68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 184 
come from California. She was preaching a Christian religion and 
curing the sick. It was reported that she effected some miraculous 
cures: cripples threw away their crutches, the deaf and dumb spoke, 
etc. Word of her wondrous cures and her religious doctrines spread. 
The Sia heard of her and some of them went to Albugerque to see 
and hear her. Jose Rey Shije, speaking for a group of Sia, asked 
her to go to Sia to preach and perform cures. 
Mrs. Crawford and F. C., one of her chief assistants, a man who 
had come from Czechoslovakia, and possibly others, went to Sia. 
They arrived on the last of the 8 days of dancing and ceremonies at 
Eastertime. ‘They were met and taken to the house of Jose Rey 
Shije. A meeting of the council was held to discuss what should be 
done about her. George Herrera was fiscale teniente at that time. 
Fiscale mayor asked the council where Mrs. Crawford could preach. 
No one spoke up. Finally Juan Pedro Herrera asked what the 
church was for if not to accommodate the clergy. So Mrs. Crawford 
was permitted to hold a meeting in the Catholic church. The teacher 
in the pueblo day school was notified and asked to bring the school 
children to the service. The teacher was a Catholic, so it was said, 
and later told the priest who came to Sia periodically about the event. 
The priest became angry and refused to come to Sia for a time. 
“This is where the trouble started.”” Some of the Indians from Sia 
went to Jemez to see the priest and tried to explain the situation 
to him. 
A number of the Sia continued to be interested in Mrs. Crawford 
and her work. ‘‘But they wanted to send someone to Albuquerque 
to study her and to determine if she really was of God.” George 
Herrera volunteered to go (Hawley, 1948, p. 276, has a different 
version of how George came into contact with the Holy Rollers). 
He spent 4 days with them, living with F. C., her chief assistant. 
He witnessed Mrs. Crawford’s miraculous cures and listened to her 
preaching. He was convinced that she really was of God. He joined 
and was baptised by F. C.; later, when he affiliated himself with the 
church of which he was a member in 1952, he was baptised again, 
this time by immersion. 
When George returned to Sia he reported to the people that Mrs. 
Crawford was genuine and authentic and that her religion was the 
only true faith. Juan Pedro Herrera, George’s father, expressed the 
opinion that actually both Mrs. Crawford and the Indians of Sia 
were worshiping the same spirits but in different ways. George 
stoutly maintained that this was not so, that there was only one 
true religion, and one could not continue in the Indian tradition if 
he accepted the gospel as preached by Mrs. Crawford. 
