June 22, 1952
By CLEOFAS CALLEROS
(Editor’s Note: This is the 13th of a series on El Paso del Norte Missions by Cleofas Calleros, El Paso historian.)
There
is a legend, and a strange one, told among residents of this valley. It
is a story that takes one’s fancy, and that strongly suggests the
supernatural. However, it is held to be truth by many, which fact gives
it worthy historical significance.
According to the legend, a
wooden image of San Miguel was being transported by ox cart to New
Mexico. The Indians, entering El Paso del Norte Valley on their tedious
journey, were anxious to travel as far as possible with their burden by
nightfall. But a bewildering thing happened. At one point along the
river the cumbersome team of four oxen bogged deep into the mire, the
ladened cart slowly sinking with it.
This was an irritating delay
to their progress. The tired Indians strained at the cart for hours,
pulling at the chains and frightening the animals, but no strength could
budge them. They seemed permanently lodged there, as if by the will of
God, and it was thus so that the Indians interpreted the incident.
And
so at the exact spot where the oxen had stalled the faithful natives
erected a mission, designed in the form of a cross, and dedicated to its
patron saint, San Miguel. This was the beginning of the original Socorro Mission, built in 1683, but inundated by a change of the Rio Bravo bed in 1776.
The
mission had come to play an important part in the life of the Valley
Indians, which truth left the padres no other course than to duplicate
the old one. This, they knew, would be an undertaking that would employ
their energies for years. It would entail months of backbreaking labor,
bringing materials and carved beams over miles of hot desert from
Mexico.
Had a contract been signed, it would have specified that
construction was to be completed 64 years from that date, that the site
of the mission was to be one mile from the original one, and that
dimensions were to be the same.
In 1840 the completed mission was
an architectural wonder of its day. The intricately carved ceiling was,
and today is, the only one of its kind in the country. These “vigas,”
closely resembling herring fish ceilings, are the most interesting part
of the mission to tourist.
WALLS THICK
The walls, three feet
in depth and formerly wide enough for two men to walk on them pushing
wheel barrows, as well as the woodwork of the mission, contribute
further toward making it an architectural gem. Although the wooden frame
of the structure is not held together by steel nails, but by wooden
pegs, it is nevertheless as secure and stable as the day they were
placed.
Wandering through the mission, one sees the original
statue of San Miguel, standing prominently in a niche on the left side
of the church where once it was proudly placed by its owners. Searching
further, one encounters a room in which the vestments and equipment are
stored in anticipation of Passion Week when the natives will portray the
Passion from its beginning to the Resurrections.
To one who will
let his imagination soar, the low, oblong room speaks out of the past.
It is damp and wet. In one corner an image of the crucified Christ, its
hair and eyes dark brown and its face sallow and blood-stained, lies in a
wooden sepulcher beneath cloths of silk and linen. One is startled by
the torn and emaciated body.
Leaning against the wall is an old
cross, so heavy that it is barely portable, which is carried annually by
one of the natives in the pageant. Antique mural paintings, designed on
elk’s hide and canvas, are further remnants of an Indian regime
contained in the room.
Originally Mision de Nuestra Senora de la
Concepcion de el pueblo de Socorro, and then Mision de San Miguel del
Sur, and finally La Mision de la Purisma, is a legendary and colorful
page in this region’s history. From its cottonwood trees outside several
outlaws have hanged, these being bandits that had come from independent
state of Texas and rudely asserted their sovereignty over the valley.
These and others were disposed of while the sagacious old mission look attentively on.
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