Mexico Culture: Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of Mexico

When we first arrived in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, a little over three years ago, a new Mexican friend commented, "There are many levels of Mexican culture, and each level is rich." Her words have stayed with me—illuminating my ability to 'see' and urging me on as I struggle to understand.

Reed and I have developed quite an attachment to the grand Montezuma Cypress trees that grow here in Coyoacán.  In an earlier Blog, I wrote about these trees—sacred in Mesoamerican culture and powerfully alive today in Mexican cultural consciousness.

So naturally this stately Montezuma Cypress tree growing in the middle of the street just around the corner from our new apartment caught my eye.  Its distinctive bark reminds me of the Redwoods in Northern California, my childhood home.

 Growing in a protected space in the middle of Escocia Street is a specimen of the
national tree of Mexico, the Montezuma Cypress (Taxodium mucronatum).

Only in Mexico, I thought, would they protect the tree by requiring traffic to make its way around it!  When I walked around the tree, I came upon this shrine.

The Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of Mexico,
at the foot of the Cross bearing her Suffering Son.
The pole at the top holds a light bulb for night-time illumination. 

My first reaction was, "What on earth?" followed quickly by the questions, "What, and why?" 

The shrine invites investigation precisely because it attaches the Virgin of Guadelupe to the ancient sacred tree.  Understanding why requires a little historical context.

Before the arrival of the Spanish, the ruling Aztecs (Mexica) did not require the people they conquered to renounce their gods or traditional customs. In fact, the Aztecs often incorporated the gods of those they conquered into a separate pantheon reserved for the gods of subject peoples.

The Spanish were different. Hernán Cortés and his men considered religious conversion to be one of their main tasks in the New World. In 1521 Roman Catholic priests accompanied Cortés and his army when they destroyed Tenochtitlán, capital city of the Aztecs.

Those first priests were followed closely by missionaries. As amazed as these men of the cloth were by the science, culture and religion of the indigenous peoples, they were equally horrified by some of their deities and ancient rites.

The Spanish offered Catholicism as the only true religion. They destroyed ancient temples and prohibited the practice of traditional rituals. In a final humiliation, the Spanish required the indigenous people to use the foundations and stones of the destroyed temples to construct Catholic churches.

Tonantzín: Manifestation of the Earth Mother

One of the temples destroyed during the early years was that of the goddess Tonantzin, located on Tepeyac Hill. Tonantzin is believed to be a manifestation of the Earth Mother, known as Coatlicue, the mother of all living things, who was conceived by immaculate and miraculous means. She was also the one to decide the length of life. To the Mexica, the earth was both mother and tomb, the giver of life and the receiver of human remains as they decomposed to rejoin the Life Force.

This profound connection to the earth was brought home to me when my Purhépecha friend, in speaking of the death of her grandmother, announced, "Yo soy la tierra" (I am the earth). She then went on to say that as sad as she was to lose her beloved grandmother,

"I felt it was only right that the child return to the mother."

Tonantzín, or Little Mother, patron of childbirth, had a devout following. The Aztecs mourned their goddess and felt threatened and endangered by the profanation and razing of her temple by the Spaniards. This history sets the context for the appearance of the Virgin of Guadelupe to the Aztec peasant Juan Diego.

Juan Diego's Vision

According to tradition, on December 9, 1531, ten years after the fall of Tenochtitlán, Juan Diego, a Náhuatl peasant who had been baptized, saw a vision of a young woman while he was on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City. Juan Diego went to the Archbishop, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, to tell him of his vision. The archbishop asked for miraculous proof.

Three days later Juan Diego returned to the hill. The Virgin appeared again and, in Náhuatl, told Juan Diego to gather some flowers from the top of Tepeyac Hill. It was winter when no flowers bloomed, but on the hilltop Diego found flowers (traditionally, they are roses), and the Virgin herself arranged them in his tilma, or peasant cloak.

When Juan Diego opened the cloak before the Archbishop on December 12, the flowers fell to the floor, and in their place was the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, miraculously imprinted on the fabric.

This depiction of the Virgin of Guadalupe is on permanent display in the
Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexico City)—the most-visited pilgrimage
site in the Western Hemisphere. The Virgin stands on the half-moon,
which represents the female principle in Mesoamerican cosmology. The cherub
below the moon is widely believed to be Saint Michael, patron saint of Mexico.

The Virgin of Tepeyac, as she is also known, is morena (brown-skinned) and spoke to Juan Diego in Náhuatl. Numerous scholars have pointed out the similarities in sound and attributes between Guadalupe and Coatlicue. It is also thought that the Spanish Bishop may have given her a more familiar name. Supporting this hypothesis is a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe near the Guadalupe mountains in Extremadura, Spain—native land of many of the Spanish soldiers and missionaries.

According to Friar Bernardo de Sahagún, one of the main Spanish missionaries and historians of the period, the indigenous continued to call her Tonantzín until around 1560, when the Spaniards baptized her with the sole name of Guadalupe.

Virgin of Guadalupe Embraces All of Mexico

A Mexican friend relayed an intriguing legend: it is thought that when the indigenous artisans carved the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, they embedded within the wood-carved figure, a caña de maís (corn paste) figure of the ancient goddess. So, queried my friend,

"The question is, 'when the indigenous people kneel in prayer to the Virgin, are they praying to Mary or to the ancient goddess'?"

This legend gives insight into how it might have happened that Spanish Catholic images and beliefs were, in many instances, laid over ancient indigenous beliefs. In this sense, it can be said that colonial art embodies the syncretism that resulted from this process.

Just before we moved to Mexico, Reed and I visited an exhibition of Catholic vestments and religious objects made by indigenous artisans throughout the Spanish colonies during the colonial period. Their interpretations of Spanish Catholic images and vestments using traditional materials and techniques were breathtakingly beautiful. A bishop's cloak and miter fashioned from bird feathers remains vivid in our minds.

This historical background deepens our understanding of the shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe on the Montezuma Cypress near our apartment. The Virgin with her strong associations to the ancient goddess Tonantzin resting on the Montezuma Cypress, itself symbolic of the Life-Force that supported ancient Mesoamerican culture, is a powerful statement about the ongoing vitality of Mesoamerican culture in modern Mexico.

Without question, the widely-reported appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the recently-baptized Náhuatl peasant Juan Diego was a powerful unifying factor between the Spanish-Catholic and pre-Hispanic strains. The conquered indigenous identified the dark Virgin who spoke in Náhuatl with the goddess Tonantzín and celebrated her with indigenous rites within the framework of the Catholic Church. This incident was perhaps the most important single event to hasten the conversion of the Mexican indigenous peoples to Catholicism.

Over time, however, the Virgin of Guadalupe was also embraced by the Spanish criollos (Spanish born in Nueva España—Mexico—rather than in Spain). The Virgin´s personal appearance on Mexican soil was seen as establishing a direct relationship between the land, the criollos and the Mother of God.

The Virgin had adopted the Mexican people (el pueblo) as her own; in turn, el pueblo adopted her as the Mother of Mexico. All of Mexico, el pueblo mexicano, could—and still does—adore her.