Iconography in Taos has undergone some curious changes.
Santiago Matamoros is all over the Camino in Spain. He is said to have appeared in a key battle and laid low the Moors.
He also appears in the church of St. Jerome in Taos pueblo. Here is an old photo of the interior. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but currently Santaigo has been moved to the top left corner of the wall and the men he is riding down (my wife, whose eyes are better than mine, assures me) are wearing dark suits – that is, they are FEDERAL BUREAUCRATS.
I also noticed that the Santo Niño de Atocha has picked up some of the attributes of Santiago, or at least of a pilgrim. I guess the common element is that they both walk a lot. Wikipedia explains:
In the 13th century, Spain was under Muslim rule. The town of Atocha, a now-lost district nearby Arganzuela, Madrid was lost to the Muslims, and many Christians there were taken prisoners as spoils of war. The Christians were placed on strict punishments and prohibitions, and the devout prisoners were denied food by their captors. According to legend, only children under the age of 12 were permitted to bring them food. The women of Atocha knew that most of the people in the prison, mostly their relatives and friends could not truly survive under such harsh conditions. As a result, the women prayed before the statue of Our Lady of Atocha at a nearby parish, a title under the Blessed Virgin Mary to ask her son Jesus Christ for aid and help.
Reports soon began among the people of Atocha that a child under the age of twelve had begun to bring food to childless prisoners. The child was dressed in pilgrim’s clothing yet could not be identified as to the name of the child or its origins.
When the women of Atocha heard of the child, they returned to Our Lady of Atocha and thanked the Virgin for her intercession. Looking upon the image of the Virgin, they noticed that the shoes worn by the Infant Jesus statue held by Our Lady of Atocha were tattered and dusty. Customarily, the shoes of the child Jesus were constantly replaced but were soiled once again. The people of Atocha interpreted this as a sign that the infant Jesus went out every night to help those in need which later developed into a devotional Roman Catholic practice.
The Holy Child of Atocha is depicted dressed as a boy pilgrim. He wears a hat and a very ornate cloak and holds a basket full of bread in one hand and a pilgrim’s staff in the other. In art, the Holy Child’s basket is sometimes shown empty, giving the impression that he has been out serving the needy; instead it is always filled with flowers. Also, his pilgrim’s staff is often depicted with a water gourd fastened to it.
A shell pattern called the Shell of Saint James is often depicted on the cape on his outfit. This identifies with the many Christians who fled from the Moors. The St. James Shell is also a symbol of the pilgrims to the Shrine of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.
We visited the chapel in Chimayó, where the custom is to leave him baby shoes.
I love popular Catholicism. It drives the liturgists crazy.
I used to live in Chimayo, NM and I taught catechism there and worked as a V.I.S.T.A. (domestic Peace Corps). The area of the shrine used to be a sacred pueblo (Tsimayo) spring of the Tano Indians, who now live on 1st Mesa with the Hopis in Arizona and are called the Hano-Tewa. These pueblo people were driven out of their lands after participating in the Pueblo Revolt in 1680. The Spanish colonists led by Bernard Abeyta in 1817 made up a number of legends about the sacred dirt and the Santo Nino. It is now called the “Lourdes of America” and has a beautiful church and gift shops. The Catholic Church is building a new retreat center there for tourists and pilgrims.
Here in the Philippines, the ElNino devotion is huge especially in Cebu.
Here in Luzon, you frequently see a chubby smiling ElNino in homes and in shops, and the folks usually dress him in local clothes: tee shirts and jeans, sometimes even with a baseball cap.
On the feast day in January, all the kids come to church bringing their el Nino statues with them…
Popular Catholicism thrived in the remote mountain villages of New Mexico, especially after the French Archbishops tried to import their devotions. The Our Lady of Lourdes shrine at San Juan Pueblo is directly across the valley from Chimayo. The shrine sold holy water from Lourdes (for a donation, of course) to counter the holy water and mud from the spring at Chimayo. Plaster of Paris statues of Our Lady of Lourdes and miracle medals and holy cards of Our Lady of Lourdes were given out in abundance. This was to counter and “replace” the local native santeros’ carved images of Guadalupe and Los Santos like Santiago. The local artisans’ work was called primitive and crude by the French clergy/hierarchy and they destroyed many a family’s adobe chapel along with their native art. The Penitentes or “Los Hermanos de La Luz” like Hermano Bernard Abeyta of Chimayo promoted the cult of Santo Nino and the Sanctuario de Chimayo. The carved wooden crucifix was darkened by smoke from vigil lights and the Corpus was known as “The Black Christ of Chimayo”. So you had the lily white Christ and Mary of the French at San Juan Pueblo, versus the La Morena (dark) de Guadalupe and the Cristo de Chimayo directly across the Espanola Valley from each other. The dark Christ was called Esquipulas after a similar miraculous crucifix in Guatemala where Bernardo Abeyta had been. The legend grew that a local native found this crucifix near Chimayo and the pilgrimages began. When I lived in Chimayo in 1968, the local Penitentes and relatives of Don Bernardo Abeyta put a white sheet stained with their blood from penitential lenten practices and rituals near the altar of Cristo de Esquipulas and vowed to leave it there until their sons and brothers returned from the Vietnam War.
When I spent a summer working at B-square ranch & the area, around Taos, I became quite entranced with The Santo Niño tale and wrote a short novella about an estranged father & son of today being reunited by this curious holy child from the Chimayo Santuario. Now that I live back in Pennsylvania I am still very fond of the Niño & collect small santos and pictures — I even still have some holy dirt, in the round disc containers you can get there at Chimayo.