Saint Edward's Echo (Austin, Tex.), Vol. 12, No. 14, Ed. 1 Wednesday, April 22, 1931 Page: 2 of 8
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Conditions Encountered by Span-
ish Missionaries Described by
18th Century Visitor.
FRAY SOLIS’ DIARY DISCLOSES INDIANS
OF TEXAS AS HAVING BEEN CANNIBALS
--------------------- <S>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spanish padres introduced some of the
Spanish dances. The Indians took
up these steps, and according to Fray
Solis, were able to go through them
with the ease and .grace of their origi-
nators.
It is not to be supposed that the In-
dians subjected all of their captives to
the end described. The old men and
women were generally put to the
sword, but an occasional one was saved
for the ceremony described. Children
were sometimes carried away and
eaten, but often the smaller boys and
girls were sold, while the fighting men
and the women and larger girls were
carried away to serve the victors.
Marriage Conditions
Marriage among the natives is de-
scribed by Solis as being of two kinds;
those who lived and were instructed at
the missions were married “in facie
Ecclesiae,” while those who did not
belong to the missions were married
by natural contract. The latter form
of marriage, however, was attended by
many abuses, such as the selling and
trading of wives.
“The men,” the diary reveals, “often
sell and trade their wives. If they
take a fancy to other men’s wives, they
exchange for them their own and
something of value besides. They
trade their wives for those of other
men, sell them and lend them to their
friends. They would sell them for a
horse, a gun, powder, bullets, beads,
or for other things which they prize.”
Solis, however, found that the women
of the times, in spite of the atrocious
crimes committed by their husbands,
were very modest.
One group of Indians, which lived
in the vicinity of the Rosario mission,
were especially savage in their ways.
These people were so indolent that they
would rather suffer hunger and all
the inconveniences of the weathei- in
order to- ybe allowed, to live in the
woods freely, where they might give
themselves over to all kind of excesses,
especially to lust, theft and dancing,
Fray Solis reported.
“These Indians are very dirty,” Solis
writes, “and the stench which they
emit is enough to turn one’s stomach.
They are fond of all that is foul and
pestiferous, and for this reason delight
in the odor of the polecat and eat its
flesh.”
Civilized Indians
All of the Indians which the padre
met during his visit to the Texas mis-
sions were not of the indolent type.
Those connected with the various mis-
sions, notably with the mission of San
Joseph, were very diligent and skilled
in many kinds of labor. They had
workshops in which they wove blan-
kets, gunnysacks, and some excellent
cotton goods. Here the Indians had
carpenter shops, forges, lime and
brick kilns and tailor shops. In addi-
tion, they had fertile fields and gar-
dens which they irrigated with water
from springs, producing an abundance
of corn, beans, melons, peaches, po-
tatoes and sugar cane. These people
carried on their industries under their
own supervision and supplied food for
many of the adjoining missions which
were less fortunate.
During these travels, Solis saw the
fine influence of the missions on the
natives. At the mission of San Joseph
y San Miguel de Aguayo, he found all
of the people polite, well instructed in
the truths of Christianity, and well ac-
quainted with the mysteries of the
faith.
Indians Learned Spanish
“With the exception of those who
were already old when they came to
the mission,” he says, “and who still
remain uneducated and ignorant, all of
these Indians speak Spanish and are
, baptized and know how to pray. Most
I of them play some musical instrument,
. the guitar, the violin, or the harp. All
j have good voices . . . and on feast days,
: they take out their rosaries, while a
' choir of four voices, soprano, alto,
. tenor and bass, with musical accom-
• paniment, sings so beautifully that it
is a delight to hear it.”
The visit to Texas by the writer of
the diary was made at the direction of
the Father Guardian, Fray Tomas Cor-
tez, and the council of the College of
Nuestra Senora da Guadalupe of the
city of Zacatecas. His purpose was
to report the conditions found in the
various missions established through-
out the vast territory which now com-
prises Texas, and to make recommen-
dations for their improvement.
Travel during that time was beset
with every difficulty. During the first
part of the journey, which in all took
the greater part of a year, the padre
and his escorts were seldom able to
find drinkable water, and they as a
result, often suffered thirst. They
likewise experienced the extremes of
heat and cold, almost perishing from
heat at one time and from cold the
next. Much of the time they were mo-
lested by many kinds of pests as gnats,
mosquitoes, flies and the like. To add
to the difficulties of traveling over
almost unknown paths, the men suf-
fered much from poison ivy, which in-
fested the forests through which they
had to travel. In addition, they had
to maintain a vigilant watch almost
constantly in order to prevent attacks
by unfriendly natives.
Church Built
The Solis account of his travels
through the state throws some new
light on the age of the mission San
Jose at San Antonio. Popular accounts
of the date of the completion of the
mission in question is 1731 or soon
after. The diary of Solis, however,
tells of the laying of the foundations
for the missions, one stone was placed 1
by Solis himself and another by Don
Hugo O’Conor, on March 19, 1768.
The other parts of the mission settle-
ment at that time were in a flourish-
ing condition. “The mission,” he says,
“is in such a flourishing condition, both
materially and spiritually, that I can-
not find words or figures with which
to express it.” It was established in
1716 or 1717, according to Solis.
-------o-------
DRAMATIC CLUB
TAKES PART IN
PLAY CONTEST
(Continued from Page 1)
pital and at Brooks hall on the Baylor
campus.
Next years’ contest will be held at
T. C. U., in Fort Worth, and Father
Maguire plans to enter a team. He
was highly pleased with the cordial
reception given the St. Edward’s play-
ers, and by the co-operation received
at every hand from Baylor university
and the Baylor Curtain club members.
By JOHN SULAK
One would hardly think that in this
state of Texas, where everything is so
balmy and peaceful, there once ex-
isted a cannibalism rivaling in its
gruesomeness the most savage prac-
tices of the darkest parts of dark
Africa. Yet such practices were rather
general among the Indians who, less
than two centuries ago, roamed the
woods and dales, the deserts and dunes,
of the broad expanse of Texas.
This startling information comes
from a diary of Fray Jose de Solis,
which giv^s an account of the padre’s
visitation to the missions in the prov-
ince of Texas during the year 1767,
nine years before the New England
■fathers shined up the barrels of their
muskets and declared themselves free
of their mother country.
Cannibal Dances
The savage practice of eating human
flesh, said to have been rather general
among many Texas tribes, was carried
on after wars, and the victims were the
unfortunates who happened to fall into
the clutches of their enemies. The
captives selected to make the sacri-
fice of their lives did so as a part of
a dance, called the “mitote,” a relig-
ious custom honoring the Indian gods
and saints. Solis describes the dance
and sacrifice thus:
“The Indians drive a stake into the
ground at the place where they are
going to hold the ‘mitote.’ They then
kindle a huge fire and bind to the
stake the victim whom they are to
make dance or whom they are going
to sacrifice. All of them gather to-
gether, and as soon as the discordant
notes of the ‘cayman’ (an instrument)
are heard they begin to dance, and to
—jump about the-fire^-making a - great
number of gestures and terrible grim-
aces and uttering sad, unnatural cries.
“Dancing and leaping, and with
sharp knives in their hands, they draw
near to the victim, cut off a piece of
his flesh, come to the fire and half
roast it, and, within sight of the vic-
tim himself, devour it most ravenously.
Thus they continue cutting him to
pieces and dismembering him, until,
finally, they have cut away all the
flesh and he dies.i, They cut off the
skull and, with the hair still slinging
to it, place it on a stick so as to carry
it in triumph during the dance. They
do not throw away the bones, but pass
them around, and whoever happens to
get one sucks it until nothing is left.”
Victims Roasted
Sometimes the manner of carrying
out this diabolical ceremony varied,
the diary shows. At times they sus-
pended their victim by his feet, started
a fire beneath him, let it burn until he
was roasted and then devoured the
body. At other times, they would
cut stakes about an inch in thickness,
stick the stakes to the victim and set
fire to them. As soon as the victim
was half-roasted, they would eat him.
Some of the natives, “instead of using
knives to cut up their victims, would
tear them apart with their teeth and
devour them.”
The diary, which was translated into
English by the Rev. Peter P. Forrestal,
C. S. C., Litt. D., of St. Edward’s Uni-
versity, and published for the first
time as a preliminary study of the
Texas Knights of Columbus Historical
commission of which the Rev. Dr. Paul
J. Foik, C. S. C., St. Edward’s libra-
rian, is chairman, gives many other
interesting sidelights on the practices
and customs of the Indians.
Spanish Dances Introduced
The dance already described held a
particular attraction for the natives.
Even those who were under the influ-
ence of the missionaries now and then
would steal away to take part in the
dances. In an attempt to discourage
these practices, which would arouse
the vicious nature of the natives and
lead them to vices and immorality, the
2
ST. EDWARD’S ECHO, APRIL 22, 1931
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Saint Edward's Echo (Austin, Tex.), Vol. 12, No. 14, Ed. 1 Wednesday, April 22, 1931, newspaper, April 22, 1931; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1293897/m1/2/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting St. Edward’s University.