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LITR 5731 Seminar in
Sample Student
research project
Spring
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Catherine Louvier
Initial Test/Report:
Proposal:
Graduate student/ University of Houston Clear Lake
The Lady Speaks: Giving Voice to “Our Lady of Guadalupe”
In December 1531, The Blessed Mother appeared to Juan
Diego on the way to his village asking that he petition for a church where she
stood. When others refused to believe him, she filled the man’s
tilma full of roses to fall
out at the bishop’s feet, miraculously proving her presence. Today we call this
incarnation of Mary “Our Lady of Guadalupe,” and a basilica in her honor stands
at the site of Juan Diego’s vision on Tepeyac hill in Mexico City. Worldwide,
only the Vatican receives more visitors per year than this shrine to the Mexican
Mother of God. While most pilgrims come to venerate the peaceful, obedient,
Virgin Mary, others pay homage to Guadalupe as a figure of female empowerment.
Traditionally, the Virgin of Guadalupe offers a model of quiet submission for
her female devotees. In the patriarchal world from which she hails, she supplies
a means to control female social and sexual behavior. However, rather than
accepting the passive, subordinated image put forth by those who would control
women, feminists latch onto the strength and endurance of The Virgin for
inspiration. A variety of women in feminist circles reject the established model
of silent submission, to embrace a virgin with a powerful voice. Guadalupe now
makes frequent appearances in art, literature, and politics as a symbol of
feminine fortitude. By reinterpreting Our Lady of Guadalupe, women assume
control of an image formerly used to control them.
Paper
Alice Catherine Louvier
Dr. Craig White
LITR 5731
19 April 2010
Our Lady Speaks: Giving Voice to the Virgin of Guadalupe
In
December 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared to an indigenous peasant man, Juan
Diego, on the way to mass on Tepeyac hill, near present-day Mexico City. She
asked that he petition the bishop to erect a church at the place of her
apparition. After three refusals, the Blessed Mother filled the man’s
tilma full of roses to fall out at
the bishop’s feet, leaving her image in the place of the flowers inside of the
cloak. In the face of this miracle, the bishop granted her request. Today we
call this incarnation of Mary “Our Lady of Guadalupe,” and Juan Diego’s
tilma now hangs above the alter of a
basilica built in her honor at the site of his vision on Tepeyac hill.
Worldwide, only the Vatican receives more visitors per year than this shrine to
the noble Indian Mother of God, Queen of Mexico, and Empress of the Americas.
While most of the pilgrims come to venerate the peaceful, obedient Virgin Mary
who bestows her favor on the people of Mexico, others pay homage to Guadalupe as
a figure of female empowerment.
In the
patriarchal world from which she hails, The Virgin of Guadalupe supplies a means
to control female social and sexual behavior. But rather than accept the
passive, subordinated, image, many women today latch onto the strength and
endurance of the Virgin for inspiration. Her intrinsic strength is easily seen
when she serves a political and military icon, but one gets a deeper
appreciation of Guadalupe by looking past the Spanish records to see her from
the perspective of the pre-conquest Nahua people. The Virgin of Guadalupe now
makes frequent appearances in art and literature as a symbol of feminine
fortitude. By reinterpreting Our Lady of Guadalupe, women assume ownership of an
image formerly used to control them.
Feminist
theologian Rosemary Ruether notes a specifically feminist association with
Guadalupe beginning in the 1980’s and 90’s, when liberation theology, feminist
theology and “Indian” theology came together to reinterpret Guadalupe and
reclaim indigenous religious traditions (Ruether 217). Indigenous Catholic
activists acquainted feminist theologians with myths and images from the Aztec
pantheon. At the same time, the public became much more aware that
The
Basilica de Guadalupe
stands on
the site of a destroyed temple dedicated to Tonantzin. As a result, the Virgin
of Guadalupe became associated with that powerful Nahuatl deity.
Soon, imagery combining the submissive qualities of the Virgin, with the
empowered personas of indigenous goddesses began to show up in the work of women
like Sandra Cisneros, Yolanda Lopez, Pat Mora, and Alma Lopez.
While the one would assume otherwise, the Catholic Church accepts the connection between Our Lady of Guadalupe and Tonantzin. Church officials apparently consider “Tonantzin” a sort of indigenous epithet for la Virgen. The basilica’s website actually includes a page entitled: “Interpretaciόn indigena de la imagen de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe” (indigenous interpretation of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe)” (Beatty 333). In fact, the Mary/Tonantzin equation is apparently endorsed at the upper echelon of the hierarchy. When Pope John Paul II walked into The Basilica de Guadalupe for the canonization of St Juan Diego, he did so to song (written by a priest) that referred to the Lady of Guadalupe as: “Tonantzin, le morenita” (Tonantzin, the little dark one”) ( Beatty 326). While the church’s acceptance of Tonantzin seems like a positive thing, Ecclesiastical “acceptance” could result in taming Tonantzin rather than empowering Guadalupe.
History:
An understanding of Tonantzin explains both the church’s acceptance of her, and the Nahua’s acceptance of The Virgin of Guadalupe. Tonantzin is not the name of an individual deity, but an amalgamated image incorporating all of the area earth/mother goddesses. The name “Tonantzin” translates into a something like “Our Reverend Mother” (Peterson 39), or “Our Lady Mother” (Ainger-Vros 58). “Our Lady” is one of many readily recognizable Marian epithets (ex: (Our) Blessed Mother, (Our) Blessed Lady). In fact, “Our Lady of Guadalupe” is used interchangeably with “The Virgin of Guadalupe” when referring to the embodiment of Mary that appeared to St Juan Diego. By looking at these translations, church leaders can interpret the pre-Columbian goddess figure as an early indigenous name for the Blessed Mother. Likewise, early Catholic missionaries’ habit of referring to Mary as the “Blessed Mother” can explain the Nashua’s interpreting the Blessed Mother Mary as a Spanish divinity.
When the Spanish invaded Mexico, an abundance of pre-Columbian goddesses stood
between the native residents and Catholic conversion.
Living in the shadow of Tenochtitlan, the
indigenous people of the area worshipped a double-layered pantheon of strong
Mother-Goddess figures. Not only were these goddesses deeply enmeshed in the
origin myths of the area, they were often seen as the mother of the primary god,
who was conceived miraculously. As a result, the Nahua were predisposed to
accept a “Blessed Mother.”
The story
of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, the virgin birth of Jesus, and the sacrifice of
her son to rise again, all fit into the Nahuatl concept of divinity. Consider
the creator mother Coatlique. As in many origin myths, the story is jumbled, and
somehow her son, Huitzilopochtli, god of the sun, is simultaneously the youngest
of a gargantuan brood and the product of a virgin birth. The mother of four
hundred sons and one daughter, Coatlique becomes pregnant by swallowing a bag of
feathers as she sweeps the floor. When her disapproving children plot her
murder, Huitzilopochtli springs fully armed from the womb to protect his mother.
After he flings his brothers into the heavens to become the stars, he tosses the
decapitated head of his sister Coyolxauhqui (goddess of the moon) near enough to
the earth Coatlique to be comforted by her daughter’s face. This drama is
repeated nightly to bring on the sun rise.
In addition to the glaring violation of Abrahamic and Christian tenets faith, there is a philosophic difference in the significance of motherhood in the stories of Mary and Coatlique Huitzilopochtli. While both conceive miraculously, Mary is a vessel for the son of God the Father, while Coatlique is the parthenogenetic mother of the sun. So God the Father is the creator in the case of Mary and the mother-goddess is the creator in the case of Coatlique. While the role of Mary is ostensibly similar to that of the creator goddess there is a subtle but seminal disparity. Differences notwithstanding, the Blessed Mother stepped into the pantheon in the minds of the indigenous people. However, despite the level of respect afforded the mother of god in pre-Hispanic religious systems, Mary’s embodiment as the Virgin of Guadalupe became instrument of female submission.
Pre-Columbian history of the Tepeyac area offers an explanation for how a culture with a proclivity for female empowerment developed into a masculinist society. The earliest occupants of Tepeyac spoke the same language as the Aztecs: Nahuatl (Rodriguez 2) .However they were not part of the dominant culture; they were victims of Aztec imperial expansion (Rodriguez 2). Descending from a Mesoamerican people reaching back much farther than their overlords’, their culture and traditions pre-date those of the Aztec, male-superior, hierarchy and the Spanish, church-driven, patriarchy. Instead, they lived in an engendered egalitarian society based on the principles of “parallelism” (Kellog 564)
“Parallelism” refers to social order in which the male and female spheres are strictly delineated, but equally valued (Kellog 564). Within that system, Gender parallels divide of all aspects of social interaction. There is a pantheon of deities worshipped by men, tended by a male clergy, and a similar pantheon worshipped by women, overseen by a female clergy. Goods are passed from mother to daughter and father to son. Most relevant for the purpose of this discussion, tasks are divided into gender-appropriate categories (Kellog 564). Parallelism differs from the familiar societies mandating gender-specific duties in that there is no implied subordination of female tasks.
The gender
principles of the parallel society enhanced the effect of the Spanish invasion
on the native Mexican people. While the Aztecs first altered the system, they
were more concerned with domination than conversion. However at the time of the
Spanish conquest, representatives of the Catholic Church, with the help of a
patriarchal social system, sanctified gender subordination in a society founded
on gender-specific divisions. The
combination of patriarchy and parallelism fostered the gender subordination of
women in a formerly egalitarian society.
Points of Contention:
When re-visioning her nature, it is almost impossible to
ignore contemporary evidence that Guadalupe was contrived to facilitate Catholic
proselytization. In 601 CE, Pope Gregory the Great sent a letter to Christian
missionaries recommending that they not destroy pagan temples in the
evangelization process. Instead, temples should be stripped of idols, sprinkled
with holy water and fitted with Catholic alters and relics. He contended, that
when newly converted people saw that Christians did not desecrate their shrines,
they could “banish error from their hearts and be more ready to come to the
places they are familiar with, but now recognizing and worshipping the true God”
(Hall 60). Guadalupe’s basilica is situated on such an absconded holy space.
Because
Spanish and Nahuatl are phonetically incongruent, questions about the accuracy
of the name “Guadalupe” circulate among both traditional Catholics, and
progressive apostles. According to the story,
la Virgen talks to an indigenous man
in his native language. However, the word “Guadalupe” cannot be spoken in
Nahuatl (no g or
d). Most everyone today agrees that
the word “Guadalupe” is a mistranslation, but Marianist factions disagree about
what words Our Lady actually used, and the meaning of whatever words that might
be.
Traditional Catholics tend to believe that Coatlaxopeuh (pronounced: quat la su
p e) was the word most likely spoken by the Virgin. It translates roughly into
“She Who Crushes the Serpent.”
Several iconic representations of Mary have her standing on top of a snake,
suggesting that Mary crushes the serpent of Eden.
Therefore, according to the church sanctioned interpretation, the Virgin
of Guadalupe said that she came to stamp out the pagan gods of the Aztec
pantheon.
Contemporary Guadalupana Anna Castillo comes to different conclusions about the true words of la Virgen. While she acknowledges the phonetic similarity of Guadalupe and Coatlaxopeuh, and agrees with the translation, she disagrees with the interpretation. She contends that the Virgin comes to crush those who attack the Nahua. According to Castillo, this alternate interpretation is similar in meaning to her idea that Tequantlaxopeuh was the actual word spoken by Mary, meaning, “She Who Banishes Those That Ate Us.” She also suggests that Our Lady said Tequatlanopeuh, which translates to either “She Whose Origins Were in the Rocky Summit” or “She who comes Flying from the Light like an Eagle of Fire.”
While even
the most skeptical devotees of la Virgen
rarely bring it up, the existence of another Marian “Guadalupe” in Spain
introduces the possibility that the “Queen of Mexico” was imported to bolster
conversion. A statue called Our
Lady of Guadalupe, another “black Madonna,” stands in a Spanish monastery in the
Estramurda province of Cortés’s birth (Peterson 40). Called
mi paradiso (my paradise) by Isabella
of Castile,
the shrine enjoyed wide popularity at the time of the conquest (Hall 41).
In fact,
Ferdinand and Isabella signed the original papers
allocating funds for Christopher Columbus’s voyage in the church (website). The
proximity of the church to Cortés’s home, the popularity of the Spanish shrine,
and Guadalupe’s success at bringing native Mexicans into the fold, give rise to
Catholic conspiracy theories. However, it is generally accepted that simple name
recognition accounts for the ethnocentric transcription.
Literary history:
Thanks to
the Franciscan commitment to learning, a matured religious syncretism was
introduced to the first generation of Nahua Catholics.
Convinced that true conversion of indigenous people required a
comprehensive understanding of their cultural, Franciscan friars made every
effort to learn the Nahuatl language (Ruether 191). Such familiarity would allow
them to recognize signs of inaccurate interpretation on the part of the natives.
To further facilitate mutual understanding, the friars educated certain Nahua
boys, insisting on trilingual mastery (Spanish, Latin, and Nahuatl). Young men
completing the program could translate Catholic doctrine from Latin to Nahuatl
with or without Spanish intermediaries and transcribe detailed histories of
Nahuatl culture for the Franciscan records (Ruether 191).
These educated, literate, indoctrinated Nahua men were charged with
disseminating the true faith.
According
to Rosemary Radford Ruether, “they
[The Franciscans] did not intend to create a syncretism between Christianity and
the religions of the Nahua’s, but they nevertheless helped to do so by creating
a linguistic and cultural bridge over which the Nahua could cross over into
Christianity while preserving much of their own worldview under the surface”
(Ruether 191). Existent records of Nahuatl writings and sermons reflect the
unconscious fusion of Catholic doctrine with an incongruent Nahuatl cultural
core. While they do not contain any deliberate manipulation or implied double
meaning on the part of the authors, the literature reflects an innate difference
between Spanish and Nahuatl writers.
The
discrepancies are most obvious in Nahuatl Theater. Although they had no written
language as we know it, the Jesuits noticed the theatrical tradition of Nahuatl
people (Hall 97-8). While Jesuits and Franciscans both exploited the knowledge
in order to draw natives to the fold, an independent theater sprang up comprised
of plays both written by and performed for the Nahua (Burkhart 92). Indigenous
writers spread the story of Mary through this independent theater (Hall 101).
While all of the plays tell the same stories, the Nahuatl characterization of
Mary is much different than the Spanish characterization of Mary.
The oldest
surviving text (1590) for the Nahuatl theatre,
Holy Wednesday exemplifies the
alternate perception. Holy
Wednesday is a frequent topic of the Lenten passion plays performed throughout
both Old and New Spain. The plays all tell the story of Jesus’s final meeting
with His mother on the day before He is taken prisoner by the Romans. When He
tells her what is to come, she begs that He find another way to save mankind. Of
course, they all end the same way. The plays stress the image of Jesus’s
suffering mother. The difference between the Spanish and the Nahua versions is
in the manner of her suffering. The image of Mary as the silently suffering
mother of Christ circulated through the Spanish world. However, in the Nahuatl
script she is more vehement and does not acquiesce:
Perhaps you do not remember how I have birth to you there in the place where deer eat? Perhaps you do not remember my milk, with which I nurtured you? …Perhaps you do not remember all the exhaustion, heat, wind, ravines, and hills we padded through as we went to hide you there in Egypt when Herod wanted to kill you?...perhaps you do not remember how I was afflicted, the anxiety and affliction, when I lost you there in Jerusalem, where you want to go now? Why do you forget my precious child? ... Fervently I beseech you not to wish that you will die, you who are my utterly precious child! May you obey me! (Burkhart 92)
In the Spanish versions, Mary’s pleading is much more deferential and she does not tell her son to obey. Furthermore, she continues to voice her objections in four speeches that have no equivalent in Spanish versions. When she stands at the foot of the cross, the Nahuatl Mary does not allow herself to be shuffled off to the comforting arms of Mary Magdalene. She remains to voice her suffering (Burkhart 92).
Written sixty years after Guadalupe’s appearance at Tepeyac hill, Holy Wednesday shows, that at the time of Saint Juan Diego’s vision, the Blessed Mother was not yet silenced. The text demonstrates how literature and literacy transmitted the Nahuatl worldview. While it may seem like a small victory, the Nahua did not take the religion as it was handed to them.
Literature today
In her
influential essay, “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess,” feminist Sandra Cisneros
explains her new vision of Guadalupe. Every year on December 12, the author
walks on her knees among hundreds of thousands of other pilgrims to honor the
Virgin of Guadalupe’s feast day (Poniatowska 48). However, before coming to
appreciate la Virgen de Guadalupe,
Cisneros spent years being angry at her for providing a restrictive cultural
role model for “brown women.”
By
romanticizing goddesses from Mexico’s past, Cisneros finds a prescribed model of
female voice to balance the prescribed model of female silence within her
cultural history. Once she becomes
acquainted with the pre-Columbian pantheon, she is able to merge the image on
Juan Diego’s tilma with images of
goddesses that come “before the church de-sexed
la Lupe --- goddesses of fertility
and sex that celebrate the indigena
body” (Cisneros176). Cisneros sees la
Virgen de Guadalupe as Tlazolteolteol “squatting in childbirth, her face
grimacing in pain,” or Coatlique, a creative/destructive goddess “not silent and
passive, but silently gathering force” (Cisneros 177). Actually, she takes as
much liberty with the images of the goddesses as she does with the image of
Guadalupe, disregarding their historic ties to human sacrifice while latching
onto their creative/destructive power.
She
touches a common cord in women like herself who have felt stifled by culturally
imposed demands that they emulate la
virgen, allowing them to feel a vicarious sense of empowerment. While the
energy of the piece can exhilarate any woman, Cisneros definitely directs her
rhetoric to fellow Chicanas. By referring to
la Lupe as “a face for a god without
a face, an indigena for a god without
ethnicity, a female deity for a god who is genderless” (Cisneros 177) she
elevates herself and women like her the level of the divine.
Lopez’s
Chicana identity is so intricately tied to the Virgin of Guadalupe that her
opinion of le virgen directly affects
her opinion of herself. In the final passage of the essay, Cisneros explains why
the Virgin of Guadalupe deserves respect with the words, “She gave birth. She
has a womb. Blessed art the fruit of thy
womb…Blessed art thou, Lupe. And, therefore, blessed am I” (Cisneros 177).
In this passage, she virtually steps into the skin of a divine image constructed
from pieces of Mexican women’s iconic history.
Sandra Cisneros “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess” is raw; she begins by addressing a general audience, but at the end she is directly addressing Chicanas. It is as though she as she becomes more sure of herself (through la virgin”), she feels less need to explain herself to others. It is interesting that does not exclude women of the dominant culture as she grows stronger; she just ceases performing for them. Besides, if one did not share the culturally imposed constrictions that plagued her in the beginning, one should not expect to share the culturally founded empowerment found in the end.
Pat Mora
bases her poem, “Coatlique’s Rules: Advice from an Aztec Goddess,” on the
exploits of the divinely dysfunctional first family of the native Mexican
culture from the perspective of the mother-goddess.
She writes the “rules” in way that makes the Aztec origin myth seem like
the kind of little problems every mother faces, using a lighthearted style to
address serious choices and challenges that confront women. Most of Coatleque’s
rules pertain to women’s self protection and personal choice, like “Rule 3:
Protect your uterus. Conceptions, immaculate/ and otherwise, happen” (88). This
passage shows how the author uses pithy humor that mingles Catholic dogma, pagan
myth, and harsh reality to make her point.
By using
an Aztec origin myth as her central metaphor Mora requires her readers to know
her cultural beginnings in order to make any sense of her poem. She then
manipulates elements of the myth in a manner that makes Coatleque’s family seem
fully assimilated into the dominant culture. The poem continually shifts back
and forth between minority cultural references, and dominant cultural standards.
Mora does
not romanticize the power of the goddess as Lopez does. She acknowledges
Coatleque’s frightening appearance and grisly worship practices. The main
character describes herself: “’She of the Serpent Skirt’/ hands and hearts
dangling from my necklace, a faceless/ statue.” Instead of romanticizing, she
normalizes the goddess’s circumstances with understatement. For instance, she
describes Coatleque’s murderous multitude of children as “four hundred sons/ who
think ther’re gods, and their spoiled sister.”
The poem
is a straight forward warning to women about the dangers of silence. Coatleque’s
advice culminates in rule eight:
“The past is the present, remember. Men carved
me/ wrote my story, and Eve’s, Malinche’s, Guadalupe’s/ Llarona’s, snakes
everywhere, even in our mouths” (Mora 88). In other words, the world only knows
what men say about Mexico’s ensconced female images from the beginning of time.
Mora’s final rule is: “be careful what you swallow.”
While this statement warns women to make judgments about female behavior
for themselves, it also refers Coatleque’s mythical impregnation by swallowing a
feather. If she had not swallowed there would be no men to tell the stories.
While
Guadalupe appears in only one line of the poem, her inclusion in that line
forces the reader to re-examine her role. Is she grouped with the most maligned
female role models in Mexico’s past because, contrary to public opinion, she is
also a negative role model? Are
those women on a list with her because they are not really bad? Earlier in the
poem, Coatlique explains Huitzilopochtli‘s murderous spree by saying, “all this
talk of gods and goddesses distorts.” This also applies to Guadalupe. Her image
is so intricately tied to Godly and (lately) goddessly expectations that it is
hard to find the Lady’s core.
If Mora is
Mexican-American, it is not clear in the poem. On gets the feeling that she is
Mexican-American because the speaker seems so much like a member of the dominant
culture. That might mean that the American-ness need not be mentioned---just
like all the rest of US. It could also mean that it is presumptuous to think
that she should be Mexican-American. She is pretty subtle, so what she leaves
out is as important as what she leaves in.
Visual Art
The
Blessed Mother’s relationship with the Nahuatl people did not begin as that of a
tender mother with her beloved children. She arrived in on the standard of
Hernán Cortés in an image that would come to be recognized as “la
Conquistadora” (Burkhart 3). Because of his heartfelt dedication to Mary and
unwavering belief in her power, Cortés regularly instructed both allies and
enemies in Marian devotion, replacing temple deity idols with images of the
Virgin as he conquered the Aztec Empire (Burkhart 3). So from their first
contact, the indigenous people of Mexico were primed to see the Virgin Mary as a
sign of Spanish strength.
The
posture and dress of the fair-skinned Mary on Cortés’s banner bears a striking
resemblance to that of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego’s tilma. In the
waist-up portrait, Mary is positioned at a ¾ angle, gazing off to the right side
with hands folded in prayer. She wears a blue cloak over a rose colored dress
with her crowned head surrounded by rays of light in a circle of 12 stars. In
contrast to Guadalupe, la Conquistadora’s head is raised slightly higher, her
eyes are more distinctly opened, and her appearance is profoundly European.
The image
of the Mary on Juan Diego’s tilma is
a full length portrait with eyes cast downwards looking off to the right. As in
the image on Cortés’s banner, Guadalupe wears a rose colored dress and a blue
cloak. While no stars surround her head, many dot the surface of the cloak. A
cinta, or maternity belt decorated
with nagvioli flowers rises over the
Virgin’s pregnant stomach. Completely surrounded by rays of light, the she
stands atop a black, horned moon, while an angel hovers beneath her feet,
lifting her upwards, or transporting her through the air. The angel wears a gown
the same color as that of Mary, and the stripes of its wings merge with the
bottom of the blue cloak and golden nimbus.
While
there is definitely a similarity between the two, the impressions left by the
images are vastly different. However, the resemblance does not go unnoticed.
Some find the likeness suspicious.
However, just as many believe that the two Virgins are simply one “person” in
two guises.
The picture on the tilma incorporates images with double meanings, making different symbolic connections in Spaniards and Nahuas. A copious number of sources provide a nearly equal number of expert interpretations of the tilma, none of which are the same. It is worth looking at some Catholic/Nahuatl symbolic divergences that show up consistently:
· The nagvioli flowers that dangle from the cinta are a sign of virginity and new life for Catholics, but are Nahuatl symbols of the sun god (Rodriguez 29)
· The rays of the sun signify the virgin’s power and sanctification to the Spanish, while they signal the presence of the sun god to the Nahua (Rodriguez30).
· The moon is a symbol of virginity In Spanish/Catholic symbolism but the Nahuatl associate the moon with deities of the night.
· While blue signifies holy elevation for both, it is reserved for the Mother Mary in Catholic art, but for Omecihautl in Nahuatl art (Rodriguez 30).
· The Spanish believe that Mary is cloaked in stars to show that she is Queen of heaven, while the Nahua see the stars on the cloak as Coatleque’s sons.
Today
Latina artists frequently reinterpret the image of the
Virgin of Guadalupe in various mediums, merging imagery from Juan Diego’s tilma
with symbols representing pre-Columbian goddesses.
The viewing public has mixed feelings about the
union of Catholic and pagan symbolism. Some see it as empowering while others
consider it sacrilegious.
In 1978, Yolanda Lopez painted a cycle of oil pastels that
ensconce three generations of Mexican-American women as the Lady of Guadalupe.
She incorporates modified imagery from Juan Diego’s
tilma into each picture:
rose colored dresses, star studded blue mantels, belted waists, and winged
cherubs.
The viewer can see that the women are Chicana, because the
cherubs’ wings do not blend into the clothing; they are red, white and blue,
signifying that these women are close too, but not joined with the Mexican icon.
The attitudes of the cherubs in the pictures are as much a generational image as
a personal one. In addition the artist incorporates a snake in the pictures to
signify their relationship to the goddess aspect of the Guadalupe.
“Victoria
F. Franco: Our Lady of Guadalupe” (Barnes) is a portrait of the artist’s
grandmother, seated on a rise draped with Guadalupe’s star dotted mantel. She is
surrounded by a softly glowing circle of light, signifying a radiant, but
cooling female energy. She holds
the skin of a dead snake in folded hands on her lap, a badge of her rank as a
goddess elder. A red, white, and blue winged cherub peaks around the bottom of
the cloak, holding an archway of roses above its head to signify that her
generation felt welcomed when they
came to in the US. Wearing a rose-colored dress with a black belt, Lopez’s
abuella gazes out of the picture in
expressionless eloquence, a little world-weary but with pragmatic wisdom.
In
“Margaret F Stewart: Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Lopez paints her mother mending her
mantel on a sewing machine. The red, white, and blue-winged cherub gazes upward
from the fabric piled at her feet, to signify her feeling that the US simply
watches while she labors. The middle-aged woman’s nimbus is bright with the
energy of her most productive years, but coiled around the machine, her snake is
barely visible. Her eyes look up and out at the watcher, but she remains bent
over her machine. Clearly busy and seemingly efficient, a task light blocks the
bottom of her face making it impossible to know if she is smiling or frowning.
In addition, the sewing blocks the lower part of her body, so while fleshy arms
come out of her pink t-shirt, it is impossible to tell if she is heavy with
child or just heavy. No one will know if this Guadalupe is happy or sad, with
child or without, because the picture is always the same.
In
“Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe” Lopez varies the title,
substituting “virgin” for “lady.” Like Artemis, Guadalupe runs boldly out of the
canvas smiling as she steps on the red-white and blue winged cherub, hair
blowing in the wind, rose-colored dress carelessly rising about her thighs. She
is not stopped by the (US) cherub nor constricted by the Virgin’s pink dress. A
black band is tied around her narrow waist, making it clear that she is not
pregnant. With one hand she throws the mantle of Guadalupe carelessly over her
shoulder and with the other she carries a living snake showing that the goddess
in her wriggles with life. The rays of gold encircle her, but they are not yet
alive with light. She is female potential...
While Yolanda Lopez’s work is sometimes perceived as presumptuous, Alma Lopez’s is more often considered sacrilege. She sparked a firestorm when her digital representation, “Our Lady,” went on display in a Santa Fe museum (285). In this picture, an Hispanic woman stands with a blue cloak thrown around her solders, hands on her hips, looking defiantly out of the picture. She wears garlands of flowers across her chest and another around her hips, like a bikini of roses. Beneath “Our Lady” a bare-breasted angel spreads her arms in an arc that mimics the position of the horned moon on the tilma. Lopez said that Sandra Cisneros’s “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess” inspired the work (Lopez). Although eventually defeated, community activist Jose Villegas, joined by Archbishop Sheehan, led an ugly campaign to have the work removed from public display (Lopez). In a reply to Villegas’s attacks Lopez made the statement, “I see Chicanas creating a deep and meaningful connection to this revolutionary cultural female image. I see Chicanas who understand faith” (Arreola 91).
When it came out, many people found Alma Lopez‘s Our Lady offensive (and still do). Some part of the reaction is Christian abject-ification if the female body. However, the attitude of the woman in the picture adds to the affect. It celebrates a Chicana defiance that many people find dangerous. It is similar to the Nahuatl twist in Holy Wednesday. It is the same pictorial story, but Mary is a lot more outspoken.
After the extreme reaction, Alma Lopez commented on the irony
of the church’s objection to her work because nudity is often celebrated in
Catholic iconography (Arreola 91). However, the reaction is not ironical, but
typical. While picture is shocking on first sight, she wears more clothes than
God does on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, but no one objects to that.
Concluding Thoughts:
When The Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego, Mary
effectively switched sides, she went from being the patron of their conqueror to
being their own patron protector. She ceased Speaking for the Spanish to speak
for the Nahua. According to the story, the Spanish bishop did not want to
believe the indigenous messenger, so the Blessed Mother forced church officials
to comply with her wishes.
The Lady of Guadalupe invoked the power of “Because I sad so” when she
essentially forced the bishop to listen to Juan Diego. It is like the big kid
did not want to listen to his little brother, but his mom made him. It is part
of the power of motherhood. It is also the way the Nahuatl characterized the
Blessed Mother when she scolded Jesus and told him to obey.
Guadalupe’s words were mis-transcribed from the beginning. There is no knowing what she said. This makes the picture vital. While men may have tried to redefine the Virgin, the picture is untouched. The tilma’s double meaning suggests that the Virgin approved of a religion that made room for both systems.
I have come to understand that Latina women have a deeper connection than I to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Sandra Cisneros’s piece makes that evident. Many suffered from repression because of la Virgen’s corrupted image; they have a bigger stake and a personal relationship. In fact, they can probably understand her better than I ever will.
This research has really affected me, a lot like Sandra Cisneros’s study did her when she got to know the goddesses that came before “the church de-sexed Lupe.” I saw Our Lady of Guadalupe in a more intellectual light when I started. However, my research has made her come alive for me. She has become more than an image; she has become real. I realize in retrospect that I may have sounded wacky to the people at the conference because I talk about her like she is real.
Ironically I do not see her as an extension of others who came before as I expected, but I do think that she took their place. Frankly, those guys are creepy and violent and required human sacrifice. I cannot be abstract about their power. In fact, I think the Nahua were probably ready for a “kinder, gentler Coatlique.” The Tonantzin conglomerate seems to suggest that.
“Our Lady of Guadalupe” only left a few words and her picture. Everything else
is constructed by men (Men carved me/ wrote my story…Mora). So whatever we
construct now is at least as legitimate as the things women were told for the
last 500 years.
Conference Reaction:
This was a lot more time-consuming than I expected—But worthwhile
I went long even though I had practiced. It happened to me the first time I presented a paper also, so I tried to pull it together and work from an outline. I still went over (and got more flustered).
It happened to lots of people though and everyone just had to “wrap it up.” Fifteen minutes is not as long as it sounds, especially when you read.
At the UTSA Graduate Symposium. Most of the people were serious about their research and /or writing -- And I seemed to have credibility being there. It was cool. I felt like a scholar rather than a student.
I kept a file on my laptop that had
all my communications on it (no matter how mundane). I am not putting it here
because there is no need (and it is really dull) ---When I could not find the
right building on the campus and could not get on their internet, I was glad I
had it
Works Cited
Aigner-Varoz, Erika. “Metaphors of Mestiza Consiousness.” Melus 25.2: 47-62. JSTOR. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.
Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin: Mary’s Cult and the Re-Emergence of the Goddess. London: Arkana, 1976. Print.
Barnes, Rhonda L. “Demanding Social Equality: A Feminist Re-Interpretation of the Virgin of Guadalupe.” ic Arizona.
N.p., n.d. Web.
10 Dec. 2008.
<http://images.google.com/imgresimgurl=http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~ws5001/abuela.JPG&imgrefurl
=http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~ws5001/virgin.html&usg=__68xtF8Ov_Hw6ca8KhQM9JoffgIE=&h=532&w=394&sz=129&hl=en&start=
1&tbnid=FvN_g0YzkN--nM:&tbnh=132&tbnw=98&prev=/im>.
Feminist visual images referenced
Beatty, Andrew. “The Pope in Mexico:
Syncretism in Public Ritual.” American
Anthropologist 108.2: 324-335.
Wiley interscience.
Web. 4
May 2010.
Burkhart, Louise. Before Guadalupe: The Virgin in Early Nahuatl Literature. Albany: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 2001. Print.
Caputi, Jane. “Review: Divinely
Subversive.” JSTOR.
N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Dec. 2008. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4022694http://
www.jstor.org/search>.
Cisneros, Sandra. “Guadalupe the Sex
Goddess.” 1996. Women’s LIves;Multicultural
Perspectives. By Gwyn Kirk and Margo
Okazawa-rey. Ed. Emily Barrose. Boston:
Mcgraw Hill Higher Education, 2007. 175-177. Print.
Godess of the Americas: Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe. Ed. Ana Castillo. New York: Riverhead, 1996. Print.
Hall, Linda B. Mary, Mother and Warrior. Austin: U of Texas P, 2004. Print.
Kellog, Susan. “The Woman’s Room:
Some Aspects of Gender Relations in the Late Pre-Hispanic Period.”
Ethnohisory 42.4: 563-576.
JSTOR.
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Levine, Amy-Jill, and Maria Mayo Robbins, eds. A Feminist Companion to Mariology. Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2005. Print.
Lopez, Alma. “The Artist of ‘Our
Lady.’” las Culturas.
N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2008. <http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/
chh/bio/castillo_a.htm>.
Mora, Pat. “Coatlique’s Rules: Advice
from an Aztec Goddess.” Augua Santa: Holy Water.
Boston: Beacon, 1995. N. pag.
Rpt. in Goddess of the Americas.
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Peterson, Jeanette Favrot. “The Virgin of Guadalupe: Symbol of Conquest or Liberation.” Art Journal 51.4: 39-47. JSTOR. Web. 16 Apr. 2010.
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Website on Spain’s Lady of Guadalupe:
Suite 101: Spanish history
http://spanish-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_long_reach_of_spains_virgin_of_guadalupe
http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/protestantmary.htm
http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/chh/bio/castillo_a.htm
http://mati.eas.asu.edu/community/ChicArt/ArtistDir/AlmLop.html
http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/sep6.html
http://www.brownpride.com/murals/murals.asp?a=texas/index3
http://www.almalopez.net/digital/digital.html
http://mexicocooks.typepad.com/mexico_cooks/images/2007/12/03/tilma.jpg
http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/images/dec12_guadalupe_juan_sm.jpg
http://pages.pomona.edu/~glg04747/51b/thumbs/images/aztec_10.jpg
http://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/?p=805
http://nmazca.com/guadalupana/
http://thefeministtexican.wordpress.com/2008/12/29/virgen-art-3/
http://thefeministtexican.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/virgen-art-iv/
http://www.karenluk.net/PDPBlog/iglesia.jpg
Our Lady of Guadalupe website:
