PARSONS) SPANISH TALES 415 



withdrew, quite astonislied at what we had seen. AVho would have 

 believed that within the limits of our Union in the middle of the 

 nineteenth century, there was to be found such a debased form of 

 heathen worship." * 



Variant 



Montezuma or Weide used to ride on a white horse. He went down 

 into the ground at Zia, leaving a ring of stones around the big stone 

 where he went in with his horse. When the world is going to end or 

 when white people fight with Indians, Montezuma will come back. 



2.5. San Escapu'la 



One time when a man was out herding sheep he found Escapu'la, 

 a little head sticking out from the ground. He dug this santu out 

 from the ground and carried him all the time on his back while he 

 was herding. He went home. "My wife," he said, "I found this 

 pastor. I am going to keep him. Wherever I go he shall go with me." 

 "All right." They kept him in that little hole. When the man went 

 herding, he carried him on his back again. The santu was right 

 there with him. Then the man went and told the priest that he had 

 found him. The priest told him to carry him to Santa Fe. He car- 

 ried him there. When he came home, he found him back in his little 

 hole. "Well, come out herding with me," he said to him. The old 

 woman said, "Some day I am going to burn him up." "No!" The 

 man went herding. On his return he found his wife all crooked, her 

 mouth pulled to one side. He prayed and she prayed, to the santu, 

 to make her look as she did before. So she got well again.'" So 

 people say that when they make a promise to San Escapu'la they 

 must keep it." 



26. The Sanctuary at Chimayo 



At Chimayo, the traditional home of the Tewa immigrants to the 

 Hopi, there is preserved in a room of the church a hole in the ground 

 of which the clay has in Indian opinion potent medicinal value, "good 

 for pains in the body, and for being sad," said my Isletan informant. 

 Twice he had visited the "san(c)tuario" or Shanino, as it is called 

 from the man of Picuris (Shaninoag) who first found the saint. 



He was out herding sheep. With his crook he was tapping some 

 rocks and there by a big rock he found the saint, Sant Istipula. He 

 was made of clay. The old herder took the image and placed it 

 overnight by his pillow. In the morning the saint had disappeared; 



» Davis, 39.^396. 



'" Compare Parsons 11: 163. . . . Inferably, the saint, lilce Pueblo spirits, can cause the sickness which 

 it can cure. 



" A Mexican was sick. He gave a gold watch and $20 to Escapu'la. On his return home he regretted 

 he had given so much. The next morning the Mexican found the watch and money under his pillow. He 

 took them back to Escapu'la. Again they were back under his pillow. Compare Laguna, Parsons, 2: 496. 



