From places as distant as present-day San Angelo and Albuquerque, the first Spanish expeditions encountered one particular Native tribe throughout the plains and deserts of West Texas and New Mexico – a people known as the Jumano. The Jumano traded widely. They farmed corn, beans and squash at La Junta, present-day Presidio-Ojinaga. They hunted bison on the Llano Estacado.

And, in the 1620s, they were at the center of a mysterious episode that continues to resonate today.

In those years, Sor María Jesús, a Spanish nun, is said to have been “transported by the aid of angels” from her Spanish convent to the Texas plains to evangelize the Jumano, on hundreds of occasions. The sto... Hosted by for KRTS