The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1899-08-26
MARIA TERESA UREA
The Mexican "saint" Who In Said 20
BE Endowed with Divine
Powers

The young Mexican girl, Maria
Teresa Urea, who is deyoutly believed
bv the Mexican Catholics to be en-
bowed with divine powers, is nowSome-
where among the .Yaqui Indians in
Sonora, Mexico, and, although they are
the fiercest tribe in that republic and
irreconcilable in their hostility to the.
whites, they revere her as priestess
and obey her as if she were their queen.
There is something strange about "San-
ia Teresa" as they call her. She Is
modest, unassuming Mexican girl, the
daughter of a small farmer in Sonora,
with very little education, but at an
early age she developed remarkable
hypnotic or mesmeric powers, which
cause the ignorant peasants to look
mon her as more than human. Atoueh
Of her hand is believed TO be cure 1or
every mortal evil and one OF her prayers
Of intercession passport to paradise.
She does not claim divine power, but
eonfesses that she does not understand
the source of her influence. Her fam
ily were Catholics, but she has never
been strict in her obseryances of her re-
lipious duties. At the same time she
recognizes that there is something
within her that gives her the unusual
influence that she enjoys.
In 1896 / saw her at Ell Paso, plain
looking girl of 81 or % years, IN a
speckled calico dress and coarse Shoes
with a black shawl thrown over her
head. Her hair fell in two braids to her
waist, and she looked much younger
than she really was. She was then liv-
ling under the care of gentleman
named Aeuirre, the editor of the Mex
lean paper at FL Paso, having been
compelled to leave Mexico by the au
thorities, who accused her of trying tt
incite revolution. A band of fanatic:
somehow got notion that she was t.
be the mother of Montezuma, the long
: looked-for Mexican Messiah who is 4
= liberate the poems from servitude ant
/ restore the splendor of the empire tina
. Cortez plundered and overthrow. Resi-
: less and dissatised politicians took ad
Il vantage of the mania, and, in the nam
y of Saint Teresa. organized revolutio
: IN Sonora ana dttacktu tiic Suoloi
9 house and barracks at Nogales.
q Mr.. Aguirre may have given tn
+ movement some encouragement, for h
Is is an exile, and is wanted" by til
o Mexican police. But was assured tn;
- Teresa was not involved in any wa
= Trustworthy people told me that 81
&c was just an ordinary sort of girl, wit
{. out any special force of character
~ intellect, but possessed of q mysterio'
power like that of the magnetic 81
/" who came out of Georgia few yea
&c ago and. seemed to have the streng
~ Eof locomotive in her slender finger
- Santa Teresa has some such physic
VI popularity, which gives her mesmel
10 influence over people to whom it M
ae be applied, and she has cured hundre
N of sick and lame and blind. The Me
n leans hang her portrait over their lit
eo shrines beside that of the Virgin MAJ
" but when we talked with her S
y laughed at the suggestion of her
gn yinity, and Indignantly denied that $
'g- was to be the mother of the redeem
IL of the Aztec race. She is now livi
re- among the Yaqui Indians in an obscl
ne mountain village in Sonora, which
ga constantly visited by pilgrims and S
zee people in search of her healing pow
IL w. L. Curtis, in Chicago Record.
ma -