Juliana Barr

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Juliana Barr | A Diplomacy of Gender: Rituals of First Contact in the 'Land of the Tejas' | The William and Mary Quarterly, 61.3 | The History Cooperative

A Diplomacy of Gender: Rituals of First Contact in the "Land of the Tejas"

IN 1630, the custodio of the New Mexico missions, fray Alonso de Benavides, informed the king of Spain and the Council of the Indies that God had marked the work of his Franciscan missionaries with special approval. Accounts had reached Benavides about a Franciscan nun, María de Jesús de Ágreda, living in Spain, who had traveled in spirit to the New World hundreds of times to instruct Indians in Christianity. Also recently, Indians to the east of New Mexico (later Texas) had approached Benavides's friars to request a mission for their people, telling of a "Lady in Blue" who had appeared in the sky and told them to seek salvation from the missionaries.¹ Benavides concluded that these events were miraculous.

Nearly sixty years later, in 1689, when Spaniards sought permanent settlement in the "land of the Tejas," along the Red River region of the present-day Texas-Louisiana border, they recalled stories of Ágreda's prior visitations and sought evidence that might serve as a touchstone for beginning their own missionary efforts.² Much to the delight of fray Damián Mazanet, Caddo Indians of the Hasinai confederacy (known to Spaniards as "Tejas" Indians) responded positively to his queries. Yes, he understood them to say, a mysterious "Woman in Blue" had appeared among them, not in living memory, as one caddí (the Caddo term for a chief or cacique) attested, but according to stories told by grandparents.³

Figure I

Engraving of María de Jesús de Ágreda, the "Woman in Blue," appearing before Indians to the east of New Mexico. Permission of the Catholic Archives of Texas, Austin.

How fully did Spaniards and Hasinais understand one another in this exchange? Mazanet's queries appeared to strike a chord among Hasinais; at the very least, they heard the outlines of a story much like those told of their own deities. A Hasinai creation myth told of a female goddess, Zacado, who appeared to their ancestors to teach them how to survive in the world; she disappeared once they learned how to hunt, fish, build homes, and dress.⁴ Perhaps Hasinais responded affirmatively to the familiarity of the missionary's story of a spiritual apparition in female form who came to teach people how to live. They, too, looked for the familiar or recognizable in their Spanish visitors. And they, too, could have found the story of Zacado on the lips of Spaniards to be a miracle of their own.⁵

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