# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/Spiritual Guidance

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SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE
IN no part of the world has the Church ruled more absolutely than in Mexico. The ignorance and barbarism of the natives made them desirable subjects for conversion, and also made them easy to control, once they had passed under priestly sway. Long after civilized protest had put a stop to the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition it remained a power in Mexico, "the strong fort and mount of Zion," as the abomination was called, continuing until this century. In the city of Mexico its victims were roasted alive near the church of San Diego, and a monument has been raised to the renown of Morelos, its last victim, who was put to death in 1815.
In order to spread the faith and enlarge their temporal power the spiritual authorities gave currency to many tales that in other parts of the world would at once have been laughed down as mythical; but they doubtless had their uses. The defeat of American troops at Monterey, in the unjust war of conquest waged against our neighbor people, was ascribed, not to lead, steel, numbers, or generalship, but solely to Our Lady of Guadalupe, who hovered over the Mexicans during the battle, seeking out weak points in the invading army and advising the Mexican officers where and how to strike.
Every year, in October, crowds of people go to ​dismal Mitla, with presents for the priests, that the good fathers may be persuaded to renew their prayers and masses for the deliverance of their ancestors who died in sin before the conquest, and whose souls are haunting the ruins. Probably a great cemetery once existed in Mitla.
Though we have a dim tradition that the Aztecs saw spirits hovering over the site of Puebla, the circumstance did not impress them, for they took no action upon it. It was not until after the conquest that Puebla came into being,—not the Puebla de Zaragosa, as it is called to-day, but the Puebla de los Angeles: city of the angels. For strategic, commercial, and other reasons a town was needed between the city of Mexico, of which the Spaniards had none too secure a tenure, and the port of Vera Cruz, which gave them touch with the other colonies and Spain. On the Bishop of Tlascala they imposed the task of fixing a site. He thereupon dreamed of a beautiful plain, edged by white-topped peaks, and as he looked two angels came into his sight who, with rod and chain, set about the work of laying off streets. So vivid was his dream that when he searched for the spot he recognized it immediately on his arrival, and there was built one of the fairest of the cities of the south; almost the only large one not erected on Aztec ruins.
Early in the period of Spanish rule a chief near Querétaro, who had adopted Christianity, was persuaded that it was his mission to convert an ​adjacent tribe to the same faith. Lest the prospective converts should object, he took with him an army, copying the spiritual methods of the Spaniards in that respect, and on reaching Querétaro he commanded his neighbors to pick out their strongest men and he would fight them,—that is, an equal number of his strongest men would do so. The challenged people had no occasion to engage with him, but he insisted that they should, and told them in advance that if his side won the other side must become Christians, whereas if the pagans were the victors he would go home and leave them to their idols. The trouble was finally agreed upon, and it shows an already benign influence in the new faith that the fight was to be without weapons, the combatants agreeing to kick and pound instead of slaying each other. It was a long and bloody battle, and was waged in the space between the armies, that cheered and prayed and advised, as lookers-on will always do, even in a baseball game. We do not know what the result might have been, but there is a suspicion that the unregenerate were getting the better of it, else why did the heavens open and the blessed Saint Iago show himself there, with a red cross in his hand? In presence of this vision the converted chief became complacently triumphant, and the idolaters ran to the Spanish priests, flung themselves at their feet, and begged to be baptized and saved from the figure in the air. A stone cross was erected under ​the spot where Saint Iago appeared, and if anybody doubts the tale he is taken to the Church of the Holy Cross, where this relic is kept, and it is shown to him in proof.
Another appearance of this saint was during the battle that Cortez waged against one hundred and fifty thousand (!) Tabascans. To the terrific aspect of this heavenly champion, as he swooped upon the savages, mounted on a gray horse, is attributed the victory. One monkish writer insists that it was not the saint that made this charge, but "the ever-present Virgin." Cortez returned thanks to heaven, and he baptized the twenty women that the beaten tribe had given up, before turning them over to his soldiers to be fought for. One of these women, Marina, who became the mistress of Cortez, his spy and interpreter, was the first convert to Christianity on the American continent. A statue has been erected to her in Puebla.
It has been feared that in some parts of Mexico the natives are church people for revenue mainly, or that they go to church to avoid trouble and rebuke, and this is known to be the case in some of the South American states, the Indians of Peru, for instance, being pretty fair Christians while the white men are looking, though they are sun-worshippers at other times. In Yucatan the natives have been known to go to church under compulsion of the lash. In Cholula the barbarian practice of providing food, rum, and woman's milk ​
Popocatepetl
Many old beliefs have disappeared, like those in the giant with long, lean arms who embraced and smothered the whole Toltec tribe; the spectre of a white child who followed him about, and from whose decaying head noxious gases spread over the country as it sat on a tall peak,—a possible myth of volcanic eruption; and the Titans who built the pyramid of Cholula; but Miquiztli, the dead man, and the crying white woman, Iztaccíhuatl, walk in the villages of these Indians, while their