Copyright by Anna María Nogar 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Anna María Nogar certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: La Monja Azul: The Political and Cultural Ramifications of a 17th-century Mystical Transatlantic Journey Committee: José Limón, Supervisor César Salgado, Co-Supervisor Cory Reed Domino Perez James Nicolopulos La Monja Azul: The Political and Cultural Ramifications of a 17th-century Mystical Transatlantic Journey by Anna María Nogar, B.S.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2008 Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my family, especially to my late father Nicholas Nogar, mother Marcella, brother Joshua and sister Carmella. I could not have done this without you. Acknowledgements There are many people I wish to thank for helping me during my time at The University of Texas and while creating this dissertation. Though I can never thank him enough, mil gracias to José Limón, from whose wise counsel and patient tutelage I have learned so much over the past seven years. Many thanks as well to my very supportive dissertation committee: César Salgado, Domino Perez, Cory Reed and James Nicolopulos. To Cristina Carrasco and Maripaz García: I can’t imagine life in Austin without you and your constant friendship ¡las quiero mucho! To the chicas (Carla Saenz, Cristina Martínez, and Lucía Osa Melero): thank you for making every single day in Austin lively, interesting and real. Many thanks as well to Catherine Gubernatis, Bryan Dolejsi, and Robert Keller for their support throughout all stages of this project; thanks also to Peter Marlantes. To those I’ve not included here, please forgive the omission; your kindness is not forgotten! And, of course, thank you always to my wonderful family: Mom, Josh, Carmella, Grandma and Grandpa Sánchez, Grandma and Grandpa Nogar, aunts, uncles and cousins. v La Monja Azul: The Political and Cultural Ramifications of a 17th-century Mystical Transatlantic Journey Anna María Nogar, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008 Supervisors: José Limón and César Salgado This project sets forth a Mexican American cultural studies treatment of a US Southwestern legend known as the Lady in Blue (La monja azul). The legend is derived from17th-century religious memoriales (accounts) that narrate the miraculous apparition of a living cloistered Spanish nun, Sor María de Agreda, to the Jumano tribe of western New Mexico between the years 1620-1630. However, the Lady in Blue’s conversion of the Jumanos was only the first of many recurring appearances she would make in the Americas and Europe over the next three hundred and seventy years. In the American Southwest, northern Mexico and Spain, stories about the apparating nun resurface and are reshaped in response to the demands of their contexts. Her narrative is transatlantic both in terms of what it recounts, and in terms of where it is recounted. She is not only vi represented on both sides of the ocean, but her portrayal almost always has to do with her being on both side of the ocean. The Lady in Blue narrative brings together dialogues on conquest, both secular and religious, dialogues on the significance of the female body and the feminine written word, and dialogues on the negotiation of space, proximity and identity. Extant research on Lady in Blue focuses on the components of her story as discrete entities, inadvertently divorcing related histories and legends from one another. 20th-century historians have read the account as a medieval holdover in Franciscan mission writing; folklorists as isolated Indo-Hispano accounts; and literary critics as individual anecdotes in twentieth-century literature. In contrast, this dissertation focuses on is the continuity of the narrative- the way a series of historical figures and documents capture the Lady in Blue as she moves from New Mexico, to Spain, and back to the Franciscan missions of the Southwest, where she is viewed as a proto- or co-missionary. From the missions, the traditions, legends, and folklore about her grew and were contended, resulting in the contemporary dramatic works, novels, short stories and poems about the Lady in Blue. vii Table of Contents Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 1 …………………………………………………………………………. 29 Chapter 2 …………………………………………………………………………. 78 Chapter 3 …………………………………………………………………………. 118 Chapter 4 …………………………………………………………………………. 154 Chapter 5 …………………………………………………………………………. 220 Chapter 6 …………………………………………………………………………. 256 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………... 314 Bibliography ..……………………………………………………………………. 319 Vita ………....……………………………………………………………………. 329 viii If one considers the beliefs and practices described in the text, which are clearly quite startling, to be too startling ‘to be true’ […] one might as well abandon one’s research right then and there. If, on the other hand, one thinks that there may be a meaning to it all, and that the document ought to be taken seriously, then that clearly provides a tremendous opportunity for a new approach to medieval history. - Jean-Claude Schmitt The Holy Greyhound, 7-8 Introduction This dissertation offers a cultural studies treatment of a US Southwestern legend known as the Lady in Blue. The fascinating history, folklore and literature generated by this legend have their roots in 17th-century religious colonial accounts originating in New Mexico that later found audiences throughout Europe and the New World. The best- known representation of the account is simple; it consists of a series of spiritual visitations (“bilocations”) that a female figure later identified as the Spanish nun Sor María de Agreda allegedly made from Spain to various groups of indigenous peoples in what are now eastern New Mexico and west Texas. The result of these spiritual visits, according to the Memoriales of Spanish Franciscan Fray Alonso de Benavides, was that the Jumano Indians- one of the tribes visited by the Lady in Blue- traveled to the mission at Isleta pueblo and requested baptism from the friars stationed there. The two friars sent 1 to evangelize the Jumanos later testified that the tribe displayed signs of Catholic catechesis, such as making the sign of the cross, a fact which struck them as miraculous since the tribe had not previously received instruction from the Spanish friars. This particular version of the contact between the Monja Azul and the nomadic tribes of New Mexico is the starting point of my interest in the bilocation narrative. Yet the Blue Nun’s visit to the Jumanos of New Mexico was just the first of many recurring appearances she would make in the Americas over the next three hundred and seventy years. I will deal with materials concerning Sor María’s bilocation to obscure corners of the colonial Spanish world dating not only from the colonial period, but from the 19th-, 20th- and 21st-centuries. One conclusion about the Lady in Blue/ Sor María seems certain. Her narrative is fascinating for its resilience, its suppleness; for the strange and surprising occasions when it appears; and for the range of meanings the protagonist at its center has assumed. My dissertation will examine the origins and development of this story over this span of time. Perhaps if the account of the Lady in Blue were limited to a particular historical moment, or if it could be analytically dismantled using the methodology and mechanisms pertaining to a single field of study, her tale could be more discretely defined. If the bilocating nun had appeared only in the early 17th-century writings of Fray Alonso de Benavides, an analysis of those texts and their historical context alone might have been sufficient to elucidate the narrative. But news of the nun surfaces both in colonial-era documents that predate Benavides’ works and much thereafter. The Lady in Blue narrative plays a prominent role in Sor María’s life as well, factoring into in her 2 examinations by the Spanish Inquisition; in the vita or saint’s life written about her after her death; and in subsequent religious documentation promoting her canonization process. She materializes throughout the 17th-, 18th- and 19th centuries in the northern regions of New Spain, her renown radiating out from Querétaro and Zacatecas, Mexico, to the regions inhabited by the nomadic tribes of Texas, and to the missions of Fray Junípero Serra in California and Fray Eusebio Kino in Arizona. From the nineteenth century until the twenty-first, Indo-Hispano folklore and religious observances in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona evoke her image. The Lady in Blue narrative materializes in the 20th and 21st centuries, taking form both in a historical-religious context, and in the fiction and artistic works of a surprisingly broad array of authors. In the 1930s, Mexican-American historian and folklorist Jovita González summons Sor María onto the pages of a Texas newspaper and names her one of the “Catholic Heroines of Texas.” From novels by Ana Castillo and Luis Alberto Urrea (both Mexican-American), Francisco Goldman (Guatemala), and Javier Sierra (Spain), to the short stories of Costa Rican author Rima de Valbona and Americans Marilyn Westfall and Lisa Sandlin, a modern literary interest in the narrative continues the legacy of its retelling. The bilocating Blue Nun has persistently surfaced and been re-imagined in a range of contexts, and to diverse ends over the centuries. This story of the Blue Nun (or “La monja azul” or “Lady in Blue”) has fascinated me for almost a decade, my interest in her sparked during a New Mexican history course at the University of New Mexico where I first made her acquaintance. Since then, I have researched and written about her in my Master’s thesis, numerous conference 3 presentations and, now, a doctoral dissertation. By now, my relationship with the Lady in Blue has matured, as I have become ever more aware of her multifaceted manifestations.