The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-03-31
AMONG THEPENITENTES
Lenten Rites of a FanaticaI Sect in New
Mexico.
the CrossHO Sin Away in Blood bv LASH
ings With Cactus Thorns- of Cruci6xion
Copyugh
Copyrighted

If the WOIlQ llG EEuAAGlAES rank
we'll up near the top Of the list. Very
numerous at one time in the southwest,
civilization has driven them to the wall,
and only a few hundreds now remain.
The Roman Catholic church years ago
started a war of determination against
them, and the police have assisted the
church. and now one finds them only in
the smaller villages away from the cross
roads of civilization.
Taos, an historic village about ninety
miles from here, boasts of quite a colony,
probably the largest colony in the terri
tory Of New Mexico. At Ojo Calliente,
and at a dozen other smaller places scat
tered over the territory one runs across
a few scores. They are to be found gem
orally in little Mexican villages where
there are no white men. They object to
white men, and it was with difficulty
that managed to get near enough to
them to see all that they did and to
hear all that they said. The object of the
members of the sect is to do penance for
their sins, and during Lent, especially
during Easter week, to infiict upon them
selves the agonies and indignities that
we're inflicted upon the saviour. Despite
this penance, no greater rascals live than
a considerable proportion of these same
Penitentes. The men are horse thieves
and highwaymen. Hardly more than a
dozen respectable Mexicans belong to the
now fast vanishing sect But the pen
nance of forty days washes away all
sin and sends them straight to heaven,
protecting them from punishment also, in
their heated and wild imaginations, for
sins committed even after they have done
pennance.
Cruclhxions used to be common. They
always took place on Good Friday. In
olden times nails were used in this oper-
alton, but buckskin thongs have taken
the places Of the nails, and now when
a crucfxion occurs. the man to be cru
cited is tied by his ankles and his wrists
TO the cross. These crucifxions used to
take place in such civilized towns as AL
buquerque and Santa Fe, but now they
are only heard Of from far out-of-the-
way places, and to see one man must
ride many miles. Even if after such a
ride over mountain roads one is disap-
pointed, 1t is a sight worth witnessing
TO come upon the Penitentes at their PEN
ance on a dark night on lonely country
road beneath glofous southwestern
MOON but once seen, not even the most
curious cares to repeat the dose.
To this day, though crucifxions arc
not numerous, the self-infiicted wounds
are so terrible that many die of them.
With great strands of cactus they beat
themselves on the bare back until the
blood gushes in a stream from a hun
dred wounds, and this they keep up,
chanting weird songs meanwhile, until
they drop fainting in their tracks.
l recently had an encounter with the
Penitentes which l shall not forget. With
gentleman, a resident of the civilized
part of Taos, left Santa Fe one glorious
morning, and after a rid of about eighty
miles we left the train at Embudo, and at
sunset took a horse for Taos, almost
twenty-three miles distant over the desert.
It got dark very suddenly after the sun
went down. We were riding along lost
In the beauty of the night, when we heard
from distance a piercing shrek, and
then the night seemed to awake and to
become a hell on earth. There was a
dead, dull roar, and then the most horri-
Ole, blood-curdling yells of agony mortal
man ever heard. For five minutes these
shrieks continued and then they were fol-
lowed by the same dead, dull roar, which
we now made out to be some kind of a
chant. The words though we were quite
near, we could not make out, but my
guide Informed me that the chant was a
prayer to heaven for forgiveness of sins
and for strength to bear the fortunes OF
penance.
There were in all about twenty-five men
IN the crowd, as we found upon coming
up with Them The men walked two by
TWO, led by several who carried huge
crosses over their shoulders. These
crosses seemed to be made of telegraph
poles. The poles were, in fact almost as
large and haazru a tha oTdipar tp1a-
graph pole you see in New York, and the
cross-pieces were nearly as immense. The
men who carried them stopped under their
burden, and almost crawled along the
ground Ike so many snails, dragging the
nedVy things along after them. Every
TWO or three minutes one of
tnese men would fall to the ground,
unable to bear the weight, and then the
whole crowd would fall upon him and
peat him until he finally mustered up
strength to rise again. The men were
StIiea Win punches of stout cactus and
nails made of cactus, and which they
peat themselves and each other. The
teelh or thorns of these cactus sticks
tine sticks themselves were anywhere
from two to six feet long) were from half
an lnch 10 an inch in length. At every
poW the skin was punctured in hundred
PAGES Any one who in walking over the
.Ails OF New Mexico or the deserts of
ARIZONA has stepped upon a cactus and
I@1 MS shoe invaded by a cactus thorn,
can imagine what exquisite agony these
tshorns must have inflicted. The men were
pare to the waist They had on white
oIon trousers to their knees and were
DareIooted, and over their heads were
Ilngs that looked like empty meal bags.
hoies were cat for their eyes which in the
etdfe OF the moonlight shone fercely with
me wild fire Of fanaticism.
IN addition to this costume some of
Sle men wore what might be called a
uoay piece, and this must have added
sreatly to their fortunes, for 1t was
maze Of Sheets of tin through which nails
nau oeen driven, leaving a ragged surface
VI one side, and this side was put next
ne pare skin and the whole fixed tightly
aoout the body, so that with every motion
.le Jagged edges tore and cruelty lacerated
me nesh. In addition to cactus branches
many Of the men were armed also with
aooden fails, with which they thrashed
aIsnselves and each other with a Wig
u mat showed that they meant what they
We're about
When We first came upon the men they
ie telling along toward a little hill,