It was the Christmas season that was particularly celebrated at Azqueltán, for then the old pageant of “Los Pastores” was performed. For weeks before, the performers, all prominent men of the village, were engaged in making their costumes of long, white dresses and their staffs decorated with colored tinsel and tissue paper. The words and music had been handed down from the days of the first Spanish missionaries, and depicted the adventures of a group of shepherds journeying to the nativity. José’s father, Francisco, played the part of the hermit with a crude mask of wood and an immense rosary of wooden beads. It was José’s ambition to take the part of Satan, who attempted to prevent the pilgrimage.