| The Virgen
of Guadalupe
On December 12th, 1531, the Virgin
of Guadalupe is said to have appeared to Juan Diego
on Tepeyac Hill, bridging two worlds, that of the Aztec
who saw her and that of the Spanish conquerors who now
ruled his land. She has since become the patron and
symbol of Mexico, a country born of this fusion of cultures.
The conquest of Mexico was not only
carried out in the military and political spheres, but
was also a battle for cultural predominance and forms
of worship. The Mexica did not require the peoples under
their rule to adopt their religious or social beliefs;
indeed, they frequently incorporated the rites practiced
by peoples under their sway into their own belief system.
But the Spanish conquistadors considered religious conversion
one of their main tasks in the New World.
When Hernán Cortés
and his soldiers conquered Tenochtitlan, the capital
city of the Mexica, in 1521, they were accompanied by
priests and followed closely by missionaries. These
men of the cloth were amazed at the science, culture
and religion of the native peoples, but they were also
horrified by some of their dities and rites, especially
by the practice of human sacrifice. The conquerors destroyed
many temples and forbade the old ways, offering Catholicism
as the only true religion. Their churches were often
built on the foundations and with the very stones of
the Mexica temples they destroyed; and their use of
indigenous craftsmen to decorate them has resulted in
a very real physical expression of the underlying syncretism
which resulted.
One of the temples destroyed during
the early years was that of the goddess Tonantzin, located
on Tepeyac Hill. Tonantzin is believed to be a manifestation
of the Earth Mother, known as Coatlicue, the mother
of all living things, who conceived by immaculate and
miraculous means. She was also the one to decide the
length of life; to the Mexica, the earth was both mother
and tomb, the giver of life and the devourer. Human
sacrifice and harsh physical penance were used to appease
this goddess. Tonantzin, or Little Mother, patron of
childbirth, had a devout following; the Aztecs mourned
their goddess and felt threatened and endangered by
the profanation and razing of her temple by the Spaniards.
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Photo by:
Raúl Garduño Tercero. http://www.zonezero.com
|
In 1525, only four years after the
conquest, the Aztec Quauhtlatoatzin was baptized by
a Franciscan priest, who named him Juan Diego. Six years
later, on December 9th, Juan Diego witnessed the first
appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe. She told him
she wanted a church built on Tepeyac Hill and told him
to communicate her wish to the authorities. Mexico's
first Bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, didn't believe
him. The Virgin appeared to Jan Diego again, asking
him to go see the Bishop on Sunday. Juan Diego obeyed,
but Zumárraga asked for some proof. The Virgin
appeared to Juan Diego a third time and told him to
return the next day. His uncle, with whom he lived,
became very ill, and Juan Diego went to find a priest
to give him the last rites. The Virgin appeared for
the fourth and last time on December 12th, 1531, and
spoke soothingly in Náhuatl. She told Juan Diego
not to worry, that his uncle was well, that she was
his mother and he need fear nothing. She asked him to
go gather some flowers: roses, which had never grown
there, much less in mid-winter. He wrapped them in his
ayate or tilma, a sort of coarsely woven cape, and the
Virgin told him not to open it until he was before the
Bishop. When Juan Diego opened the tilma in front of
Bishop Zumárraga, the roses cascaded out and
they discovered the image of the Virgin imprinted upon
it. This depiction of the Virgin of Guadalupe is on
display in the Basilica.
The first written account still in
existence is known as the Nican Mopohua; it was written
in Náhuatl between 1558 and 1570 by Antonio Valeriano,
perhaps with the collaboration of others, and is now
in the Public Library of New York. The story is also
told in a text dated 1573 by historian Juan de Tovar,
who is believed to have transcribed it from the text
by Friar Juan de Zumárraga's tanslator, which
has not been found; this is now in the Mexican National
Library. References to the apparitions appear on maps,
codices and in various annals of the period.
The Virgin of Tepeyac, as she is
also known, spoke to Juan Diego in Náhuatl. The
similarities in sound and attributes between Guadalupe
and Coatlicue have been pointed out repeatedly; and
the Spanish Bishop may quite naturally have given her
a more familiar name. In fact, there is a shrine to
Our Lady of Guadalupe near the Guadalupe mountains in
Extremadura, Spain, from which many of the conquistadors
and missionaries hailed. According to Friar Bernardo
de Sahagún, one of the main Spanish missionary
and historians of the period, the Indians continued
to call her Tonantzin until around 1560, when the Spaniards
baptized her with the sole name of Guadalupe.
Nonetheless, the Vatican accepted
the news of the miracle from Friar Juan de Zumárraga
and a sanctuary was erected in 1533; recent repairs
have uncovered the pre-Hispanic foundations beneath
the original construction. A second church was begun
in 1556, and, in 1695, the first stone of a new sanctuary
was laid. In 1976, the modern Basilica of Our Lady of
Guadalupe was dedicated.
Ecclesiastic and lay researchers
have studied the phenomenon from many angles. In 1666,
a frmal inquiry was carried out by the Catholic Church
to validate the appearance; 1723 marked another such
investigation. There have also been many examinations
of the image of the Virgin imprinted on Juan Diego's
ayate. The Virgin's eyes apparently not only contain
the image of Juan Diego kneeling before her, but also
the inner capillary structure; and the preservation
for over 400 years of the crudely woven cloth and its
image is astounding. In 1737, the Catholic Church declared
Guadalupe Patron of Mexico; and in 1895, she was Crowned
Queen of Mexico; Pope Pius X named her the Celestial
Patron of Latin America in 1910; and Pius XII called
her Empress of the Americas in 1945. Pope John Paul
II beatified Juan Diego in 1990, and dedicated a Chapel
to the "Mother of the Americas" in Saint Peter's
Basilica in 1992.
Unquestionably, the widely-reported
appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the Aztec Indian
Juan Diego was a powerful unifying factor between the
Spanish-Catholic and Pre-Hispanic strains. The native
Mexicans identified the dark Virgin who spoke in Náhuatl
with the goddess Tonantzin and celebrated her with indigenous
rites within the framework of the Catholic Church. This
incident was perhaps the most important single event
to hasten the conversion of the Mexican indigenous peoples
to Catholicism. And the soft-spoken Virgin became link
and symbol of the fusion of these two cultures into
our nation. It is no coincidence that, in 1810, when
Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla called for an uprising
which led to the Independence of Mexico from Spain,
he adopted her pennant as the first Mexican flag. The
Image of the Virgin of Guadalupe has repeatedly been
taken as an unofficial national symbol, and a great
many Mexicans proudly proclaim themselves "Mexicans
and Guadalupans".
 |
Photo by: Doug Sehres. Director
of Photography,
San Antonio Express-News. http://www.zonezero.com
|
The Virgin of Guadalupe is celebrated
every year on December 12th with a variety of rites
ranging from the serenade with Mariachis the night before
--which is televised nation-wide-- to the midnight ceremonies
by concheros (named after the armadillo shells they
use as stringed instruments, or the seeds of the ayoyote
tree they wear on their ankles to complement the drum),
who call upon nine spirit guides with pagan dances and
Catholic chants all through the night, before dancing
all day in front of the Basilica. Hers is one of the
main religious shrines in the world, second in visitors
only to the Vatican. Pilgrims from all over Mexico and
abroad converge on Tepeyac Hill, seeking healing and
favors, keeping vows, or simply paying homage to their
beloved Little Mother, Queen of Mexico.
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