Creation Tales

Creation tales attempt the impossible: imagining something outside the world we know.

The key metaphor used by King James’ translators of Genesis was formlessness:

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

They shared Francis Bacon’s view, mentioned in the last posting, that nothing was true until verified. The discovery the world wasn’t flat had shaken their faith in absolutes. They were willing to consider what once had been unthinkable.

The English College at Douay assumed a familiar world, one that had form but simply was vacant:

"And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters."

In both translations, God created light on the first day, the firmament on the second, and land on the third. When He created man on the sixth day, He placed Adam in a garden.

San Juan divided the primal world into "a big lake, Ohange pokwinge, Sand Lake" and the world underground. When humans emerged, they came through the water.

Morris Opler heard two versions from Jicarilla. In the first, Black Sky and Earth Woman created the Hactcin who lived in the underworld. In the second, there was nothing but darkness, water and cyclone. The spirits existed and they created the male Sky and female Earth, the one lying above the other.

Spirits in both versions created the sun and moon. When shamans amongst the group asserted they were the true creators, Black Hactcin threw the sun and moon out of the underworld. When those who would be human missed the light, the Hactcin created a mountain with a hole through which they climbed.

Some would say Native American groups borrowed the idea of primal water from the Roman Catholics, who translated Saint Jerome’s version of older Latin texts that came from Greek translations of Hebrew and Aramaic.

Biblical scholars have argued Jews borrowed their ideas from the Enuma elish epic of the Mesopotamians. The word "deep" in Hebrew is thought to refer to their evil ocean goddess, Tiamat, who was fighting for control with the supreme god Anu. Marduk slew her, and slit her body to create sky and earth.

Early Jewish codifiers weren’t as interested as San Juan or the Jicarilla in imaging a time before the present. They lavished more detail on Noah than they did the first chapter of Genesis. They wanted to establish their line of descent from the beginning, and were willing to accept the then current definition of that time. They kept the Persian narrative of the first seven days, but replaced references to a pantheon with a single god.

Freudian analysts would argue each group created a similar tale by extrapolating from a shared human experience, emergence from the watery, dark womb. Jungians treat water as a universal symbol for the unconscious each individual must explore to become fully human. For them, the general is a reflection of the inner life of the individual.

A few would simply say the similarities in origin tales arose from some common cultural core passed on since the stone age. Others would argue the shared parts were trivial compared to the differences that expressed the unique cultural heritage of each which had survived interactions with others. It doesn’t matter if people borrowed their visions of the unimaginable. What matters is how they conceived human experience.

Notes: P is generally considered to be the transcriber of the first two chapters of Genesis. He is thought to have been a priest around 500 bc, after the Jews returned from exile in Babylon where they would have been exposed to current Mesopotamian ideas.

Douay College. The Holy Bible, Holy Family edition of the Catholic Bible, Old Testament in the Douay-Calloner text, edited by John P. O’Connell, 1950. Sons of the Holy Family are responsible for the churches in Santa Cruz and Chimayó. Genesis 1:2.

Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17, 1990.

James I. The Holy Bible, conformable to that edition of 1611, commonly known as the authorized or King James version, The World Publishing Company, nd. Genesis 1:2.

Opler, Morris Edward. Myths and Tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians, 1938. His sources were Cevero Caramillo, John Chopari, Alasco Tisnado, and Juan Julian.

_____. "A Summary of Jicarilla Apache Culture," American Anthropologist 38:202-223:1936.

Parsons, Elsie Clews. Tewa Tales, 1926. She did not name her source for tale 1, but described him as "a man of about sixty" and added "his sister’s daughter, a woman of forty, was a good interpreter."

Speiser, E. A. Genesis, 1964.

Origin Tales

Origin tales explain how we humans came to be.

The ones of Spanish settlers in the Española valley, San Juan pueblo and Jicarilla Apache all began as oral traditions passed from generation to generation. Native American tales remained verbal. Those of the Españoles moved in and out of written tradition. At the time Juan de Oñate led them north into the wilderness, only priests had Bibles, and they were in Latin, not Spanish.

When James I issued an authoritative translation in 1611, twenty-three years after Oñate arrived at San Juan, the English king’s scholars wrote:

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breathe of life; and man became a living soul."

Roman Catholics at the English College of Douay in France had published an alternative translation in 1609 that read:

"And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul."

The account of Adam’s creation assumed a single, concentrated source of power that existed before humankind. By the time Genesis was translated into English, that power was male. It stretched in an unbroken line from the monarchs to the popes to the disciples to Christ. For Jews, it extended back through the kings to David and Solomon to Adam himself.

San Juan assumed a world of powers diffused among the unmade people under the lake and the spirit animals living below the ground. The future human the spirit people selected as a leader had to be both male and female, embody the gifts of each.

"Next, the people realized they needed a leader who was both male and female. When they found him, they sent him to explore. Kanyotsanyotse tetseenubu’ta, commonly called Yellow Boy, was the first made person."

The Jicarilla said "all the Hactcin were here from the beginning," but one spirit, Black Hactcin, was more powerful. After he made the animals, he "traced an outline of a figure on the ground, making it just like his own body, for the Hactcin was shaped just as we are today. He traced the outline with pollen" and brought it to life.

Genesis began with God creating a male and making a garden for him to inhabit. Next he formed "every beast of the field and every fowl in the air," but "for Adam there was not found an help meet for him."  So next:

"the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;"

Soon after he commissioned this translation, James made Francis Bacon his solicitor general. The intellectual world was poised for the great leap in thinking patterns signified by the Novum Organum Bacon would publish in 1620. The translators anticipated the neutral discourse of science when they chose the word "cause."

The Duoay version was closer to the Hebrew and the medieval world of witchcraft spells. They wrote:

"Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs and filled up flesh for it."

The Jicarilla used a trance. They told Morris Opler, the Hactcin used lice to make the first man sleepy.

"He was dreaming and dreaming. He dreamt that someone, a girl, was sitting beside him."

"He woke up. The dream had come true."

The older San Juan man who retold the origin tale for Elsie Clews Parsons did not feel the same need to explain the separation of male and female. They existed, coequal, from the beginning.

History begins in Genesis when Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden for testing the tree of knowledge. Life in the outside world is a punishment for being sinful, for being curious, for being human. In San Juan and Jicarilla, the migration from the underworld is voluntary and desired, a reward for curiosity.

Notes:
Douay College. The Holy Bible, Holy Family edition of the Catholic Bible, Old Testament in the Douay-Calloner text, edited by John P. O’Connell, 1950. Sons of the Holy Family are responsible for the churches in Santa Cruz and Chimayó. Genesis 2:7 and 2:21.

James I. The Holy Bible, conformable to that edition of 1611, commonly known as the authorized or King James version, The World Publishing Company, nd. Genesis 2:7, 2:20 and 2:21.

Opler, Morris Edward. Myths and Tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians, 1938. His sources were Cevero Caramillo, John Chopari, Alasco Tisnado, and Juan Julian.

Parsons, Elsie Clews. Tewa Tales, 1926. She did not name her source for tale 1, but described him as "a man of about sixty" and added "his sister’s daughter, a woman of forty, was a good interpreter."

La Cañada - The Romeros

La Cañada may have been hours from Santa Fé, but it wasn’t allowed to remain isolated. The Inquisition reached wherever there was a friar. Its few persecutions coupled with memories from Spain and México City were enough. Fear of suspicion kept society fragmented, even in times of crises.

The life of Bartolomé Romero and his family illustrates the many ways a cultural heritage of intimidation and informing was perpetuated.

He was born in Corral de Almaguer near Toledo to Bartolomé Romero and María de [Ad]eva. Stanley Hordes thinks the half obliterated name on his baptismal certificate may originally have been Benavedas. In 1574, the Inquisition in México City argued Diego de Ocaña was Jewish because his mother was a Benadeves and "the Xuárez de Benadeva family, Jews of Sevilla, is widely recognized in being of the generation of Jews."

While still in México Bartolomé married Luisa López Robledo, daughter of Catalina López and Pedro Robledo. Robledo had been born in La Carmena, then moved to nearby Toledo where he sought confirmation of his pure Christian ancestry by becoming a lay collaborator, a familiar, of the Inquisition at a time when the Robledo name was still associated with conversos.

Whether or not they had any Jewish ancestry, Romero and Robledo were among the first to enlist with Juan de Oñate. Later, Romero and members of his family were called by the Inquisition to provide evidence against their neighbors and in-laws. Whether they cooperated because they were true supporters of the Franciscans, or because they adopted that role to deflect suspicion is a question best left to those who study human behavior under extreme situations.

In 1632 Bartolomé made his first recorded report. Alameda pueblo was performing "strange rites."

Bartolomé Romero and his wife had three sons and two daughters. Ana married Francisco Gómez and María married Gaspar Pérez, a Flemish armorer who had close relations with the Apache.

María’s son, Diego Romero, is the one who was indicted with Gómez’s son Francisco, and prosecuted separately by the Inquisition for meeting with the Apache while leading the supply train that brought López de Mendizábal north. He was banished to Parral. His wife, Catalina de Zamora refused to follow. She was the daughter of Pedro Lucero de Godoy which made her María’s niece. When Diego remarried in exile, the Inquisition arrested him for bigamy. He died in jail in Veracruz.

María Romero gave evidence against Beatriz de los Ángeles and Juana de la Cruz, wife of Juan Griego’s son.

Bartolomé’s son Bartolomé and grandson Diego had been with another of the indicted conspirators, Nicolas de Aguilar when he was arrested. The others in the group were Andrés López Sambrano and Juan Luján. Andrés brother, Hernán, had died when he betrayed Beatriz and was bewitched.

Antonio López Zambrano testified against Francisco Gómez Robledo. Chávez doesn’t mention Antonio, but says Andrés’s daughter, Josefa López de Grijalva, was married to Lucero’s son, which made Gómez’s sister, Francisca, his mother-in-law.

Bartolomé Romero, the oldest son of Bartolomé who was with Aguilar at Isleta, married María Granillo del Moral, daughter of Francisco Pérez Granillo. A son and a daughter moved to the mining area of Sonora. His other son, Bartolomé Romero, married Josefa de Archuleta, then disappeared from the public record. She was the daughter of Juan de Archuleta.

He gave evidence against his daughter-in-law’s neighbors, Beatriz de los Ángeles and Juana de la Cruz.

Her father, Francisco Pérez Granillo, appeared as a government clerk in 1617. The livelihood of her brothers came from the supply trains after they were run by civilian contractors. Alonso Pérez Granillo had an estancia near Alamillo, but moved to Nueva Vizcaya by 1680 where he was the alcalde mayor of the wagon trains and Janos.

Francisco Pérez Granillo the younger was in charge of the wagon trains in 1661 and 1664. He was married to Sebastiana Romero, whose parents weren’t identified by Chávez. Their son was Luis, who was alcalde mayor of Jémez and Queres pueblos in 1680 and escaped from Jémez. He returned as Diego de Varga’s lieutenant and made the survey of La Cañada. He was childless; his wife didn’t return.

Tomás Pérez Granillo had African and Indian parents in Santa Fé and worked as a driver on the wagon trains. He resettled in México after he and his wife smuggled out the child of Juan Manso de Contreras. His relation to Luis isn’t known.

What is known is that he was an Inquisition witness against Ana Romero’s son, Francisco Gómez Robledo.

Bartolomé senior’s second son, Matías Romero, married Isabel de Pedraza, a cousin of María de Archuleta, daughter of Asencio de Arechuleta. He refused to testify against Gaspar Pérez, claiming ignorance of the situation, but María de Archuleta did testify against Beatriz and Juana.

The third son, Agustín, married Luisa Díaz. He died young and was buried at the pueblo of San Diego. He can’t have been the owner of the land in La Cañada that Luis Pérez Granillo described after passing the meadow of Ambrosio Sáez in 1695: "in the middle of that vega is the hacienda where Agustín Romero was settled at planting time, because he had fields there. One citizen with his family can live very well there."

One can only assume Agustín was the illegitimate child of one of the Romero sons, perhaps even the dead Agustín.

He wouldn’t have been the only one. Louisa Romero married Juan Lucero y Godoy, while Pedro Romero married Juan’s sister, Petronila de Salas. Chávez didn’t place either in the extended Romero family, but also didn’t indicate others with the common name Romero had moved north.

The daughter of Francisca Romero and Matías Luján was involved with either Antonio or Bartolomé Gómez Robledo, the illegitimate sons of Francisco and Bartolomé. Chávez doesn’t identify Francisca’s parents.

Alonso Romero was a servant on the hacienda of Felipe Romero. Chávez says he was really Alonso Cadimo, and was probably a child of Francisco Cadimo, who came with Oñate. The boy was ransomed from the plains Indians and settled on Felipe’s estancia with his wife María de Tapia. Juan de Tapia had married Bartolomé senior’s daughter Francisca.

Domingo Romero was one of the mestizo leaders of the Pueblo Revolt at Tesuque pueblo.

The only man who was with Aguilar when he was arrested who did not witness against any of the accused was Juan Luján. His kin in the río abajo were already supporting the Franciscans.

Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.

Esquibel, José Antonio. "The Rodríguez Bellido Family," La Herencia, summer 2009.

Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695 describing the settlement of La Cañada, included in Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.

Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005.

Kessell, John L. Spain in the Southwest, a Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California, 2002; on Diego Romero.

Scholes, France V. "The First Decade of the Inquisition in New Mexico," New Mexico Historical Review 10:195-241:1935.