The
first thing to consider is the frugal life of the friars.
The
image of the short, plump balding friar, which
many people hold, was far from the case. Friars came in all
sizes and shapes. Each wore a gray colored robe (habit) made of wool
with a hood, the dress of a medieval beggar. Around his waist was
tied a rope known as a Cincture. The Cincture had three knots tied in
it to remind the friar of his vows of poverty, chastity and
obedience. Hanging from the Cincture was a rosary and cross so he
could pray and reflect upon the Mysteries of Christ's Life. He also
had a pouch to carry a few personal things, such as a prayer book or
journal; a large brimmed hat and a walking staff. A friar did not
carry or handle money nor did he ride a horse when traveling. Friars
traveled most of the time by foot, using a horse or donkey only for
long trips or those journeys with time constrictions. (A Day in
the Life of a Friar
by Tom Davis)
by Tom Davis)
So
what was the daily life of a friar like during the Mission period of
California? One thing for sure, it was not one of Sangrias and
Fandangos. Nor was it one of slave masters or sadistic over-lords who
saw the Native Californian as chattel. It was a life of hard work and
sacrifice, of cooperation and faith by all. The Franciscans of
California began and ended each day with prayer. As priests, they
made a promise to pray for the needs of the universal church as well
as for their own individual needs. Thus, seven times during the day
were set aside in which they prayed their prayers and the Divine
Office, starting as early as 2:00 am. They rose at sunrise and began
the day with Morning Prayer and meditation,
then celebrated mass around 7:00 am, followed by the Doctrina in the
Church. After church a simple breakfast. The friars ate bread, fresh
fruit, milk, eggs, vegetables, soup and, on special occasions,
cheese, fish and red meat.
Here
is their daily schedule”
9:00
am – Work with the children, teaching them religion, music,
language, etc.
10:00
am – Visit the sick and elderly.
11:00
am – Have their midday meal of fruit, soup, milk, and bread.
Usually gruel called atole.
12:00
noon – To pray the Angelus and other midday prayers. Followed by a
siesta of several hours – usually two.
2:00
pm – Friars continued to visit, counsel or write letters and
reports.
3:00
pm – Say the Rosary or other prayers and devotions.
4:00
pm – Worked with children, especially instructing them in music or
games.
5:00
pm – More prayers and the Doctrina in the Chapel
6:00
pm – recite Vespers or evening prayer
7:00
pm - Light evening meal of soup, bread, or fruit. They
would then relax, read, play cards of socialize until night prayer
and bed, usually not much later than 9:00 pm. They would then
awaken at 2:00 am to start all over again.
In
many cases, the socializing might be enjoying the evening
entertainment by local musicians in the mission plaza.
The
friars shared their own personal talents and hobbies with the Native
Californians, showing the Indians, for example, how to paint, sing,
and play musical instruments. The friars shared their lives with
those they came to serve and learned to love.
Mission
San Diego in background
Daily Life of Missionaries
Each
mission had two friars with an escort of five presidials [the
soldados de cuera] led by a corporal. As much as possible, an
effort was made to assign soldiers with wives and children. The
single ones served at the presidios.
Life
at the California missions varied slightly throughout the entire
system. Once a "gentile" was baptized, he or she became a
neophyte, or new believer. This happened only after a brief period
during which the initiates were instructed in the most basic aspects
of the Catholic faith. However, while many natives were lured to join
the missions out of curiosity and sincere desire to participate and
engage in trade, many found themselves trapped once they received the
sacrament of baptism. To the padres, a baptized Indian was no longer
free to move about the country, but had to labor and worship at the
mission under the strict observance of the fathers and overseers, who
herded them to daily masses and labors. If an Indian did not report
for their duties for a period of a few days, they were searched for,
and if it was discovered that they left without permission, they were
considered runaways. Some were allowed to return to their home
villages for certain important events such as planting or harvest –
and some religious events.
Any
of those who left without permission were hunted down by the
presidials and returned to the mission for punishment. NO, they were
NOT whipped! Most punishment, as indicated in earlier posts, was
public humiliation and possibly being placed in solitude for a
period. In certain cases, they would be publicly “spanked”,
another form of humiliation. In all cases, the friars spent
considerable time explaining what the failure was to the miscreant
and the congregation. The friars punished neophytes for other
offenses too, such as lack of attention in worship services. They
used whipping, confinement in stocks and other punishments they
thought necessary to Christianize the Native Americans.
Sadly,
unmarried women were locked in women’s quarters each night at the
mission to prevent what the priests called promiscuity. This is
because most California Indians did not believe in marriage in the
European sense. Indian women selected their mates for survival traits
and, when the mate did not perform, simply walked away and found
another. This is one of the reasons they suffered from forms of
venereal disease long before the arrival of the Spanish.
Why
did the friars keep their baptized Indians close to the mission?
First,
it was The Law of the Indies
Secondly,
the missionaries had the gravest obligation to give them religious
instruction.
Thirdly,
they were burdened, not only with the duty of pastors, but also the
responsibility of parents.
The
friars allowed their neophytes to go home for 5 or 6 weeks per year
but did not want them to have prolonged contact with un-Christianized
Indians. They came under the Fourth Commandment of Honor thy father
and mother, which the friars could not refuse.
First
and foremost, the friars had parental responsibility for the Indians
and failing to act to correct their sins placed those sins, in The
Eye of God, strictly upon their backs!
For
their part, the Indians were accustomed to have no set hours for
anything to include breakfast, lunch or dinner but to spend the
greater part of each day simply searching for food. They did not have
a regular, reliable source of sustenance and were subject to the
whims of nature. The faults that needed correction included theft of
property from those who lived outside the tribal unit, divorce and
remarriage for little or no reason, indulgence in promiscuity and, in
some tribelets, in homosexuality, the practice of abortion, and in
the tradition of taking human life as punishment for personal
injuries.
Bells
were vitally important to daily life at any mission.
The
bells were rung at mealtimes, to call the Mission residents to work
and to religious services, during births and funerals, to signal the
approach of a ship or returning missionary, and at other times;
novices were instructed in the intricate rituals associated with the
ringing the mission bells. The daily routine began with sunrise Mass
and morning prayers, followed by instruction of the natives in the
teachings of the Roman Catholic faith. After a generous (by era
standards) breakfast of atole, [cornmeal] the able-bodied men and
women were assigned their tasks for the day. The
women were committed to dressmaking, knitting, weaving, embroidering,
laundering, and cooking, while some of the stronger girls would grind
flour or carry adobe bricks (weighing 55 lb, or 25 kg each) to the
men engaged in building. The men were tasked with a variety of jobs,
having learned from the missionaries how to plow, sow, irrigate,
cultivate, reap, thresh, and glean. In addition, they were taught to
build adobe houses, tan leather hides, shear sheep, weave rugs and
clothing from wool, make ropes, soap, paint, and other useful duties.
The
goal of the missions was, above all, to become self-sufficient in
relatively short order. Farming, therefore, was the most important
industry of any mission. {That was good as most of the Franciscans
came from farms or farming villages] Barley, maize, and wheat were
among the most common crops grown. Cereal grains were dried and
ground by stone into flour. Even today, California is well known for
the abundance and many varieties of fruit trees that are cultivated
throughout the state. The only fruits indigenous to the region,
however, consisted of wild berries or grew on small bushes. Spanish
missionaries brought fruit seeds over from Europe, many of which had
been introduced to the Old World from Asia following earlier
expeditions to the continent; orange, grape, apple, peach, pear, and
fig seeds were among the most prolific of the imports. Grapes were
also grown and fermented into wine for sacramental use and again, for
trading. The specific variety, called the Criolla or "Mission
grape," was first planted at Mission San Juan Capistrano in
1779; in 1783, the first wine produced in Alta California emerged
from the mission's winery.
Mission
San Gabriel Arcángel would unknowingly witness the origin of the
California citrus industry with the planting of the region’s first
significant orchard in 1804, though the commercial potential of
citrus would not be realized until 1841. Olives (first cultivated at
Mission San Diego de Alcalá) were grown, cured, and pressed under
large stone wheels to extract their oil, both for use at the mission
and to trade for other goods. Father Serra set aside a portion of the
Mission Carmel gardens in 1774 for tobacco plants, a practice which
soon spread throughout the mission system.
It
was also the missions' responsibility to provide the Spanish forts,
or "presidios", with the necessary foodstuffs, and
manufactured goods to sustain operations. It was a constant point of
contention between missionaries and the soldiers as to how many
fanegas of barley, or how many shirts or blankets the mission
had to provide the garrisons on any given year. At times, these
requirements were hard to meet, especially during years of drought,
or when the much-anticipated shipments from the port of San Blas
failed to arrive. The Spaniards kept meticulous records of mission
activities, and each year reports submitted to the Father-President
summarizing both the material and spiritual status at each of the
settlements.
Livestock
was raised, not only for the purpose of obtaining meat, but also for
wool, leather, and tallow, and for cultivating the land. In 1832, at
the height of their prosperity, the missions collectively owned:
151,180
head of cattle;
137,969
sheep;
14,522
horses;
1,575
mules or burros;
1,711
goats; and
1,164
swine.
All
of these animals were originally brought up from Mexico. A great many
Indians were required to guard the herds and flocks, which created
the need for "...a class of horsemen scarcely surpassed
anywhere." These animals multiplied beyond the settler's
expectations, often overrunning pastures and extending well-beyond
the domains of the missions. The giant herds of horses and cows took
well to the climate and the extensive pastures of the Coastal
California region, but at a heavy price for the Native inhabitants.
The uncontrolled spread of these new species quickly exhausted the
grasslands and hillsides the Indians depended on for their seed
harvests. This problem was also recognized by the Spaniards
themselves, who at times sent out extermination parties to kill
thousands of excess livestock, when the populations grew beyond their
control. Mission kitchens and bakeries prepared and served thousands
of meals each day.
Candles,
soap, grease, and ointments were all made from tallow (rendered
animal fat) in large vats located just outside the west wing. Also
situated in this general area were vats for dyeing wool and tanning
leather, and primitive looms for weaving. Large bodegas (warehouses)
provided long-term storage for preserved foodstuffs and other treated
materials.
Each
mission had to fabricate virtually all of its construction materials
from local materials. Workers in the carpintería (carpentry
shop) used crude methods to shape beams, lintels, and other
structural elements; more skilled artisans carved doors, furniture,
and wooden implements. For certain applications bricks (ladrillos)
were fired in ovens (kilns) to strengthen them and make them more
resistant to the elements; when tejas (roof tiles) eventually
replaced the conventional jacal roofing (densely packed reeds)
they were placed in the kilns to harden them as well. Glazed ceramic
pots, dishes, and canisters were also made in mission kilns.
I'll
leave it to the reader to determine the pluses and minuses of this
era. Did the loss of their native ways somehow destroy an important
stage of society? Or did brining Europeans ways improve their lives?
Were the restrictions fair or a form of slavery as some modern
apologists call it?
In
any cases, what are your views of this? Love to hear them.
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