The Brothers of Blood

On the surface, the ceremony seemed routine—the Roman Catholic archbishop of New Mexico presenting a book of religious music to a weather-beaten old man. But to the participants, last week's simple presentation had dramatic overtones. For the man on whom the archbishop smiled was Don Miguel Archibeque, longtime head of the self-torturing sect called Penitentes, which was officially banned by the church for almost 100 years.

The Brotherhood of Penitentes is a fossil of medieval Christianity, preserved by the isolation of village culture in the Old World and the New. Public flagellation as penance for sins was common in Europe until the Renaissance; in Spain the custom persisted and was carried into the New World when Spanish colonists began to settle the land that is now New Mexico and Colorado. First to cross the Rio Grande, in 1598, was the expedition of Don Juan Oñate, whereupon, according to one historian, "Don Juan went to a secluded spot where he cruelly scourged himself, mingling bitter tears with the blood that flowed from his many wounds."

Penance Underground. The custom gained added impetus from the preaching of the Franciscan missionaries, who strongly emphasized the sufferings of Christ's passion in their teachings, and permitted the practice of self-scourging as an act of devotion. When the Franciscans were withdrawn at the close of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, and the visits of priests to the villages grew increasingly rare, a group of Catholic laymen called Penitentes gradually emerged. Its members conducted services, taught doctrine, visited the sick and buried the dead—in effect performing all the priestly functions except saying Mass and administering the sacraments.

When Archbishop John B. Lamy set out from Cincinnati for New Mexico in 1850, after the U.S. had wrested the territory from Mexico, he was shocked at the gory penances that the Penitentes—also known as the Brothers of the Blood of Christ—exacted of themselves. Finally, he banned the group. But the Penitentes went underground. Their practices gradually softened, and in 1947 the church once again recognized the Hermandad de Nuestro Padre Jesus.

Under the Hood. Today in the mountain villages of New Mexico and southern Colorado, the hermanos (brothers) have 135 chapter houses called moradas, with a total membership of more than 1,200. Membership is open to all male adults, and most of the year the Penitentes seem no different from any other religious society of ardent Catholics.

But the Penitentes still suffer for their sins. Near each morada is a hill called Calvary, usually surmounted by a cross which stands there all year long. In Easter Week, on Wednesday, Thursday and Good Friday, the Penitentes stage processions between morada and Calvary—some stripped to the waist, with thorny cacti bound around their chests, some scourging themselves every few steps with sharp-bladed yucca leaves until the blood saturates their trousers, some staggering under 15-ft. wooden crosses. Some of them crawl upon the sharp stones on lacerated knees and hands, and each, beneath the black hood that conceals his identity, recites prayers of penance.