El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-08-17
SANTATERESA
in Ell PASO
Thousands of Devout Mex
leans FIocked About
Her.
AMERICANS HEALED

AMERICANS HEALED
They Were Inclined to Laugh, But When
Some Remarkable Cures Had Been
Made Their Incrsdulity subsidized.
Santa Teresa, who in the opinion of
sponslble for the recent uprising among
the Yaqui Indians of Sonora Is Just
now attracting the attention of the
newspapers all over the country.
The Denver Times of Tuesday has
the following:
For the last ten years Santa Teresa,
the healer, has been credited by the
Mexican authorities with being the
head and front of every uprising which
Sonora and Chihuahua. She Is des-
cribed as q modern Joan of Arc, wear
ing modified cowboy costum, with
short skirt, brilliant neckerchief and
wide sombrero, leading horde of va
q uis and bearing a charmed life. To-
day she Is the reputed leader CT the re-
volted tribes. Ten years ago, when
they were last in arms, she was charg-
ed with the came offense.
That the Indians of her native state
believe in aud reverence her as q saint
there is no doub and she was eX.led
fro m Mexico in 1891 because of her in
1uence among them. But in 1895,
when Teresita, as her fol flowers love to
call her, was popularity supposed to be
hidden among her savage warriors, 8
newspaper correspondent found her
quietly practicing the role OF healer at
FL Paso, Tex, and she assured him
that she had never witnessed q battle
nor been concerned in a revolt; had
never ordered q revolution or contri-
buted to one. The bloody battle of
Tomochic was fought because a Mex.
lean governor and a priest attempted
to take from the native church some
ancient pictures placed there by Span
ish priests hundreds of years ago, when
the Indians drove the officers away.
"The Tomochics, the race of my IA
ther," she said, ''for we are not va
quis-they live far to the west of To-
mochic-believed the troops we're ty-
rants and slew them. By order of Pres
ident Diaz, the governor general sent
me and my father out of Mexico with
out trial, when I had done nothing
against order. We were allowed later
to return to another district: but four
dreds of miles from me, we were sent
to Arizona, and there 1 healed the eick
until in the summer, when L came to
Ell Paso."
PRETTY LEGEND.
lessor MCGEE of the United States
bureau of ethnology obtained a person-
al interview with the living American
saint. He had gone to southern Ari-
IONA for the purpose OF studying the
Papago Indians, but heard SO much of
the saint and her marvellous powers
that he went some miles out of his way
to get sight of her. AT her settle
ment he had heard strange stories of
her powers. The legend is that she is
young and beautiful and never grows
any older, ana that she is at least Ia
part divine. She had never been q
child, but was born grown up. Wher-
ever she went good luck came; the
fields smiled with q plentiful harvest
and the horses aud cattle did not get
sick. There was no physical ailment
in human beings which she could not
cure.
THIS BEAUTIFUL SAINT.
Professor McGoe found her at the
Bosque ranch, near Tubac, fifteen
miles north of the international
been reported. Mexican in hue. with
large handsome eyes-hypnotic some
people called them-ravenhaired tall,
slender and clad la calico prints, upon
which no time had been lost in fitting
"a type of Mexican whose blood has
come down through Spanish and Aztec
ancestors. She wore no jewelry ex-
cept q pair of gold earrings; her hair
was banged in the style of the younger
Mexican women: but of vanity there
was no trace. There was nothing in
her appearance to indicate fierce or
warlike intentions, but she looked
rather as one whose loving kindness
to all had left its mark upon her face,
stamped it with purity and gentleness,
the beauty of holiness.
ISL, senor," she said, 81 am Teresa,
but am not saint; that it is what my
friends call me, because l am able to held
some of them" Her belief in her mi
raculous powers of healing was firm
fever when she was 16 years of age and
had been deserted by her first and only
lover she had been the Virgin Mary n
a vision and had received from her the
myterlOus potency. Since her infancy
in the mountains of Sonora the super
sti.ious Indians bad marveled at some
of her attributes and when she told of
the sights she had seen in her vision
they almost deifed her. The Archangel
Gabriel appeared to her in a later
trance as young man and delivered
to her letter which urged all to re-
pept of their sins, believe in Jesus, and
they would be cured from sickness.
This letter was afterwards printed and
copies of it were distributed, the pos
SCISSOR of it feeling ever safe from harm.
But Teresa does not lay claim TO Gny
visions.
1.-The people believed that I was q
saint" she said, land 1 felt that God
had willed | should heal tn EN-, and when
they asked me did so. No, L dc not