuously-used Roman Catholic church in the US. It was completed in 1625 by the local Pueblo Indians, who at the time were being used as servants by the Spanish /Mexican settlers. In 1680, the Pueblo revolted and drove the Spanish out. Twelve years later the Mexicans returned. (Depending on whose story you believe, they either came back and reconquered the natives, or were allowed back as long as they promised not to force their religious beliefs on others.) San Miguel was partially destroyed during the revolt, and re-opened in 1770.

A few blocks away is the Loretto Chapel, shown here in a postcard from the chapel gift shop. As more families settled in the area in the 1800s, the Sisters of Loretto requested that a school and chapel be built for girls. Work on the chapel began in 1373. When the chapel was almost finished, the Sisters discovered that no plans had been made for getting the girls from the ground floor to the choir loft. A ladder was out of the question, given the long skirts the girls would wear.

The Sisters prayed to St. Joseph, who is the patron saint of carpenters. According to the local story, a few days later an old man appeared and offered to built them a staircase. He spent about six months working on it, and when it was finished, he vanished. No bill was ever submitted for the construction, the materials used in the staircase were supposedly not found in the area, and there are no nails holding the staircase together. It makes two complete 360-degree turns and originally had no handrails. Architectural students from all over the world still come to study it.

The Loretto Chapel is no longer commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church. It is now privately owned and rented out for weddings, classical music concerts, and other events.

The third church we visited was the St. Francis of Assisi Basilica (where we attended mass in the evening). This church was designed by Jean Baptiste Lamy, the first Archbishop of Santa Fe. He patterned it after the churches in his native France, so its architecture is different from everything else in the area. (By the way, Lamy was the inspiration for Willa Cather's novel Death comes for the Archbishop.)

The designs on the Basilica's doors, shown here, depict scenes from the church's and state's history.

A few days after our tour, we headed north to Taos, but stopped along the way to visit El Santuario de Chimayo (the Shrine of Chimayo), a little church with a big reputation.

Around 1810, Don Bernardo Abeyta supposedly saw a flash of light in the hills around the village. When he dug down into the dirt, he discovered a crucifix. Abeyta tried to ship the cross to his superiors in Santa Cruz three times, but each time the cross disappeared during the journey and ended up back where it had originally been found. In 1814, construction began on a shrine, which was completed two years later.

The soil of El Santuario de Chimayo is reported to have healing powers. People rub the dirt on themselves, or they can take small containers of it back to others. One whole room off the chapel itself is full of mementos left or sent by those who say they've been healed. According to the priest in charge, it's not really the dirt that heals so much as the faith of the people who use it.

Below left is the front door and courtyard to the church. At right is the room where visitors can dig up dirt (from a gift shop postcard).







We continued on to Taos after this stop. More in the next post.