The Mexican Religious Mosaic: A Brief History of Catholicism in Mexico & Symbols of Native Empowerment
FIBR 746: Image, Pattern and Motif ProfessorJill Kinnear Elizabeth Heywood November 17, 2010
EVANGELISM IN MEXICO AND THE VIRGIN MARY OF GUADALUPE
Mexico possesses an unusual history, the result of a blending of two very different worlds, which has had a significant impact on its current religious practices. This mash up of fragmented cultures has created a hybrid culture, both Spanish and Indian; the Oxford History of Mexico likens the country to a mosaic, still being arranged as the plaster has not yet set (Meyer et al., 1). This mosaic was begun at the pivotal moment when the Conquistadores met with their soon-to-be conquered: the first meeting of Hernan (Fernando) Cortez and Moctezume (Moteuczoma, or Montezuma) is elegantly summed up by the Mexican historian Enrique Krauze: “They created a new nationality at the instant they met.” (Meyer et al.,1). For the 300 years that the Spanish monarchs ruled the country,
“the language of southern Spain, augmented by many Aztec words, to be sure, was the language of the land. The law of Madrid – with local variations, certainly – was the law of the land. And the religion of Rome – admittedly with numerous local adaptations – was the religion of the land.” (Meyer et al., 113).
The Spanish, striving to gain power and resources, justified colonization with conversion. From 1519 to 1521, as Cortez journeyed towards overthrowing the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, he left behind a trail of Catholic imagery (especially images of the Virgin Mary) and required native leaders to destroy symbols of their old gods and adopt the new religion; the leaders obliged out of fear that if Cortez was not on their side, they would have to face Aztec retribution for rebelliously assisting the Spanish (Meyer et al., 85). The resulting fall of Tenochtitlan and rise of Spanish rule left the Indians in a state of cultural crisis. Socially, the natives came to be considered as being worth little more than slaves and were abused under the system of encomienda by colonists, government and clergy alike who demanded labor and tithes as payment for bringing Christian culture to the area (Meyer et al.,153) .
That Christian culture was, in the most part, due to the conversion of the natives by the Franciscan friars who attempted to simultaneously convert them while at the same time serve as the sole protectors of Indian interests. The friars, who had begun their working in New Spain during the mid 1500s (Hamnet, 64), believed that according to prophesy the Indians were the last gentiles and thought that culturally they were predisposed to live as Christians. They thus believed that they needed to be indoctrinated, rather than converted, and attempted the impossible task of changing native religion without damaging their culture (Meyer et al., 152). It’s important to note that the process of evangelization occurred over time, as friars attempted to shift religious points of view. Before they had learned the local languages religious leaders attempted to educate through imagery, such as using paintings that depicted religious allegory to the natives. This turned out to be unexpectedly problematic as the Americans assigned their own meanings to the symbols and interpreted them in very different ways. For example, the Maya viewed the cross as a rendition of their sacred ‘first tree’ that represented the conjunction of the heavens, earth and underworld. It also metaphorically showed the way rulers became deified and was a sacred space that marked where spiritual beings would arrive to accept offerings; thus the Mayans saw Christ as one ruler of many who “followed the divine path in the cycle of life, not necessarily as the one and only savior from sinfulness” (Meyer et al.,155-156).
Many earlier forms of Christianity within the Indian population were shaped by the ‘pagan’ cult behavior brought in with the Spanish colonists, such as Marian devotion and the Hispanic cults of the saints (Hamnett, 65). At the same time, native beliefs and traditions influenced the Spaniards; it was generally believed that the native medicinal and herbal knowledge was the best way to treat illnesses that existed within the new colony, rather than the mainstream European healthcare practices. Also, it was not uncommon for Spaniards, Mestizos and Africans living in New Spain to pressure the natives into teaching them how to create ‘secret recipes’ for curing disease and gaining powers; there are even instances when they turned to native religion to redress wrongs that had been committed against them (Meyer et al., 163). This crossbreeding of practice and imagery resulted in the development of a rich Mexican church heritage, consisting of Spanish, Indian and even African flavors.
Catholicism was not only a religious and cultural way of life, but also a survival mechanism for the natives. As cited in “A Concise History of Mexico”, Hamnett argues that,
“The surviving American population learned not only to adapt to the new spiritual order but to also take it over when it suited their own purpose. Christian terms of reference became transformed in Indian hands and turned against the brutality and usurpation of the Conquerors” (Hamnett, 66).
While the Americans had the Franciscans to speak on behalf of their welfare, they were still relatively excluded from New Spain’s religion and society. At this point, the Indians had changed Spanish religious symbols and the Spaniards had literally destroyed the Indian ones, such as when a group of friars seized and burned Mayan religious texts believing that they were destroying tools for devil worship. This event was so traumatic that “for the Maya, it represented the destruction of their own identity and the perception of the cosmos that had take centuries to elaborate” (Hamnett, 67). What was required was a new symbol that incorporated the melding of the Europeans and Americans – this came in the form of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe. The miracle had occurred ten years after the fall of the Aztecs, in 1531 (Peterson, 1992) when the Virgin appeared three times to a newly Christianized native called Juan Diego. Speaking the Aztec language of Nahuatl she asked that a church be erected at the spot, on the hill of Tepeyacac that had originally served as a pilgrimage site for the Aztec goddess Tonantzin (meaning “our revered mother”). Twice Diego unsuccessfully tried to convince the Archbishop Juan de Zumárraga that his visions were real, but the third time the Virgin told him to fill his cloak with roses. When Diego opened his cloak for the Archbishop, the roses tumbled out revealing an image of the Virgin miraculously imprinted on the cactusfiber cloth (Peterson, 1992).
The Virgin of Guadalupe is unusual because she incorporates both the Christian Mary and the Aztec Tonantzin. Although revealing herself as the Virgin, she appeared before an Indian and spoke his language. Stylistically she is native, often portrayed with a darker complexion and standing on a crescent moon – the symbol of Tonantzin. Having a native representation of Mary openly accepted with both the Indians and the Spaniards began opening the church door to the Americans, although it would be much
longer before the gross abuses against them would begin to wane. Nonetheless, the image would become representative of the new Mexican culture as a whole, one that included both indigenous and colonist identities.
MY WORK
Inspired by a heritage created from two seemingly opposite cultures, I wanted to show the blending of two differently constructed images into something new. To represent the Spanish I cut a cross out of wood in a shape resembling the crosses imprinted on the sails of the Spanish Armada. Wood was chosen to represent the rudimentary crosses that accommodated representatives of the Church most notably the Franciscans, during their efforts to proselytize. The symbol for the religion of the indigenous Americans was created through a series of simplification. I started off drawing an image of a nail piercing through strips of fabric in the shape of a cross; this was to represent the violent and invasive act of colonization on a culture. This was further simplified down to a cross constructed of twisted rope-like strands that invoked the idea of the intertwined native cultures that originally made up the Aztec nation. Inspired by the talavera tiles that decorate buildings throughout Mexico, a folk craft introduced by the colonists, I began dissecting small parts of each cross and arranging them reflectively. Through enlargement and rearrangement, I was able to create new crosses from the abstract shapes of the two originals. Through happy accident, I discovered red flowers intertwined with the crosses in the completed patterns; this is fitting in that it references the story the Virgin of Guadalupe when Juan Diego filled his cloak with roses. Both colors, a jewel tone red and blue, were selected for their representations of the roses and the cloak of the Virgin in the story.
Figure 1 The Virgin Mary of Guadalupe
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Grunberg, B. (1994). The Origins of the Conquistadores of Mexico City. The Hispanic American Historical Review, 74(2), Retrieved from JSTOR. Hamnett, Brian. A Concise History of Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Harrington, P. (1988). Mother of Death, Mother of Rebirth: The Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 56(1), Retrieved from JSTOR. Kurtz, D. (1982). The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Politics of Becoming Human. Journal of Anthropological Research, 38(2), Retrieved from JSTOR. Meyer, Michael and William Beezley, Ed. The Oxford History of Mexico. New York: Oxford University Press. 2000. Peterson, J. (1992). The Virgin of Guadalupe: Symbol of Conquest or Liberation?. Art Journal, 51(4), Retrieved from JSTOR. Taylor, W. (1987). The Virgin of Guadalupe in New Spain: An Inquiry into the Social History of Marian Devotion. American Ethnologist, 14(1), Retrieved from JSTOR.