By Sarah Kearney [Edited by Margherita Peracino and Seren Caglar]
The Virgin Mary has been an iconographical religious and cultural figure for centuries. Christianity, with the Virgin Mary at its core, was brought by the Iberian colonialists to the indigenous cultures in Latin America, which is the area of focus within this essay. Questioning the ways in which the figure of the Virgin Mary offered a ‘bridge’ between indigenous cultures and Christianity can become subjective. According to the Collins English Dictionary, if something or someone acts as bridge between two groups, it connects them – which generally holds a positive connotation.[1] This can be correct, through the mix of indigenous and Christian imagery in visual culture which allows the symbolism of the piece to be open to interpretation to each group. This mix of imagery, however, can also be interpreted negatively, as it can be interpreted as a method used by the Christians to mask their oppression of the indigenous cultures. Furthermore, the interpretation of the figure of the Virgin Mary was used to amplify gender roles as well as a hierarchical system based on race in indigenous societies.
Visual culture is a vital aspect in interpreting and understanding the figure of the Virgin Mary and the symbolism she created for Christians and indigenous populations. There have been countless works by artists on the Virgin Mary across centuries and continents. The painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, also known as ‘La Guadalupana’, is seen as a Mexican national symbol as well as a mix of indigenous and Christian imagery (Figure 1). This artistic rendition is based on the Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, an account by a native Mexican named Juan Diego. Eric Wolf argues that the Virgin of Guadalupe was a ‘master symbol’ because of the numerous interpretations that can be made from this image.[2] It not only contains symbols that can be associated with the indigenous cultures of Latin America, but with Christian scripture also. The Virgin of Guadalupe incorporates many important symbols from Mexica cosmology. Mexicas, better known as the Aztecs, were an indigenous group that inhabited the Valley of Mexico. The Aztec religion was polytheistic: they divided the world into thirteen heavens and nine earthly layers, and each layer was associated with a specific group of gods or goddesses and celestial objects. The Mexicas’ reverence surrounded the main celestial objects, the Sun and the Moon, as their functions were vital to life on Earth. In a visual analysis of the Virgin of Guadalupe, she stands on the moon across from the sun with rays shining around her. It is clear that this image appreciates the Mexica worship of astronomical objects, while making the Virgin the centre of the image; as a result, it creates a mix of Mexica and Christian beliefs. Eric Wolf further argues that the Virgin of Guadalupe ‘provides a cultural idiom’ whereby, different indigenous groups can determine for themselves the meaning behind this image. For example, for a family, the Virgin of Guadalupe is associated with a ‘desire to return to the comfort’ that a Mexican mother would provide to her children and therefore, emulates the importance of motherhood in indigenous cultures.[3]
This image, however, does not simply accommodate the beliefs held within the indigenous cultures of Latin America, especially Mexico. It does, on the other hand, represent religious ideals of the colonising Iberian Christians. As Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank argues, the Virgin of Guadalupe relates to Immaculate Conception imagery and draws aspects of symbolism from Christian scripture, such as the Book of Revelation.[4] The Woman of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation is described as being ‘clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head’.[5] This directly relates the symbols of the astronomical objects surrounding the Virgin to Christian scripture. Hence, the ambiguity of the symbols present in the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe allows it to be open to interpretation for the indigenous cultures and for the Iberian Christians, thus creating a bridge between the two cultures. The indigenous population in Latin America did not only interpret prominent art to become relevant to their beliefs, but also began re-imagining Christian scriptural figures. For example, the Napo Quichua women of lowland Ecuador reinterpreted the figure of the Virgin Mary to emphasise the power of motherhood within their own belief system. The women regarded her as a mother of a powerful healer as these mothers could ‘transmit part of their own powers to their sons through breastfeeding’.[6] This strong belief in motherhood can be seen in the image of the Nursing Madonna (Figure 2). The Nursing Madonna was created in Portugal during the sixteenth century and was brought over to Latin America by the Iberian invaders. This image emphasised the association of the Virgin Mary with motherhood through her breastfeeding of Jesus, which made her religious identity more relevant to indigenous culture. Therefore, the ambiguity of the symbols surrounding the Virgin Mary in visual culture allows different interpretations of her figure to indigenous cultures as well as the Iberian Christians. This fusion of imagery allows the figure of the Virgin to create a positive bridge between indigenous cultures and Christianity.
A different approach to the ambiguity of symbols in visual culture is that this allowed the figure of the Virgin Mary to mask the oppression of indigenous cultures by the Christian colonialists. Miri Rubin argues that religion, with the Virgin Mary at its core, was used ‘in efforts to control and pacify the oppressed’.[7] This is supported by the concept that the incorporation of native symbols in visual culture actually served a purpose for the Christians to oppress indigenous communities. Christians used this imagery to suggest the appearance of similarity and integration of their beliefs while Christianity remained the dominant ideology in visual culture.[8] For example the Virgin Mary, a Christian figure, appears at the centre of visual culture with the ambiguous symbols surrounding her which emphasises the dominance of Christian beliefs. To Christians, the colonisation of Latin America was seen as a ‘holy war’: they were tasked in destroying the indigenous cultures ‘in the name of Christian purity and truth’ while under the protection of the Virgin Mary.[9] The method of this destruction can be seen in Juan Diego’s account of the Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In the Nahuatl Story of the Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Juan Diego was travelling to a neighbouring town to worship when he heard a female voice calling to him from the top of a hill in Tepeyacac. As he approached the top of the hill, a woman revealed herself to him, naming herself ‘the eternally immaculate virgin Saint Mary’ and sent him to ask permission of the bishop to erect a temple in her name.[10] Despite being the Nahuatl (the native language of the Mexicas) story, it directly references to the Christian figure, by describing her as ‘Saint Mary’. Therefore, the Christian ideology is masked in the famous story of the Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe through the narration of a native Mexican. This played an important role in the construction of a new national identity, a Christian one, by restoring the religious figure of the Virgin Mary to the indigenous cultures.[11]
Nonetheless, in a Franciscan account of the apparition, it states how the friars were uncertain whether Juan Diego mistook the goddess Xochiquetzal for the Virgin Mary.[12]Xochiquetzal was a goddess in Aztec mythology and a female icon in indigenous cultures as she was often associated with fertility, beauty and female sexual power. This speculation did not matter to Christians, Franciscans were willing to promote the myth of the apparition as long as it could be used to encourage the indigenous communities to worship Mary.[13] The willingness to promote an indigenous myth, yet maintain a focus on the Virgin Mary can also be seen when she gives Diego the mission to build her a temple. In this story, it is the Virgin Mary who gives him this mission, but in Christian scripture, it is Jesus who usually does this. By adjusting the story to accommodate the beliefs of the indigenous cultures whilst also allowing them to blindly promote Christian ideology, the Christian powers masked their oppression of the indigenous communities. Hence, the Virgin Mary was used to create a negative bridge between indigenous cultures and Christianity as her figure was used by the Christians to mask the oppression of the indigenous communities. Imagery of the Virgin Mary remains dominant in visual culture despite incorporating native symbols. Moreover, Christians re-shaped mythical stories, such as the Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, to lead them to blindly worship Christian ideology within a native story.
The figure of the Virgin Mary was not only used negatively to mask the oppression of indigenous cultures, but to emphasise gender roles within society. Women in Latin America were often characterised by the term ‘marianismo’, which derives from the Christian worship of the Virgin Mary and emulates an idealistic form of femininity.[14] The Virgin Mary was seen as the idealist figure of balancing motherhood with purity.[15] Indigenous woman were expected by the Iberians to follow the Virgin Mary’s divine example of purity and blind devotion to their household. Indigenous men, however, were expected to have sexual experience before marriage. Hence, the association of the ‘ideal’ balance of motherhood and purity with the Virgin Mary further emphasised the gender roles surrounding indigenous women through the ‘marianismo’ complex. This pure and subservient ideal was not only incorporated into indigenous culture, where it divided the women and men in the social hierarchy, but further divided the natives and the Iberian Christians. Indigenous women were not only viewed inferior to indigenous and Iberian men, but to Iberian women also. Kimberly M. Grimes argues that after the mid-sixteenth century, women from Spain began arriving in South America and they soon began condemning the native women for their lifeways as well as their race.[16] Spanish women saw themselves as superior to the native women due to their white race and their life-long devotion to emulate the ideal female qualities presented by the figure of the Virgin Mary. The racial dimension of the indigenous inferiority can be seen in visual culture where the Virgin Mary is presented as white-skinned whereas the indigenous women would have darker toned skin.
Hence, the figure of the Virgin Mary embodied a gendered and racial hierarchical view imposed on society by the Iberian Christians to control and domesticate the indigenous women. This extended to limiting indigenous women’s power within the Church, despite the Iberian powers attempting to ‘Christianise’ Latin America. Indigenous women were exempt from participating in religious ceremonies, becoming nuns or leaders within the Church and were even subject to sexual violence by the Iberian men and priests also.[17] Therefore, the Virgin Mary was further used as a negative bridge between indigenous cultures and Christianity as her figure was largely associated with purity and devotion which strengthened the gender roles characterised by the ‘marianismo’ complex. The figure of the Virgin Mary divided indigenous cultures and Christianity as it not only enforced the indigenous female inferiority to indigenous men but also to Iberian men and women. Visual culture often presented the Virgin Mary as white and therefore, added a racial dimension to the gender roles present in South America. Indigenous women were inferior to Iberian women due to their skin tone and were prohibited from participating in religious practices despite the aim of the Iberians of ‘Christianising’ Latin America.
Overall, the figure of the Virgin Mary offered a bridge between indigenous cultures and Christianity, but it mainly carried negative connotations. A positive ‘bridge’ can be identified through symbolism within visual culture. The incorporation of ambiguous symbolism in visual culture allowed for the interpretation and re-imagination of Christian ideology for indigenous cultures in order to feel a part of colonialised society. Notwithstanding, the extent that this is a true mix of indigenous culture and Christianity is questionable. Her image was used by the Christian colonialists to hide the oppression of the colonised indigenous cultures by giving the appearance that their beliefs were being incorporated into religious imagery while maintaining Christianity as the dominant ideology. This can not only be seen within the symbolism of visual culture but in the Christian shaping of native mythical stories, such as the Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, to allow the indigenous communities to blindly worship Christian beliefs. Her image also contributed to the gender roles that enforced female inferiority and purity. Indigenous women were not only inferior to indigenous and Iberian men but to Iberian woman. The lifelong devotion to the female virtues presented by the figure of the Virgin Mary enforced their superiority. Furthermore, as a result of visual culture, where the Virgin Mary is often presented as white, a racial dimension is added to gender roles whereby the Iberian women saw themselves as superior in racial and religious identity. This suggests that the figure of the Virgin Mary also created a negative bridge between indigenous cultures and Christianity.
List of figures
Figure 1: Nicolás Enríquez. 1773, Mexico. The Virgin of Guadalupe with the Four Apparitions. <https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/635401> [Accessed 14 December 2018]
Figure 2: Anon. 16th Century, The Nursing Madonna
Notes
[1] Collins (2018), “Definition of Bridge”, Collins English Dictionary<https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bridge> [Accessed 12 December 2018]. [2] William H. Swatos (ed.), Enclyclopedia of Religion and Society (Lanham: AltaMira Press, 1998), p. 505. [3] Swatos (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, p. 505. [4] Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank (2015), “Virgin of Guadalupe”, Khan Academy<https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial-americas/colonial-americas/a/virgin-of-guadalupe> [Accessed 14 December 2018]. [5] Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank, “Virgin of Guadalupe”, <https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial-americas/colonial-americas/a/virgin-of-guadalupe> [6] Susan Kellogg, Weaving the Past: A History of Latin America’s Indigenous Women from the Prehispanic Period to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 229. [7] Miri Rubin, Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2009), p. 395. [8] Kathleen J. Martin (ed.), Indigenous Symbols and Practices in the Catholic Church: Visual Culture, Missionization and Appropriation (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010), pp. 25-28. [9] Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuria (eds.), Systematic Theology: Perspectives from Liberation Theology (New York: Orbis Books, 1993), unpaginated. [10] Matthew Restall, Lisa Sousa and Kevin Terraciano (eds.), Mesoamerican Voices: Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 197-198. [11] Sobrino and Ellacuria (eds.), Systematic Theology, unpaginated. [12] Joseph Kroger and Patrizia Granziera, Aztec Goddesses and Christian Madonnas: Images of the Divine Feminine in Mexico (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2012), p. 235. [13] Kroger and Granziera, Aztec Goddesses and Christian Madonnas, p. 235. [14] David A. Schwartz (ed.), Maternal Death and Pregnancy-Related Morbidity Among Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America: An Anthropological, Epidemiological and Biomedical Approach (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018), p. 119. [15] Hector Y. Adames and Nayeli Y. Chavez-Duenas, Cultural Foundations and Interventions in Latino/a Mental Health: History, Theory and Within-Group Differences (New York: Routledge, 2017), p. 97. [16] Kimberly M. Grimes, Crossing Borders: Changing Social Identities in Southern Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998), p. 30. [17] Susan de-Gaia (ed.), Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture across History (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2018), p. 181. Bibliography
Adames, Hector Y. and Nayeli Y., Chavez-Duenas. Cultural Foundations and Interventions in Latino: A Mental Health: History, Theory and Within-Group Differences. New York: Routledge, 2017
Collins. (2018) “Definition of Bridge”. Collins English Dictionary. <https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bridge> [Accessed 12 December 2018]
De-Gaia, Susan (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture across History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2018
Grimes, Kimberly M. Crossing Borders: Changing Social Identities in Southern Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998
Kellogg, Susan. Weaving the Past: A History of Latin America’s Indigenous Women from the Pre-Hispanic Period to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005
Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank (2015). “Virgin of Guadalupe”. Khan Academy.
[Accessed 14 December 2018]
Kroger, Joseph and Granziera, Patrizia. Aztec Goddesses and Christian Madonnas: Images of the Divine Feminine in Mexico. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2012
Martin, Kathleen J (ed.). Indigenous Symbols and Practices in the Catholic Church: Visual Culture, Missionization and Appropriation. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010
Restall, Matthew, Sousa, Lisa and Terraciano, Kevin (eds.). Mesoamerican Voices: Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005
Rubin, Miri. Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2009
Schwartz, David A (ed.). Maternal Death and Pregnancy-Related Morbidity Among Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America: An Anthropological, Epidemiological and Biomedical Approach. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018
Sobrino, Jon and Ignacio, Ellacuria (eds.). Systematic Theology: Perspectives from Liberation Theology. New York: Orbis Books, 1993
Swatos, William H (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religion and Society. California: AltaMira Press, 1998
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