64 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 184 
Above each of these two small. . . paintings on buffalo skin of the Immaculate 
Conception and Our Father St. Francis. There is a wide adobe gradin and on 
it stand: A small cedar cross with a copper Christus and Mater Dolorosa;.. . 
Lacquer Child Jesus . . . A small carved Our Lady of the Assumption. ..A 
carved St. Anthony of Padua a vara high. . . (p. 172). 
“By 1808, the convento stood vacant, although the church was still 
in good condition’? (Kubler, 1940, p. 92). Captain Bourke described 
the church on his visit to Sia in 1881: 
Front of Ruined Church of the Virgin . . . Interior going rapidly to decay. 
The face of the Blessed Virgin in the main panel of the altar-piece has defied the 
ravages of time and the elements and still preserves traces of gentle beauty. 
The side medallions are lambs, but somewhat better than the fearful atrocities 
to be occasionally found in Pueblo churches. The wooden figure of the Savior 
on the Cross must have been intended to convey to the minds of the simple 
natives the idea that our Lord had been butchered by the Apaches. If so, the 
artist has done his work well. [Bloom, 1938, p. 222.] 
The church, its altar, and furnishings have been described more 
recently by Prince (1915, pp. 175-76), and Halseth (1924 a) has re- 
ported upon repairs made upon it in 1923. The mission at Sia has 
been called ‘‘one of the finest examples of Franciscan architecture in 
the Southwest”? (Hewett and Fisher, 1943, p. 126). Several fine pho- 
tographs of it, both of interior and exterior, may be found in Kubler 
(1940); others in Halseth (1924 a), Harrington (1916, pl. 21), Hewett 
and Mauzy (1947, p. 116), and Crane (1928, p. 192). (See pl. 4.) 
THE ROLE OF THE CATHOLIC PRIEST AT SIA 
As we have seen earlier (p. 22), a Catholic priest resided in Sia in 
the early part of the 17th century, and Santa Ana pueblo was a 
visita of the mission at Sia. I do not know when Catholic priests 
ceased to reside at Sia, but none lived there when the Stevensons 
were in Sia, and none lived there for many years before my study 
began. During the period of my study, and for many years before 
that, Sia was served by a Catholic priest from the mission Jemez. 
One of my informants said that he used to perform Mass at Sia twice 
a year: on Christmas Eve and on Sia’s saint’s day, August 15. For 
a number of years prior to 1957, he performed Mass only on August 
15, but came to the pueblo occasionally at other times, and always 
on All Saints’ Day to receive payment for his services: for performing 
Mass, marrying people, and baptizing babies. 
Each family, or household, in Sia is required to pay $1 per year to 
the priest; the fiscales collect the money. On All Saints’ Day, the 
people bring food—crops from field, garden, and orchard—and other 
articles of value to the church; this is a freewill offering (and, appar- 
ently it is considered to be an offering to the dead as well as a gift, or 
payment, to the priest). The fiscales turn over the money they have 
