The Alabados of New Mexico

Thomas J. Steele, S. J., collected approximately 1,300 alabados, or hymns of praise, from 140 different songbooks, in his study of the religious music of the New Mexican penitentes. Citing the immense impact of the penitentes on the Catholicism of New Mexico, he set out to catalog and explain their music. The result is an extensive, annotated and translated selection of 126 sets of lyrics to alabados, alabanzas and other sung prayers, organized thematically by topics such as "the Christ Child and His Family," "the Sacrament of the Eucharist," and "Alabanzas to Mary." The collection is preceded by background information on the sources of the alabados, Franciscan spirituality, Catholicism in colonial and nineteenth-century New Mexico, the alabados as poetry, and music and musicians. Each group of alabado texts is briefly introduced and then documented with footnotes that highlight differences in lyrics or emphasis among the various texts Steele searched.

Steele argues that the alabados were the thread that held colonial New Mexico together—a major factor in community formation among early settlers moving north from Mexico, indigenous peoples of the Puebloan region, and the mestizo farmers and ranchers who populated New Spain's far northern reaches. Although the importance of late medieval spirituality on the spiritual development of colonial New Mexico is noted, Steele does not significantly add to discussion about the origin and spread of the alabado. Instead, he refers the reader to Richard Stark's 1983 essay "Notes on a Search for Antecedents of New Mexican Alabado Music" (in Hispanic Arts and Ethnohistory in the Southwest, edited by Marta Weigle, Ancient City Press, 1983). He notes the influence of Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús, famous for his work in Texas, particularly his evangelization through song. However, because the major purpose of the work is to catalog alabados sung today in New Mexico, this is not a focus of the work.

The comparison of alabado texts is thorough and extremely detailed, noting rhyme schemes, meter, and rhythm. In the introductions to each set of lyrics, Steele explains references to biblical stories, works of medieval spirituality, and church doctrine. These descriptions provide the reader with a much greater understanding of the alabado authors' understandings of Christian theology, as well as the messages they were attempting to convey to a wider audience, who would have learned the songs by hearing and singing them. The work would benefit from a conclusion analyzing the impact of European and Mexican influences, as well as indigenous ideas and local practices, on the alabado texts. Such a conclusion might also elaborate on Steele's contention that these songs are "a . . . cultural DNA, a spiritual, social, and psychological genetic code that directs people's lives. Singing them was a major force in keeping New Mexico in the Spanish empire, in the Roman Catholic church, and in the cultural realm of Spain and New Spain" (p. 4). That said, this is an invaluable resource and the collection will undoubtedly be significant for historians of religion and culture in nineteenth- and twentieth-century New Mexico.