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• 27 The pueblo of the Taos people lies some seven leagues onward in the same northerly direction. It is of the same nation as the Picurís, although the language varies somewhat. There are two thousand five hundred baptized souls, with a friary and church that have been established with great care by the two friars in charge of its conversion. These Indians are well taught in church doctrine. And in the year just past of 1627, Our Lord confirmed His Holy Word with a miracle among them. As it happened, it was difficult for them to stop having so many women, as was their custom before they were baptized. Each day, the friar preached to them the holy sacrament of matrimony, and the person who contradicted him most strongly was an old Indian sorceress . Under the pretext of going to the countryside for firewood, she took along four good Christian women, and married at that, all conforming to the good order of Our Holy Mother Church. And coming and going in their wood gathering, she was trying to persuade them not to continue with the kind of marriage our padre was teaching, saying how much better off a person was practicing her old heathenism. These good Christians resisted this kind of talk. They were getting close to the pueblo again, and the sorceress was carrying on with her sermon. The sky was clear and serene, but a bolt from the blue struck that infernal instrument of the devil right in the middle of those good Christian women who had been resisting her evil creed. They were 15. TheTaosNation 28 • Chapter 15 spared from the bolt, and quite confirmed in the truth of the holy sacrament of matrimony. The entire pueblo ran to the spot. Seeing the results of the thunderclap from heaven, everyone who had been secretly living in sin got married and began to believe mightily in everything the padre taught them. He, of course, made this episode the subject of a sermon. Every afternoon he preached to them at the time for church music, as is also the custom in other friaries. May all this be to the glory of Our Lord God. It is an incredibly cold country with a great abundance of provisions and livestock. ...

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