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Overview

Chimayó is a community in Rio Arriba and Santa Fe counties in New Mexico. The name is derived from a Tewa name for a local landmark, the hill of Tsi Mayoh. The town is unincorporated and includes many neighborhoods, called plazas or placitas, each with its own name, including El Potrero de Chimayó (the plaza near Chimayó's communal pasture) and the Plaza del Cerro (plaza by the hill). The cluster of plazas called Chimayó lies near Santa Cruz, approximately 25 miles north of Santa Fe.

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Background

The Potrero plaza of Chimayó is known internationally for a Catholic chapel, the Santuario de Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas, commonly known as El Santuario de Chimayó. A private individual built it by 1816 so that local people could worship Jesus as depicted at Esquipulas; preservationists bought it and handed it over to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in 1929. The chapel is now managed by the Archdiocese as a Catholic church. For its reputation as a healing site (believers claim that dirt from a back room of the church can heal physical and spiritual ills), it has become known as the "Lourdes of America." The sanctuary was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

Chimayó is sited in a valley within the Sangre de Cristo Mountains 24 miles (38.4 km) north of Santa Fe. Chimayó is approximately 6075 ft above sea level.

El Santuario de Chimayo

El Santuario de Chimayó is a Roman Catholic church in Chimayó, New Mexico. (Santuario is Spanish for "sanctuary".) This shrine, a National Historic Landmark, is famous for the story of its founding and as a contemporary pilgrimage site.

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Description

The Santuario is entered through a walled courtyard. Built of adobe with a bell tower on each side, the church is 60 feet (18 m) long and 24 feet (7.3 m) wide with walls more than 3 feet (about 1 m) thick. Pointed caps on the towers and a metal pitched roof (blocking the clerestory) were added after 1917, probably in the 1920s. The doors were carved by the 19th-century carpenter Pedro Domínguez. An unusual feature is two side-by-side rooms at the entrance forming a vestibule or narthex, once used for storage. The nave contains a crucifix representing Christ of Esquipulas, 6 feet (1.8 m) tall. Other notable folk-art decorations include five reredoses and a small sculpture of St. James the Great. A small room called el pocito (the little well) contains a round pit, the source of "holy dirt" (tierra bendita) that is believed to have healing powers. An adjacent prayer room displays many ex-votos as well as photographs, discarded crutches, and other testimonials of those purportedly healed.

El Santuario de Chimayó was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

Many visitors to the church take a small amount of the "holy dirt", often in hopes of a miraculous cure for themselves or someone who could not make the trip. Seekers of cures commonly rub themselves with the dirt or simply keep it. The Church replaces the dirt in the pocito from the nearby hillsides, sometimes more than once a day, for a total of about 25 or 30 tons a year.

The feast of Our Lord of Esquipulas is celebrated on January 15 or on the Sunday nearest that date. The feast of St. James the Great (Santiago) is celebrated on the fourth weekend of July.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Chimayo, New Mexico", and "El Santuario de Chimayo", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0