Summary
In his first year since arriving at his parish in Santa Fe, Father Latour spends a great deal of time outside traveling to the Plenary Council at Baltimore. After returning, he sets out with Jacinto, a young Indian guide, to visit Albuquerque and other Indian missions in the west. At Albuquerque, he meets Padre Gallegos, a priest who goes dancing and entertains the company of gamblers and soldiers. They visit the pueblo of Isleta, and the old priest there, Father Jesus, shows them a precious wooden parrot that the Indians regard as sacred.
On their way to Ácoma, Father Latour and Jacinto stop by Laguna, where the former performs baptisms. At Ácoma, Father Latour is astonished by the grave rockiness of the mesa country and the sturdy church standing in town. On his way back through Isleta, Father Jesus tells him the story of the domineering and exploitative Friar Baltazar Montoya, who was thrown off the mesa cliff by his parishioners for accidentally killing a man in a fit of anger.
Analysis
Leaving behind Father Vaillant, his fellow Frenchman, Father Latour journeys into yet more unfamiliar western territory, this time with Jacinto, an Indian guide. The conversations of mutual observations of the French priest and Native American man in this chapter explore some of their deep cultural differences. In a vivid passage, the narrator pulls back from Father Latour's individual perspective to show him and Jacinto thinking very similar thoughts about the other.
The two companions sat, each thinking his own thoughts as night closed in about them; a blue night set with stars, the bulk of the solitary mesas cutting into the firmament. The Bishop seldom questioned Jacinto about his thoughts or beliefs. He didn’t think it polite, and he believed it to be useless. There was no way in which he could transfer his own memories of European civilization into the Indian mind, and he was quite willing to behave that behind Jacinto there was a long tradition, a story of experience, which no language could translate to Him (92-3).
Crucially, it is the New Mexican environment of the mesa country and the open, starry sky that brings them together. Even though each has inherited different interpretations of the stars from his respective tradition and community, they are able to talk about them and feel some commonality of experience, as they do just after. This passage also demonstrates how Father Latour reconciles his apostolic enthusiasm with respect for native traditions: rather than reject Jacinto's Indian views, he accords them respect, such that when he asks him to pray, it is meant to be beside, rather than instead of, what Jacinto believes.
