Accordingly they made great preparations. They secured the largest
sala, or hall, in the township and scoured the country for
musicians--fiddlers and guitar players. Every person of any social
notability was invited. They drew the line of social respectability
at peons, or bondmen. This was a happy-go-lucky caste of people who
possessed no property nor anything else, and consequently they had no
cares and were under no responsibility of any kind, as the wealthier
classes, who virtually owned them, had to provide for their
necessities. The system of peonage in New Mexico had been abolished
with the abolition of slavery in the United States, but the peons did
not realize the wretchedness of their deplorable social status, and
in their ignorance they regarded their bondage as a privilege,
believing themselves fortunate to have their wants provided for by
their patrones. They were treated kindly by their masters and looked
upon as poor relations and intimate but humble friends.
The entertainment was to be of the velorio (wake) type, which begins
as a prayer meeting and ends in a dance. My friends exerted
themselves to the utmost to make this event the social climax of the
season. They sent a committee to the pueblo of Isleta for several
goatskins full of native wine, and incidentally they borrowed San
Augustin, the pueblo's famous image saint, who they intended should
preside over the velorio.
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