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0111· Catlzolic Heritage in Texas
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one ranclzena to another ministering to the sick. During this time they were obliged to eat whatever they could get or was given them by the natives, such as polecats, rats, mice, lions, bears, coyotes, and other similar Indian delicacies. But the missionaries were happy in comforting the afflicted and baptizing such as were beyond human aid. Nuestra Senora de Gttadalwpe. This mission was founded m 1716, Father Ciprian explained, in the midst of the main ranclzerfas of the Nacogdoche Indians, which were ranged over a distance of ten leagues, running from south to north. But after the mission was established, the Bidai Indians, who were the southern neighbors of the Nacogdoches, caused so many damages to the latter's cultivated fields that they grad- ually began to move farther and farther north. The result was that the mission found itself in a few years at the southern end of the Nacogdoche ranckenas, at a distance of about twenty leagues from the farthest northern extremity. With o~ly one missionary assigned to care for all these Indians, he spent most of his time going from one rancheria to another either visiting the sick or trying to persuade the Indians to come to live in the mission. There were twenty-two ranclzerias with about one hundred and twenty warriors and some five or six hundred persons, including the old men, the women, and the children. Each warrior had two or three wives and numerous children. The lonely missionary had to look after the spiritual needs of all of them, scattered as they were over a range of twenty-two miles. In vain he begged and pleaded with them to move to the mission and to live in a pueblo. When in 1730 the Queretaran missionaries decided to remove their three missions founded in East Texas to San Antonio, this redoubled the work of the Zacatecan Padres. The already overworked missionary of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe was frequently called to visit the Ainais, ten leagues west, the Neches, twenty leagues in the same direction, and the Nasonis, about fourteen leagues to the northwest. Is it any wonder that the Mission of Guadalupe of the Nacogdoches made such slow progress? Nuestra Senora de los Dolores. This mission founded also in 1716, had at this time about seventy families, with some three hundred Indians to look after. Unfortunately they, with very few exceptions, did not live in the mission. On the contrary, the Indians were scattered in eight ranclterias, occupying an area of about two leagues. Most of those who
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