WHAT
ARE THE ROBES THAT ARE HANGING AT THE MISSION?
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The robes were very special kinds of clothes that the priests wore in church. They're called, "vestments." Different vestments were worn at different times of the year and at different kinds of church services. You must remember that the priests were praying to God, so they wanted to wear the very best and most beautiful of clothes. Click on the picture to make it bigger and you can see how beautiful they are.
There is quite a collection of vestments at the Mision Galeria and Betty Pedrazzi can tell you all about them, when you come to visit. What do we know about these beautiful robes?
First of all, we know that they're very old. They were made late in the 18th century or early in the 19th century. We also know that they weren't made around Santa Cruz. No, these wonderful clothes have travelled a lot farther that most of us ever will.
The cloth that they're made from is called, "silk," and it probably came from China. Silk is made out of the cocoon of a caterpillar. Did you know that? The people of the Orient were the first to discover that the little nests that the caterpillars make could be spun into silk. Silk is very soft and shiny, and it's still one of the best kinds of cloth that you can get.
So, we think that the silk
for the vestments was made in
China out of their beautiful silk threads. Do you
know what other kinds of threads they used? Silver and gold! They
would beat pieces of gold and silver with hammers, until the pieces were so thin
that they were like threads. Then you could use them for sewing, just like
the thread that you have at home. Click on the picture and you can see some of
the gold threads. I'll bet you thought Rapunsel was the only one who could spin
gold, but the Chinese were doing it a long time ago.
Still, the long journey of
the vestments was only beginning
in China. The wonderful cloth was
taken from there to the city of Manilla, in the Spanish colony of the
Phillipines. It was there that the cloth was sewn into the beautiful robes
that we have today.
What happened to them,
then? Well, they had to come all
the way across the Pacific 
Ocean. The Spanish had
ships called, "Galleons," that sailed back and forth across the ocean, bringing
goods from the Orient into Mexico. We think that it was on these Galleons
that the robes crossed the ocean to the Americas. Click on the picture, if
you'd like to see more of what a Galleon looked like.
So, the beautiful robes sailed all the way across the Pacific Ocean in Spanish Galleons and arrived in Mexico. We think that they may have been used in Missions in Lower Mexico for awhile. How did they get to Santa Cruz? Well, one Mission would give them to another Mission as a gift. Then that Mission might give them to yet another Mission as a gift.
And, so, the vestments
travelled all of that distance to
Santa Cruz, all the way from China. Imagine
that! You can see that it was worth it, though. 
Just click on the
picture to make it bigger and look at the beauty in that robe. Do you see
all of the gold and silver and silk, woven together? Yes, they're very
beautiful and they're a part of the wonderful history of Mission Santa
Cruz.
Still, there's even more to tell about the history of the Mission. Would you like to know what happened to the original Mission? If you would, click on the bell, and we'll tell you all about it.
