First, I’d like to thank everyone who has subscribed to The Unpopular History of Mexico in the past weeks. It means a lot and I am very grateful, appreciative, and happy to have you here!
Speaking of gratitude, I suppose it would be apt to talk about the Virgin of Guadalupe, or La Virgencita as she is popularly known in Mexico.
While reading Malintzin’s Choices, I came across this section which talks about the introduction of Christianity and the Virgin of Guadalupe to the indigenous people in the moments before Hernan Cortés and his men sailed off in search of the “wealthy kingdom buried in the heart of the mainland” that they heard so much of.
Before they left Putunchan, the Spanish took the time to introduce Christianity to the people; they were proud to think that they did so everywhere they went. Later they even claimed that before each battle they read aloud the requerimiento a statement that informed the natives about Christianity and offered them peace if they would only convert. It is doubtful that they really had the time to make unintelligible speeches before their battles, but they certainly spoke of their religion after their military encounters. Cortés ordered two of his carpenters to construct a large cross on a hill, and he presented the town with a beautifully dressed figure of Mary holding her child. Cortés himself displayed the image of the Virgin on his standard, so his action would have appeared perfectly logical to the defeated indigenous; goddess or queen, her gorgeous raiment would have proven her to be important. Fray Bartolomé de Olmedo said Mass. The Chontal were noncommittal, but some of the Spaniards chose to believe that they had accepted the faith, or at least that they would give up their idols…
…Later, some Indians would say they thought at first that Mary was the highest god. It would be the same in China and elsewhere when the earliest friars made their halting efforts in a foreign tongue. The Christian god seemed to be a woman. Not a goddess, creator and destroyer, capricious and uncontrolled, as in the Nahua or Maya world. But a perfect woman.
Accustomed to gods and goddesses that seemed outside of reality, I imagine that seeing this image would have caused a significant impact on the indigenous people, especially women, like Malintzin. So far, all of the gods and goddesses they knew of were otherworldly deities like Coatlicue mother of Huitzilopochtli god of the sun, Chimalma mother of Quetzalcoatl god of knowledge and art, or Toci mother of gods.
So who was this Mother of God that the Spanish spoke about? Where did she come from? and why were Cortés and his men carrying a standard with an image of her, of this human face?
The story of the Virgin of Guadalupe begins in the later part of the 13th century in Extremadura in the southern part of the kingdom of Castile. Gil Cordero, a farmer and resident of this area was about to skin his dead cow near the river of Guadalupe (meaning river of wolves, from Arabic origin: Guada=water; Lupe=wolf) when Mary the mother of God appeared to him and pointed to the place where she wanted him to dig. Cordero went to the archbishop who after some insistence had a group of clergymen accompany Cordero. After some digging, they found a wooden Marian image along with documents that proved it was the image that had been hidden away during the Muslim invasion of Seville in the 8th century, so the story goes. Although these are legends, what is undeniably true is that the Virgin of Guadalupe did come into existence.
As rumors of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, as she was now being called, spread through the northern part of the Kingdoms of Castille and Portugal, people began traveling south, leading to many pilgrimages and the eventual formation of Caminos de Guadalupe. Some believe that this story of the apparition was created to repopulate an area that had been left almost empty after the Battle of Navas de Tolosa in 1212 when the Christians managed to expand their kingdom by pushing the Muslims south into what is now Granada.
By 1435, when Cortés was born, the Virgin of Guadalupe had become the patron saint of Extremadura. Like many Extremadurians, Cortés was a devout believer and admirer of the Virgin of Guadalupe and as such, he carried with him a standard with her image on his trips to the newfound continent. Later, after conquering Tenochtitlan, Cortés and his men would plant this standard in the now famous Cerro del Tepeyac where every 12th of December, millions of Mexicans travel by foot, car, bike, bus, or any other transport they can find, to pay their respects or show their gratitude to the Virgencita.
How her image changed to the image above, will have to be a story for another day.
I believe I have mentioned this before, but I will say it again. I am not a historian, but I am interested in history and try to use various resources to research. If you have other additional information, please do share!
I always love hearing the story of Guadalupe, Esperanza, and you've introduced new parts to it I didn't know. Great researching and writing. Also the images are fab.