Salinas Pueblo Missions "In the Midst of a Loneliness": The Architectural History of the Salinas Missions Historic Structures Report

In 1626, Fray Alonso de Benavides, the new custodian of the missionary effort in New Mexico, decided to send a mission to the pueblo called Quarai in the Salinas basin. The missions at Chililí and Abó were doing well, and it seemed a good time to add another of the major Salinas pueblos to the list of mission-occupied villages. Fray Benavides had been in New Mexico only a short time, having just arrived from Mexico City on the supply train that reached New Mexico in December 1625. For the job of establishing the new mission, he selected another newcomer to New Mexico, Fray Juan Gutiérrez de la Chica, one of the missionaries who had travelled north on the supply train with Benavides. [1]

Gutiérrez rode into Quarai a few months later with his wagon load of starting tools, equipment, and supplies. The leaders of the pueblo apparently approved of his intent to convert the Indians of Quarai, because he encountered few of the problems of opposition or harassment so common to the first effort of conversion in a new pueblo. He purchased several rooms at the east end of house block G in the pueblo, and added to them to make a residence for himself, as storage space for the supplies, and as a temporary church. [2]

After an examination of the pueblo and the surrounding land, he selected a mound of ruins left near the northeast corner of the pueblo as the site of his church and convento. During the remainder of 1626 Gutiérrez designed the new church and convento of La Purísima Concepción de Quarai. Construction began in 1627. [3]

RETAINING WALLS, LEVELLING AND FILLING

Because Quarai was built on a pueblo mound, Gutiérrez had to add several steps to the usual layout procedure described in Chapter 3. The presence of the mound prevented the layout, excavation, and construction of the entire ground plan of the church and convento as a single unit. The site had to be levelled first. Gutiérrez accomplished this by building retaining walls on the outline of the plan of the church and convento, and then levelling the area within the retaining walls.

Gutiérrez de la Chica directed the Indian work crews as they marked out the massive retaining walls around the mound. The crew carefully pegged the outline of the north, east, and south exterior walls of the friary, or first courtyard, on the ground, aligned 4.5 degrees west of north. The orientation of these walls determined the orientation of the rest of the construction, including the axis of the church. Then they marked out the retaining walls forming terraces down the mound to the east that would form the upper levels of the second courtyard, and the main north and south walls of this courtyard. The crews excavated trenches along the inside of these lines, digging until compacted rubble, firm earth, or bedrock was reached. At this point they began building of the foundations of the retaining walls. Once grade was reached, they built up the retaining walls until the top of the highest section was level with the ground surface along the west side of the mound. The sections east of this stepped down the slope of the mound to the eastern wall of the second courtyard. The crews filled the spaces between the retaining wall and the mound surface with packed earth, rubble, and sand removed from the high points of the mound or hauled from elsewhere in the area. [4]

When the platforms were completed, Gutiérrez laid out the foundations for the friary and church on the highest platform. The outer faces of these buildings were built directly on the retaining walls. Interior walls required additional foundations built into trenches excavated into the new fill and old pueblo rubble of the platform. Once again, the construction crew excavated the foundation trenches and filled them with stone and clay mortar to the grade of the surface of the platform. Construction then began on the above-grade walls of the church and convento. During the several stages of the layout procedure, however, the crew made several slight adjustments in marking the location of the church walls on the ground. The errors resulted in the church having an orientation 2 degrees west of north, about 2.5 degrees east of the alignment of the convento. This divergence would have been virtually unnoticeable to the friar or construction crew without careful remeasuring of the plan on the ground. It made no significant difference during the construction, but significantly improved the orientation of the church toward due south.

FRIARY DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

Gutierrez de la Chica laid out the plan of the friary so that it had characteristics distinct from others in New Mexico at the time. The friary of San Buenaventura at Las Humanas, designed by Fray Diego de Santandér in 1659, for example, followed the "traditional" plan much more closely, as did the first friary at Abó, designed by Fray Francisco Fonte in 1622. In the traditional layout, the ambulatorio was the central pathway to the surrounding rooms. Doors of all rooms used on a daily basis by the friars opened onto the ambulatorio, and traffic flowed around the walkway.

Quarai's design was distinctive among seventeenth century missions in New Mexico. The design of the Quarai friary, for example, minimized the role of the ambulatorio as the main avenue of access to the rooms of the convento. Instead, the residential area of the Franciscans formed a separate block of rooms along a north-south hallway adjacent to the ambulatorio. [5] From this hallway, doors opened into the ambulatorio, the cells and storerooms, and the second courtyard where the more mundane activities of the convento took place.

The arrangement of doors imply that it was common for the residence area to be open to lay persons but that casual traffic was discouraged. Doors secured individual rooms to prevent random pilferage and to help keep the residences warmer in winter.

Construction of the Patio and Ambulatorio

The plan of the friary centered on the patio. In the patio, a square kiva was built about this time. Around the patio, Guitiérrez de la Chica had laid out the ambulatorio as a series of four portales, or corridors with one side open to the patio. Within the ambulatorio foundations the crew made a floor of packed sand. Each of the four corridors were 7 1/4 feet in width. The east and west corridors measured 46 1/2 feet in length, while the north and south corridors were respectively 48 1/2 and 50 feet long. The north, east, and south walls of the ambulatorio were 3 1/4 feet thick, while the west wall was only 2 1/2 feet thick. On this side it formed the east wall of a small room (room 24). At the corners of the patio, the construction crew built stone pillars averaging 3 1/2 feet square to be the main supports for the ambulatorio roof. [6]

Figure 12. Plan of the pueblo and mission of Quarai about 1640. The baptistry has been added to the west side of the portal at the front of the church, but the patio has not been altered to its more closed form. On the west side of the church, the outlines of the house blocks that formed mounds H, I, and J can be seen. These house blocks must have been built after perhaps 1630, because they line up precisely with the north and south edges of the church and convento. The Spanish structure on the east end of mound J stands just west of the baptistry. This was probably the casa real for Quarai, maintained for visitors by the Franciscans. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Construction on the ambulatorio walls halted when the crew had raised them to a height of 10 1/2 feet, the height at which the roofs of the ambulatorio and several adjacent rooms were to be built. In the ambulatorio, the crew set up the posts, bolsters and lintels of the portales between the stone pillars. Each side of the patio received four posts, two against the face of each pillar and two more equally spaced between them. The posts were about twelve inches thick and rested on a stone sill or footing about 2 1/2 feet wide that ran from pillar to pillar along the edges of the portales around the patio. The crew constructed low walls about one foot thick between the posts on the east and west sides. On the north and south sides they built similar walls, but left the space between the two middle posts open as entrances to the patio. [7]

The construction crew laid the lintels from bolster to bolster, then lifted the ceiling vigas of the ambulatorio into place. The carpenters had prepared forty-six of these, each twelve feet long and about nine inches in diameter. [8] The construction crew spaced the beams about two feet apart from center to center, with their inner ends on the surrounding walls and their outer ends resting on the lintels of the ambulatorio portal. There were no corbels under the vigas.

Some of the vigas rested on lintels reaching from the adjacent walls to the patio corner pillars. At the northwest corner, for example, the lintel ran from the sacristy wall south to the corner pillar.

Construction of the Rooms Opening onto the Ambulatorio

The ambulatorio provided the walkway between the various major divisions of the friary. Doorways opened from the ambulatorio into the residence hallway, the sacristy, the choir stairwell and an adjacent room, the portería, and the room east of the sacristy.

The main entrance into the friary was the portería, on the south side of the ambulatorio. When the construction crew began building the west, north, and east walls that made up the portería, they installed a door frame and door, already constructed by the carpenters, in the center of the north wall. Enclosing the frame, they built the masonry of the doorway with a single splay on the east side of the opening, causing the doorway to widen from five feet in the portería to six feet in the ambulatorio. This door, the largest single door in the friary, was the principal entrance, and was intended to stop all public access to the building when closed. [9]

Figure 13. The mission of Nuestra Señora de Purísima Concepción de Quarai. This plan shows the original plan of the church and main convento as completed about 1632. The patio portal is supported on masonry piers at the corners and wooden pillars between. The portería portal is the same. The baptistry has not yet been built, and the west nave window is still open. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

When the portería walls reached a height of about 10 1/2 feet, the construction crew began work on its interior. First they laid squared sandstone flags to form the floor. Along the open front, or south side, they set four posts to form a portal, with two posts against the side walls and the other two in the middle, dividing the opening into three equal sections. Then they built benches along all four sides of the room. Each bench had a stone core or base with a seat and foot rest of wood. The crew built the stone base about twenty-four inches high and about eighteen inches wide. The carpenters cut beams about twelve by eighteen inches for the footrests and seats. At the front, of the portería the bench was built against the base of the posts. These benches extended from the walls on each side to the middle posts, leaving an entranceway through the space between them. [10]

The front posts supported the lintels of the front portal on bolsters. The lintels held up the roof vigas, running north and south over the room at a height of 10 1/2 feet. The vigas supported the usual layers of latillas, matting, adobe and a plaster sealing layer.

On the west side of the ambulatorio the construction crew built a small room about 18 1/2 by eight feet. It had a small window-like opening measuring 2 1/3 feet wide by 2 3/4 feet high, facing south into the choir loft stairwell. A doorway opened east into the ambulatorio. This room had a roof 10 1/2 feet and a flagstone floor two feet above the floor level of the ambulatorio. The window-like opening had eight 2-inch beams forming its lintel and a round beam five inches in diameter making the sill. Its plan and location imply that the room was used as a storeroom for the sacristy and choir. [11]

Gutiérrez de la Chica designed the sacristy as a small chapel, 33 by 16 1/2 feet. The room had a flagstone floor, like the church, and a small altar at the north end. The roof was supported by vigas resting on corbels with a height of 13 1/2 feet to the underside of the vigas. [12] A window looking north probably opened over the altar, supplying natural light to the room. A large door opened into the east transept of the church, and a smaller door led into the ambulatorio. A doorway in the northwest corner provided access to a small room with a sand floor, probably used for storing the Host and the more valuable silver vessels and objects used in the Mass. The sacristan kept the vestments neatly stored in a large wooden closet or chest set into the east wall of the sacristy at the south corner. A similar closet in the sacristy of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, constructed near present El Paso in 1662 to 1668, had "a handsome chest of drawers of fourteen divisions, as elaborate as if it had been made in Mexico City." [13]

Construction of the Residence Hall and its Rooms

The rooms on the east side of the ambulatorio, reached by the residence hallway, had roofs about 13 1/2 feet high to the underside of the roof beams. Most of the rooms along this hallway had splayed doorways. [14]

The room on the north side of the ambulatorio, east of the sacristy, was probably the refectory. [15] The refectory had two doors, one opening into the residence hallway and one into the ambulatorio. [16] A third opening, about 20 inches wide, was used to pass prepared foods to the refectory from the kitchen on its north side. This may have been built as a window-like opening originally, and later altered to its present doorway size. A doorway from the ambulatorio into this room in addition to one from the residence hallway implies that access to it was needed by both friars and lay persons. The most likely rooms needing such access were the kitchen and the refectory. Because of its location, this room is more likely to have been the refectory. A second, smaller opening through its north wall may have been original, and would then have been the serving pass-through from the kitchen--the large room on the north. [17]

The kitchen, north of the refectory, had a doorway with a double splay. On the room side of the wall this doorway was five feet wide, (as were all the single-splay doorways), but on the outside, in the hall, it was only 3 1/2 feet wide. The storeroom on the west side of the south end of the residence hall had a single-splay doorway that was five feet wide on the interior and 4 1/2 feet wide on the hall side. The doorway of the storeroom on the east side of the far north end of the hallway had no splay; its straight sides were three feet apart. The doorway from the ambulatorio into the hall was also straight-sided and a full four feet wide. [18]

The cells and two associated rooms formed a row along the east side of the residence hallway. All the rooms measured 13 1/2 feet east to west. The southernmost cell was the largest with a total width of 24 1/2 feet including its alcove. The next cell north was 22 1/2 feet wide with its alcove, and the third cell and alcove were 19 1/2 feet wide. Each alcove was seven feet across, north to south. The doorway from each cell to its alcove was three feet wide, and had no splay.

Between the second and third cells, Gutiérrez placed a small, almost square room 13 1/2 feet wide and 14 1/2 feet long, and the short exit hall, 4 1/2 feet wide leading into the second courtyard. Although no trace of it remains, this hall must have had a door at its east end to close the friary on this side. North of the third cell was a small rectangular room, 13 1/2 feet by 8 1/2 feet. [19] The roofing for all these rooms consisted of round vigas without corbels supporting the usual latillas, matting, clay and plaster. The vigas ran east to west over the rooms, except over the short entrance hall from the second courtyard and the storeroom on the east side of the far north end of the residence hallway. Here short vigas ran north to south. [20]

Probable uses of the rooms other than the celdas can only be suggested, but are limited by their sizes. The room at the far north end of the row could hardly be used for anything other than a small storeroom, and was probably used as the despensa or pantry for the kitchen just down the hall. The room south of the short hall to the second courtyard door may have been an office space or the infirmary. The room at the far south end of the hall on the west side was larger and was probably the main oficina or storeroom.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE SECOND COURTYARD

Archeology in this area was limited to uncovering the surviving walls of the structures. Little information was recovered about the sequence of construction or use of the rooms. Only some general observations can be made.

Gutiérrez concentrated the food storage, maintenance, transportation, and animal husbandry activities in the second courtyard on the east side of the friary. The construction crew built this as an extension of the lines of the friary retaining walls, approximately one hundred feet west to east and one hundred and ten feet north to south, divided into three levels by two terrace walls. The main body of the friary stood on its platform supported by a massive retaining wall between it and the second courtyard. The second courtyard sloped up to the base of the eastern friary retaining wall, but there was still a six-foot drop from the friary floor level to the upper area of the courtyard. The construction crew built the terraces within the courtyard to serve as steps from the entrance to the friary down to the main level of the second courtyard, sloping from six feet to eleven feet below the floor of the friary at the eastern half of the courtyard, along the stone sheds and barns.

The crews built the upper terrace of the second courtyard about 1 1/2 feet lower than the friary floor. The second terrace surface was another 2 1/2 feet lower. The upper slope of the lowest level of the eastern courtyard was two feet lower. The area around the buildings along the east side of the second courtyard was five feet lower than the second terrace and eleven feet below the friary floor.

Across the courtyard and along the west side of the second courtyard buildings, the crew built a drainage ditch of flagstone about one foot wide, one foot deep, and covered with flags. This diverted water runoff from the convento and church and the higher levels of the second courtyard, around the second courtyard buildings and out through the retaining wall along the east side of the second courtyard. East of this the ground dropped another three feet. [21]

Gutiérrez laid out the plan of the second courtyard so that the passageway from the friary to the second courtyard opened at the center of the west side of the first terrace. [22] The crew built a ramp or several steps down from the friary entrance to the terrace. A similar arrangement may have connected the first terrace with the second and the second terrace with the west side of the lowest courtyard level.

Reconstruction in the early nineteenth century altered and obscured the structures that once stood along the east side of the courtyard. By comparison with other missions, it is clear that these were storage sheds, hay-barns, stables and pens, but the remodelling of the early 1800s left few details of their plan unaltered. The excavations conducted here in the 1930s did not record enough information to allow the original structures to be recognized within the later remodeling. All that can be said is that a series of stone rooms about twenty feet wide and altogether perhaps eighty feet long stood along the east edge of the courtyard, against the easternmost retaining wall. Probably several wooden coops and sheds stood along the north and south walls of the courtyard.

In the area east of the campo santo extending south from the church, the crew built three other retaining walls. The westernmost extended south from the southeast corner of the friary, acting as the east edge of the campo santo. It was about four feet thick and extended south an undetermined distance. East of it two other walls, each 2 1/2 to three feet thick, stepped down the slope. At least one long building was built using these two walls as a foundation. It extended south from the second courtyard wall about sixty-five feet and was nineteen feet across on its exterior. This may have been the granary for the mission. Nineteenth century construction again obscured the original building, to the point that little more can be determined.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH

The church rose along with the convento. Still, at the end of the third year of construction, the crews had completed the convento, but the church stood only to a height of about thirteen feet. At this height, the masons had laid a little more than 1/3 of the total volume of its stonework. Because of its height and complex structure, the church would require three more years of work to complete the masonry, roofing, interior woodwork, plastering, and decoration. If the crews worked at a normal rate of construction, the church was ready for dedication by 1632.

The crews constructed the walls of the nave, transept, and apse with a thickness of 4 1/2 feet, and the facade wall with a thickness of just under four feet. These were relatively thin walls for their height, but the design allowed for their thinness by including reinforcing tower buttresses ten feet square at principal corners. [23]

The construction of the church was a more complex task than the construction of the convento had been. The complexity of the construction resulted from the inclusion of structural wood elements such as door and window lintels and roof beams at several levels rather than at one level as in the convento. As they reached each element of wood construction, the crew carefully prepared the ledge or platform where the beams would rest. When several elements were involved, one supporting another, such as lintel beams supporting the floor joists of the choir loft, their sequence of construction became critical. Two wall height levels presented the most complex sequencing problems to Gutiérrez and his construction crew. Wall heights varied between 9 1/2 to 13 1/2 feet, where most of the door and window lintels and the choir loft, porch, and adjoining convento room roof beams all had to be installed, and twenty-eight to thirty-five feet, where the church roofing was constructed.

The First Level of Wood Construction

Along the east wall of the church, construction stopped at 10 1/2 feet on the south side of the sacristy wall and 13 1/2 feet north of it. The crew lifted the roof vigas for the adjoining sacristy, ambulatorio, and friary rooms into place, with corbels under the sacristy vigas. Then they continued the construction of the wall, encasing the ends of the vigas in stone.

At the south front and southeast corner, however, the job was more complex. The choir loft joists or floor support beams could not be laid until the main supporting viga for the choir loft, running across the width of the nave; the supporting posts and vigas of the front porch; and the lintel beams for the main doorway were all in place. [24]

The main choir loft viga was not a simple structure. The beam itself was about thirty-seven feet long and twelve inches square, and covered with decorative carving. Beneath it were one-foot-square corbels set into the walls at each end, and two vertical supporting posts with bolsters equally spaced between the walls. Above it, resting on top of the choir loft floor joists and also set into the side walls of the nave, was the bottom rail of the bannister of the choir loft.

Outside the church, the supporting beam of the porch was almost identical in construction. It had additional posts at the sides, holding up the ends of the beam, but between these was the same arrangement of two evenly-spaced posts topped by bolsters holding up the beam. Resting on the beam were the joists of the porch and choir loft, and above this was the bottom rail of the porch bannister.

The crews had to assemble three sets of supporting beams at the same time to construct this complex arrangement. They set up the front porch posts and bolsters and the interior posts and bolsters, then laid the corbels and beams in place, supported by the posts. At the same time they laid the lintels across the top of the main doorway, making an opening 9 1/2 feet high by 7 1/2 feet wide at the outer face of the wall. [25]

The thirteen joists supporting the floor of the choir loft were then lifted into place. Each joist was about ten inches square and thirty-five feet long, extending from the supporting beam of the porch outside the front wall, across the wall top and the lintel of the main door, down the nave to the main support beam of the choir loft. [26]

Once the joists were in place, the masons continued the stonework of the facade (the front wall of the church), and the side walls. The masons laid stone between the choir loft joists at the top of the facade. In the center of the facade, above the lintel of the main entrance doorway, the carpenters assembled the frame of the doorway opening from the choir loft out onto the porch roof or balcony, with the sill resting on the tops of the choir loft joists and the fill stone between them. At the same time they built a similar door frame at the east side of the choir loft, set into the nave wall. This doorway opened onto the landing of the stairway from the convento to the choir loft.

Across the top of the joists where they rested on the main, choir loft support viga, a woodwork crew laid the second beam securing it in position and forming the lower rail of the choir loft bannister. Where the joists rested on the supporting beam of the porch, the crew laid a similar rail for the porch bannister. [27] Finally, the porch and the choir loft received a floor of latillas, matting, and plastered clay. [28]

The work on other parts of the church walls continued. When the walls reached thirteen feet, the carpenters set the frames for two windows into the walls at the midpoints of the nave, one on the east wall and one on the west. [29] At fourteen feet they assembled the lower posts and panels of the bannister of the choir loft, and put the middle bannister rail in place. [30] When the walls reached eighteen to nineteen feet, the carpenters pieced together the top posts and panels of the choir loft bannister, and then set the upper bannister rail in place. At the same time they put in the lintels over the east and west nave windows, over the doorway from the stairway to the choir loft, and over the doorway from the choir loft to the front porch.

The Second Level of Wood Construction

The Nave Roof

The most difficult part of the construction of Concepción de Quarai began at twenty-six feet above the ground. At this height, construction began on the platform along the west wall of the nave where the corbels and vigas of the nave roof would rest. At the same time, the roof beam platform on the east wall of the nave was built at a height of twenty-seven feet. The difference in height provided a one-foot slope across the 27 1/2-foot width of the church for drainage of the runoff of rain and snow melt. The masons built the roof with an additional slope of about three inches from north to south. This prevented pooling at the clerestory window and channelled the runoff to canales, or drainspouts, through the parapet that allowed the water to fall to the ground. The carpenters carved the canales from solid pieces of wood, making each canal in the form of an open-topped wooden channel about 4 feet long, 8 inches across and 7 inches high, with a U-shaped cross-section. [31]

At the same wall height several other wood elements went into the walls. On the facade, the carpenters set the beams which would support the roof of the porch, above the doorway from the choir loft to the front porch. In the east transept, they laid the sill of the high window opening eastward over the convento.

While masonry work continued in the area of the transept and apse, in the nave the masons and carpenters together began the construction of the roof. The carpenters had cut, trimmed, and carved twenty-nine vigas. The decorative carved patterns covered the sides and bottom of each viga and consisted of repeating geometric patterns down the center of each beam, framed with lines and smaller patterns along the edges of the wood. The carpenters probably painted the patterns in the same colors used on the church walls and the altars, predominantly white, blue, red, green, and black. They made no real attempt to cut the vigas exactly the same length, but most of the vigas were about thirty-five feet long. Each viga was 10 1/2 inches wide, and twelve inches high. The vigas extending across the nave at the buttressing towers were somewhat longer, ranging between thirty-seven and forty-two feet long. Even longer were the pair of vigas for the bottom of the clerestory window, fifty-six feet in length. [32]

Four corbels supported every viga in the nave, two corbels beneath each end of the viga. The visible end of each corbel was carved into an identical scroll-like curve on its underside, and covered with decorative patterns on the side faces. The 116 corbels were made in two lengths, about 7 1/2 feet for the lower corbels and 11 1/2 feet for the upper corbels. The lower corbels were set about four feet into the walls of the nave, while the upper corbels were set in about 4 1/2 feet. This left an exposed length of 3 1/2 feet for the lower corbels and seven feet for the uppers. Only the exposed surfaces received decorative carving.

The corbels were set on the spot selected for each viga and braced in place against the interior scaffolding. Then the stone wall was built up between the corbels. The masons laid large flat stones, eight to ten inches square, against the sides of the corbels, securing the stones in place with mortar. Then they built up the stonework between the corbels with normal, horizontally-laid stone, until the wall was flush with the top of the upper corbel. At this point the viga was carefully lifted from inside the church, turned, and lowered onto the corbels. The masons built the stonework up around the viga. They trowelled a layer of mortar about two inches thick on top of the viga, and then continued the construction of the wall. They added another one to two feet of stone as a parapet, so that the final height of the nave walls was thirty-one feet. [33]

At the north end of the nave the pair of clerestory vigas were set in place along the edge of the transept. The carpenters set the two beams side by side, each with their corbels, to make a double-width viga. The ends of all six beams (the two vigas and the four corbels on each side) extended along the south face of the transept, flush with the surface of the stonework, and then on through the transept wall to within three to four inches of the outer face. [34]

When the carpenters had set the lower clerestory beams in place, the roofing crews began work on the nave. The carpenters laid smaller peeled logs called latillas diagonally from viga to viga. [35] On top of the latillas they placed a layer of fiber matting to close the small gaps between the logs, and then began shovelling a layer of adobe about six inches thick onto the prepared surface. This was trowelled flat, shaped around the ends of the canales to insure proper drainage, and probably sealed with a layer of plaster.

The Apse and Transept Roof

The masons continued with the construction of the apse and transept upper walls and roofing. In the apse, the carpenters and masons placed three fifteen-inch-square beams at a height of 23 feet. These beams were intended to be the mounting points for the retablo above the main altar when it was installed. Two of the beams were set flush into the side walls. The third beam ran across the apse with its ends set into the side walls at the same height as the side stringers but was not set into the stonework. [36]

At a height of thirty feet, the construction crew began work on the roof of the apse. First they set the roof beams of the apse in place. Each was eight inches wide and 9 1/2 inches high, with a double set of corbels and vigas at the front, or south, side of the apse. The carpenters and masons put the apse corbels and beams in place in the same manner as those of the nave, except that the ends of the beams were set into the side walls only about twenty inches, with the ends of the corbels almost flush with the ends of the beams. Structurally, the beams and corbels had little strength with such a shallow inset, but they supported little more than their own weight. The carpenters laid only a plank floor on top of the vigas to close off the spaces between them. No layers of latillas, matting, and adobe were placed above the planks, because this was not the actual roof of the apse, but something like a false roof to give the apse the proper visual height. The true roof of the apse would be built later, seven feet higher.

The masons built the walls of the transept and apse to 32 1/2 feet, where they lifted the upper clerestory window beams into place. This was also a double viga. Each beam was 10 1/2 inches wide, 12 inches high, and about fifty-six feet long, supported on corbels of the same description as those under the nave vigas. The carpenters set thick vertical posts between the lower and upper clerestory vigas, a pair against each wall and two pair equally spaced along the vigas. [37] With the posts in place the upper and lower clerestory vigas became a single system strong enough to support the seventeen transept beams that would rest on them, the stone parapet above, and the latillas, clay and plaster layers sealing the roof.

The construction crew laid a second set of long beams on top of the vigas at the mouth of the apse. These were a double set of vigas, each 56 feet long, with two sets of corbels on solid beams beneath. These formed the supports across the mouth of the apse on which the transept roof beams rested. When these vigas were in place, the transept was ready to receive the high roof. The crew lifted the one hundred and sixteen corbels and twenty-nine vigas into place, building the wall up around each corbel as it was braced in position. The carpenters had cut the corbels and vigas with a width of nine inches and a height of eleven inches, slightly smaller than those in the nave. Over the clerestory window, the transept corbels and vigas rested directly on the clerestory viga, but stonework was placed between the corbels and vigas to secure them in place. [38]

Figure 14. Elevation of the facade or south side of the church and convento of Quarai about 1632. As in previous elevation drawings, the structural information from existing walls, photographs, and drawings is shown in heavy lines, while the conjectural appearance of the completed church and convento are shown in fine line. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

The transept sloped downward toward the south about twelve inches and toward the east about three inches. [39] These slopes permitted rainwater and snow melt to flow to a canal set near the south edge of the east face of the transept. From the canal the water fell onto the roof of the ambulatorio, where it may have been caught in a storage barrel or allowed to run off to the ground. After the transept vigas and latillas were in place, the masons built up the stone parapets to a height of forty feet. This resulted in a parapet two feet high across the top of the clerestory window, and about 1 1/4 feet above the north edge of the transepts.

Over the apse they constructed a light roof on eight inch thick beams at the level of the transept roof. The north end of each beam rested on a transverse beam eight inches in diameter set into the side walls of the apse against the back or north wall. The south ends rested on the stonework between the transept vigas so that the upper surface of the roof over the transept matched the roof surface over the apse. Latillas were laid from beam to beam, running east-west. [40] This upper roof sloped down about six inches from the north edge of the transept roof to the north parapet of the apse. Here the rainwater and snow melt ran off through a canal set through the north wall parapet slightly off center to the east. [41]

The roofing crews finished the roof of the transept and apse as they had the nave. They rapidly laid coarse matting or onto the transept and apse latillas. These mats held the latillas in place and filled any cracks and gaps left between them. The crew then hauled bucket after bucket of adobe to the top of the church. This was spread over the matting, until a layer six to eight inches thick was built up. In the area of a canal the roofing crew formed the top surface of the adobe into smooth slopes down to the intake of the canal so that no ponds would form. Finally they may have spread a layer of lime plaster over the roof surfaces to reduce runoff erosion and to waterproof the adobe as much as possible. Because the process allowed some drainage of mud and plaster through the matting and down the interior wall surfaces, these final steps of roofing were completed before the final plastering and painting of the interior of the church.

Figure 15. Section down the nave of the church of Quarai about 1632, just after completion. The placement of the main altar and its platform, the stairs, and the sockets of the stair bannister and lower retablo supports can be seen at the north end of the church. At the south end the choir loft structure, including the two levels of bannisters, are visible. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

In the meantime the masons continued work on the six tower buttresses. They built the facade towers to thirty-nine feet, the nave towers to forty-three feet, and the apse towers to forty-five feet. As a final touch they formed the top surfaces of the towers into flattened four-sided pyramids, to insure drainage and reduce runoff and frost damage. This completed the major construction work on the church of Nuestra Señora de Purísima Concepción de Quarai. [42]

Antecoro and Bell Tower

As work on the church proceeded, in the southwest corner of the convento between the friary and the church the construction crew built a three-story room providing access to the choir loft and forming the bell tower. The first level, opening onto the ambulatorio, contained the stairs to the choir loft. The masons filled this space with earth and stone. On top of the fill they built a flight of stairs the full width of the room. The stairs had perhaps thirteen steps from the floor level of the ambulatorio up to the antecoro, the room leading to the choir loft itself. Two of these stairs were probably at the entrance from the ambulatorio and led up to a landing at the foot of the main flight to the antecoro. A window opened through the south wall of the room next to the east facade tower. [43]

From the antecoro, the crew probably built a ladder against one wall giving access through a hatch to the third level, a mirador or porch-like arrangement that served as the bell tower on the roof of the antecoro. The floor of this level was twenty feet above the ground. The stairs permitted the sacristan to reach the bells, hanging in a room built against the east face of the church east tower, at the south end of the mirador. The small bellroom had a parapet four feet high on the south side, and roof vigas ten feet above its floor, leaving a window-like opening toward the south six feet high and about six feet wide. The parapet around the roof reached to thirty-two feet, its top edge flush with the parapet of the nave. A doorway opened north onto the antecoro roof. The bell hung from a beam running east-west, with one end set into the side wall of the east tower of the church and the other in the east side wall of the bellroom. [44]

Figure 16. Section down the east side of the church of Quarai about 1660. The second story rooms above the sacristy have been added. The stairs to the antecoro and the bell tower on the third level can be seen at the south end of the church. The baptistry is visible beyond the front porch at the front of the church. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Finishing of the Church

The crew plastered the exterior surfaces of the church and friary with adobe. Gutiérrez may have had the exterior walls of the church and friary whitewashed as at Pecos. [45] On the interior a scratch coat of adobe plaster was laid on the walls to smooth the surfaces. Then the crew continued with the construction of the interior details.

Sanctuary and Side Altars

The masons built the sanctuary so that it was above the level of the transept floor, reached by stone steps with wooden treads. Each step had a rise of about six inches, a tread of twelve inches, and a width of about seventeen feet across the mouth of the apse. The steps began two feet south of the transept north wall, on a platform of packed earth about five inches high, edged with beams of wood. The platform was about eighteen feet across and four feet wide. The crews built four steps, giving a total rise of about 2 1/2 feet from the transept floor to the sanctuary floor. Along the sides of the stairs, the carpenters assembled balustrades or rails, with a large post at each end of the bottom step supporting the lower end of the railing, and the upper end set into the wall at the mouth of the apse about 6 1/2 feet above the nave floor. [46]

About two feet from the edge of the stairs they built another step up to the sanctuary platform. Two feet beyond they constructed the predella, the altar platform, a rectangular platform about eight feet wide and nine feet long with its surface about three feet above the level of the nave floor. Centered on the back edge of the predella, near the north wall, they built the altar itself. [47]

The altar consisted of several parts. The most substantial component was the altar table, a solid block of masonry about three feet high, two to three feet thick, and eight to ten feet wide. The table stood forward from the back wall of the apse, so that a space of about 2 1/2 feet remained behind it. Gutiérrez left the space between the altar table and the wall in hopes that it would eventually contain the base of the retablo. At seven feet above the nave floor, or about four feet above the predella surface, he set two blocks of wood into the walls. These would support the lower end of the retablo when it was installed. Gutiérrez hoped for a custom-made retablo of carved, painted, and gilded wood that would extend about twenty-six feet up the apse walls, and perhaps cover all three wall surfaces. The friar had laid out the plan of the apse walls so that they splayed outward, which would show the retablos to best advantage. [48] On top of the altar table the masons placed a smooth slab of carefully carved stone. Eventually various shelves and platforms would be placed here to hold the paraphernalia for the celebration of Mass. [49]

Along the north side of the transepts the masons built two collaterals, or side altars. They stood on platforms of packed earth about five inches high, edged with wooden beams, and measured about ten feet across and seven feet long. The altar tables were of stone, about seven feet wide and two feet thick, set 2 1/2 feet out from the north wall of the transept. Again, Gutiérrez planned that eventually the mission would be able to buy custom-made retablos to fit onto the transept walls behind the side altars. [50]

As a final touch, Gutiérrez gathered members of the crew with some artistic talent and put them to work painting decorations on the white wall plaster. When complete, these consisted of dados along the walls of the church, sacristy, and the choir loft stairwell and probably painted retablo designs behind the main altar, the two side altars, and the sacristy altar. The paintings were executed in red, black, gray, yellow, orange, and probably blue, white, and green. The retablo designs would serve until the new mission could afford to order carved and painted wooden retablos custom-made to fit into the spaces left behind the altars. [51]

With the completion of the wall painting, and after six years of effort, work on the church and convento of Concepción de Quarai came to an end. Gutiérrez began to stock the rooms of the convento with stores, equipment, supplies, and furniture that had either been stored in the purchased rooms of the pueblo or made to his order. Hay, corn, and wheat began to flow into the lofts and granaries. The Indian herdsmen moved the livestock into their places in the permanent pens and corrals. Gutiérrez placed the standard issue vestments and implements of the mass in the cabinets of the sacristy with a promise to himself to begin soon the process of replacing them with finer garments and vessels as the fortunes of the new mission allowed. He furnished the altars and hung the few pictures he had in appropriate places, imagining the splendor of the new church when the real retablos were in place. Concepción de Quarai was ready to face the future.

ADDITIONS AND ALTERATIONS

Modifications to the Church

Within a few years of completion of the church, the friars became aware of two things. First, they found the baptistry under the choir loft to be an awkward arrangement. Second, the west nave window allowed too strong a breeze to blow through the church.

The friars decided to construct a new baptistry against the west tower of the facade next to the front porch, rather than outside the west wall of the nave. [52] Placing the baptistry so that it was entered from the porch saved the difficulty of cutting a hole through the wall of the church under the choir. The masons built the baptistry as a simple flat-roofed room, almost square, with the opening for the door flush with the facade of the church and a window in the south wall for light.

The construction showed a number of peculiarities. At the point where it met the facade tower, the wall was neither butted nor tied into the fabric of the church. Instead, the full 3 1/2-foot thickness of the baptistry wall continued across the west face of the tower. An entrance room or foyer of somewhat irregular plan extended from the east wall of the baptistry to the edge of the porch. The thickness of the foyer's south wall varied from two feet ten inches where it abutted the baptistry to three feet ten inches inside the southeast corner. The east front wall of the foyer was two feet two inches in thickness under the edge of the porch roof. Within the context of earlier church and convento construction at Quarai, this irregular work was poor masonry and demonstrated a lower level of planning and expertise. The masons raised the walls to the height of the porch roof, so that the baptistry roof became an extension of the choir loft balcony.

When the baptistry complex was completed, it resembled the baptistry plan at San Bernardo de Awatovi. This was a contemporary mission church on Antelope Mesa near the modern settlements of Jeddito and Keams Canyon in northeastern Arizona, on the western frontier of New Mexico. The Franciscans built this church ca. 1630 as a temporary or visita church with a plain facade and no separate room for a baptistry. About 1640, after giving up on the construction of a larger, permanent church with a plan and dimensions almost identical to Quarai (including the lack of a specific room for the baptistry), the friars improved the smaller church by adding two massive facade towers and a front porch, with a baptistry against one of the towers and a matching room against the other. As at Quarai, the baptistry opened under the roof of a facade porch. [53]

The resemblance between the Awatovi churches and Quarai, and an examination of other churches constructed before 1640, suggests the hypothesis that most churches built in New Mexico before 1640 had no baptistry room, and that the baptismal function was performed in an area under the choir loft. Not until after 1640 did the construction of baptistries as separate rooms become popular for new churches, and the earlier churches added baptistries to their structures during the same period.

About the same time as the construction of the baptistry at Quarai, the friars sealed the west nave window with careful stonework closely resembling that of the interior surface of the nave wall. The masonry formed a stone plug about one foot thick filling the entire window opening. This sealed off drafts and any rain leakage caused by the constant west wind, still a distinct characteristic of Quarai today. [54]

Changes to the Convento

In the late 1650s Fray Jerónimo de la Llana, the guardian of Quarai at the time, undertook a series of alterations to produce additional space within the convento. The most significant additions affected the sacristy, kitchen, and refectory. [55]

De la Llana decided that the convento of Quarai needed a roomier principal cell, and that it should take advantage of the cooler breezes available at the second-story level. He and the masons worked out a design that allowed the construction of a cell on the second story, above the refectory.

The design required several changes at the ground-floor level. The masons built a partition wall two feet thick across the middle of the sacristy, with a doorway at the west end of the wall. This wall was intended to support portions of the structures to be added on the second-floor level, and divided the original sacristy into two rooms (rooms 7 and 4). The masons converted the storeroom (room 6) to a stairwell by constructing a wooden staircase in the small space. They narrowed the doorway from 4 1/2 to 2 1/2 feet by adding stonework to the north edge of the opening and then replastering the area. This allowed the base of the stairway to extend farther south from the north wall without awkwardly blocking part of the doorway.

In the south room (room 4), the masons reorganized the space. They moved the sacristy cabinet from the alcove in the east end of the room, and probably placed it against the south wall. The masons enclosed the alcove itself by constructing a two-foot-thick stone wall across the opening, leaving a doorway at the north end. This converted the alcove to a small closet or storeroom.

The rearrangement of space must have required that the various activities originally carried out in the sacristy chapel had to be divided between the two smaller rooms. Unfortunately, the excavation of these rooms in 1934-35 was not sensitive enough to recognize the details of furnishings and built-in features recording such a reorganization. What evidence is available suggests that the north room (room 7) remained a friar's chapel, while the south room (room 4) became the vestry, or robing room.

Figure 17. Plan of the mission of Quarai about 1670. The portals of the ambulatorio and of the portería have been walled in and the changes to the rooms along the residence hall completed. The kitchen is now on the east side of the hall, and the secure storeroom (room 29) has been built next to it in the second courtyard. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

East of the sacristy, the work crews converted the kitchen into a storeroom. They moved the cooking equipment out of the kitchen, removed the ovens and chimney, and built a partition wall about two feet thick, extending north to south across the at the west edge of the small doorway or window in the south wall. The small doorway or window was probably filled at the same time. Like the partition wall added in the sacristy, the masons built this wall to support structures on the second-floor level. In the east end of the room they built two large, rather asymmetrical stone storage bins, one against the north wall and one against the south wall. The south splay of the double-splay doorway was filled, effectively narrowing the opening. The carpenters removed the narrow double doors and installed a single door pivoted at its north edge, a stronger and more secure arrangement apparently intended to protect the contents of the room. The changes converted the former kitchen to two smaller storerooms.

Above the kitchen roof the masons began construction on the second-story walls of the new cell. They raised the walls of the refectory another eleven feet, installing door and window frames in their assigned places as they went. Where they had built the partition wall across the refectory at ground level, they constructed a second-story partition to separate the cell from the alcove. This resulted in a cell eighteen feet long and 16 1/2 feet wide, and an alcove 8 1/2 feet across and 16 1/2 feet wide, a considerable increase over the largest cell and alcove on the first floor. The second-story cell probably had windows facing north and east and two doorways, one opening south onto the roof of the refectory and the other opening into the alcove. [56]

Above room 7 of the sacristy, between the second-story cell and the stairwell in room 6, the masons built a mirador, a porch-like space with a good roof but open on the south. A bench and stone balustrade probably enclosed the north side, while two posts supported the second-story roof and parapet along the south side. A second bench and balustrade may have enclosed this side between the posts and the side walls. The mirador opened out onto the roof of the south half of the sacristy and the refectory. These two roof surfaces formed an open porch along the south side of the cell. [57]

De la Llana moved the kitchen function from room 8 to room 13, the third or smallest cell. He converted the alcove (room 12) to a small pantry, narrowed the doorway between the two rooms by the addition of a splay opening toward room 13, and built a door into the doorway in order to allow the contents of the room to be secured. [58] He filled the main doorway from the cell into the hall, leaving a small pass-through window at shoulder height, and cut a new doorway through the south wall of the room into the passageway leading from the residence hallway to the second courtyard.

Down the residence hallway, the masons altered room 16, which had been an office or the infirmary. They removed the hallway wall south of the doorway and filled the doorway itself. They built a large square stone pillar in the center of the room, then built a cross wall joining the square pillar to the west wall. The alterations and additions to this room strongly suggest that it was converted to a stairwell. If so, the stairs gave additional access to the roof of the one-story sections of the convento and the second-story celda principal.

At the south end of the hallway, de la Llana changed room 21 from a storeroom to some other use. Adding stonework to the south side of the doorway, the masons narrowed it by one foot so that it was identical to the other doorways along the hall. The infirmary or office use of room 16 probably shifted to room 21. The storage activity of room 21 may have been moved to the old kitchen, room 8. This placed all the storerooms at the north end of the hall, in rooms 8 and 11.

In the patio, de la Llana converted the post-and-lintel portal along the sides of the ambulatorio to a continuous solid wall pierced by windows and doors. The masons added an eleven-inch-thick layer of stone against the inside and outside surfaces of the balustrade and posts, covering the old portal structure. The wall averaged two feet nine inches in thickness. They enclosed the original posts in stonework, and installed wooden window frames in the spaces between the posts. There were a total of ten windows, three on the east and west sides, and two on the north and south, flanking the two entrances into the patio. The windows on the north and south were splayed, with the narrower side toward the patio, while the windows on the east and west were straight-sided. To make the patio visually more pleasing, the masons covered the edges of the corner pillars with a rounded stonework surface, making false round stone pillars. Because the masonry work reduced the size of the windows opening from the patio into the ambulatorio, the ambulatorio became somewhat darker and more enclosed, but less exposed to the weather. [59]

De la Llana also directed changes to the entranceway into the portería. The masons built massive square stone pillars at the east and west corners of the open south side, then enclosed this side with a thin wall, one foot nine inches thick. The wall extended from the corner pillars past the south side of the posts supporting the lintel beam of the south wall, leaving a doorway 3 1/2 feet wide in the center of the wall. The masons probably constructed windows on either side of the central door.

The utility buildings along the east side of the second courtyard undoubtedly changed during this time also, but rebuilding in the nineteenth century obscured these changes. Archeological work, rather than separating the events of the nineteenth century from those of the seventeenth, instead destroyed much of the evidence, and archeologists never became aware that were examining two major construction events. Architectural investigations have been unable to supply significant information about the structures. The seventeenth century as-built plan of the second courtyard buildings, and the changes to that plan, will remain unknown until further excavations are carried out in the second courtyard.

The Famine of 1667 to 1672

In 1667 a severe famine began in New Mexico. The southern pueblos were hard hit by the food shortage. In order to feed the starving Indians of the pueblos, the Franciscans began shipping food by wagon from conventos with surpluses to those with shortages. In order to protect the food supplies, the Salinas missions built secure storerooms for their protection. At Quarai, de la Llana had the masons build a new, two-story kitchen storeroom (room 29) on the first platform of the courtyard abutting the friary wall outside the new kitchen. The interior of the room was fourteen feet wide and extended westward nineteen feet from the convento wall to the first terrace retaining wall, with a floor level about a foot lower than the terrace on which the building stood. The masons built the new walls three feet thick. The interior floor was three feet lower than the floor of the convento, so that the walls of the new room would be sixteen to seventeen feet high if they were raised to the height of the adjacent convento rooms.

The masons cut a new doorway through the east wall of room 13, the new kitchen, into the new storeroom. They built stairs from the kitchen up through the doorway to the second floor level of the storeroom. The cooks probably used the first floor level as the main storage area for the kitchen. They reached this room from the kitchen by a wooden stairway or ladder through the floor from the upper level. A doorway opened onto the second courtyard through the north wall of the storeroom. A massive door closed this doorway, protecting the valuable supplies stored within the room. [60]

Construction in the Pueblo

During the years from the establishment of the mission of Purísima Concepción de Quarai, probably in 1626, to the abandonment of the pueblo and mission in about 1677, the Spanish presence had a strong influence on the pueblo. Although excavation information is limited, the work of Wesley Hurt in 1939-40 demonstrated that most of the pueblo structures around plaza A were built after the arrival of the Spanish. This includes virtually all of the structures forming mounds I and J, and much of mound H.

The alignments of the walls of the structures forming these mounds are striking. The eastern fifty-five feet of the north exterior wall of mound H are almost exactly aligned with the north side of the church and convento, while the north exterior wall of mound J is parallel to the south facade of the church and convento, and aligns with the edge of the platform along the south side of the mission. These alignments suggest that the eastern half of mound H and all of mounds I and J were not only built after the arrival of the Spanish, but were intentionally laid out, probably under the supervision of the Franciscans, to form an enclosed plaza on the west side of the mission.

On the east end of house block J, adjacent to the church, the Spanish built a structure for their own use. This building may have been the casa real or casa de communidad of Quarai, built and maintained by the Franciscans or the governor as the residence for visiting government officials or merchants. [61] The general slope of the ground and the roads used in the nineteenth century imply that the main road from Abó to Quarai and on to Tajique passed from south to north through plaza A, between the casa real and the church. [62]