My discussion on religious Mestizaje.

1. Mestizaje de
Símbolos Religiosos
Focus: Religious
Mestizaje of Indigenous
and European symbols
resulting from the
Spanish Conquest of
MesoAmerican as
exemplified by La Virgen
de Guadalupe.

2. Roman Catholicism vs. Folk
(Mexican Catholicism)
• Roman Catholicism is highly
influenced by and representative of
Western Christianity.
• It is monotheistic but also
acknowledges many saints and the
Virgin Mary.
• European in appearance and
represents a geographical region’s
race and cultural customs/values.
• The extent to which the Virgin
Mary became a central figure in
Spain in relation to the intermixing
of religious symbols in
MesoAmerica and Spain.

3. Mestizaje de Mary

4. European Virgin Mary
• Throughout the centuries,
Catholics have viewed the
Virgin Mary from a multitude
of perspectives, at times
derived from specific Marian
attributes ranging from
queenship to humility, and at
times based on cultural
preferences of events taking
place at specific points in
history.

5. Apparitions of La Virgin for
Mexican Catholicism
• By all accounts, when Juan Diego, age 57, reported the
apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Tepeyac hill in Mexico
in 1531, he did not receive a lot of attention in Rome, since
the Church was busy with the challenges of the Protestant
Reformation of 1521 to 1579 and perhaps very few Cardinals
in Rome had ever heard the details of Mexico and its environs.
Yet, just as a large number of people were leaving the Catholic
Church in Europe as a result of the Reformation, Our Lady of
Guadalupe was instrumental in adding almost 8 million people
to the ranks of Catholics in the Americas between 1532 and
1538.

6. La Virgin de Guadalupe (hybrid
religious figure)
Another example is the Saint
Juan Diego's account of the
appearance of the Virgin of
Guadalupe in 1531 as a
tanned Aztec princess who
spoke in his local Nahuatl
language. The clothing of the
Virgin of Guadalupe image
has been identified as that of
an Aztec princess.

7. La Virgen De Guadalupe
• Indigenous Roots: Borrowed from the Nahuatl name
Coatlalopeuh: a central diety for MesoAmerica that connects
us to our Indian ancestry. Pg#49
• Mother of God
• Holy Mary of Guadalupe
• Our Lady of Guadalupe
• Indigenous History of La Virgin: Following the Conquest of
1519-21, the Spanish destroyed a temple of he mother
goddess Tonantizin (pg. 49) at Tepayac outside of Mexico City
and built a chapel dedicated to the Spanish Catholic Virgin on
the Site.
• But Anzaldua tells us a different story of, Coatlalopeuh and
Coatlique as the female deities who were marred by dark
images and being from an under world. And associated with

8. The Dark Transformation of Indigenous
Female Deities. The Resulting Need for Purity.
• Evil aspects such as Tlazolteotl
and Cihuacoatl (Kali)
• Tlazolteotl
• In Aztec mythology, Tlazolteotl
(or Tlaçolteotl, Nahuatl
pronunciation: /tɬasoɬˈteotɬ/) is a
goddess of purification, steam
bath, midwives, filth, and a
patroness of adulterers. In
Nahuatl, the word tlazolli can
refer to vice and diseases

9. Dual Nature Female
Indigenous Dieties Split Apart
• However, she was a purification goddess as well, who forgave
the sins and disease of those caused by misdeeds, particularly
sexual misdeeds
• Regardless of the dual nature of these Dieties, the European
version of Catholicism and Christianity did not allow for
duality. It was believed that deities were either all good or all
bad.
• Tonantsi had to be a split of the pagan goddesses dark side
and this was done with the Lady of Guadalupe. She is a
descendent, however, from indigenous history, culture and
language.
• Lady of Guadalupe is a Mestiza version of Tonantsi who is a
descendent of Coatlalopeuh. (bottom of 49)

10. Dual Nature cont…
• Aztec deities could not only be of double gender but different
names represented different facets of the character of the
same deity. Tonantzin, therefore, may be associated with the
dread goddess Cihuacoatl (a serpent woman), whom Sahagun
identified not with the Virgin Mary, but with Our Mother Eve
and her encounter with the serpent of good and evil in the
Garden of Eden.

11. De-Sexualization of Guadalupe
and Demonizatin of Indigenous Female
Deities
• After the Conquest, the Spaniards and their Church continued
to split Tonantsi/Guadalupe (Coatlaopeuh)
• Eventually, La Virgen was made into a chaste Virgin and
Tlazoleteotl/Coatlcue/la Chingada became putas and beasts.
• This process was begun by Nahuas and continued with
Europeans to the point where all Indian deities and religious
practices appeared to be the work of the devil.
• So all that was impure was associated with the indigeonous,
while all that was pure was associated with the new Lady of
Guadalupe or La Virgin de Guadalupe.

12. The Dark Side and the Serpent

13. Indigenous Religious Roots
cont..
• Tonantzin was
transformed in La Virgin
de Guadalupe

14. More to the story of Religious
Mestizaje….
• Declaring herself to be the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ, she
called Juan her son. He reported his vision to Bishop Juan de
Zumarraga, who demanded additional evidence of the divine
apparition.
• Whatever the "scientific" explanation, this image of the Virgin
Mary not only reflects the sudden and violent clash of two
cultures, Spanish and Aztec, but remains for many a symbol of
the birth of the Mestizo nation of modern Mexico.
• However, there is another side to the story. Before the fall of
the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the hill where Juan
Diego had his vision had also been the site of an ancient
temple to the Aztec goddess Tonantzin (Our Revered Mother),
later leveled to the ground by the Spaniards.

15. Anzaldua says…
• Guadalupe is a symbol of the Mexican rebellion against the
rich, upper and middle class; against their subjugation of the
poor and the indio.
• La Virgen de Guadalupe is the symbol of ethnic identity and of
tolerance for ambiguity that Chicanos, Mexicanos people of
mixed race, people who have Indian blood, people who cross
cultures by necessity possess.
• 52: La gente Chicana tiene tres madres. All three are
mediators.
• Guadalupe, the virgin mother, la Chingada (Malinche), the
raped mother whom we have abandoned and la Llorona, the
mother who seeks her lost children.

16. Cont.
• Guadalupe is supposed to make us docile and enduring.
• La Chingada makes us ashamed of our Indian side.
• La Llorona to make us long-suffering people.
• Coatlicue, Lade of the Serpent Skirt, contained and balanced
the dualities of male and female, light and dark, life and
death.
• The devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe is a syncretic
manifestation of Catholic and Aztec beliefs
• In the 1960's César Chavez marched with the image when The
United Farm Workers went on strike. Ester Hernández's 1975
depiction, "The Virgin of Guadalupe Defending the Rights of
Chicanos" is a radical interpretation of the religious icon as
warrior-defender of minority rights.

17. • According to Carlos Fuentes, the orphaned children of the
New World were granted a mother through Juan Diego's
apparition, allowing the Spanish authorities to transform the
Indian people from children of violated women (see Malinche)
to the children of the pure virgin.
• Into the 21th century, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe remains
enormously popular, appearing even now on the posters of a
bitter López Obrador.

18. 58

19. 58
• Rationality vs. Mystique

20. Duality in Religious Beliefs vs.
Spiritual Beliefs
• http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/2614-our-lady-of-guadalupe-
tonantzin-or-the-virgin-mary
• Voodoo…quote from 59

21. La Facultad
• 60-61

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