WAUPACA COUNTY NEWS

December 8, 1921

 

OLDEST GHOST ABOUT TO STIR

Every Twelve Years Since Spanish Invasion Body of Murdered Priest Appears

 

WON’T STAY INTERRED

Spaniard Killed by Indians in New Mexico Who Feared He Would Betray Them to Spanish Invaders

 

            Isleta, N.M. – Here reposes at present the oldest and most persistent ghost in America. This might be inscribed in the little adobe church here.

            Long ago, at the time of the first Spanish invasions of southwestern America, a Spanish friar was captured by the Indians.  Although kept as a prisoner for a time, he later won their confidence and as years went by was admitted to their peculiar religious and political circles.

            At last the rumor reached the tribe of the advance of Coronado in search of treasure.  The Indians feared treachery on the part of their Spanish friend and one night he was stabbed to death by one of the more skeptical members of the tribe.

            The medicine men were horrified at the crime, for not only had they come to respect the Spaniard’s Christian teachings, but had made him a participator in their own religion.  And above all, they knew what might be expected of enraged Spaniards if they should discover the crime.

                                                            Buried Near Altar.

            The priest’s body was hastily wrapped in a sheet and without any prayer or ceremony buried deep in front of the altar in the little Christian church in Isleta.

            Coronado’s men never learned of the crime, but a few years later a peculiar mound appeared in front of the altar in the little church.  The horrified natives observed the mound was exactly the length and width of a man’s body.  Soon the hard earth floor cracked and one morning, just 12 years after the burial of the priest, his body was discovered laying face upward above the spot where he had been buried.

            On examination it was found that he body was soft, as though the priest had been dead but a few days and the wound in his back was clotted with fresh blood.  There seemed to be nothing to do but to bury him again.  This they did and were careful to press the earth down very firmly.

            It was no use. The crack reappeared and widened and at the end of another 12 years they found him lying there again.  And as before the body showed no sign of decomposition.

                                                            Ghost Appeared

            This went on every 12 years until 1912.  Then when, according to habit, the ghost appeared, the old men called a council.  The governor was sent for, as well as the priest of the parish and the archbishop of Sante Fe and a visiting cardinal from Rome.  They all came and a paper was singed to the effect that they had seen the body. Again it was buried, but this tie in a heavy oak casket, and over the grave, and even over the whole floor of the church, was laid and nailed a heavy plank floor.

            Plank floors are not common in little adobe churches in this region, and this is the explanation of the most truthful man in Isleta.  But now, plainly visible there is a bulge in the planking the size of a man’s body and the nail sin the floor protrude!

            Apparently the ghost is trying to come again to Isleta, and the townspeople are looking forward apprehensively to 1924.