support of the missionaries was very simple.
Besides the small salary paid him by the synod, the pastor must receive
some help from his parish. This was a moral as well as a material
necessity. That interest partly depends on personal giving, is a
principle recognized in all churches. So at once the Spanish laws
commanded from the Pueblos the same contribution to the church as Moses
himself established. Each Indian family was required to give the tithe
and the first fruits to the church, just as they had always given them
to their pagan cacique. This was no burden to the Indians, and it
supported the priest in a very humble way. Of course the Indians did
_not_ give a tithe; at first they gave just as little as they could. The
"father's" food was their corn, beans, and squashes, with only a little
meat rarely from their hunts,--for it was a long time before there were
flocks of cattle or sheep to draw from. He also depended on his
unreliable congregation for help in cultivating his little plot of
ground, for wood to keep him from freezing in those high altitudes, and
even for water,--since there were no waterworks nor even wells, and all
water had to be brought considerable distances in jars. Dependent wholly
upon such suspicious, jealous, treacherous helpers, the good man often
suffered greatly from hunger and cold. There were no stores, of course,
and if he could not get food from the Indians he must starve. Wood was
in some cases twenty miles distant, as it is from Isleta to-day. His
labors also were not small. He must not only convert these utter pagans
to Christianity, but teach them to read and write, to farm by better
methods, and, in general, to give up their barbarism for civilization.

How difficult it was to do this even the statesman of to-day can hardly
measure; but what was the price in blood is simple to be understood. It
was not the killing now and then of one of these noble men by his
ungrateful flock,--it was almost a habit. It was not the sin of one or
two towns. The pueblos of Taos, Picuries, San Yldefonso, Nambe,
Pojoaque, Tesuque, Pecos, Galisteo, San Marcos, Santo Domingo, Cochiti,
San Felipe, Puaray, Jemez, Acoma, Halona, Hauicu, Ahuatui, Mishongenivi,
and Oraibe--twenty different towns--at one time or another murdered
their respective missionaries. Some towns repeated the crime several
times. Up to the year 1700, _forty_ of these quiet heroes in gray had
been slain by the Indians in New Mexico,--t