The Virgin of Guadalupe: Symbol of Conquest Or Liberation? Author(S): Jeanette Favrot Peterson Reviewed Work(S): Source: Art Journal, Vol
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The Virgin of Guadalupe: Symbol of Conquest or Liberation? Author(s): Jeanette Favrot Peterson Reviewed work(s): Source: Art Journal, Vol. 51, No. 4, Latin American Art (Winter, 1992), pp. 39-47 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777283 . Accessed: 06/01/2013 23:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Sun, 6 Jan 2013 23:38:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Virgin of Guadalupe Symbolof Conquestor Liberation? JeanetteFavrot Peterson the many images of the Virgin Immaculate vene- -AAA. f rated in Mexico, only the Virgin of Guadalupehas an overarching political significance. This essay will challenge two myths concerning her role as national -: i-fi emblem:first, that her cult spontaneouslywelded together all the strataof New Spain; and second, that Guadalupefrom the 39 sixteenth century on served as a symbol of freedom for the oppressed native populations. Instead, her meaning was reinterpretedfor differentruling parties primarilyin those times when existing sociopolitical institutions were being 11 reconstituted.' Ratherthan acting as an unchanging"single ........... Mastersymbol," to use Eric Wolf'swords,2 Guadalupehas been used alternatively,and sometimessimultaneously, as a ............ symbol of liberation as well as one of accommodationand control. Not until the nineteenth century did Guadalupe's cult gain in strengthamong a largely disenfranchisedpopu- lation. Moreover,only in the twentiethcentury has her image Wei taken on new meaning compatiblewith her title, "Motherof the Mexicans." At the heart of my inquiry are the image and legend of the Virgin of Guadalupe. According to the account of the apparition, which was not recorded in a dated publication until the mid-seventeenthcentury, Guadalupe first appeared on December8, 1531, on the hill of Tepeyacac(now Tepeyac), to the north of Mexico City.3 She showedherself to a newly Christianized native, whose baptismal name was Juan Di- ego. Using the Aztec language of Nahuatl, the Virgin asked that a church be erected in her honor.Juan Diego tried three times to convince Archbishop Juan de Zumairragaof this apparition.He succeeded only on the last visit to Zumairraga whenroses tumbledout of his openedtilmatli, or cloak, and a life-sized image of the Virgin was found miraculouslyim- FIG. I Virginof Guadalupe,16th century,oil andtempera (?) on maguey printedon its cactus-fibercloth. JuanDiego's cloak is said to cactuscloth and cotton, 69 x 41Y4inches. Basilicaof Guadalupe,Mexico be the same painted icon that is central to the cult of the City. Virgin of Guadalupe, venerated today in the twentieth- peoples after the conquest, Catholic shrines were superim- century basilica that bears her name (fig. 1). posed on pre-Hispanic temples. Given its traditionalsignifi- By no coincidence, Tepeyachad served as an ancient cance, Tepeyacwould have been a logical place fora chapelor pilgrimage site dedicated to several pre-Columbianearth hermitage (ermita), probablydedicated to one of the many deities, who were referredto in the early colonial period by cults of the Virginof the ImmaculateConception imported by the generic name of Tonantzin, meaning "our revered the Spaniards. While scanty documentationhas obscured mother."4In the ambitiousprogram to evangelize all native the origins of the Guadalupedevotion, it is likely that neither ARTJOURNAL This content downloaded on Sun, 6 Jan 2013 23:38:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions a shrine specifically dedicated to the Mexican Virgin of the Indian and Spanish communitieswas a relativelylocal Guadalupe nor an image of her existed priorto 1555-56.5 phenomenon,like hundredsof similar communitycults.9 Iconographicand stylistic evidence suggests thatthe tilmatli Guadalupe'scult gained a widerfollowing in the seven- icon was painted by a native artisan, perhaps as early as teenth century and can be best understoodin the contextof mid-century.By this period, one of the most commonrepre- class distinctions, which were largely based on skin color. sentationsof the ImmaculateConception relied on the bibli- Although tragically decimated in the decades followingthe cal text of the Apocalyptic Womandescribed by St. John. conquest, by the end of the colonial period the indigenous The creatorof the Guadalupeicon appearsto have used as a races in NewSpain remainedthe largest ethnic group.In the model a late fifteenth or early sixteenth-centuryengraving late eighteenth century, four-fifthsof the total population fromthe Bookof Revelation.6Like the ApocalypticWoman of were nonwhiteand most constitutedthe lowerclasses; these Revelation12:1, Guadalupeis "clothedwith the sun, and the included the fastest-growing component, the mestizos, or moon under her feet." She stands on a crescent moon, the individuals of mixed blood. The white, upper fifth of the sunrs rays creating an almond-shapedmandorla, or glory, population was composed of peninsular Spaniards, de- aroundher, with the twelve stars that crownher head in the risively nicknamed gachupines, and Mexican-bornSpan- Bible multiplied and scattered over the surface of her blue iards, or criollos. This schema does not do justice to the mantle. The Virgin at Tepeyacwas called Guadalupeafter a multiple classifications, or castas, that rankedpersons, with popularshrine in the regionof Estremadurain centralSpain. their attendantaccess to power and wealth.10Whether by Althoughthe painted MexicanGuadalupe bears little physi- birth or persuasion, the criollo, or creole, was intensely cal resemblance to her Spanish counterpart,a diminutive dedicated to the success of the new colony. Creoles were 40 sculpture of the Virgin and Child, name recognitionalone distrustedby the Spaniards,treated as second-class citizens insured her appeal for Europeanand Spanish devotees. and given inferiorpositions in everyprofessional sphere. With The introduction of the Mexican Guadalupe some their expandingnumbers, the creoles wouldbecome the most thirty-fiveyears after the conquest is significant. In spite of importantprotagonists in the promulgationof Guadalupeas the Catholicchurch's zealous programof evangelization,by part of their ambitionto create a Mexico out of New Spain. the time of the first Mexican church council in 1555, the The movementto associate the MexicanGuadalupe with failureto eradicatepaganism had becomepatently clear. The creole interests is already apparentin the first datablerepre- hierarchy acknowledged Indian resistance to domination, sentationof the Virgin of Guadalupe (fig. 2). The 1615-20 both overtly in the form of uprisings and covertly in the engravingby a Flemish artist, SamuelStradanus (or van der persistence of traditional religious beliefs. Aggressive Straet), was commissionedby the metropolitanarchbishop, methods of indoctrinationwere intensified, including the JuanP6rez de la Serna, whose armsappear at the foot, to help substitution of new Christian saints for old gods and the raise funds for a new Guadalupebasilica, which was com- incorporationof parallel beliefs and ritual. The Mexican pleted in 1622. The central icon is endowedin the engraving Virgin of Guadalupe was one such fusion of an imported with the features and more ample proportionsof a Flemish EuropeanMother of God with native mothergoddesses. Like Madonna.Eight lateral panels are ex-votos, testimonialsin the pre-Columbianearth deities, the Virgin Maryof popular wordand image of Guadalupe'smiraculous powers. These all Spanish Catholicismhad power over fertility, disease, and record miracles workedon behalf of the ruling white class natural disasters.7 However,while these similarities facili- and include, in the upper left, the cure of Don Luis de tated syncretic solutions, they also underminedChristian Castilla, a wealthy Spaniard, and in the upper right, the orthodoxy.In 1576 the Franciscanfriar Sahagtn complained escape froma riding accidentof the creole son of the conquis- that the pilgrimages to Tepeyacwere only a continuationof tador Don Antoniode Carvajal.Guadalupe's intervention in pre-Hispanic practices and that native worshipersconsis- young Carvajal'sfall from his horse was used to underscore tently referred to Guadalupe as Tonantzin-a name that is the creole's unique status, favored by the Virgin, and it still linked to Guadalupe in some regions of Mexico.8 Aside remained a popular artistic theme throughout the viceregal from her association with a traditionally sacred space, her period. The Stradanus engraving is also important for what it female gender, and her reputed powers over natural forces, does not depict. None of the ex-votos represents a miracle the Mexican Guadalupe was an eminently European image worked by Guadalupe on behalf of her native constituency, that had little meaning for the native worshiper. The classical including her cure of Juan Diego's uncle in 1531, an event beauty of Spanish Marian images and the standardized