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Book 3: The Rock
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Death Comes for the Archbishop, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Spirituality vs. the Material World
Friendship and Compromise
Humanity’s Relationship with Nature
Colonialism, Industry, and Loss
Memory, Death, and Afterlives
Summary
Analysis
In the early 1700s, about 50 years after the first great Indian uprising, a tyrannical priest named Fray Baltazar Montoya was living and working in Ácoma. He insisted that the indigenous residents labor in tribute to him, and he took their water and crops and animal skins for himself. He also traveled all over the Southwest, sourcing the best peach seeds and grape cuttings in the hopes of building an elaborate garden in the cloisters.
Latour himself will later say that “wherever there was a French priest, there should be a garden of fruit trees.” But while Latour himself takes on the labor necessary to create such a garden, this infamous Montoya now forcefully extracts that labor from his parishioners, building distrust instead of trust.
Themes
Over time, Montoya grew fat on these crops, and his youthful energy dissipated. So he hired three indigenous boys, employing one as a cook, one to clean, and one to run all over the countryside doing errands for him. Though he never slept with any of his parishioners—likely because he feared they would revolt if he did—it was clear to everyone that Montoya valued food and drink more than anything else (that he “lived more after the flesh than the spirit”).
From Vaillant’s very first conversation with Manuel Lujon, it has been clear that these two priests condemn materialism above all else. In living “after the flesh,” then, Montoya commits the ultimate sin for a priest, even if he does not break the vow of celibacy that Latour and Vaillant hold so paramount.
Themes
For 15 years, Montoya continued in this way. But though the people of Ácoma were tempted to revolt, they never did—after all, Montoya had brought them the picture of St. Joseph, which seemed to bring rain even when the surrounding pueblos were completely dry. There was no way to know how powerful this priest really was.
The fact that this picture aids and abets Montoya’s bad behavior adds one more layer to unreliability of memory: a gift that was forced away from Garcia Maria de Allande’s grandfather now serves to force yet more service and discomfort, terrifying the people of Ácoma into following the cruel Montoya.
Themes
One year, wanting to show off his impressive garden, Montoya hosted a dinner party for the priests from the nearby villages. To show off the cooking skills he had learned in Seville, Montoya decided to cook the meal himself. He made soups and salads, then a hare in brown gravy, and finally a roast turkey. But when the serving boy brought out the hare, he accidentally spilled some of the gravy on one of the visiting priests. Livid, Montoya threw a pewter mug at the serving boy.
Montoya’s focus on fine European cooking shows his selfishness, his “worldly” focus on “flesh” and materiality, and his inability to adapt to his new surroundings. But even as Latour looks at these things with disdain, he and Vaillant cannot help their similar rhapsodies about good French olive oil and wine. In other words, the line between a good priest and a bad one is not ever fully clear or absolute.
Themes
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The boy staggered and fell to the floor; within moments, one of the other priests pronounced him dead. The visitors then hurried away, leaving Montoya alone. At first Montoya thought about escaping, but he was too proud of his garden, which was only now coming into its full glory. Instead, Montoya just read his holy books; after all, he had been so involved with the gravy that he had not done any religious work for days.
Montoya now does too little, too late; after neglecting his faith in both practice and spirit for years, Montoya seems to hope that a few moments of religious labor will redeem him. This last-ditch effort to return to God will recur later in the story.
Themes
Soon enough, Montoya noticed an eerie silence among the people of Ácoma. As the sun went down, Montoya heard many of the indigenous men discussing something with great urgency. Montoya knew the stories of missionaries being tortured—and accordingly, that night, a large group of Ácoma men appeared in his doorway, ready to take him away.
Latour, too, has heard stories of missionaries being tortured, but this context helps reframe those legends; Montoya was the one to instigate violence, and the so-called ‘torture’ he seems to face is meant as self-defense, not aggression.
Themes
Montoya did not struggle, but rather let himself be carried to the edge of the cliff. Several people gathered to lift Montoya and swing him in the air, then dropped Montoya over the side of the cliff. No one took pleasure in this death; after all, many of the Ácoma had liked Montoya a good deal. But they let Montoya’s garden die out, and some of the women would gather to laugh at the wilting crops. Years later, when a new priest arrived, the Ácoma were warm to him—and though the new priest never worked on the garden, “the old peach stumps kept sending up pale sprouts for many years.”
Montoya had hoped to secure his legacy through these peach trees, constantly producing new fruits and thus constantly recalling the person who first planted them. But by letting the peach trees wilt, the Ácoma reclaim the narrative of their village, asserting that Montoya will not be remembered in the way that he hoped to be. In other words, if someone like Montoya hopes to leave a living legacy, then they must accept that that legacy will grow and change.
Themes
