The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-06-13
MARIA TERESA UREA.
The Mexican saint Who Is Said to
Be Endowed with Divine Powers

w. E Curtis, in Chicago Record.
The young Mexican girl. Maria Teresa
Urea, who is devoutly believed by the Mex
lean Catholics to be endowed with divine
powers, Is now somewhere among the faqui
Indians In Sonora. Mexica. and, although
ard irreconcilable In their hostility TO the
whites. they revere her as a prieStess and
obey her as If she were their queen, There
is something strange about Santa Teresa
as they call her. She is a modest. unas-
Stunning Mexican girl. the daughter of a
education. but at an early age she devel-
cred remarkable hypnotic or mesmeri pow
ers, which cause the ignorant peasants TO
torch Of her hand is believed to be a cure
for every mortal evil and one of her prayers
OF intercession a passport TO paradise; she
does not claim divine power. but confesSes
that she does not understand the source OF
her influence. Her family were CathoIcs,
but she has never been strict in her OBJ
s%ervances of her religious duties. AT the
same time she recognizes that there Is
something within her that gives her the un-
usual influence that she enjoys.
In 1896 / saw her at Ell Paso. a plain
looking girl of twenty-one or twenty-five
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 living under
the care of a gentleman named Aguirre, the
editor of the Mexican paper at Ell Paso.
having been compelled TO leave Mexico by
the authorities, who accused her OF trying
W AT a lCNOlutlOI. "A anu Va
somehow got a notion that she was TO be
the mother of Montezuma, the long-looked-
for Mexican Messiah who is TO liberate the
poems from servitude and restore the splen-
dor of the empire that Cortez ~plundered
ard overthrow. Restless and dissatisfied
politicians took advantage of the mania:
and, in the name of Saint Teresa, organized
a revolution in Sonora and attacked the
custom house and barracks at Nogales
Mr.. Aguirre may have given the move
ment- some encouragement. for he Is an
exile. and As wanted" by the Mexican po-
lice. But 1 was assured that Teresa was
not involved in any way. Trustworthy peo-
pie told me that she was just an ordinary
sort of girl, without any special force OF
character or intellect, but possessed OF a
mysterious power like that of the magnet
girl who came out of Georgia a few years
ago and seemed to have the strength OF a
locomotive in her slender fingers. Santa
Teresa has some such physical popularity
which gives her a mesmeric inhuenc over
people to whom it may be applied, and she
has cured hundreds of sick and lame and
blind. The Mexicans hang her portrait over
their little shrines beside that of the Virgin
Mary. but when We talked with her she
laughed at the suggestion of her divinity.
and Indignantly denied that she was to be
the mother of the redeemer or the Aztec
race. She is now living among the Yaqui
Indians in an obscure mountain village In
Sonora, which is constantly visited by pill
grims and sick people in search OF her heal
ing power.