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قراءة كتاب The Penitente Moradas of Abiquiú
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Transcriber's Note:
With the exception of Figure 26, which forms the frontispiece of this work, the individual figures have been shifted next to their first mention in the text.
Apparent typographical errors have been corrected.
Contributions from
The Museum of History and Technology
Paper 63
The Penitente Moradas of Abiquiú
Richard E. Ahlborn
Introduction
Penitente Organization
Origins of the Penitente Movement
The History of Abiquiú
The Architecture of the Moradas
Interior Space and Artifacts
Summary
Smithsonian Institution Press
Washington, D.C.
1968
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1968 0—287-597
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402—Price 75 cents
Figure 26. Cross (cruz). Size: 106.7 centimeters high, 73.6 wide. Date: First quarter of 20th century. Origin: Abiquiú; Onésimo Martínez. Location: South morada, center room. Manufacture: Indigo blue designs (stencilled?).
THE PENITENTE MORADAS OF ABIQUIÚ
By the early 19th century, Spanish-speaking residents of villages in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado felt the need for a brotherhood that would preserve their traditional social and religious beliefs. Known as "brothers of light," or penitentes, these Spanish-Americans centered their activities in a houselike building, or morada, especially equipped for Holy Week ceremonies.
For the first time, two intact moradas have been fully photographed and described through the cooperation of the penitente brothers of Abiquiú, New Mexico.
The Author: Richard E. Ahlborn is associate curator in the Division of Cultural History in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology.
Introduction
This study describes two earthern buildings and their special furnishings—humble but unique documents of Spanish-American culture. The two structures are located in Abiquiú, a rural, Spanish-speaking village in northern New Mexico. Known locally as moradas, they serve as meeting houses for members of a flagellant brotherhood, the penitentes.
The penitente brotherhood is characteristic of Spanish culture in New Mexico (herein called Hispano to indicate its derivation from Hispanic traditions in Mexico). Although penitential activities occurred in Spain's former colonies—Mexico, Argentina, and the Philippines—the penitentes in the mountainous region that extends north of Albuquerque into southern Colorado are remarkable for their persistence.
After a century and a half of clerical criticism[1] and extracultural pressures against the movement, physical evidence of penitente activity, although scattered and diminished, still survives. As intact, functioning artifacts, the penitente moradas at Abiquiú are valuable records of an autonomous, socio-religious brotherhood and of its place in the troubled history of Spanish-American culture in the Southwest.
This paper maintains that penitentes are not culturally deviant or aberrant but comprise a movement based firmly in Hispanic traditions as shown by their architecture and equipment found at Abiquiú and by previously established religious and social practices. Also, this paper presents in print for the first time a complete, integrated, and functioning group of penitente artifacts documented, in situ, by photographs.
My indebtedness in this study to local residents is immense: first, for inspiration, from Rosenaldo Salazar of Hernández and his son Regino, who introduced me to penitente members at Abiquiú and four times accompanied me to the moradas. The singular opportunity to measure and to photograph interiors and individual artifacts is due wholly to the understandably wary but proud, penitentes themselves. The task of identifying religious images in the moradas was expertly done by E. Boyd, Curator of the Spanish-Colonial Department in the Museum of New Mexico at Santa Fe. The final responsibility for accuracy and interpretation of data, of course, is mine alone.
[1] Beginning in 1820 with the report of ecclesiastic visitor Niño de Guevara, the Catholic Church has continued to frown upon penitente activities, A modern critical study by a churchman: Father Angélico Chavez, "The Penitentes of New Mexico," New Mexico Historical Review (April 1954), vol. 22, pp. 97-123.
Penitente Organization
Penitente brotherhoods usually are made up of Spanish-speaking Catholic laymen in rural communities. Although the activities and artifacts vary in specific details, the basic structure, ceremonies, and aims of penitentes as a cultural institution may be generalized. Full membership is open only to adult males. Female relatives may serve penitente chapters as auxiliaries who clean, cook, and join in prayer, as do children on occasion, but men hold all offices and make up the membership-at-large.
Penitente membership comprises two strata distinguishable by title and activity. In his study of Hispano institutional values, Monro Edmonson notes that penitente chapters are divided into these two groups: (1) common members or brothers in discipline, hermanos disciplantes; and (2) officers, called brothers of light, hermanos de luz.
Edmonson names each officer and lists his duties:
The head of the chapter is the hermano mayor. He is assisted in administrative duties by the warden (celador) and the collector (mandatario), and in ceremonial duties by an assistant (coadjutor), reader (secretario), blood-letter (sangredor) and flutist (pitero). An official called the nurse (enfermero) attends the flagellants, and a master of novices (maestro de novios) supervises the training of new members.[2]
In an early and apparently biased account of the penitentes, Reverend Alexandar Darley,[3] a Presbyterian missionary in southern Colorado, provides additional terms for three officers: picador (the blood-letter), regador or rezador (a tenth officer, who led prayers) and mayordomo de la muerte (literally "steward of death"). As host