111arfo de Agreda, the J mnano, and tlee T ejas
1 97
of Mexico, D. Francisco Manso y Zuniga had ordered the C,utodio of New Mexico and all the missionaries there, on May 18, 1628, to try to ascertain if there was a knowledge of our faith among the natives living beyond to the east, and "in what manner and by what means" our Lord had made it manifest. This order was prompted by a report, which had been made to the Archbishop of the miraculous visitations to the Jumano Indians claimed to have been effected by Mother Maria de Jesus de Agreda, according to her own confession to Father Fray Sebastian Marcilla. When the Indians told their story, therefore, to Father Fray Estevan de Perea and Fray Juan Salas, they were much interested. 5 Not until two years later did the enthusiastic Father Fray Alonso de Benavides, former C11stodio of New Mexico, find out who the Woman in Bl11e was. Having gone to Spain in 1630, and having told the story related by the Jumanos of the miraculous visitations and their instruc- tion in our faith to the Father General of the Order of St. Francis, he was instructed to go to the little town of Agreda, on the border of Aragon and Castile, where Mother Maria de Jesus had declared she had visited the Indians of New Mexico eight years before. "I arrived in Agreda the last day of April, I 63 I , " states Fray Alonso, " and before saying anything else, I will declare, that the said Mother Maria de Jesus, Abbess now of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception, is about twenty-nine years of age, not quite that, handsome of face, very fair in color, with a rosy tinge and large black eyes. The style of her habit, as well as that of all the nuns of that convent, who are twenty- nine in all, is the same as ours; that is, it is of brown ( pardo) sackcloth, very coarse, worn next to the body without a tunic, undershirt, or skirt. Over this brown habit is worn a white one of coarse sackcloth with a scapulary of the same [material] and the cord of our Father Saint Francis. Over the scapulary [ they carry] the rosary. They wear no shoes or sandals other than boards tied to the feet. The cloak is of blue cloth, coarse, with a black veil." 6 5 "Relacion de la Santa Madre Maria de Jesus," in Docum,mls para Ill Hisloria de Jfex ico, 3ra serie, 55 ; .l\fange, Luz de Tierra h1cog11ita, 196-197 ; Hackett, Pic/1ardo, II, 468-469. In the last cited work, Chapter XXVI gives an excellent translation of many documents concerning the miraculous visitations of Mother Maria de Ag reda to the Jumano and the Tejas. 6 Benavides, Tanto que se saco de 1111<1 Carla ..., 4-5. Hodge, in a note to the Ayer itlemorial, translates pardo as gray, but this should be brown. He also omits the part of the description which declares the cloak worn over the habit was blue. This is s ignificant, as it is the basis for the tradition of the W o111a11 in Blue among the Indians. Ayer, 1"/emorial, 2 76.
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