Because the bodies had been discovered on prehistoric Indian ruins, Tim McCabe felt compelled to meet with the elders of nearby pueblos in order to facilitate a cleansing. On the first of August, he traveled to each of the pueblos to arrange for a time they could gather at the ruins. Elders at Cochiti, San Felipe, Santa Ana and Sandia pueblos agreed to a mutual time to visit San Lazaro for the ceremony.
Although the murders had occurred on the ranch and not on the ruins, who was to say that the ranch at one time hadn’t been part of the original sacred pueblo ground? The murders were a spiritual contaminant and although no members of the Tano tribes existed at the present time, some area tribes probably originated from these early inhabitants. Saint Lazarus, the namesake of the pueblo, was a man who had been raised from the dead during biblical times. It was fitting that the ruins should be returned to their original state.
For the cleansing ceremony, McCabe saw the need to choose the feast day of another saint, because St. Lazarus was not one whose feast was celebrated by the Native American pueblos. He chose August 10, a feast day celebrated by the Picuris Pueblo to honor their patron saint, San Lorenzo, or Saint Lawrence. San Lorenzo was a deacon who had been sentenced to die on a metal grate over a roaring fire. While being grilled to death, he had exhibited great strength and courage. In addition, on the evening of his feast day, a meteor shower known as the burning tears of St. Lawrence had been seen in the sky.
At sundown, McCabe and the four elders stood in the center of the property holding bowls of white cornmeal and small bundles of freshly picked sage. The shaman offered a pinch of pollen to the setting sun and then walked to the four corners of the ruins, chanting a prayer at each. On that day the sky had been a deep cerulean blue, with fragments of swollen white clouds drifting above them. The sun was spreading the last of its light. The natural spring below Medicine Rock erupted through the ground, its crystal waters forming a deep pool. It was a good day for a cleansing ceremony; a good day for a new beginning.