From: Ravelings of a Panama Tapestry by Sue Core
HISTORICAL NOTES:
At the time of its destruction, Panama Viejo's population was
largely Spanish, the greater part of whom belonged to the nobility and
originated from Seville. They were described as being "very polite and
of much understanding."
There were in the city several hundred dwellings of the better class,
built of wood and stone, handsomely constructed and elegantly furnished.
Besides these there were also hundreds of humbler houses belonging to
the common people, many warehouses stocked with foreign goods, a
hospital, the King's Stables, a Genoese slave market, a magnificent
cathedral, six convents, and several beautiful churches. One of the most
important of these churches was San Jose, celebrated particularly
because of the magnificence of a carved cedar altar it contained.
A band of English buccaneers under the leadership of Captain Henry
Morgan attacked and captured the city in 1671. Immediately after its
fall, a fire was started which demolished the entire city. Historical
authorities disagree in placing the blame for this deplorable act. Most
of them accuse Morgan of starting the blaze but others hold that the
governor, Juan Perez de Guzman, ordered it done to cheat the pirates of
their spoils.
Whosoever it be, when Morgan's band finally departed, only the royal
houses and the Church of San Jose were left standing. Some historians
list the Church of La Merced also among the edifices saved.
The famous altar from Panama Viejo's San Jose was later installed in a
church of the same name which was built in the new city. A few years
ago, the better to preserve the wood from decay, it was plated with gold
leaf and may still be seen at Avenida "A," not far from the sea wall in
the Panama City of today.
"The Church of the Gold Altar," as San Jose is popularly known, is one
of Panama's most historic edifices.
The Saga of the Sacred Garden
Cradled softly now in the deeply enveloping silence of past centuries
lies much of the glamorous history covering that soul stirring long-ago
era which encompassed the rise and fall of haughty Spain's dominion in
the New World - a cycle symbolized in the West by the birth, life, and
death of her wonder city, Panama Viejo, the Pearl of Darien.
Unrecorded by the hand of man was much of the kaleidoscopic pageant of
light and shade, of tears and laughter, which made up the life of Panama
Viejo four centuries ago. That part of its early history which has
survived the on-slaughts of time, exists for us today chiefly in the
ringing sagas of a once proud people, told now by wistful-eyed
progenitors who have borne the yoke of servitude for hundreds of years.
In telling and re-telling these tales of lost grandeur, the lowly peon,
humble and servile in the haughty presence of his conquerors, comes
momentarily into his own and recaptures fleetingly a semblance of that
lost dignity and pride of being which was the heritage of his ancestors
before their enslavement by the white man.
With facial lineaments blotted out by the velvety murk of night, his
soul emerges from out the darkness solely as a voice, strong, vibrant,
and resonant, as among his fellows he recounts again and again the
ancient prideful achievements of his yet unconquered race.
Reverently, awesomely, he recalls the halcyon days before the coming of
the Spaniards; when Paquo Meecho, benign sovereign of the jungle lands,
ruled in the fastnesses of Darien. And one of the tales he loves best is
woven about a concrete proof of that jungle god's supreme eminence which
even yet rests in their very midst: a lasting testimonial to Paquo
Meecho's victory long ago over the white man's Prince of Darkness.
Ages ago, so begins the aching melody of the tale, Paquo Meecho's earth
children, under his direction, constructed along the curving shoreline
of the Bay of Many Fish a fair village sacred to his name, wherein all
things were done according to the divine commands of the jungle god.
Compassionate as a father was Paquo Meecho, giving heed to all who
suffered and were heavy-laden. He fed the hungry, lightened the burdens
of the footsore and weary, and healed the sick and dying. He lifted the
fallen nestling and guided the lost wanderer to safe haven and rest.
God of all things good was Paquo Meecho. Sorely grieved was his heart
over the selfishness and cruelty which caused his children to commit
earthly crimes one against the other. Finally, in order to soften the
many injustices which men were wont to inflict upon their weaker
brethren, as well as to furnish a refuge for the weary and those hard
pressed or doomed to death, he decreed in his name an eternal sanctuary
for all such in the village of Panama, which was sacred to his name.
Near the outskirts of the hamlet, where the grass was deeply cool and
where the filtering sunbeams traced patterns of delicate lacework
through the whispering leaves, he consecrated a large park-like
enclosure wherein no creature should evermore come to harm.
The hunted fugitive fleeing for his life had but to reach the Sacred
Garden and touch the ever flower-bedecked altar within, to be saved. The
runaway slave, the wounded stag from the forest, even the condemned
murderer, all were immune from any further persecution by men once they
had reached the confines of this sheltered haven.
However, even as Paquo Meecho was compassionate and merciful to the
needy, so was he stirred to wrath and vengeance toward any who disobeyed
his holy mandates. With the swiftness of lightning he smote down all who
dared violate his commandment of mercy in the Sacred Garden. In time it
became so that in all the land there was none who dared trespass against
the holy law.
It so happened, therefore, that long after the village of Paquo Meecho
had been buried under the rising towers of Panama Viejo, the Sacred
Garden remained unmolested. Strangely mysterious catastrophes were said
swiftly and surely to befall all those who sneeringly attempted to
desecrate its sacred environs with white men's edifices.
Finally, convinced, His Majesty's architects one and all pronounced the
spot accursed and passed it by with a shudder to set up their stone
pillars elsewhere.
The ancient story goes on to tell how, after the passage of many years,
there came one day from across the ocean, a kindly builder who found
beauty and sweetness in the Bush People's worship of Paquo Meecho. One
who with tolerant gentleness and respect forbore the harsh desecration's
which his countrymen were wont to commit against the shrines of the
jungle god. Though faithful to his own deity, he could listen to the
teachings of Paquo Meecho and find them good.
Paquo Meecho was pleased. Smiling upon the builder, blessing and calling
him friend, the jungle potentate decreed that in the inescapable
devastation of the city which, it was written in the heavens, was one
day to be exacted from the Spaniards as payment for their sinful
trespasses against him, the handiwork of this one man should stand
unmolested and unscathed.
He should erect his pillared arches upon the protected area of the
Sacred Garden and when the doom-blackened day of reckoning should lay
the proud head of Panama Viejo in the dust, the treasured monument of
his toil should be left unharmed.
Reverently the builder went about his work. His was the privileged
commission of raising in His Majesty's wilderness city a massive
lofty-pillared church which would resound throughout the ages with paens
of praise to the white man's Savior. It was designed also as a
receptacle for a wondrous altar carved by the monks of Spain from the
sacred cedar of Lebanon - a gift from the Queen herself to the shrine of
San Jose in the New World.
Because of the spiritual value of the precious altar, the builder worked
so lovingly and carefully to make its resting place a monument of
enduring beauty that when at last he had finished, he knew his work to
be good. Laying down his tools when he had done, he communed for a time
with the god of the jungle world as one kindly benevolent friend to another.
"Be kind, O Paquo Meecho," he entreated, "to this, my tribute to the
Savior I worship and serve. As thou hast worked for goodness in all
things for thy jungle children, treat gently this shrine to the Father
of my fathers - for He also is a benevolent God of the out-of-doors!"
Paquo Meecho smiled through the benign serenity of dancing sunbeams and
cloud wreaths curling their fleecy tresses into the azure blue of the
morning. Then, summoning his myriad occult messengers from their
invisible fastnesses, he bade them carry far and wide over land and sea
and forest the news that the Church of San Jose in Panama Viejo was
pleasing in the sight of the jungle world, and should be treated gently
by the elements.
Long after the hands of the kindly builder had crumbled to dust, the
solemn cloisters in the Church of San Jose continued to resound with the
echo of music, the solemn chanting of priests, and the murmured
devotions of the faithful who sought divine guidance in the sequestered
peace of its cool interior. Tall tapers gleamed before its wondrous
altar while the deep intoning of its bells proclaimed far and wide that
an enduring monument to God had been raised up in the wilderness.
After many years of haughtily tranquil security, so the story continues,
there suddenly descended upon Panama Viejo the inexorable doom which was
foreordained at the time of her birth. Smitten in the high tide of her
beauty, she was left writing, bleeding, dying, from mortal wounds
received at the brutal hands of the pirate Morgan and his invaders.
At the end of the wild orgy of murder, torture, fire, and pillage with
which the marauders devastated the city, one temple of God, and one
only, was left untouched among the smoking ruins - the Church of San Jose.
Not by chance alone had the sacred edifice been spared. Band after band
of the lust-maddened buccaneers had essayed to wreak upon it the same
fate which they meted out to all other churches in the city, but it was
guarded by something stronger than mortal hand and they were baffled in
their effort to do it injury.
At each attempted assault the outlaws were hurled back by some
mysterious power which gripped their souls with stark horror before they
could so much as set foot inside the sacred portals. And after one
encounter which left their eyes dilated with terror, they dropped their
weapons and fled on fear-winged feet, nor could they again be persuaded
to go near the place.
After the indomitable Captain Morgan, scoffing at his men's reports,
essayed the deed himself and was left white-lipped and trembling from
his encounter with an all-powerful fury which he could not see, hear,
nor feel, he choked back the surging tumult of fright within his soul
and, declaring the edifice bewitched, gave order that thenceforward it
be left unmolested.
Thus it happened that the Church of San Jose with its wondrous altar was
left standing intact among the charred and smoking ruins of Panama Viejo
when Morgan at last left the glutted city and started his march to the
Castle on the Chagres.
Immediately following the departure of the pirates from the fallen city,
a courageous program of reconstruction work was instituted by the
surviving inhabitants, whereby a newer and better city was forged in the
cleansing fires that had destroyed the old.
Due to the urgency of providing fortifications and governmental edifices
in the new project, however, the old Church of San Jose and its precious
altar were left to molder undisturbed among ruins of Panama Viejo,
tacitly forgotten by the world at large for many years.
Finally, after the passage of several generations, another San Jose was
built in Panama Nuevo. It was designed as a resting place for the
ancient carved altar which was duly and reverently installed with the
pomp and ceremony befitting its historic importance.
Later, in recognition of the role it had played in the tragic life drama
of the older city, it was plated with pure leaf gold and will continue
to sparkle and gleam under softly burning altar candles for many
centuries to come.
