Remember the Alamo? Like the Moon Landing, created in a Hollywood studio?
Burned, moved, now surrounded by Sea World and dozens of other theme parks in New World San Antonio. They call it modernization and it’s apparently a great improvement.
What has been lost? What has been dis-covered and then re-covered, perhaps again and again? Perhaps deliberately covered in myths so deep we’ll never find the truth again.
According to official history from 1974, we have a what I would call a tall tale; a fish story some might call it, told to a captive audience without a clue about fishing, they’re just there for the tale.
“Easterners, with largely Anglo-Saxon traditions behind them, beheld in mission ruins the remnants of a culture far removed from their own: Iberian, Holy Roman Catholic, Mexican, American Indian. And in the massive architecture they saw an elemental simplicity derived from the earth itself, with here and there splashes of color and design Moorish in origin. To the unlearned, those familiar with prim white New England and Deep South churches with thin spires and neatly kept churchyards, the solid bulk of the missions with their tremendous courtyards and surrounding walls was at once alien and awe-inspiring. These were not churches as Easterners knew them, but fortresses and places of learning and of toil under the sun. The Spanish missions were all these, and more; they represented a great religious and political ideal launched by a great nation now on the wane. They were visible evidence of Iberian penetration of the North American continent.
From the last of the seventeenth century through the end of the eighteenth, thirty-six missions were built in Texas alone, and there were a great many more scatter throughtout Arizona and New Mexico. The cost in sweat and blood was high; eighty-one Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries were killed during the period by those very men whose souls the friars had come to lead into salvation. The friars, barefooted, armed only with the cross and an unshakable faith, marched across burning deserts and through snowy mountain passes to bring Christianity to aboriginal tribes whose beliefs were as deeply ingrained as the missionaries’ own. Ultimate success eluded the strongest efforts of these enduring men wearing robes of gray wool, yet they achieved more than they had dared hope when they embarked upon uncertain voyages from distant Spain, or from remote areas in the wilds of Mexico. They had many rivers to cross, many burdens to bear. How these men of God, keen of intellect and tough of body, endured under conditions few men today could tolerate, is one of the great sagas of the past few centuries.”
Sagas indeed . . .
However, when logic is applied to such sagas, they appear as porous as this Enchanted Rock.
Those with interest in such fringe topics probably already know there’s a vibrant ‘community’ online questioning such official narratives. They are in my top 3 favorite things about Youtube. I especially appreciate when they aren’t trying to sell another story, but rather just presenting evidence to offer food for thought for the curious.
And of course, fodder for those who think they can craft a better story . . .
