Sierra Gorda Part 12: Tancoyal's Franciscan Mission (exterior features)

A statue of San Francisco de Asis stands beside the atrium gate . The two  flower-shaped finials on either side of the statue are among several that are spaced along the low wall surrounding the atrium.  St. Francis of Assisi was the man who, in 1209, founded the Franciscan Order. In 1524, following the defeat of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish under  Hernán Cortéz, twelve  friars from that Order were the first group of evangelists to arrive in Mexico. More than two centuries later, Junipero Serra led another group of Franciscan into the  Sierra Gorda. After arriving, they took over several former Augustinian missions. 

This posting will focus on the mission called Nuestra Señora de la Luz (Our Lady of the Light) in  Tancoyal . I will show you some of the exterior features, including the atrium and explain the meaning of some of the features of the elaborate facade. I'll tell you about the complicated relationship between the Sierra Gorda's Franciscan and Augustinian missions and their relationship with the native people over whom they had assumed dominion. 

Overview

The route from Jalpan de Serra to Tancoyol. Take Highway 120 east for 37km (23mi) to the intersection with Highway 190, just before reaching the pueblo of La Vuelta. Turn left on Highway 190 at the sign for Tancoyal. Drive another 23km (14.3mi) to reach the town of Tancoyal and the mission. The total journey should take you just a bit over an hour. For directions from the Guadalajara/Lago de Chapala area to Jalpan de Serra, see Part 1 of this series. For a Google interactive map of the Sierra Gorda region, click here .

Tall, thin, single-trunk cacti stand among a variety of other vegetation. We encountered these cacti along Highway 190 in a narrow canyon on the way to Tancoyal. I have not been able to determine the precise species of this cactus, so if anyone knows, please let me know in the Comments section below. The morning light reflecting off the cactus' spines gave them a halo effect that I found very attractive. The Sierra Gorda abounds with a wide variety of plants and animals that make it a wonderful place to explore.

Atrium

This mission shares many of the architectural features of the other four missions. There is a large atrium in front, surrounded by a low wall with capillas posas in two of the corners, a steeple on the left side of the church, an elaborate Baroque facade, and a cloister attached to the church's right side. Like the others, this mission also has many details that are unique to it. One of the details visible above is the tile on the lower section of the church steeple.

The Augustinians operated a mission at Tancoyal for many years, but it was probably just a humble adobe and thatch affair. Their lack of success in pacifying the natives led to this mission and several others being turned over to the Franciscans in 1739. The Franciscan mission in Tancoyal that you see above was the last of the five  that they built in the Sierra Gorda. The project was directed by a friar named Juan Ramos de Lora, who resided there from 1761 to 1767. As with the other missions, the actual work of construction was accomplished by native laborers and craftsmen of the Pame tribe.

In the center of the atrium is the atrial cross. In the backround, you can see one of the capillas posas to the left and the main gate to the right. As noted in the posting on Misión Tilaco, a capilla posa (literally "pause chapel") is a small structure used during processions around the atrium. These stop briefly at the little chapel for prayers or other rituals. Capillas posas are architectural features unique to Spanish colonial missions.

Juan Ramos de Lora was born in Spain in 1722 and entered the Franciscan Order in 1743. An intelligent man, he became a professor of Theology in his 20s. Similar to Junipero Serro, who had also been a professor, he decided that saving souls in the New World was more important than teaching. In 1749, he arrived in Nueva España (Mexico) and joined Junipero Serra's expedition to the Sierra Gorda. Ramos de Lora worked there for sixteen years, including six at Misión Tancoyal. When Serra left the Sierra Gorda to evangelize in Baja and Alta California in 1767, Ramos de Lora was among those who accompanied him.

A year after he arrived in Alta California, Ramos de Lora ran afoul of a Spanish official. This inept and stubborn man managed to alienate both the natives and the Franciscans. Ramos de Lora  made a detailed report on this when he returned to Mexico City in 1772, greatly impressing the Viceroy. In 1780 the Viceroy surprised everyone (including Ramos de Lora himself) by appointing the Franciscan friar to be the bishop of the newly created diocese at Mérida, in Venezuela. The new bishop instituted various reforms and founded an important seminary which later became a university. He died in Mérida in 1790.

Facade

Like the other mission churches, this one has a Churrigueresque Baroque facade.  Many of the symbols and statues on the facade are similar to those on the other churches. For example, on either side of the door are statues of St Peter and St. Paul. In addition, just above the door and to its left and right are the Franciscan coat-of-arms and the emblem representing the Five Stigmata . Since I have shown and explained these symbols and statues before, I won't repeat them below. Instead, I will focus on other features on this facade that are unique to Misión Tancoyal .

Juan Ramos de Lora was 26 when he arrived in the Sierra Gorda in 1749 and he worked at several of the missions before he was given responsibility for Tancoyal . In 1761 he was told to gather the local Pames into a mission community, to build the church and cloister you see above, and to make the operation economically self-sufficient. The success of the second and third tasks were completely dependent upon success in the first. However, the Pames lived in small widely dispersed villages. In a letter to his superiors, Ramos de Lora complained that the Pames had an "innate propensity to every novelty and to live in freedom."

The arch above the door is beautifully painted . The carved wooden door is a work of art itself. Notice the spiraling Solomonic column inset into the face of the arch's support. This is another Baroque touch. In the upper left are some relief carvings of local vegetation.

In his reports,  Ramos de Lora wrote about the difficulty in keeping the Pames settled at Tancoyal, often using the phrase Indios y Gente de Razón ("Indians and People of Reason"). The Franciscans essentially viewed the native people as children. They were not "People of Reason", as the Spanish viewed themselves. As children, they needed to be persuaded to settle at the mission through regular food rations. They were to be dealt with by friars who had learned to speak their language and who allowed them to incorporate their native elements into the churches they were building. This was the positive side.

I noticed this display just below St. Peter's niche . At first, I thought it represented the leaves of a plant. However, I now think it is a spray of feathers arranged much like the feathered head dresses of pre-Hispanic times. Above the feathers is a carving of vegetation with dangling fruit. Below St. Paul's niche is a similar relief. Most of the mission facades contain features that echo back to pre-Hispanic times, a deliberate strategy to make the overall composition relatable to the native people.

The inducements offered by the Franciscans worked for a while until, as they say, the bloom was off the rose. The Pames had the habit of wandering freely, as they had always done before the Spanish arrived. They disliked the strict Franciscan rules governing day-to-day life and the work requirements the friars placed upon them. The Franciscans operated from a framework of Christian morality which was alien to the free-spirited Pames . In addition, the Pames were needed to build and maintain the church properties and to tend the crops and livestock. Without sufficient native manpower the mission would fall apart. 

To the right of St. Paul's niche is one of the stipite columns. Like Solomonic columns, stipite columns are typical features of 18th century Churrigueresque Baroque architecture in Spanish America. To the right of the column is a small figure with indigenous features who appears to be nude except for a loincloth and a peculiar head dress. He is clutching a thick tapering column that has a disembodied hand at its base. Protruding from the top of the column and dangling down its side are two ends of a rope. The meaning of all this is unclear, except for the rope, which may symbolize the cord used as a belt on a Franciscan cassock.

When epidemics periodically raged through the missions, the problems with the Pames grew even worse. The very act of congregating them at the missions in large groups precipitated diseases like cholera and when smallpox arrived, many hundreds died. The natural human impulse was to get as far away as possible from this unfamiliar horror. As people stayed away and re-adapted to their traditional mode of life, it became ever harder to get them to return. Soldiers had to be sent out to round them up and often those who were captured and returned were physically punished. One wonders what Jesus would have said about all this.

San Joaquin is surrounded by an extraordinary symbolic display . There is so much here that it is hard to take it all in. Joaquin is said to be the father of the Virgin Mary. He is shown as bald and bearded and standing with one hand reaching out, with the other over his heart. However, since neither he nor Mary's mother Ana appear anywhere in the Bible, only non-Biblical tradition tells us what they were supposed to have looked like. Two stipite columns parallel Joaquim's niche and in the middle of each is a grotesque face. As with the rest of the facade, there is a riotous jungle of vegetation.

In 1756, a Franciscan report identified 227 "fugitives" from the Sierra Gorda missions. An additional 130 families were discovered to be living outside the area controlled by the Franciscans. Upon investigation, Ramos de Lora discovered that there was still another reason for these departures. A lot of the Pames were being "poached" by the Augustinians! Padre José Guadarrama was the Prior of the Augustinian mission in Xilitla. He was actively encouraging refugees to come to his mission, with the promise that he would support them and protect them from Franciscan efforts to capture and return them.

To the left of San Joaquin is a figure carrying a ladder. The ladder is a reference to Jesus' crucifixion. The upper part of the  stipite column contains a grotesque face with staring eyes and streamers pouring out of its mouth. These are among the almost innumerable small details of the facade. They would have been easy to miss without my telephoto lens and a close inspection of the resulting photos when I uploaded them to my computer.

In 1764, a series of letters passed between Ramos de Lora and his superiors in Mexico City and also between him and Guadarrama . Although fascinating reading, they do not clearly state why Guadarrama was promoting these defections and protecting the fugitives. It is necessary to understand that these two Orders were rivals. In 1739, the Spanish authorities determined that the Augustinians had failed to adequately pacify and settle the Pames in the area. So, Tancoyal and several other Augustinian missions were turned over to the Franciscans to see if they could do better. Perhaps the Augustinians bore a grudge?

The choir window separates the niches of San Joaquin and Santa Ana. Just below the window is an empty niche that once contained a statue of Our Lady of the Light, for whom the mission is named. The statue was stolen or destroyed during the Revolutionary period.  A symbolic Franciscan rope follows the inside of the arch's curve and is held on either end by small semi-nude figures. Above the arch to the left is St. Francis, who is connected by several straight lines to Jesus, on the right. This refers to the stigmata (wounds) Francis is said to have experienced during his life and which connect him to the stigmata of Jesus.

Along with a possible grudge, there was another likely motive. If Guadarrama could swell the rolls of his Xilitla mission with fugitives from the Franciscan missions, he would gain favor with his superiors and look good to the Spanish authorities. Anyone familiar with organizations knows that one way to get ahead is to make your own numbers look good, particularly if in doing so you can make your rival's numbers go down. So this may have been 18th century organizational politics. And, of course, uncomfortable questions could be raised about why the Pames liked the Augustinians so much better than the Franciscans.

Santa Ana occupies a niche very similar to that of San Joaquin . The niche is bordered by Solomonic columns and the top is in the shape of a seashell, which is a reference to one of the legends about Santiago (St. James). He is the patron of Spain and of the Spanish conquistadors. Santa Ana holds the baby Mary in her arms. On the right, another figure, somewhat worn and indistinct, cavorts in the vegetation.

Juan Ramos de Lora reported to his superiors that "since the Indians did not cease to flee..." he had sent Spanish Captain Don Joaquin Alexo Rubio to "follow the Indians who had fled...and return them...so that, in this way, they would also calm and quiet others." When the Captain showed up in Xilitla with his soldiers, Padre Guadarrama blandly turned him away. The Captain didn't feel he had the authority to force the issue and besides this was Church business, so he turned the matter back to Ramos de Lora. The Franciscan friar must have been grinding his teeth at this point. No one bothered to ask the Pames what they thought.

A headless statue of Saint Anthony of Padua fills the left-hand niche on the third level . The statue was another casualty of the Revolutionary period. Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231 AD) was renowned for preaching, scriptural knowledge and devotion to the poor. To the right is the figure of St. Francis seen before, appearing to fly. Below him, a friar looks up at Francis while praying, possibly for the saint's safe landing. On top is the black-and-white Cruz de Calatrava , emblem of a 12th century Spanish Military Order which was one of four created to fight the Moors in Spain during the 700-year Reconquista.

The despair of Ramos de Lora at this point is evident. He wrote again to his superiors, saying  "I do not know what it will take, nor what steps we can apply here to stop the disorder of the Indians and Remedy these damages...before everything is lost or at least it is very difficult to remedy...for things are becoming more and more impossible here, so that we will not be able to compose and remedy later, without great scandals and uproar." What he wanted, and ultimately got, was a letter from Guadarrama's Augustinian superiors directing the Prior of Xilitla to cease his poaching and return the fugitives.

San Roque stands in the niche on the right side of the third level. A small dog squats by his left leg.  Saint Roque (1348-1376 AD) is the patron saint of dogs, as well as invalids, falsely accused people, and bachelors. He was very active in helping the sick during plagues. When San Roque became sick himself, he withdrew to the forest. There, he encountered a dog who saved him from starvation by bringing him food. However, when he returned home, he was arrested as a spy and died in prison. On top is the Cross of Jerusalem, the 12th century emblem of the crusaders who established the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The Franciscan friar next sent a letter to Guadarrama, attaching the message from the Augustinain's superiors. He asked that Guadarrama "do the possible diligence so that all the Indians who have escaped from these missions are collected...and are returned to these respective missions, for this is how it is determined and commanded by the captaincy general of war to whom your (superiors) are close." However, rather than condemning Guadarrama (the guilty party), he blames the Pame leaders "who are refugees in your community...where they do not cease to influence others." A nice political touch, I thought.

Atop the facade is a cross deeply inset into the wall . Kneeling at the base of the cross are two winged angels swinging incense burners from which fumes arise. Above the cross, two cherubs hold a set of drapes open. The whole scene is framed by two Solomonic columns with flowering finials at their tops. Tancoyal's facade is one of the most elaborate of the five mission churches. Studying it closely, I continue to find new features. Oddly, many of these are almost invisible from the ground unless a telephoto lens or binoculars are used. 

The final outcome of this fascinating struggle between Juan Ramos de Lora and José Guadarrama is not clear, since the last letter from Ramos de Lora is all that we have from the archives. It is possible that Guadarrama sent the fugitives back and ceased his poaching. It is just as possible that he followed the classic Spanish colonial practice when a distant higher authority made a demand that the recipient would rather ignore: "I obey, but I do not comply." In fact, this is an approach that has been passed down over the centuries and is still often practiced in Mexico today.

This completes Part 12 of my Sierra Gorda series. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question, please include your email address so that I can reply in a timely fashion.

See you later, Jim