| Bridle: Colorado State University: Pueblo, Colorado (CO) Floyd Muad'Dib posted a photo:
This iron bridle is inlaid with silver and was apparently used by the conquistadors. | Penitente Whips: Colorado State University: Pueblo, Colorado (CO) Floyd Muad'Dib posted a photo:
I've been trying for some time to see the penitente artifacts collected by Ruben Archuleta, former police chief of Pueblo. They were once at a museum in San Luis, but the museum was closed for budgetary reasons when I drove there. Then they were at the Fort Francisco Museum in La Veta, but I found out they had been moved to the sixth floor of the library at CSU-Pueblo. Even though the university was on spring break, the library was still open, so I had the place pretty much to myself.
These whips or scourges, called disciplinas in Spanish, are made of yucca or ordinary strands of rope. Penitentes would whip their own backs during ceremonies that commemorated the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus.
The caption indicates the disciplinas came from moradas in Los Pinos, New Mexico (just south of the Colorado border), and San Antonio and Los Lobatos, Colorado | Matraca: Colorado State University: Pueblo, Colorado (CO) Floyd Muad'Dib posted a photo:
This noise-maker (pronounced ma-TROCK-a) is used during Good Friday services in penitente meeting-houses called moradas. At 3:00 PM, when Christ died, matracas, chains and other implements make a terrible noise to represent the upheaval that split the cloth in the temple in Jerusalem. The box is whirled around by the handle, and the wide toothed gear repeatedly flaps the thin strip of wood nailed in place at the left edge of the box.
Whenever I see the word "matraca", I think of the country singer-songwriter Matraca Berg, who pronounced her first name ma-TRAY-sha. The woman was clearly not hooked on phonics. |
