"Descansó / Prayer Rest" El Rancho de Las Golondrinas La Cienega, New Mexico 

by Robert Benjamin

"Descansó / Prayer Rest"

"Descansó / Prayer Rest"		Code #  024A	Size 19" x 28"	12 color serigraph		$450
		"Descansó / Prayer Rest" limited edition 12 color serigraph of 110 signed & numbered 19"x 28" on - $450 + $20 S/H & insurance

El Rancho de Las Golondrinas -- La Cienega, New Mexico

        In the rolling hills some fifteen miles south of Santa Fe, lying in a small valley is El Rancho de Las Golondrinas, The Ranch of the Swallows.

        Evidences of the ancient Indian pueblos show that man had lived in the area long before the first Spanish Conquistadors came to New Mexico.

        For food, the Indians planted corn, squash and beans in the valley of La Cienega an ideal place to stop, with grass belly-high to their horses, wild flowers in abundance, and a small spring-fed river.

        In the 1650's Manuel Vega y Coca brought the site by royal purchase from the Spanish government. One of the requirements he had to fulfill was a command by the King of Spain to build on the property a torreon, or round high fort.

        A large rancho in those days became a total entity dependent mostly upon itself for all the needs of life.

        Priests traveled to the rancho on regular schedules to baptize the young, marry the engaged, solace the older, and bury the dead.

        Descansó is a Spanish word derived from descansar, which means to rest. When one of the rancho's inhabitants died, after the funeral service the body was carried by pallbearers to the burial ground, or the camposanto. The body was borne on a door or ladder and wrapped in a winding cloth, the mourners would stop along the way to rest and pray a sudario for the soul of the deceased. The cross was also a reminder that it was necessary, even on the last journey, to rest, pray, and to meditate.

 "El Rancho de Las Golondrinas is now a living tribute to Spanish Colonial life in New Mexico, and the Descansó is part of that life."

Robert Benjamin

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