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Jaquelyn Salinas

Professor Batty

English 101

February 28 2018

The Seed of Union

The devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe is one of the most important elements in the

development of Mexican religion and nationality over the centuries. This picture of the Virgin is

to be found everywhere throughout Mexico, and her iconography is varied almost beyond telling.

Although other people believe that Paul Botello’s mural called The Virgin’s Seed represents

concerns about environmental issues, I argue that what the artist is trying to explain is here is

how Native Indians and Spaniards adopted the Virgin of Guadalupe-Tonantzin to become one

culture, through the historical context of the Virgin of Guadalupe, symbolism of the colors and

the married couple represented in the mural.

The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and her shrine at Tepeyac are surrounded by an

origin myth. According to this myth, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego, a

christianized Indian of commoner status, and addressed him in Nahuatl. The Virgin appeared on

Tepeyac Hill north of Mexico City, which was the site of the former temple of Tonantzin, the

earth goddess of the Aztecs and the virgin mother of many of the Aztec gods that were

worshiped by the Native Indians. To emphasize the encounter of the Virgin, she asked Juan

Diego to deliver the message that a temple should be built there. After her presence was gone,

Juan Diego had to prove this message, so the Virgin had him go to the top of the hill, where he

found roses blooming out of season in a place where they would ordinarily not grow. He picked
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the roses, put them in his mantle and took them to the bishop. When he unfolded the garment in

the bishop’s presence, the roses fell on the floor, and on the cloak a picture of the Virgin was left

imprinted. Asking for forgiveness for his doubt, the bishop started to build the chapel at Tepeyac.

The Spaniards believed this because there was already a similar Virgin in Spain (Handbook of

Middle American Indians). So when this occurred, the word spread throughout the community.

This brought all Native Indians and Spaniards to Catholicism, and it became a great symbol of

the new Mexican culture.

This mural contains different symbols such as the different skin colors of the people in

the image. In the mural, two giant people surround the Virgin. The blue person represents the

Native Indians because of the color. The color blue, also called Mayan blue, is a symbol of trust,

loyalty, wisdom, confidence, faith, truth and heaven. It also mirrors the water of rivers, lakes and

seas, and the daytime sky (Mexicolore). Therefore, the blue person represents Juan Diego

holding the roses he found at the Tepeyac Hill. The light brown person represents the Spaniards.

This person is holding scientific objects and jewelry that was brought to Mexico when the

Europeans first came. In sum, this is another example of how the Virgin of Guadalupe was the

first factor that brought peace to the relationship between the Spaniards and the Native Indians,

which is shown in the mural with different types of birds holding each other, uniting the two

groups together surrounding the Virgin.

Another symbol that prevalents in this image were the bride and the groom that are being

held by each giant. These represent the story of Hernan Cortes’ first marriage to La Malinche,

the mother of Cortes first son, Martin. This is also shown in the mural, as a fetus coming out of

the bride’s dress. The story says that La Malinche, also known as Malinalli, Malintzi, or Doña
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Marina was a Nahuat woman, one of 20 slaves given to the Spaniards by the natives of Tabasco

in 1519. Later, she married Cortes and gave birth to one of the first Mestizos (ToughtCo). To put

it in another way, the mural reflects how the Virgin of Guadalupe connects these two different

cultures and seals it with a Mestizo child that will maintain them together. Paul Botello states,

“This combination of parts is a metaphor for a mestizo. I wanted to fuse and merge Indigenous

and European, which are all a part of my schema and form the many facets of this work.” This

means that he wanted to show the merging that he believed this belief created.

The Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles (MCLA) organization states that this mural is a

representation of the artist’s childhood and his concerns about the environmental issues that were

happening in the 1990s. They argue that the blue giant represents the future. His color in part

reflects the artist's concern over the effects of pollution and other environmental crises. The other

giant is a woman. She is a teacher, modeled after Botello's sister, and holds gifts of knowledge in

her hand. Though I concede that MCLA’s statement is very convincing, I still insist that this

mural describes the role that the Virgin of Guadalupe played in the bond built between the

Spaniards and the Native Indians because as there are many factors that contributed to support

my claim provided by the organization Murals of East Los Angeles. Such as the image of the

Virgin of Guadalupe, the people of different skin colors walking to the Tepeyac Hill, and also,

the bride and the groom.

In conclusion, I concluded that the mural The Virgin’s Seed, is a piece of art that

demonstrates the union between the Europeans and the indigenous people caused by the

miraculous appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. I also learned that this appearance

was an important factor because it brought the two groups together. They believed that sharing
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the belief that they are all connected in some way or another would keep them united. I believe

that Juan Diego’s and La Malinche’s stories are being presented by the different symbols, colors,

and people shown in the mural. The union that the Virgin of Guadalupe wanted to create

between societies, it is seen in our everyday lives in different places because the image of the

Virgin of Guadalupe is considered a master symbol for all Catholics, not only in Mexico but in

whole world.
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Works Cited

“Aboutus.” ​Murals of East Los Angeles​, muralsmakeadifference.weebly.com/about-us.html.

Mexicolore​,

www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/ask-experts/which-was-the-most-precious-colour-f

or-the-aztecs-and-why.

Botello, Paul. The Virgin’s Seed. 1991. Hazard Ave. at Hammel St., Los Angeles, CA 90063.

Minster, Christopher. “10 Facts About ‘Malinche’ The Woman Who Betrayed the Aztecs.”

ThoughtCo​, ThoughtCo, 25 Apr. 2017,

www.thoughtco.com/facts-about-dona-marina-malinche-2136536.

Monaghan, John, and Barbara Edmonson. ​Handbook of Middle American Indians​. University of

Texas Press, 2000.

“Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles.” ​Paul Botello | Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles​,

www.muralconservancy.org/artist/paul-botello.
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