Located in Southwest Collection.

A short history of a secret and sacred Spanish-American Catholic brotherhood who have pledge themselves to Christian devotions.

Originally published under title: Dictionary of Chicano folklore. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, c2000.

This study by an author with intergenerational ties to the Penitentes--the deeply religious group called Hermanos de la Luz (Brothers of the Light)--ties the santero folk art of New Mexico, the Penitente Brotherhood, and the Penitente religious hymns together. (Christian)

I have great love for preserving and retelling unwritten history that my great-grandparents, grand-parents, parents, and I have lived to tell about. I have great ambitions to save our culture and to retell stories of how our ancestors lived. I believe that among the things that shape our lives, perhaps our history is the most significant. I have always had a dream that someday I would be given the opportunity to be able to retell the stories of our ancestors. I have great hopes that you can help me get this book, The Penitentes, published so many of our people can read this and imagine what our lives were like. I believe this book should be published because what is written is exactly what I witnessed as a child and young adult. I have written what my grandparents and parents shared with me about the way of living that actually was the government of this small villages. That is exactly how they learned to live and follow rules in a civilized world. I have never read a book written about the Penitentes, where the author actually saw and or experienced their way of living. Our language and culture has been preserved for hundreds of years because of this secret society. They are the ones that brought the Castilian Spanish to our area. The purpose of this book is to share how our culture, morals, and values were being developed in a very low profile way of living, and their way of living by their strong ways still exists in our small rural communities. This book can be read by many different people who have a wide variety of interests. They may be interested in the area, or they may want to learn a very different way of how a village functioned many years ago, how the villages were formed, and the purpose and responsibility of everyone in their individual village. I believe our culture has been denied or our real way of living for hundreds of years was wrongly described. I believe my book will attract different people who have interest in culture, ethnics, history, and how the real Hispanics lived hundreds of years ago, a totally different form of government that worked just fine for the people who lived in these areas. I believe my book is unique and very culturally related to all Hispanics.