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These people, the Mexicans, have left their mark deep on the life of the entire Southwest. Only by understanding them can one understand the spirit of the land: of the thickwalled adobe houses, of the old unpruned orchards dropping ripe fruit into dark brown ditches, of the peaceful quiet land of long ago. They came first as conquerors. Expeditions riding north from Mexico in search of fabulous wealth of gold and silver and jewels stopped at Albuquerque as early as 1540. A tiny settlement probably stood there for many years, but final recognition of Albuquerque did not come until 1706, when it was named. By that time many other towns in the Southwest were well established and provided with mission churches, taxes, the Inquisition, and other evidences of civilization.

Albuquerque was named for Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, Duke of Albuquerque. Being a modest soul and wishing to share his honors with a saint and a king, the duke stipulated that the name be San Felipe de Neri de Albuquerque, which it is, officially, to this day. A mission church was built, as churches were, with walls seven feet thick so that they would be impervious to Indian arrows. The Indians, of course, were Christians, but provision was made for a possible relapse from that state. Christianizing went on all the time, and the Indians were baptized and given Spanish names. names. In the earliest church records Spanish and halfbreeds were differentiated. Later there came a time when only Spanish and Indians were recognized. Now the polite assumption is that only

pure Spanish-Castilian blood is to be found aside from the recognized Indians. Indians were slaves and hence inferior; social distinctions then as always were based on the misfortunes of a part of the population. The modern Indians, far from feeling inferior, return the compliment in kind. "I am as bad as a Mexican," says an Indian who has done something he is ashamed of.

By 1800 the life of the province was well established. Grants of land had been made to individuals or to communities. Usually in the Rio Grande Valley they were bounded by the river and the mountains, la sierra de la Santilla. Santilla means little saint, and it is the name given in some old documents to the the marvelous range now called Sandia. Other records give Santo Día, which in the swift elision of Spanish speech might well sound like Sandia to an American ear. But whether Little Saint or Holy Day or Watermelon was the name, the mountains looked down upon a gracious country life and one more sophisticated, more urbane, more truly cultured than is usually realized.

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the table, at least the plate on top of it was solid silver and bore noble arms. Racing and gambling were an important part of life. Peones or servants were plentiful. Sons and daughters were sent to Mexico and later to the States to school and college, and in all social affairs elaborate formality prevailed.

The setting for this life was the great haciendas. The hacienda was the whole estate and might be from fifty to a hundred thousand acres in extent. Thousands of sheep were supported on the more arid stretches; cattle ranged where the grass was more abundant and the water surer; and in the valley grew crops of every every kind. The houses, built of sunbaked adobes with walls thick enough to stand a siege, nevertheless could not withstand the seeping of the insidious waters of the Rio Grande, and most of them have disappeared. All that is left is memories, a few traces of walls, bits of hand-carved woodwork, a few scraps of the wrought-iron which guarded the windows; sad symbols of the disappearance of the life they typified. In its day such a house was a stately mansion. Sitting back from the road, it had fine trees, flowergardens, and all sorts of rare plants, even if having them involved importing an expert to set them out. The entrance to the house was through an open passageway or zaguán. On hot summer days a zaguán was so cool and shaded that a jug hanging there would keep water as cold as a spring. A bench A bench seated the peones come to see the patrón. Dogs and chickens wandered in and out. Little brown babies gurgled or slept or peeked

out from the black maternal shawl while mother smoked a brown paper cigarette rolled by hand. At one side of the zaguán was the store. The old dons were merchants as well as stockmen, farmers, capitalists, statesmen, or whatever the occasion demanded.

Back of the store were the storerooms where golden wheat and manycolored corn lay in bins. Jerked meat was packed in barrels, and dried fruit and fragrant herbs hung from the rafters, along with brilliant chilli in heavy strings. On the other side of the zaguán were the family quarters and kitchens. All these rooms were freshly whitewashed every spring, and the native woodwork was painted red or blue. In the early days, before freighting began across the plains, the furniture was mostly of native manufacture, supplemented with an occasional piece from Mexico. Bits which still may be found are handcarved chests, huge beds with roughhewn and decorated posts, small day-beds, and a few chairs. No doubt before the arrival of the American rocking-chair the colchón contributed to comfort in the best houses as it still does in humble homes. A colchón is a mattress stuffed with wool. Rolled against the wall and covered with a brilliant blanket it made a divan by day. Unrolled it made a bed by night. Lengths of calico were nailed against the walls to save the coats of sitters from the clinging whitewash. As times times changed and importations from the States began, the most elaborate mid-Victorian furniture was set against this primitive background; parlor sets of ebony up

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Life in such a place seems to have been largely a matter of food. How they found time for buffalo hunts, Indian fights, trips to Mexico, is an unsolved mystery. Unless, of course, a period of quiet living on six meals a day produced a condition which made a long and exhausting war come as a saving relief. However that may be, the day's eating was an exacting program.

It began with the morning chocolate served in the bedroom and accompanied by a sweet cake. This got one through nicely until the real breakfast at nine o'clock. At that meal baked meats were served accompanied by Mexican hot bread filled with sugar and spices. At this and the noon meal the servants had posole, or hog and hominy. Though this dish was looked upon with scorn by the high-born, it makes a very tasteful meal. Pork and corn-meal were cooked with onions and garlic and given a bit of flavor with herbs.

The long stretch between breakfast and dinner was broken by caldo colado, clear broth, at eleven o'clock. Nothing was served with it. Abstemiously they took only caldo colado. At twelve, however, such self-denial was rewarded with dinner. It began with a soup drawn off the meat and vegetables which were served as the main course. They had ham, mutton, beef, fowl, and game for meat; cabbage, spinach, beans, tomatoes, rice, and chilli for vegetables. Desserts were made of

milk, sugar, and fruits. Raisins and native pine nuts appeared in puddings and sauces. dings and sauces. There were curds served with syrup, a variety of cakes, imported cheeses and candies. No pie, but little turnovers filled with fruit were made, and they might do for pie if one knew no better. Fortified with this dinner one could enjoy the siesta and come up smiling for the afternoon chocolate at four. Supper was served at half-past six. It was the last, blessedly the last, meal of the day. No heavy meat was served, just spareribs or chicken, fresh vegetables in summer, dried vegetables in winter, corn-meal dishes any time. Peloncillo, a brown sugar from Mexico, almond-bar, and spiced chocolate might appear. Coffee also came from Mexico, a real luxury.

The housewife who supervised these meals may have had her troubles, but she certainly had no lack of domestic service. Indian raids usually resulted in captives who became servants, to all intents and purposes slaves, in the families of the ricos. In fact, it was quite customary for a young man about to marry to involve himself in an Indian war and bring home a likely wench or two as a present for his inamorata. The children of these servants were the peones of the family and took the family name. So there was no servant problem. Nine women in the kitchen and as many more to clean, sew, and mend was not an unusual staff in a great house. Of the nine in the kitchen each had her special task; grinding meal, cooking the rich chocolate and beating it to a fluff in its copper kettle, baking, or making preserves.

All cooking was done in open fireplaces or in the cone-shaped outdoor ovens which are so striking a feature of the landscape to this day. Much of the joy of life was contributed by the grape. Wine was made by tramping out the grapes in the manner best commended. Brandies were made of peaches and apricots. In the seriously expressed opinion of every one who can remember this halcyon period, there was no drunkenness, all such evil having come in with the American ways, culminating, most unfortunately, in prohibition.

Flocks, herds, orchards, vineyards, gardens, and the house required a retinue of workers, and their spiritual needs required religious instruction, so that a chapel was a part of most haciendas. Many of these private chapels were completely equipped with altar-plate and vestments. Sometimes very fine Spanish or Italian paintings found their way to that remote province and are still there back of crumbling adobe walls waiting for the knowing collector. The little chapels were served by the priests who also served the village churches and who came to the haciendas on family festivals or at the important days of the church.

Great days were Christmas and Easter, when feasting and balls went on at the haciendas, and the members of the dominant families rode from one end of the province to the other in family coaches and on horseback. Marriages were arranged with as much pomp and ceremony as royal alliances. Neither the boy nor the girl concerned had a word to say about it. The heads

of the families negotiated, the couple were informed, there was a wedding. The newly-weds then made their home with the husband's family, taking their proper place in the patriarchal system. In those days there was respect for elders. Father was head of the family as long as he lived, and his word was law. A young man did not smoke in the presence of his parents. That would be disrespect. A case is recorded of an old man literally whipping his forty-year-old son in an effort to cure him of drunkenness. The other side of the shield was an almost European freedom of association. A story is told of a termagant of a lady who followed her husband one night to a village baile where he was dancing with his low-born affinity. The lady defied all convention and brought him sharply to terms by picking a likely partner of her own.

This high society was fittingly dressed. Ladies appearing abroad wore fine black cashmere shawls with deep-knotted silk fringe. Great art lay in adjusting the shawl, and deep brown eyes looked well, and most effectively, from its shad

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For indoor and formal wear there were costumes from abroad, delicate lace mantillas, richly embroidered Chinese shawls, huge combs, and elaborate jewels. The gentlemen were no less fine. By day they wore breeches of cloth or buckskin held up by red or purple or green sashes. The overcoat was the Mexican poncho, an oblong woolen blanket woven in stripes and with a hole in the middle through which the head emerged. The swagger that a poncho gives is the swagger of a grandee, no matter

how simple the rest of the costume. On formal occasions the men wore pantaloons of black cloth open from the knee down over snowy drawers and trimmed with silver buttons along the seams, and silver cordage wherever fancy dictated. The jackets had silver buttons too, and the hats were marvels to behold, sombreros two feet high with pointed crowns and high brims and heavy trimming of silver lace. Such a caballero riding in a silver saddle with silver-mounted spurs and bridle jingling and a sense of being lord of all he surveyed must have been a devastating creature indeed.

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There were very few of these families of unquestioned descent from the Spanish nobility, probably not a dozen in all New Mexico. The rest of the population were simple people living in villages and towns, related and closely associated with the ricos but claiming much less family tree. They owned their lands also under grant from the Spanish crown, but these grants were made to communities. Each man owned a small bit in the farming land, and his sheep and cattle ran on the communal range. Life went on much as it still does in remote communities. In summer they raised beans and chilli, corn and squash, and finely flavored small fruits. In winter they cared for their goats and sheep and lived on the fruits and vegetables that had been dried in the sun and saved. Life was conditioned by the necessities of the ranchito, by the requirements of the church, and by the weather. Work was done, of course, but gently, gently, with the true

spirit of the land of mañana. If it rained, if there was a funeral, if one did not feel well, work might be legitimately postponed. Cigarettes rolled in corn-husks, a sunny day, an adobe wall to rest one's tired back, compensate for much that American hustle might achieve.

Mysterious agencies played an important part in life. Ghosts were seen in graveyards, witches must be warned away by tying a bunch of twigs to the cross on the church, and there was always the menacing danger of the evil eye. If a child sickened, the evil eye had probably been fastened upon it. Then the curandera, the curing-woman, must be summoned at once. Sometimes secret charms muttered while she held the child tightly in her shawl might effect a cure. In serious cases more drastic measures were required. An egg might be broken on the child's stomach. If there were an eye in the egg, he had been bewitched. If no eye, something else must be the matter. Even matter. Even green apples might be suspected. If the child. died in spite of all efforts, there was no expression of grief. God, they thought, must have wanted it, and the mother was comforted with the phrase, un angelita más, one more little angel. The little body was placed in a coffin covered with pink, and as the family bore it to the graveyard, gay music was played. Not music for the dead child, music for the new little angel.

Bad luck omens were, and still are, various. Owls, black chickens, mirrors, and all crowing hens portended bad luck. No child under a year of age was permitted to look into a mirror. In a house of death

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