The basic form of the Abiquiú moradas (Figures 5 and 6) is a rectangular box that closely resembles nearby houses. Even the long, windowless north facade of both Abiquiú moradas recalls the unbroken walls of earlier Hispano houses in hostile frontier regions. The Abiquiú moradas, however, possess one exception to the domestic form—a narrowed, accented end. On each morada the west end is blunted and buttressed by a salient bell tower of stones laid in adobe mortar and strengthened by horizontal boards (Figures 7 and 8). This innovation in the form of the Abiquiú moradas appears to be ecclesiastic in origin.

Plans of churches built close to Abiquiú in time, distance, and orientation could have served as sources for the design of the moradas' west ends (Figure 9). Only five kilometers east of Abiquiú stood the chapel dedicated to Santa Rosa de Lima. As shown in Figure 9f, the sanctuary in its west end had a raised floor and flanking entry pilasters, features found in the east morada's west end. This chapel was dedicated about 1744 and was still active as a visíta from Abiquiú in 1830.[49] Through this period and to the present, the popularity of Saint Rose of Lima has persisted at Abiquiú. Her nearby chapel would have been a likely and logical choice for the design of the morada's sanctuary end.

A second possible source for the contracted ends of the Abiquiú moradas would be the south transept chapel of the Third Order of St. Francis at Santa Cruz (Figure 9e). It was completed shortly before 1798[50] and served Franciscan tertiaries into the 1830s. Plans compared in Figure 9 indicate that the dimensions of this left transept chapel at Santa Cruz measure only five percent larger than the chapel room of the east morada at Abiquiú, and the plans also reveal contracted chancel walls at both locations.

The concept of a constricted sanctuary as seen in Abiquiú moradas originated in earlier Spanish and Mexican churches. In 1479, architect Juan Guas used a trapezoidal apse plan in San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo and, by 1512, the design found its way into America's first cathedral at Santo Domingo. Within the first century of Spanish colonization, contracted sanctuary walls appeared on the American mainland in Arciniega's revised plan for Mexico City's Cathedral (post-1584)[51] and, again, in New Mexico, where it first appeared at the stone mission of Zía, built about 1614 (Figure 9c). Once established in the Franciscan province, the concept of converging sanctuary walls survived the 1680 Indian revolt and returned with the reconquest of New Mexico in 1693. Spaniards raised and rebuilt missions from the capital at Santa Fe (San Miguel, rebuilt 1710; Figure 9d) north to Taos (San Geronimo, 1706). Throughout the 18th century, in a three-to-one ratio, the churches of New Mexico used the contracted, as opposed to the box, sanctuary.

In the early 19th century, churches at Ranchos de Taos (1805-1815[52]; Figure 9g), Chimayo (about 1810; Figure 9h), and Córdova (after 1830; Figure 9i) continued to employ the trapezoidal sanctuary form. By midcentury, penitente brotherhoods are known to have been active in these villages, and the local ecclesiastic structures could have acted as an influence in the design of the penitente moradas at Abiquiú.

In summary, the moradas at Abiquiú are traditional regional buildings in material and in basic form. The pointed west end of each building, however, is an ecclesiastic innovation in an otherwise typical domestic design. These moradas provide a significant design variant in the history of Spanish-American architecture in New Mexico.

Interior Space and Artifacts

The plans of the two penitente moradas of Abiquiú (Figure 4) reveal an identical arrangement of interior space. There are three rooms in each morada: (1) the longest is on the west end and, with its constricted sanctuary space, acts as an oratory; (2) the center room serves as a sacristy; and (3) the east room is for storage. The only major difference between the two moradas is the length of the storage room, which is nearly twice as long in the east morada. The remarkable similarities in design suggest that one served as the model for the other; local oral tradition holds that the east morada is older.[53]

Internal evidence indicates that the east morada is indeed the older one. As shown in Figure 2, the south morada is located farther from the Abiquiú plaza, suggesting it was built at a later date—perhaps nearer 1900, when public and official criticism had prompted greater privacy for Holy Week processions, which were considered spectacles by tourists. In addition, the lesser width of the south morada rooms, the square-milled beams in the oratory, and the fireplace in the east end storage room indicate that it was built after the east morada. In contrast, the two corner fireplaces of the east morada are set in the center room, while another heating arrangement—an oil drum set on a low adobe dais—appears to have been added at a later date.

The east morada was the obvious model for the builders of the later one on the south edge of Abiquiú. Local penitentes admit that there was a division in the original chapter just prior to 1900[54] but deny that the separation was made because of political differences, as suggested by one author.[55] The older members say that the first morada merely had become too large for convenient use of the building.

The three rooms in each morada are distinguished by bare, whitewashed walls of adobe plaster, hard-packed dirt floors, two exterior doors, and three windows. A locked door is located off the oratory in the north face of the south morada. Figures 10 and 11 show the sanctuaries in the south and east morada; and Figure 12, the back of the east morada oratory. Its open door leads into the center room, where the members would not remove the boards on the windows for me to take photographs. The east end room in each morada serves for storage of processional and ceremonial equipment.

Storage Room in Both Moradas.—In the south morada (Figure 13), there are cactus scourges (disciplinas), corrugated metal sheeting used for roofing, and three rattles (matracas; Figure 14), also used for noise-making in tinieblas services. Situated here also are black Lenten candelabrum, a ladder, a cross with silvered Passion emblems, and massive penitential crosses (maderos; Figure 15). The Lenten ladder and cross are shown next to the exterior entry (Figure 16). A corner fireplace is flanked by locally made tin candle sconces (Figure 17). Two 19th-century kerosene lamps appear on the fireplace mantle, and a tin-shaded lantern with its silver-plated reservoir hangs from the ceiling (Figure 15).

In each morada storage area, there is a tub built on the floor that serves to wash off blood after penance. Figure 13 shows the tub in the south morada. In the older, east morada, the tub (Figure 18) is a wood- and tin-lined trough pushed against the north wall and plastered with adobe.

The storage room in the east morada also contains commercially made lamps, such as the plated reservoir with stamped Neo-rococo motifs (Figure 19). Nearby is a processional cross with two metal faces and a small, cast corpus (Figure 20). While kerosene lanterns are evidence of east-west rail commerce after 1880, the cross probably indicates a southern contact, possibly through Parral or Chihuahua, Mexico. Locally made, however, are the woven rag rugs (jergas) hung over a pole (varal)[56] that drops from the ceiling. Also in the east morada storage are two percussion rifles (Figure 21). Craddock Goins, Department of Armed Forces History, the Smithsonian Institution, identifies both as common Indian trade objects from midcentury Europe. These rifles probably were imports for sale to the Utes at the Abiquiú trading post between 1853 and 1874. At the rear of the room (Figure 22) rests a saw-horse table holding an assortment of stocks for these "trade guns," of wooden rattles (matracas), and of heavy crosses (maderos). On the ground stands a large bell, which, in a photograph (Museum of New Mexico, Photo No. 8550) taken by William Lippincott about 1945, appears on the tower of the morada. The silhouette dates the bell as being cast after 1760. Behind the bell rests the morada death cart. Also in the room are a plank ladder and the oil drum stove raised on an adobe dais (Figure 23) to the east of the exterior door.

Sacristy in Both Moradas.—While a panelled wooden box in the south morada stands inside the exterior door of the east room, another type of chest, said to hold cooking utensils, rests in the northwest corner of the center room of the east morada. Both storage chests are located in rooms with corner fireplaces. An informant said that these boxes held heating and cooking utensils and ceremonial equipment, including the penitentes' rule book. As noted above, the two fireplaces in the middle room of the east morada suggest that it was built earlier than the south morada, which has a single fireplace in the less active and more convenient rear storage room. Further evidence of this point is that the storage chest in the east morada is better constructed than that in the south morada; the former displays a slanted top and punch-decorated tin reinforcements on its corners. In the center room there are several benches with lathe-turned legs (Figure 24).

The central room of the south morada also displays a number of benches of an earlier style (Figure 25). Over the rear door appears an unusual cross (Figure 26). The cross consists of two wood planks, 1.6 centimeters thick, notched together and covered with paper. The surface bears carefully drawn, or perhaps stenciled, floral and religious designs in indigo blue: eleven Latin crosses appear among flowering vases, oversize buds, and 4-, 5-, and 8-pointed stars. These motifs probably are the result of copying from weaving or quilt pattern books of the late 19th century. A local penitente leader stated that the cross was made before 1925 by Onésimo Martínez of Abiquiú, when the latter was in his thirties. (The strong religious symbolism of the New Mexican designs reminds one of the stylized motifs on Atlantic Coastal folk drawings and textiles of Germanic origin.)

(Figure 26 is frontispiece.)

Snare drums appear in the central room of both moradas (Figures 27, 28). The drum in the east morada is mounted on top of a truncated wicker basket. It is interesting to note that rifles and drums commonly are recorded in mission choir lofts in 1776 by Domínguez.[57] In addition to marking significant moments in church ritual, they are used in Indian and Hispano village fiestas.

Before describing religious objects in the west end rooms of Abiquiú moradas, a list of similar items in Santo Tomás Mission at an earlier date (1776) is of interest:

a medium-sized bell ... altar table ... gradin ... altar cloth ... a banner ... candleholders ... processional cross ... a painted wooden cross ... ordinary single-leaved door ... image in the round of Our Lady of the [Immaculate] Conception ... a wig ... silver crown ... string of fine seed pearls ... ordinary bouquet ... painting on copper of Our Lady of Sorrows (Dolores) in a black frame ... Via Crucis in small paper prints on their little boards ... a print of the Guadalupe.[58]

Comparable versions of each of these objects occur in Abiquiú's moradas. In fact, virtually all objects found in the penitente moradas of Abiquiú are recorded as typical artifacts by church inventories and house wills of 18th- and 19th-century Spanish New Mexico.[59]

Oratory in the East Morada.—In the rear of the oratory of the older east morada (Figure 12), one sees a stove and lantern on the right. Both are imported, extracultural items. The pierced, tin candle-lantern (Figure 29) is a common artifact found throughout Europe and America.[60]

Along the walls of the oratory hang imported religious prints framed in local punch-decorated tinwork. Tin handicraft became more widespread after 1850 when metal U.S. Army containers became available to the Hispanos. Designs seen on three tin frames (Figure 30) include twisted columns, crests, scallops, corner blocks, wings, and a variety of simple repoussé patterns. Paper prints in the tin frame suggest midcentury trade contacts between northern Mexico and the Atlantic Coast. Even the Mexican War (1846-1848) did not discourage American publishers such as Currier from appealing to Mexican religious and national loyalties with lithographs of Our Lady of Guadalupe (much in the same manner as the British, after the Revolution and War of 1812, profited by selling Americans objects that bore images of Yankee ships, eagles, and likenesses of Franklin and Washington). A fourth piece of local tinwork (Figure 31) in the east morada oratory is a niche for a small figure of the Holy Child of Atocha, Santo Niño de Atocha. This advocation of Jesus, like that of His mother in the Guadalupe image, further indicates Mexican influence.[61] The image of the Atocha is a product of local craftsmanship.

These representations of religious personages are called santos, and their makers, santeros. Flat panel paintings are known locally as retablos, while sculptured forms are bultos. George Kubler, distinguished art historian at Yale, suggests that bultos, because of their greater dimensional realism, are more popular than planar retablos with the Hispanos.[62] Supporting this theory is the fact that bultos in the Abiquiú moradas outnumber prints and retablos two to one.

Perhaps the most distinctive three-dimensional image in any morada is not a santo by definition, but a unique figure that represents death (la muerte). Also known as La Doña Sebastiana, her image clearly marks a building as a penitente sanctuary. Personifying death with a sculptured image and dragging her cart to a cemetery called calvario, the penitentes of New Mexico reflect the sense of fate common to Spanish-speaking cultures, the recognition that death is life's one personal certainty.[63] The figure of death in the east morada hangs in the corner at the rear of the oratory. Placed outside for examination, this muerte (Figure 32) presents a flat, oval face with blank eyes. The black gown and bow and arrow are typical of muerte figures.[64] Turning toward the altar (Figure 11), one sees that death is outnumbered by images of hope and compassion: Jesus, His mother, and the saints who intercede for man.

On the lower step of the altar appear a host of small, commercial products, mostly crucifixes, in plaster, plastic, and cheap metal alloys as well as numerous glass cups for candles. Above the upper ledge (gradin) appear five locally made images of Jesus crucified, El Cristo.[65] At the side of this central Cristo (Figure 33) hangs a small angel, angelito, which traditionally held a chalice to catch blood from the spear wound. Other Cristos, at the Taylor Museum in Colorado Springs and at the Museum of New Mexico (McCormick Collection A.7.49-24) in Santa Fe, repeat the weightless corpus and stylized wounds used by the anonymous santero who, after 1850, made these bultos.

Additional Cristo figures appear on the convergent walls of the east morada sanctuary. There are two pairs, large and small, perhaps dating as late as 1900, one pair to the right (Figures 34, 35), the other, on the Gospel side (plates 36, 37).

To the far left stands an important image: the scourged Jesus (Figure 38) prominent in penitente activity as "Our Father Jesus the Nazarene" (Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno). By 1918, Alice Corbin Henderson[66] reports, this same figure appeared in penitente Holy Week processions at Abiquiú. She claims it was made originally for the Mission of Santo Tomás. E. Boyd points out stylistic traits shared by this Abiquiú bulto and the retablo figures in the San José de Chama Chapel at nearby Hernández, which was the work of santero Rafael Aragon, active from 1829 to after 1855.[67] Symbolic of man's physical suffering, the image of the Jesus Nazareno is essential to penitente enactments of the Passion.

On the left side of the east morada altar, two carved images represent the grieving mother of Jesus as "Our Lady of Sorrows" (Nuestra Señora de los Dolores), one image (Figure 39) in pink equipped with her attribute, a dagger; the other (Figure 40), like many processional figures, has been constructed by draping a pyramidal frame of four sticks with gesso-dipped cloth, which, when dry, is painted to represent a skirt. The apron-like design that appears on the skirt, now hidden under a black dress, indicates that the original identity probably was "Our Lady of Solitude" (Nuestra Señora de la Soledad).[68]

Also on the left side of the east morada altar, there are two male saints (santos) who fill vital roles in the penitente Easter drama. One, St. Peter (San Pedro) with the cock (Figure 41), is a bulto whose frame construction duplicates that of Our Lady (Figure 40). The cock apparently was made by another hand, and, despite its replaced tail, is a fine expression of local art. This group represents Peter's triple denial of Jesus before the cock announced dawn of the day of the Crucifixion. The bulto of San Pedro has special meaning for penitentes who, through their penance, bear witness to "Jesus the Nazarene."

With the other bulto, penitentes have also recalled the crucifixion by representing St. John the Evangelist (San Juan) at the foot of the cross, where Jesus charged the disciple with the care of His mother. The image of John (Figure 42) bears distinctive stylistic features: blunt fingers; protruding forehead, cheek bones, and chin; and a full-lipped, open mouth.

Since these stylistic traits also occur in a Cristo figure in the Taylor Museum collection[69] and in two other bultos—a Cristo and Jesus Nazareno in the south morada at Abiquiú—it seems reasonable to designate the anonymous image-maker as the "Abiquiú morada santero."

A bulto that Alice Henderson identifies as St. Joseph is probably this figure of St. John (Figure 42) now resting in the east morada. She has reported that this image and that of St. Peter were in the mission of Santo Tomás before 1919.[70] The shift in residence for these santos was substantiated by José Espinosa, who stated that several images "were removed to one of the local moradas ... when the old church was torn down."[71]

On the right side of the east morada altar, images of two male saints reflect the intense affection felt by penitentes for the Franciscan saints Anthony of Padua and John of Nepomuk. The most popular New Mexican saint, San Antonio (Figure 43), customarily carries the young Jesus, El Santo Niño. This image has been painted dark blue to represent the traditional Franciscan habit of New Mexico before the 1890s.[72]

The 14th-century saint, John of Nepomuk, Bohemia (Figure 44), is known from a legend that states he was killed by King Wenceslaus for refusing to reveal secrets of the Queen, for whom he was confessor. The story notes that, after torture, John was drowned in the Moldau River, but that his body floated all night and, in the morning, was taken to the Church of the Holy Cross of the Penitents in Prague. After the martyred chaplain was canonized in 1729, his cult spread to Rome, then Spain, and, by 1800, into New Mexico.