Category Archives: American Heritage

Dispatches: Good Friday Pilgrimages in New Mexico

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A group of people standing around three wooden crosses on a rocky hillside.
Good Friday, Tomé Hill, Stations of the Cross, 1976.
Courtesy of Los Lunas Museum of Heritage and Arts

New Mexico has several well-known Easter pilgrimage sites reflecting its Hispano-Catholic roots. While Chimayó may be the most famous, it’s worth mentioning Tomé Hill, south of Albuquerque, and Mount Cristo Rey in Sunland Park, NM.

Tomé Hill

Tomé Hill is a high point about 30 miles south of Albuquerque in Valencia County on the east side of the Rio Grande River and five miles southeast of Los Lunas. The prominent high spot has attracted travelers for thousands of years and was once a major landmark along El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Petroglyphs (rock art) along the route speak to even earlier significance as a possible spiritual site for Native and early Hispano peoples. The current Christian pilgrimage tradition started as a passion play in Tomé Plaza in 1948 and later evolved into a procession and ascent up Tomé Hill with members of the Hermanos Penitentes (Penitent Brotherhood), a lay Catholic fraternity, carrying and then erecting a cross on the summit. Today, visitors can see from below several crosses that dominate the summit view, hike to the top, or participate in the Good Friday pilgrimage.

Steel arch sculpture with steel sculpture people and animal figures in front of the arch and a desert hill in the background.
La Puerta del Sol, Cor-Ten steel sculpture by Armando Alvarez at the foot of Tomé Hill, NM.

Learn more:
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/new-mexico-el-cerro-de-tome.htm

Los Lunas Museum of Heritage and Arts has nearly 60 images from the 1970s online: https://nmdigital.unm.edu/digital/collection/loslunas/search/searchterm/tome%20hill/page/2

Mount Cristo Rey

On the far southern border with Mexico, in Sunland, NM, Sierra de Cristo Rey, or Mount Cristo Rey, is home to a 29-foot-tall limestone statue of Christ with his arms outstretched on a cross. The mountain straddles the US and Mexico border and serves as a pilgrimage site for thousands who travel from El Paso, TX, Southern New Mexico, and Chihuahua, Mexico. To reach the statue at the top, pilgrims ascend a 2.2-mile gravel path. The monument was constructed in 1939 by sculptor Urbici Soler, who donated his time and money to fund a large part of the construction. The cross has been continuously standing and maintained by volunteers since October 29, 1939. New Mexico, Texas, and Chihuahua, Mexico are all visible from the top.

Learn more:
http://www.mtcristorey.com/

This 2018 YouTube video provides a great visual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urpg0g0uVUs

Tomé Hill is open year-round, and Mount Cristo Rey is open on a limited basis for special events, but they are both abuzz with the faithful, as well as the curious, during annual Good Friday pilgrimages. If you have walked either route or know of other pilgrimage sites in New Mexico, let us know!

Black and white image of a crowd of people in the parking lot of a church with one man holding a large wooden cross over his shoulder.
Arrival at the Santuario, 1996. Photograph by Sam Howarth. Neg. no. HP.2024.14.14. POG/NMHM.

If you’re in Santa Fe be sure you see our new exhibition opening April 12, Chimayó: A Tradition of Faith to learn more about the state’s largest and most known pilgrimage site: https://nmhistorymuseum.org/exhibition/details/6558/chimayo-a-tradition-of-faith

Mark Dodge
Curator of Southwest Memories
Mark.Dodge@dca.nm.gov

Dec 2, 2020, the next Friends of History 1st Weds Lecture: Cathleen Cahill presents Recasting the Vote.

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Graphic with details of Dr. Cathleen Cahill’s lecture.

Join us December 2nd at 12pm (MST) on our Youtube channel for December’s 1st Wednesday Lecture.

Will be joined by Dr. Cathleen Cahill, Associate Professor of History at Penn State University. Professor Cahill will tell the powerful stories of a multiracial group of activists who propelled the national suffrage movement toward a more inclusive vision of equal rights. Most suffrage stories are centered in the East and the Southwest as an afterthought at best. But Cahill asks what happens when we refocus the lens to center the stories in NM and the wider region? This talk reveals that suddenly our suffrage history is more diverse and more complicated than we anticipated. She will especially focus on New Mexico by exploring the important role of Spanish-speaking suffragists, the activism of African American women, and the debate over the Native American right to vote.  With suffragists of color in the foreground, Cahill will recast the suffrage movement as an unfinished struggle that extended beyond the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Cathleen D. Cahill, PHD is associate professor of history at Penn State University and the author of Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869–1933, winner of the 2011 Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award and finalist for the 2012 David J. Weber-Clements Prize, Western History Association.

The bookcover for Recasting the Vote by Cathleen D. Cahill

Friends of History is a volunteer support group for the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Its mission is to raise funds and public awareness for the Museum’s exhibitions and programs. Friends of History fulfills its mission by offering high quality public history programs, including the First Wednesday Lecture Series. For more information, or to join the Friends of History, go to friends-of-history.org

You can find a playlist of previous 1st Wednesday Lectures on our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/nmmuseum and also on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NewMexicoHistoryMuseum