Death Comes for the Archbishop · Chapter
III: The Rock explained
Bishop Latour and Jacinto ride across the mesa plain toward Ácoma.
What happens
Bishop Latour and Jacinto ride across the mesa plain toward Ácoma. The Bishop reflects on the stark, ancient landscape and the rock mesas that resemble cathedrals. He learns from Jacinto that the Ácoma people live on a high mesa for safety from hostile tribes. They ascend the rock during a storm, and the Bishop contemplates the symbolic meaning of the rock as sanctuary, permanence, and the embodiment of human yearning for safety and loyalty.
Themes in this chapter
Landscape and Place
The mesa plain and the rock of Ácoma are described as ancient, monumental, and formative to the identity of the people who live there.
Faith and Doubt
The Bishop reflects on the rock as a symbol of sanctuary and the human yearning for permanence, linking it to Christ and the Old Testament.
Cultural Clash and Harmony
The Bishop contrasts European history with the fixed, unchanging life of the Ácoma, and reflects on the literalness of Indian life.
Characters to notice
- Bishop Jean Marie Latour
Rides to Ácoma with Jacinto, reflects on the mesa landscape and the symbolic meaning of the rock.
- Jacinto
Guides Bishop Latour to Ácoma, points out the pueblo, explains the history of the Enchanted Mesa and the reason the Ácoma live on the rock.
- Father Jesus
The good priest at Isleta who talks with the Bishop about the Moqui country and the old rock-set pueblos.
Key passages
“He was on a naked rock in the desert, in the stone age, a prey to homesickness for his own kind, his own epoch, for European man and his glorious history of desire and dreams.”
Standing on the barren rock, the Bishop felt a deep longing for the familiar world of Europe and its rich, dynamic history.
Highlights the Bishop's sense of isolation and cultural displacement.
“The rock, when one came to think of it, was the utmost expression of human need; even mere feeling yearned for it; it was the highest comparison of loyalty in love and friendship.”
The rock symbolizes the deepest human desire for security and constancy, and is the ultimate metaphor for faithfulness.
Reflects the Bishop's meditation on the symbolic meaning of the rock.
“The Ácomas, who must share the universal human yearning for something permanent, enduring, without shadow of change—they had their idea in substance. They actually lived upon their Rock; were born upon it and died upon it.”
The Ácoma people embody the universal desire for permanence by literally living their entire lives on the mesa.
Illustrates the theme of tradition vs. change and the literalness of Indian life.