Mother of Death, Mother of Rebirth: The Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe Author(s): Patricia Harrington Source: Journal of the American

Academy of Religion, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 25-50 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1464830 Accessed: 02/10/2010 20:27
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LVI/1 Academy Religion. of Journalof the American

Mother
Mother

of of

Death,
Rebirth

The Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe

Patricia Harrington

W ITHIN THE URBAN congestion of Mexico City,beforea hill that was once the site of a principalpilgrimagecenter of the Aztec religion, stands the Basilicaof Guadalupe. Enshrinedin the churchis a painting of the Virgin Mary,called Our Ladyof Guadalupe,which has been the focus of Mexican religious life for 400 years. According to the pious tradition,this image is differentfrom everyother image of Marybecause it was not made with human hands. On the hill of Tepeyac, former location of a temple to the Indian goddess Tonantzin, the Virgin Mary appearedto an Indianconvertnamed Juan Diego in the year 1531. As a sign to the Bishop of Mexico that a church should be built on the site, Maryinstructedthe Indian to pick roses of Castile,which he would find growing on the December desert soil nearby and carry them to the Bishop in his tilma, a native cloak. Juan Diego did this, but when he spilled out the roses before the great Bishop in his episcopal palace in Mexico City, the real sign appeared: a full-lengthpaintingof the Virgin Marymiraculouslyimprintedon his tilma itself. The painting that hangs in the Basilicatoday is indeed painted on a course piece of indigenous cloth, six and a half feet long and three and a half feet wide, woven of fibers of the magueyplant. It shows a woman standingalone, atop a crescentmoon, encircledby rays of the sun. It is widely considered among Mexicans, and by pious visitors, to be the "most perfect"image of Mary,since she herself painted it, and a "proimage, a sign in which, to quote OctavioPaz, digious" or "portentious" and each Mexican has read his destiny" (Lafaye:xix). "each epoch This article explains the rise to prominence of the Virgin of Guadalupein Mexican culture. First, I will show that the Virgin Mary
PatriciaHarringtonis an Editorin the College Division of Scott, Foresmanand Co., 1900 E. Lake Ave., Glenview, IL 60025.

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began as an apocalypticsymbol and representedthe millennial expectations and terrorsof the Spaniardsand the Indiansin their traumaticand world-shattering encounter. Second, I will draw upon first-hand accountsand historicalstudies of religionin colonial Mexicoto describe the rise of the cult of Guadalupe among both the Indians and the Spaniardsof Mexico City. At the beginning, the Virgin of Guadalupe meant quite differentthings to these two groups. The Indians read the image as restoringto them a coherentworld. ThroughGuadalupe,they took back their world, even though the Spaniardswere now in charge. To the Spaniards,on the other hand, Guadalupewas another image of the ImmaculateConception, one among many such images they held holy. She representedRoman Catholicorthodoxyand a continuationof Spanish traditions. Finally, I will show how both Indians and Spaniards devised a nationalisticinterpretation Guadalupethat became a way of drawing of all Mexicans, conquerersand conquered,into one people. When prolonged plagues in the eighteenth century threatenedthe physical and moral life of all the citizens of Mexico City, the syncretismof the image of Guadalupemade this image ideally suited to renew the hopes and Mexicantext providesa valenergies of the city. An eighteenth-century uable eye-witness accountof that time in the historyof Mexico City and vividlyportraysthe ferventoutburstof Mariandevotionduringthe worse of the devastatingplagues. Varioushistoricaltrendspresagedthis collectiveresponse to the Virgin of Guadalupe,but it also depended on the resonanceof the image of Marywith the ancient archetypeof the GreatMother,in her dual image as dreadfuland nurturing, grantingboth death and life. Meso-american religion providedprobablythe most highly developed expression of the terrible,devouringgoddess in history,'and SpanishCatholicismbrought to Mexico the largely tamed, benevolent vision of Maryas a nurturing and inspiring mother and maiden. In the clash of these two polar aspects of the divine as female, most interpreters judge that the Spanish the dreadfulimage of the Aztec goddess. In images thoroughlyreplaced many ways, the Spanish religion did destroy and supplant the Aztec religion. The image of Maryas Guadalupe,for instance, could never be
IThe enormous stone statue of the goddess Coatlicue, on display in the National Museum of Anthropologyin Mexico City, is the most well-known representationof the Aztec goddess. This impressive masterpieceof Aztec art shows Coatlicue as a massive blocklike figure. Her head is formed by two snakes emerging from her neck. She wears a necklace of sacrificial hands and hearts, and her skirt is made of intertwiningserpents. In appearanceshe is most similar to the image of Kali, the goddess of death in Indian. On Kali, see Kinsley.

Harington: Motherof Death and Rebirth

27

mistaken for her predecessorTonantzin, at least on the surface. But in other ways Mary did take on the awesome, dreadful qualities of the Aztec mothergoddess. This enriched her religious significancein Mexico and made her not only a central symbol of the Mexicannation and its destiny, but also a numinous symbol of the mystenrium the tremendum, dreadfuland fascinatingholy in feminine form. DEATH AND THE VIRGIN: EUROPEAN CONQUEST AS MILLENIAL BATTLE The discoveryof Americawas a world-shattering event for both the Europeandiscoverersand the Americansdiscovered. For Europeans,it meant not only that maps of the earth had to be radicallyrevised,but it also challenged at its roots the self-perceptionof Europeansas inhabitants of an ordered, delimited world with definite known boundaries, createdby God and explained in the ChristianBible (O'Gorman: 12829). Here was a land mass and a massive populationthat the prevalent cosmologyof ChristianEuropewas unable to categorize. The discovery of America threw Europeanthought into chaos. At first, it was nearly impossible to find any categorieswith which to understandthe discovery of a land and a people never before imagined to exist. Columbus had discoveredsomething new, and althoughhe did not even begin to fathom the newness of what he had found until his third voyage, he had alreadymade Europeold. Writing to the Spanish royal household about his thirdjourney to America,where he had discovered a large, unexpectedmass of land in the southernhemisphere,which we now know as South America, Columbus said he had gone on "a new voyage to the new heaven and earth, which up till now has remained hidden" (O'Gorman: 100). So began the apocalypticinterpretation of the discoveryand conquestof SpanishAmerica;Columbus'sreferenceto the Book of Revelationopened a rich vein of meaning for Europeans coming to terms intellectuallyand religiouslywith the New World. If something new was being discovered,or born, or "invented"(to use O'Gorman'sterm) in America, something was also dying. Apocalyptic prophesieshave alwaysboth heartenedand terrified; they speak of a new paradisebeing born, but born out of the ruins of war, death, and destruction. In the Spanish encounterwith Americathere was plenty of death and destruction. The violence was often interpretedin apocalyptic terms-and over it always was the watchful face of the Virgin Mary. Maryhad alreadybecome associatedin the minds of the conquering Spaniards with the conquest-or the Reconquest-of the Moors in

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Spain. In particular, a small statue of Mary, the Spanish Lady of Guadalupe, located in a monastery in Estremadura,had become the center of an importantMariancult associatedwith the Spanish royalty. Accordingto legend, King Alonso XI of Castile had defeatedthe Moors at Salado in 1340 after commending his fortunes to the Virgin of Guadalupe,and as a consequencehe dedicatedthe royalhouse to financial patronage of the monastery. From 1340 to 1561, Our Lady of was Guadalupeat Estremadura at the hub of Spanish religious life, and was closely identifiedwith the Reconquista (Brown: 222-23).2 The miracles of the Ladyof Guadalupeincluded many cases of miraculousliberation of Christianprisoners of the Moors (Lafaye: 223).3 The Christianstruggleagainstthe Moorsfor rule of Spain had easily taken on apocalyptictones for the Christians. The strength and early success of Islam, and its opposition to Christianity,seemed to invite comparison with the power of the Antichrist described in Revelation (McGinn: 34). The destructionand defeatof this Satanicforce was laid at the feet of the Virgin, who watched over the battles as a heavenly general. In guaranteeingvictory for the Christians,she inflicted death on the Moors and became in the process a sign of apocalyptic destruction. The Conquest of Mexico was understood as a continuation of the Reconquest. Cortes'chaplain, FranciscoL6pez de G6mara,wrote in his Historia generalde las Indias that "The Conquest of the Indians began when the conquestof the Moorshad ended, in orderthat Spaniardsmay alwayswar againstthe infidels" (Lafaye: 34). Again, Maryaided in the expedition. G6maraclaimed that duringcrucialbattleswith the Indians in 1519 Marysometimes cast dust in the Indians'eyes so they could not see to fight (Padden: 143). The Spaniardswon a great battle with the Indians at Tabasco on March 25, 1519, and Bernal Diaz del Castillo reportedthat, "As it was LadyDay we gave to the town ... the name of SantaMariade la Victoria"(Diaz del Castillo: 59). It is significantthat on the NocheTriste, which Cortes'troops were drivenout of the Aztec in capitalof Tenochtitlin and many Spaniardsdied, the statueof Marythat
2Afterthe reconquestof Granadaon January1, 1492, which officiallymarksthe end of the Reconquista,Queen Isabellaand KingFerdinandmade a votive tripto Guadalupe. While they were at the monasteryof Guadalupethey ordered ships placed under the orders of Columbus. 1561 was the date of the building of El Escorial,which replacedGuadalupeas the center of royalreligiouslife in Spain (Brown: 114-115). 3These "miraculous"liberations were aided by material means: the release of Christiansheld prisonerby Moorswas often obtained with ransom money from the Hieronymiteorder,which ran the monasteryof Guadalupe(Brown: 126).

Motherof Death and Rebirth Harnington:

29

Corteshad placed upon the altarof the temple to Huitzilopochtlion the Templo Mayorwas lost (Diaz del Castillo: 307). In this great defeat of the Spaniards,Marywas missing. Had she suddenly-capriciously?withheld her favor? If this is how it seemed to the Spaniards,it added another dimension to the association of Marywith death. THE AZTECS AND THE DREADFUL GODDESS Images of Marymust have been associatedwith death and destruction by the natives who allied themselves with or battled against the Spaniardsin 1519 to 1521. Cortes and his troops carriedmany small images and banners of Mary with them on the Conquest, and they placed the statuesin native temples afterthe temples had been cleansed of their paganidols and the blood of sacrifices(Padden: 143). Afterthe battle in Tabasco, for instance, the chiefs were instructedin the basic beliefs of Christianitybefore an image of Marywith the Christ Child. Diaz del Castillo says that, "The Caciques replied that they liked the look of the great Teleciguata and [begged]that she might be ["Lady"], given them to keep in their town" (63). Cortes seems to have had an inexhaustible supply of these Marianimages, which he left behind in every town along his path from the ocean to the central capital of Mexico City. It can be assumed that these images meant somethingdifferent to the conquered Indians than they did to the Spaniards and that, whatevernurturingand benevolent characteristics Marycame to take on for the Indians, at first she seemed overwhelminglyto be La Conquistadorawho had arrivedbearing death, destruction,and humiliation. Since the Aztecs at that time were as apocalypticin their thinkingas some of the Spaniards,it is likely that they also attachedto the image of Mary apocalyptic significance. The Aztec cosmogony was cyclical, based on the myth of four world ages, each of which had ended with a different kind of cataclysmic destruction (Nicholson: 398). The fifth and final age, or Sun (4 Ollin), in which the Aztecs believed they lived, was to terminatewith great earthquakes. The practiceof human sacrifice, which so horrified the Spaniards,apparentlywas based on the premise that "fertility, generalwell-being, even the very existence of the universe depended on the nourishmentof the gods, especially the solar deity, by their preferredsustenance,human hearts and blood" (Nicholson: 424). Most of us know the story of how the Aztec emperor, Montezuma, brooded over reports that white men from the east had landed on his shores in 1519 and were slowly moving across the land towardhis capi-

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tal, everywhereassuming sovereigntyin the name of a distantking, forbidding human sacrifice,and replacingthe images of the gods with one of a goddess. Montezuma decided that Quetzalc6atl, or at least his ambassador,was returningto claim his throne, as he had promised in the ancient myths that he would return"at the end of the world" (Padden: 122-31). Montezuma'sdespair, as he viewed with growing alarm the signs of the imminent end of his Sun, was an importantfactorin the Conquest of Mexico by Cortes and his men. The Spanish destructionof the Indian temples and statues of the gods led many other Indians to despair as well. The speech of a group of Indiannobles to the Franciscanmissionarieswho had told them their gods were false demons and asked them to convert to Christianity speaks eloquentlyof why the end of their religion seemed the end of the world for the natives. said They[theancestors] thatit is through gods thatall live. ... the thattheygive us ourdailyfare and all thatwe drink,all thatwe eat, our sustenance, chia. maize,beans,amaranth, for Theywe supplicate water,for rain, with whicheverything on flourishes the earth(Nicholson:410). With the death of their gods, the Indians felt they were watching the death of their world. In some ways, they were. The Indian way of life was thoroughlydisruptedby the Spanishcolonizers. Afterthe firstyears of anarchy, the supreme authority in New Spain rested with the Audencia. The firstAudencia,under the authorityof Nufio de Guzmin, was cruel and greedy, and forced many natives into virtual slavery. There were reportsof Indians "hangingthemselves or taking poison in acts of mass suicide, caused by the profoundshock at the overthrowof their culture,"and Lewis Hanke reports that the terrorcaused by the notoriousGuzmin was so greatthat in Mexicocq. 1530 Indiansdesisted from relations with their wives to avoid introducingnew children into this world (26). During the epidemics of the 1570s and 1590s the native population declined from 5 million to about two and a half million, and duringthe winter of 1595-96 it appearedthat the entire Indian population might be wiped out (Phelan: 42). The missionariesthemselves wondered aloud what the Indians must think of a religion whose introductioncoincided with the virtualdestructionof their race (Phelan: 92). In their traditionalreligion, the natives of Mexico had associated

Harington: Motherof Death and Rebirth

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with deathandmisfortune mostconsistently goddesses.Indeed, according to the JungianscholarErichNeumann,Mexicois the site of the of Mother (179-208). At the foundation purestexpression the Terrible of the Aztecpolytheism a conceptof a sexually was dualistic, primordial the the deitywho provided basis power,calledOmeteotl, male-female for all the othergods andgoddesses.Ometeotl a distant, was transcendentdeitywithno cult,something a "HighGod." Themalehalfof like the pairedcouplewas linkedwith the fire, maize,the firstman, and the especially solargods. The femalehalf was linkedwith the mother the the goddesses, earthandfertility, firstwoman,andthe moon. Below of this primal was an amazing we variety godsandgoddesses; have pair But namesfor 50 different in the sources(Brundage). these goddesses in basedon the themesthey deitiescan be grouped "deitycomplexes" The goddesses, even morethanthe gods, (Nicholson:408). represent seem to constantly overlapand become each other, and to revolve of withthe earth around limitednumber recurring a ideas,all connected (Brundage). In the Valleyof Mexicoa clusterof goddesses to existed,all related whose principalnames were Teteoinnan of the ("Mother maternity, Tonantzin ("OurHoly Mother"), Gods"),Toci ("OurGrandmother"), Cihuacoatl Coatlicue and ("Snake Woman"), Skirt"), Xochi("Serpent All of the earth-mother Flower"). quetzal("Precious goddesseswere both associated withexuberant and death,the earthas fertility horrifying both womb and tomb of life (Nicholson:422). Sahaguin recordsthe AztecbeliefthatCihuacoatl, despitebeingthe patronof womengiving and forebodbirth,walkedat night"weeping wailing,a dreadphantom the who gavebirthto gods and ing war"(3). Coatlicue, divinemother was to humans, also thought feedon humancorpsesandwas calledthe "dirt devourer" (Hultkrantz:269; Hellbom: 38). Teteoinnan,the Mother the Gods,also calledToci and Tonantzin, the patronof of was and mid-wives, femalefortune-tellers, sweat-houses-a and physicians humansacgoddessof birth,health,andthe future.Yetshe demanded rifice, much of which was performedat the principaltemple of
Tonantzinon Tepeyac(Sahagin: 4). Xochiquetzal,the goddess of sexual passion, was also thought to have been the first to die in war, and women who died in childbirth-who were comparedto warriorsdying in the captureof a prisoner-merged with her horrifyingaspect, haunting crossroadsas death monsters (Nicholson: 422). This ambiguous, life-giving and life-destroyinggoddess seems to have lingered on in Mexico after the official gods of the state cult, Huitzilopochtli and the other solar deities, had disappeared under-

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ground or been thoroughlydestroyed. Perhapsthis is because the goddesses were more ancient, more autochthonous and local, and were involved in the daily routine of life, birth, and death, which persisted even after the state apparatusof the Aztec empire had been destroyed. Certainlythe survivalof the goddesses is partly due to the syncretistic linking of them with the VirginMary. For whateverreason, the dreadful goddess of death continued to roam through Indian communities, snatching more victims every day. At the end of the Conquest, the Virgin Maryshowed two different faces to the people of Mexico. To the Spaniards,she representedthe triumphof the Conquest. To the Indians, she stood for the despairand destructionof the conquered. BIRTH AND THE VIRGIN: GUADALUPE AND A NEW INDIAN BIRTH But among the Indiansnear Mexico City a cult of Maryarose around an obscure painting of Marycalled Guadalupe. This image was associated with an Indian goddess, but it took on new, life-supportingqualities never seen in the Aztec goddesses. The cult of Guadalupebegan as an Indian cult closely linked with the earliercult of Tonantzin,which had originallybeen there. Sahagfin described the pilgrimagesand ritual offerings that had been associated with the hill of Tepeyac before the Spaniardscame. Closeto the mountains therearethreeor fourplaceswherethe natives usedto makeverysolemnsacrifices, to whichtheycamefromdisand tantlands. One of theseis herein Mexico, wherethereis a hill called and the Spaniards it Tepeaquilla, now it is called call and Tepeyacac, OurLady Guadalupe; thisplacetheyhada templededicated the of in to motherof the gods, which they called Tonantzin which means Our in theretheyoffered sacrifices honorof this goddessand they Mother; camefromdistant lands,frommorethan20 leaguesaway,fromall the of and men,women,andchilmanyofferings; regions Mexico, brought drencameto thesefestivals; gatherings peoplein thosedayswere of the great, and everyonesaid, "Let'sgo to the festivalof Tonantzin!" (Chauvet: 65) If there was a statue of Tonantzin there, we can assume that she had a ratherhorrifyingappearanceand that some of the identifyingcharacteristics of the mother goddess were represented. Sahagfinhad elsewhere recordeda descriptionof the mother goddess: on Therewas liquidrubber her lips and a circle[of rubber] each on

Mother DeathandRebirth of Harington: had a shell-covered skirt, called a star-skirt.. . . Eagle feathers were strewn over her skirt; . . . it had white eagle feathers, pointed eagle

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cheek. She had cottonflowers. She had a ball with palmstrips. She feathers.Her shieldhad a goldendisc in the center. She carried the medicinal She 5) herb,totoicxitl. used a broom. (Sahagfin:

The entire style of the painting of Our Ladyof Guadalupeat Tepeyacis clearlySpanish and not Aztec. Moreover,the paintinglacks most of the identifyingelements of the mother goddess, except for the "star-skirt," which might be associated with Guadalupe's mantle covered with golden stars. Notwithstandingthe obviously Spanish characterof the Virgin of Guadalupe,her earlycult was overwhelminglyIndian. Sahagfinconsidered it to be paganism that continued "under the equivocationof this name Tonantzin,"which could be used by missionariesas the Nahuatl translationfor the title "Our Mother"given to Mary. Now thatthereis builttherea churchto OurLadyof Guadalupe, who it to alsocallTonantzin, givesthepreachers occasion callOurLady they the Mother God by the name Tonantzin.And this is a thingthat of shouldbe remedied, because proper the nameof theMother God,our of is but of [OurMother] Dios-inantjin [Mother God]; Lady, not Tonantzin it seemsto be a satanic to palliate underthe equivoinvention, idolatry cation of this name Tonantzin,and they come now to visit this Tonantzin fromfaraway,as faras before, whichdevotion suspicious, is becausein all partstherearemanychurches OurLady, theydo to and not go to those,and theycomefromfarlandsto this Tonantzin, in as the old days(Chauvet: 65). Sahagfin is representativeof early ecclesiastical response to this cult. The earlyCatholicmissionaries,like Sahagfin,had a limited interpretive system for understandingsyncretism. The Christianstories about creation and resurrection,the Christian images of Christ and Mary,were mattersof truth and good; the Aztec stories and images were false and demonic. They could not appreciatethe Aztec mythologyas a profound attemptto come to termswith the dreadfuland fascinatingheartof reality. The Aztecs were deeply pessimistic, perhaps fatalistic, about the world, but they had an elaborate,coherent symbolic system for making sense of their lives. When this was destroyedby the Spaniards,something new was needed to fill the void and make sense of New Spain, the new world of which they were now a part and in which they had suffered defeat at the hands of outsiders. The image of Guadalupeserved that purpose. Our knowledge of the early Indian perceptionof Guadalupederives

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not from books but from artistic representations,dances, and songs. The story of the image's miraculousappearanceon Juan Diego's cloak was passed on among the local Indians by way of art and song. The myth made the image uniquelytheirs, for it came to an Indian, and was createdout of nativematerial,on native soil. It was not a Spanishimage importedto Mexico. The symbols of sun and moon that appear in the painting, and even the colors used, are universalelements of religious symbolismthat had special significancefor the Aztecs. For the Indians, it was naturalto place a goddess above one of her primarysymbols, the moon. If the Spaniardshad destroyedthe solar cult of Huitzilopochtli and human sacrifice,this new incarnationrevealedthat the lunar goddess had overshadowedthe solar god for a time and ushered in a new age. It was a new age of war, death, and disease, which the mother goddess ever announces with her wailing at the crossroads. But it was an age also of birth and survival,which the goddess guaranteedby her guardianshipof the cyclical processes of fertilityand growth. Standing over the moon, symbol of her reign, and wearing the star skirt of the mother goddess, bearing the flowers of divinity, Guadalupe watched over death, defeat,and illness and assuredthe Indiansthat these aspects of life need not lead to despair. They were protectedin the shade of the great MotherGoddess. The sense of joy experiencedby the Indians in the presence of the image of Guadalupeis expressedin the words of a song, collected at the end of the sixteenth century, which was sung at the church of Guadalupe. Here is an English translationof severalverses of the song, taken from MarianoCuevas' Spanish translationof the Nahuatl. I tookdelightin all the many-colored so flowers, sweet-smelling, and were that,startled magnificant, scattering, with petalshalf-opened, yourpresence, Mother, HolyMary. in Our O the water's By edge (Mary) sang: I am the precious buds; plantof youthful I ama creation theone perfect of God,butI amthebestof his creatures. Yourspirit,O HolyMary, alivein the picture.We men praised is her, and dance, takingafterthe GreatBook[Bible], dancedthe perfect andyou, Bishop,ourfather, thereby the shoreof the lake. preached was imprinted. Artistically spirit your Oh! In the worshipped canvas yourspiritwas hidden. A perfect creation.

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here. (23-27)4 Oh! I wouldlive securely This song is in part a teaching song, intended to impart Catholic doctrine about Mary (she is a creature,made by God; not a goddess). It focusses on the storyof the creationof the paintingof Guadalupe"outof flowers." The Indians often made religious images out of flowers, and they could understandthe image of Guadalupeas havingbeen made in a similarway. The only appropriate response to this beautifulportrait,the song says, is to worship it by song and dance. Here, before the Holy Mother,the singer is home and will live securelyhere. The end of the world has led to the birth of a new world, which might be difficult,but is still comprehensibleand secure. GUADALUPE AND THE CREOLE NEW WORLD But Guadalupecould not have become a national symbol had it not also spoken to the Spanish and creoles of Mexico. For them, the iconographyof the image spoke a differentlanguage,but the meaning came almost to the same thing: the birth of a new age in Mexico, guaranteed by the election of this countryby the heavenly Lady. The churchof Guadalupeseems to have become popularwith Spanish residentsof Mexico City in the 1550s as a shrine to visit on a Sunday excursion, just as in Madrid the residents would go to the Virgin of Atocha, or in Valladolid to the Virgin of el Prado (Chauvet: 231). There were stories of miraculous cures by the Virgin of Guadalupe, especially among the Indians, as early as 1556, and by the end of the sixteenth centurya traditionof apparitionsto Juan Diego had appeared (Lafaye: 244). But the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupedid not attract widespreadcreole attentionuntil the publication,within a year of each other, of MiguelSanchez'sbook, Imageof the Virgin Mary,Mother God, of Honored her History the Prophecy ChapterTwelve in by of Guadalupe, of of Revelation (1648), and a detailed Nahuatl account of the apparitionsto Juan Diego and the miraculousappearanceof the painting,publishedby Luis Lazo de la Vega, entitled, The GreatEventof the Appearance the of Lady,Queenof Heaven,HolyMary(1649). I focus on the Sanchez book because it deals directlywith the symbolism of the paintingitself. Sanchezgave to the paintingof Guadalupe nationalisticmeaning and drew upon a traditionof Spanish apocalypticism, which was to elevate the Virgin of Guadalupeto national signifi4English translationby Miguel Ramos.

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cance. It was not remarkablethat Sanchez associated the Virgin with the heavenly woman of the book of Revelation. That was part of the intended message of the painting. What was new in the Sanchez book was the nationalisticsignificancehe attachedto this image. Sanchez claimed that the painting of the Ladyof Guadalupewas the most perfect replica of the Virgin, and its appearancein Mexico made manifest the special significance of his country. In fact, he said, the conquest of Mexico had been ordained and directed by God only in order that this "most divine image" should appearthere (Lafaye: 249). Citing Psalm 48 as evidence that Marylived on Mount Zion, Sanchez argued that Tepeyac is the new Mount Zion, which makes Mexico the Promised Land. All Marianshrines are alike, he declared, except for this one, which is "a new paradise, set aside, sure, and protected" (Lafaye: 250). He explained that God createdthe Old World of Europe for Adam, "the first image of God," to be born and then for Christ,"the second Adam," to be born. But the second Eve had not yet arrived,for she awaited the new paradise. Mary'sappearancein the "second creation," the second paradiseof New Spain, made her the second Eve, the who broughtfaith and redemptionto the New World as co-redemptress Christ had broughtit to the Old World (de la Maza: 40). The Virgin of Guadalupe,Sanchez said, is the woman foreseen by John of Patmos and propheticallydescribed in Revelation 12: "And a great portent appearedin heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." A look at the image of Guadalupewill verifythat, indeed, it could be considered a drawingof that apocryphalwoman. The woman is framedby the sun's rays;she is standingon a half-moon;and the clouds surrounding her and the cherub supportingher both indicate a heavenly setting. But this is no surprise,because it is a stereotypedrepresentationof the doctrine of the ImmaculateConception as it was painted at this time in Spain and New Spain. Paintersof religious subjects were allowed little freedom of artistic expression in Counter-Reformation Spain and New Spain. The Council of Trent had recommended that religious art be used to instruct, to strengthenin faith, and to cultivatepiety, and this imposed on paintersa greatresponsibilityto be accurateand orthodoxin their representations. His position as inspecterof paintingfor the Seville tribunalof the Inquisition led the Spanish painter FranciscoPacheco to write, in his work

Motherof Death and Rebirth Harrington:

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entitledEl artede la pintura(Brown: 33-57),5 meticulous instructionsas to how to paint religioussubjects. Pachecoinstructedpaintersto portray the ImmaculateConception accordingto the descriptionof the woman of Revelation 12.6 The Virgin should be painted as in the first spring and bloom of her youth, as a maiden of about twelve or thirteenyears, with "gravesweet eyes," golden hair, and beautiful features. Pacheco instructedthat her hands be folded on her bosom or joined in prayer, and that she be portrayedin a robe of spotless white, with a mantle or scarf of blue tied with the cord of St. Francis used by the Franciscan monks. The sun should be expressedby a flood of light aroundher, and the moon underher feet should have horns pointing downwardsto indicate it was illumined from above. The twelve starswere to form a crown over her head, and around her should be shown cherubim bearing roses, palms, and lilies. The head of a bruised and vanquisheddragon must appear under her feet to reflect not only the struggle with the dragondescribedin Revelation12, but also the associationof Marywith the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 that "he [the serpent] will bruise your head, and you [the woman] shall bruise his heel" (Jameson: 143). In practice, painters never followed this model exactly, but they came close. The classic expressionof the Spanish Immaculada, sevthe enteenth-century paintingby Murillothat hung in El Escorial,seems to have followed Pacheco nearly to the letter, omitting only the crown of stars and the serpent. The Mexican Guadalupealso follows the model, althoughless exactly. Aside from the obvious featuresof the encircling sun and the moon under foot, the Virgin is also young, standing alone (without child), and wearing the traditionalmantle of blue, spangled with the gold stars mentioned in the vision. At one time there was a gold crown in the painting,but it has faded or chipped away. No roses or lilies are present, but the roses are part of the story, and the dress is rose-colored. Mexicanwritersmake much of the creationof the image "out of roses": Cabrera Quintero,for instance, describedthe image in y 1737 as "stainedin the juice and essence of celestial roses" (127). And Franciscode Florenciawrote that the image createdby Mary"exceeds that excellent work of God"-the creation of human beings-because "the Image of God was formed of dust, but the Image of Mary was formed of roses" (no pagination).
5Writtenfrom 1598-1638, the book was published in 1649 (Brown: 33-57). Also see Weismann: 3, 115. 6The doctrineof the ImmaculateConceptionconcerns the moral purityand exceptional status of Mary;it is the doctrine that Mary,when conceived by her parents, was without original sin.

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The image of Guadalupeis not unique; it is one of many images of the ImmaculateConception that flourishedin Spain and New Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This doctrine was a rallying to point for Spanish Catholicsagainst the rising threatof Protestantism who made up the north, and it was carriedto Mexicoby the Franciscans the first wave of missionaries to follow the conquistadores. The Third Mexican Provincial Council, in 1585, had declared the feast of the Immaculate Conception obligatoryin Mexico, on pain of mortal sin. And many of the oldest and most reveredimages of Maryin Mexico are ImmaculateConception images (Cassidy).7 The image was well-suited to express millennial yearnings. To a greatextent, the meaning of the Immaculate Conceptionparallelsthat of the Incarnation;here, in female form, is a representationof perfected humanity. Like the resurrectedChrist, the "firstfruits of the resurrection," Mary was assumed bodily into heaven, and like him, too, she lived her life on earthwithout sin.8 In the paintingsof the Immaculate Conception, which are very close in style to paintings of Mary's Assumption into heaven, "the maternalcharacterof Maryis set aside, and she stands alone, absolute in herself, and complete in her perfections" (Jameson: xxxvi). It was a potent symbol for the hopes of the Spaniardssettling in Mexico, especially when it was coupled with the imageryof Revelation,including not only the passages in Revelation12, but also the famous descriptionof the "new heaven and new earth"of Revelation21, which is also portrayedin feminine terms: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had disappearednow, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, and the new Jerusalem,coming down from God out of heaven, as beautiful as a bride all dressed for her husband" (Rev. 21:1-2). Sanchez's explicit linking of the painting of Guadalupe with this biblical imageryprovidedfor Mexico a symbolic way to make sense of Mexicanhistoryand Mexicancommunity. Sanchezsaw in Guadalupea sign not of the apocryphalbattle of the last days, but of the birth of a new world in the Mexican nation. This view of Mexico seems to have been an important element in the self-understandingof native-born Mexicans-Spanish creoles, mixed-blood mestizos, and Indians alike-

70f the twenty-eightimages of Marylisted in Cassidy'sbook, fourteenare images of the Immaculate Conception. 8Marydiffers from Jesus, in Catholic doctrine, in that she remains human, while Jesus is both human and divine.

Motherof Death and Rebirth Harrington:

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who struggledagainst the double taint of ancient idolatryand humiliating defeat and colonization by Spain. of The apocalypticunderstanding Mexico is a dialecticone, alternatbetween a conservativemoment (We are a chosen nation;this is the ing earthlyparadise;our way of life is divinely ordained) and a violent and moment (We are divinely ordainedto establish an earthly revolutionary paradise by destroyingour enemies). Some have suggested that Mexico's history-and perhaps in some way the historyof all the nations of the Americas-can be read in terms of this inherentlyunstable altemation between self-righteousconservationand violent revolution. Many of interpreters the Ladyof Guadalupehave pointed to the importanceof the image as a symbol of revolution,most clearlyexpressedin the legendarystoryof MiguelHidalgo rallyingthe masses for revoltagainstSpain with the cry of Dolores: "Vivala Virgen de Guadalupeand death to the gachupines!" Hidalgo was making his own the apocalyptic battleimageryassociatedwith Mary,turningLa Conquistadora againsther former people in the name of a new people. Enormousforces of violence and hatredwere unleashed under the banner of Guadalupe. This is the dark side of apocalypse,and of the Virgin. But the Virgin of Guadalupewas also a symbol of something new being born in Mexico. The story Sanchez tells, of Marychoosing Mexico as the nation where she revealed her image and established her earthlyreign, is a myth that provides a divine foundationfor all aspects of Mexican cultural activity. Sanchez called Guadalupea City, "since she was herself representingher own city of Mexico" (Watson: 21). Here he draws upon a traditionaland powerful association of woman with the city or nation, an associationwhich was expressed in Spanish and Spanish-American culture by the system of city or regional patronage. PLAGUE AND PATRONAGE: THE SALVATION OF MEXICO CITY BY GUADALUPE In sixteenth-centurySpain, every community chose or was chosen by a saint, who representedthe communityto God. The common term used to describethe role of this patronsaint was abogado, legal advocate (lawyer). This was a role familiarto Castiliansfromtheirhighly bureaucraticsecularlife, in which constantlitigationwas a fundamentalaspect of daily existence (Christian: 55-56). The choosing of a patron saint was a matterof trial and error. When a naturaldisasterstruck,a local community would appeal to one image after another, until one was

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found that halted or slowed the plague, flood, drought,or famine. That image would then have a place of preeminencein the sacred life of the community,since the appeal to the saint had been a vow to God through the saint. Spaniardsof the sixteenth centurybelieved God activelyintervened in human affairsand the naturalorderwhen he was angered,and most vows promised devotion at a chapel in exchange for the cessation of the affliction. In some cases, communities believed that saints themselves might inflict harm if angered,and the vows were made to appease them directly. The community would organize a procession, carrying an image of the saint through the streets, and make a solemn communal vow to continue regulardevotion at the shrine of the saint each year on the saint's day, with fasting,prayer,public charityfeasts, and bullfights (Christian: 31-35, 57). From the twelfth century, Maryhad gradually gained preeminence over the other saints as patroness of local communities. This system of patronagewas carried over to New Spain. Gibson reportsthat "the Spanishconception of the patronsaint was enthusiastically adopted by the Indians" in the Valley of Mexico, and numerous cities in Latin America bear one of the names of the Virgin and were placed under her protection(134). A hierarchyof patronagedeveloped in Mexico. Local images represented local communities; regional images represented entire regions, and, eventually, the Virgin of Guadaluperepresentedthe entire nation. But the national statureof Guadalupeemerged only gradually. At first,Guadalupecompetedwith other images of Maryas primarypatroness of Mexico City. Besides the Virgin of Guadalupe,the inhabitantsof Mexico City appealed to the tiny statue of the Virgin of Remedios,to a Dominican painting of the Pieta called NuestraSefiorade la Piedad, or to an image called Nuestra Sefiora de la Bala (Lafaye: 260). In the plague of 1736-37 the image of Guadalupegained preeminencein Mexico City over these other images of Mary and began to be nationally known. The storyof that event illustrateshow the variousterrifying and of Marycoalesced aroundthe image of Guadalupeand consoling aspects functionedto save the Mexicanpeople not only from physical death,but also from the spiritual malaise brought on by an "end-of-the-world" mood of despair,which threatenedthe life of the communityas a whole. Epidemics were the most feared and destructivemenace of Mexico after the Spaniardsarrived. Smallpox struck the Indians first, but by 1535 another disease had appeared, most likely influenza, which the Indians called matlzdhuatl.Europeans largely escaped these plagues,

Harington: Motherof Death and Rebirth

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either because they were immune to them or because the diseases were and excessive toil (Priestly: 64, Phebroughton by under-nourishment lan: 102). Lafayesays, "Worse in one sense than the floods-which it often followed-by reason of its unexpectedappearanceand mysterious origin, the plague (cocoliztli) inspireda feeling of helplessness and terror; collective conjurationof supernaturalpowers appeared to be the only devastatedthe City of Mexico in possible remedy"(254). Matlazdhuatl 1736. At least 40,000 people died in Mexico City in that year, nearly one in three inhabitants. Both Spaniardsand Indians attributed disthe ease to supernatural causes, and an end-of-the-world atmosphere prevailed. In 1738, a creole episcopal priest, Cayetanode Cabreray Quintero, was commissionedby the Archbishopto write a book on the plague and on how "Holy Maryin Her ProdigiousImage of Guadalupeof Mexico Mary." The city governmentpaid the publishingexpenses for this book, and it is a valuable recordof the public recognition(civic and ecclesial) of Mary'spatronageat that time. Escudode armasde Mixico was published in 1746 and has recentlybecome availablein a facsimile edition. The book provides a richness of facts and descriptionthat renderit an invaluableresourcefor the history of Mexican medicine and religion. The author'smain theme is that the plague that terrorizedthe citizens of his city was, in fact, a guerrade Dios, a war by God in which "the were unable to resist it" (2). The Virgin of Guadalupewas enthroned finally as the shield that would defend the citizens against the terrible sword of that God to whom she herself had given birth (xix). Cabreradescribes a dreadfuland barely comprehensibleGod, who thundersfrom heaven and lets his arrows fly (Ps. 18:14). "God is the principal and at times the only cause of plagues,"he says (25), and he proves this by citing Ezekiel: On account all yourfilthypractices, will do thingsto youthatI have of I neverdonebefore. A thirdof yourinhabitants die of plague ... shall or to starve deathinsideyou;a thirdshallfallby the sword,outside you;a thirdI will scatter everywind,while I unsheathe swordbehind to the them. Myanger be satisfied; meanto satisfy furyagainst will I them my and be avenged.(Ezek.5:9-13) Perhaps in that time of plague, when every day a hundred people died, when the doctorswere nearlyhelpless to cure or ease the suffering, only the God of the Israeliteprophets was comprehensible. "In a war undertakenby the SovereignOne," Cabrerasays, "thereis no defense,
Supreme Maker took up arms in vengeance, . . . and human powers City, .
.

. [Had] Mitigated Its Fury Because of the Great Shade Cast by

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no powerto combatit, exceptto fall to the earthand prayfor peace" to (44). Unmistakable signs had been manifested the city'sresidents that prophesied onslaughtof the plagueand revealedits divine the an orderof importance, earthquake on source. He lists, in ascending of com"as 7, 1736;flooding, in the daysof Noah;" September sightings ets and an eclipseof the sun;and,worstof all, a savage wind, "which that the Indianscall simply 'Muerte,' [Death]" the nativeswere convincedcarried diseasewithinit (44-45).9 the In this atmosphere, is not surprising somepredicted the it that that worldwas ending. In Cabrera's account,imagesof the greatbiblical destruction the of cataclysms mergewith the Aztecview of the periodic suns. When a cometwas sightedin March, 1737, at the heightof the plague,some people hid in theirhomes in fear,waitingfor the end thatthe worldwould end were (144). Storiesof long-agoprophecies Indiangirl of Tlaxfreshlycirculated.It was said thata nine-year-old in cala,while she was sick,had learned a visionthatGodwas angryat his peoplefortheirsins andwouldsend the pestilence destroy to them. on Anothernine-year-old Indiangirl (in what maybe a variation the samestory)had claimedthatGodrevealed her the dateof her death to in andthe dateof the end of the world. Thisstorywas reported a book de who believedit shouldbe understood as by Ger6nimo Mendieta, to referring the end of the Indians,since theywere moreor less conalso stantlydyingof plagues. Cabrera repeatsa well-known prophecy of of Fride founder the Province Preaching by FayDomingo Betanzos, arsin New Spain: "That thejustjudgment God,aftermanyages, of by all of the Indians thislandwill havebeentotally of Cabrera destroyed." out thatthis prophecy already had been fulfilled the Islandof on points or whichwas the firstlandconquered the Espafiola, SantoDomingo, by andwhereoriginally therehadbeen 20 millionIndians and Spaniards, now werenone (61-62). It was possible for the Indiansto be entirelydestroyed those in and although Spaniards the wereconcerned aboutit (the Indians years, madeup theirlaborforce),the Indians themselves musthavebeen in a stateof mind.'0 Cabrera the "ridiculous (in desperate reports prayer"
9Grueningreports a continuing dread of wind and air in the 1920s in Mexico. "Fresh air is commonly held to be dangerous"(534). IoCabreradescribes the Indians' mad jealousy and envy at seeing that the Spaniardsgenerally weren't taken with the fever, and reportsthat some "despicable"Indians tried to do things so that the Spaniardswould fall ill, such as infectingthe waterwith corpses. For Cabrera, this envy is one more indicationof the poor moral state of the Indians and thereforea cause of God's wrath being inflicted on them in the form of plague (70).

Motherof Death and Rebirth Harrington:

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his words) of an old Indianwoman, who prayed,"0! No muramos todos, los Madreneustra. Y si han de morir,Seffora, Indios,que muerantambien losEspaffoles," which means, "Oh!Don't let us all die, Our Mother. And if the Indians have to die, Lady,let the Spaniardsdie too" (71). In her words, despair mingles with incipient revolt. Again there is appeal to the Motherof Heaven as both a rescuerand a destroyer, giver of life and of death. The author,once he has established that God is the principalcause of plagues, admits that there were also secondary,naturalcauses for the plague's devastatingeffect upon the Indians. He mentions hunger and lack of food; the heat of day and coolness of nights, which is especially hard on those with little clothing;contactwith the Spaniards; drinkthe of pulque to inebriation;and "drinkingcold water.. . when one is ing sweating and warm" (67-68). But he focusses on a mental cause of the plague, which is relevantto the final efficacy of the Guadalupeimage. That cause is the Indians' dread of the plague as a goddess. The authorsays he found among the natives "a certaindread of the feverso vehement and superstitious,conceivedwith such extremepeculiarity,that sometimestheir own imaginationand sorrowbroughton the fever, and other times, although they alreadyhad the fever to quite an aggravated point, they avoided taking care of themselves, or medicating themselves, fearingthat the fever would take them [if they did]" (69).1" Cabreraarguesthat superstitiousdread and imaginationcan themselves kill a person and that thereforethis dreadcan be considereda secondary cause of the plague. He illustrateshis point by telling of a sorcererwho "killed a multitudeof Indianswith a diabolicalspell." Lookingat them with an air of authority,he said in their language: "Go, and Die," and the group of Indians, "thinking themselves under a spell, and heavy with melancholy,"went home and died (69). The fear at large in Mexico, however, was directedprimarilyat the goddess of Mexico's past. "The Indians believe that the currentillness is some fatal Deity, who conspires to end them; it is not only the Greeks and Romans who had a Goddess of Fever" (69). Cabrerareports,for instance, that an Indian woman appeared in a village some distance from Mexico City and convinced the villagers,who were all Indians,that she was "la Enfermedad."They worshippedher as the goddess of fever, until a religious missionary,passing through, torturedthe woman into

11Englishtranslationof pages 69 to 72 of Cabrera'sbook by Luz Nuncio.

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disavowingher divinity, "thus healing those infected with the plague of her spell" (70). It is clear from Cabrera'saccount that the Aztec goddess of death was still roamingthe streetsof Mexico. Without her old cult, she would have been especially vengeful, and Cabrerais right to take seriouslythe harmful,even mortal,effects of spiritualterror. He describesone Indian man who, fleeing the fever that had seized the city, took the Via de Guadalupeand "almostimaginedthe Temple [of that fatal Deity]next to the Marianmonuments." Travelingalong the broad avenue towardthe sanctuaryof Guadalupe, "he perceived a woman coming out to meet him, who said she was the Fever." This woman urged him not to go where he was headed (to the Guadalupanchurch), but to returnto the city, where he would be preservedfrom the illness. "But since he did
not do this, ... he died where he was going" (69).

This story may reflect ambivalence on the part of some Mexicans about where to turn for protection in this terrifyingtime-toward the newly introduced cult of the Virgin Mary, or back to deeper, more ancient cults of powerfulgoddesses. For one caughtin the middle, and in the grip of conflictingloyalties,the struggleheightenedimaginationin a feverish and destructiveway. Only in making a final choice of one protectorcould the religious imagination become a source of strength and wholeness to preservelife. The story also helps make clear why the final choice was for a maternal and feminine image-why a divine mother was so potent a resourceagainst the collapse of the city. "The one who kills is also the one who heals"--Cabrera said this of God, but it was the heavenly Motherof God who finally saved the city. Spiritualaid was consideredjust as importantas medical aid in colonial New Spain. Mendietahad noticed in the sixteenth centurythat the Indians'faith seemed to be strengthenedby the onslaughtof the plague. "Those who realize that the plague has struck them go on foot or are carriedon the backs of their neighbors or their kinsmen to the church. Those who suspect that they are about to become ill requestconfession before the plague strikes them" (Phelan: 94). This certainlycontinued in 1736, and Cabreramentions orders of priests, friars,and nuns who bravely served the sick and dying by preparing them for death with prayersand sacramentalaid. Certain shrines became known as sanctuaries against contagion, areas of refuge where it was believed that no one would die. Chief among these sacred places was the shrine of Guadalupe, to which many people traveled in pilgrimage during the time of the plague. "Almostno one died there,even in the worst days of

Motherof Death and Rebirth Harrington:

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the plague. The contagionvanished at the boundaryof Guadalupe,and could not enter" (135). The primaryorganized,public response by the city's civil and religious authoritiesto the plague took the form of a series of processions and novenas before the sacred images of the city, in the months of the winter and spring of 1736-37. In Decemberof 1736, the city first solicited the patronageof Mary of Loreto, an Italian image that had been known to preservethe city from plague in the past. The archbishopof Mexico City moved the image from its side chapel to the main altar of the Cathedraland announced that a nine-day novena would be held from the 17th to the 25th of December. The novena ended on an appropriate day, Cabrerasaid, the day "when Mary,away from home, gave birth to the Health and Salvationof the world." The image was elaborately adorned,candles were placed before it, and the whole city gathered with the government officials and church representatives to celebratemass and praybefore the image. "So many were there that the city outside seemed mute." The novena to Loretoended on Christmas Day, "but not the danger,which rose like a great fire" (102). Mexico then turnedto anotherimage of Mary,"her prodigiousConquistadoraimage of Los Remedios." This tiny statue of Mary,which supposedly belonged to one of Cortes' men during the Conquest and was later found in a maguey plant by an Indian cacique named Juan, was one of the most veneratedimages in the city. It is obvious that the city was quicklymoving up the scale of sacredimages to the more powerful and efficacious ones. A procession was organizedon January9, 1737, and the statuteof Maryof the Remedieswas carriedthe eight and a half miles from its churchin San BartoloNaucalpin to the city Cathedral. The procession reached the area of the Cathedralat dusk, and a crowd of people followed, carryingcandles, so that "the entire district was a sea of light, and the Ladywho had come to conquerfrom Europe ... was taken throughoceans of lights and of people" (124). But the plague continued. Some suggestedthat it might be well to undertakea similar procession from the church of Guadalupe,to carry the miraculous painting from its shrine to the center of the city. But the Archbishop declared that Guadalupecould not be moved to the city, and, instead, the city went out to her on January30 for a novena. Such was the importanceof the church of Guadalupethat, although located at the peripheryof the political and economic center of Mexico, it had become "the center out there," a spiritualcenter that relativizedthe ordinarycenters of human concerns. The primaryofficials of Mexico's religious and political gov-

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erning bodies went out to Guadalupe to seek a spiritual aid that lay outside their power and influence. Soon after,they began a complicated bureaucraticprocess to secure the elevation of Guadalupeto principal patroness of Mexico City. But such processes take time, and everyday more people died of the fever. Otherprocessions and novenas to all the sacredimages in the city were being held. In February there were processions or novenas invokChrist'sBlood, St. Joseph, the ArchangelRaphael,and St. Sebastian ing (138). In Marchthe terrorseems to have increased,and the number of processions describedby Cabreraindicates a rising sense of panic. In a period of three months, from March to May, he lists thirty different images of saints for which processions or novenas were held, nearly simultaneously. These include the majorimages of Mary,such as Nuestra Sefiora de la Salud, Nuestra Sefiora de la Bala, la Virgen de los Dolores, NuestraSefiorade la Merced,la Virgen del Rosario,and Santa Maria la Redonda. Images of Christ, such as the famous Lord of Chalma,were also appealed to, althoughless frequently,and images of saints such as San Diego, San Antonio, San Jose, St. FrancisXavier,and San Vicente Ferrerare also mentioned (136-260). A contemporaryof Cabrera's,Don FranciscoSahagfinde Arevalo, wrote in his diary that "so many saints and relics have arrived,that neverhave been seen in the streets before" (xxxiv). All this activityreflectsthe "trialand error"method by which Spanish towns had long selected a patron saint for protection. But the method had degeneratedinto a frenzy of activitydriven by panic. The Spaniardswere tryingtheir usual approachto local disasters,but it was not working. Like the Indians, they turned to every possible source of spiritualprotection. But their ambivalenceand conflictingloyaltiesonly heightened the sense of anxiety that gripped the city. new approachwas taken. The authoritiesof Finally, a qualitatively Mexico City decided to move to a national level. The many local images, like the many Indian goddesses, representedsome parts of the population. Guadaluperepresentedand protectedthem all. She spoke to Indians and Spaniardsalike. She had been given a powerfulnationalistic significance by Sanchez. Now that nationalistic meaning was taken up and embracedby the Mexican people. In May, a solemn oath was taken by the municipal magistratesand the civil and ecclesiasticalchapters,in the name of the whole Mexican nation, that swore to serve the Lady of Guadalupe as her serfs, in exchange for her patronageof the city. On May 16, 1737, the oath was published. "The municipal governmentelects as singular Patronathe

Harington: Motherof Death and Rebirth

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Sovereign Queen of the Angels in her admirable Image that is comwith a majorcult, Mass, and sermon." The letterconcluded: "Andnow we hope that the Divine Ire of castigationwhich we sufferin this deadly epidemic will be suspended" (266-67). On the very day of the public announcementof the vow, Cabrera says, "the plague diminished,"its harshnessabated. All voices declared the remission a fact, and attributedthe good news to Guadalupe. On May 25, "the terrorof the plague having passed," the city preparedto express its joy with flowers, music, dancing, fireworks,and a greatprocession through the streets from the Cathedral. Indians danced their native dances and made small statues of Juan Diego, with the painting of Guadalupeon his cape, before which they poured flowers. Copies of the image of Guadalupewere everywhere(491).12 This was the turningpoint in the ascendence of Guadalupeover the other sacred images of Mexico. News of her efficacy in Mexico City spread to other cities, which followed the capital's example in electing Guadalupe principal patroness. The aspiration to make the image national patronesswas evident in the title of Cabrera'sbook about the Protection thisverynoble epidemic, TheCoatofArmsof Mexico:Celestial of City,of New Spain,and almostall the New World, HolyMaryin HerProdigiousImageof Guadalupe MexicoCity. Seventeenyears afterthe plague, of Guadalupe was proclaimed the "Patroness and Protectress of New Spain"by Pope BenedictXIV. And when the Virgin of Guadalupewas crowned in 1895, she was named Queen of the Americas (Leies: 99). The image of Guadalupehad risen from an obscurelocalized Indiancult to the supreme position among the cults of Hispanic America. It rose to this position because the image was ideally suited to express the hopes and passions of several different ethnic and social groups in Mexico and to unite those groups into one nation. The symbolism of the paintinghad directreferenceto the Book of Revelationand representedthe millennial religiousand social aspirationsof the Spanish and creole populationsof New Spain. To the Indians,the same symbolism of sun and moon evoked not biblical prophecies,but the Aztec cyclical cosmogony with its expectation of periodic cataclysmicdoom and rebirth. In the chaos and destructionof the colonial period, the image of
12VictorM. Ruiz Naufal, in a historical study at the beginning of the 1981 facsimile edition of Escudo armasde Mexico,reportsthat "the fact is that only in Septembercould it be said that the de epidemic had ended in the Valley of Mexico and it was mid-1738 before it began to end in the internal provinces (Cabrera: xxxvii).

monly called Guadalupe ...

solemnizing it annually on December 12

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Guadalupe/Tonantzinrepresented to the Indians a promise that the GreatGoddesswho guardsover death and birth would shelterthem and guaranteea new cycle of life. To be sure, the dreadful, terrifyingaspect of the divine was taken over by the God of the Israeliteprophets, whom Cabreraevokes. But when Marycommanded armies, led bloody revolutionary forces, withheld her favor, and thus permittedplague to rage for months despite nearly constant prayer and devotion before her images, she too had a terrifyingaspect. In that time of terror,when the population of Mexico City was succumbingto fever and death as much out of despairas from naturalcauses, only the total submission of the Mexican public to the great image of Maryat Tepeyac could halt the crisis and restore confidence and joy to the population. Maryhad taken the place of the Aztec solar gods and, to a large extent, even the Catholic God, Fatherand Son. In chargeof death and life, she spoke of a new age, representedcommunitybonds, and guaranteed salvation. Only her image of Guadalupehad the power to save, and it continuedthereafter stand over the nation of Mexico as a symbol of to Mexican faith and hope, an expression of Mexican realism about the inevitabilityof death and the Mexican certaintyof a new birth.

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unpublished Cabreray Quintero, Escudo de drmas de Mixico. Mexico: Vda. de J.B. Cayetanode Hogal. Reprint. Mexico: Instituto Mexicano del 1746 Seguro Social, 1981. Cassidy,Joseph Mexico.:Land of Mary's Wonders.Paterson, N.J.: St. 1958 Anthony Guild Press. del Chauvet,Fidel de El Culto Guadalupano Tepeyac:Sus Ongenes sus y Jesus Ci'ticosen el SigloXVI. Mexico: Centro de Estudios 1978 Bernardinode Sahagi'n.

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Christian,William Local Religionin SixteenthCenturySpain. Princeton, 1981 N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress. del Cuevas, Mariano,S.J. AlbumHistorico Guadalupano IV Centenario.Mexi1930 co: Escuela TipograficaSelesiana. Mexicano. Mexico: Porriia y de la Maza, El Guadalupanismo Francisco Obreg6n. 1953 and Diaz del Castillo, TheDiscovery Conquest Mexico,1517-1521. Ed. of Bernal by Genaro Garcia. Trans. by A.P. Maudslay. New 1956 York: Farrar,Strausand Giroux. Florencia,Francisco Las Novenas del Santuario de Nuestra Seffora de de de, S.J. Guadalupe Mexico. Mexico: Talleresde la Editorial 1945 [1785] Cultural. Geertz,Clifford "Religionas a CulturalSystem." In TheInterpretation 1973 of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Gibson, Charles TheAztecsUnderSpanishRule. A History the Indians of 1964 of the Valleyof Mexico, 1519-1810. Stanford, Calif.: StanfordUniversityPress. Gruening,Ernest Mexicoand Its Heritage.New York: GreenwoodPress. 1968 and Indians:A Studyin RacePrejHanke, Lewis Aristotle theAmerican 1959 udicein the Modem World. London: Hollis & Carter. de Hellbom, Anna-Britta La Participacidn las MujeresIndiasy Mestizasen el Stockholm: 1967 Mixico precortesiano postrevolucionario. y Museum. Ethnographical Hultkrantz,Ake 1979 TheReligions theAmerican Indians. Trans.by Monica of Setterwall. Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress.

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