This study by an author with intergenerational ties to the Penitentes--the deeply religious group called Hermanos de la Luz (Brothers of the Light)--ties the santero folk art of New Mexico, the Penitente Brotherhood, and the Penitente religious hymns together. (Christian)

Michael Wallis's straightforward text and Craig Varjabedian's unadorned photos capture the deep piety of the Penitente Brotherhood and their complex relationship with their history and the modern world.

A short history of a secret and sacred Spanish-American Catholic brotherhood who have pledge themselves to Christian devotions.

The author's personal meditation on his cultural heritage is also a kind of spiritual autobiography of the Hispano people of New Mexico. In evoking this special closeness between the divine and the human, he returns repeatedly to the Penitentes of New MexicoNthe societies of men who scourge themselves and replay the Crucifixion each Holy Week to share the sufferings of their Savior.

An insight into the secretive life and history of the Penitentes based on the author's experiences, family journals, interviews, and site visits in Colo. and New Mexico. Numerous photos of Penitentes, their rituals, instruments, and moradas. Personal interviews, actual journals, prayers and songs.

As a result, Carroll concludes, Penitente membership facilitated the rise of the modernin New Mexico and--however unintentionally--made it that much easier, after the territory's annexation by the United States, for the Anglo legal system to dispossess Hispanos of their land.

El Hermano is a rare and authentic window into everyday Hispanic village life the way it once was, and to some extent, persists.