The criollo invention of the Virgin

of Guadalupe
Alexandre Coello de la Rosa
UPF, Barcelona
 The tradition relates that in the 16th century, on
9 December 1531, Juan Diego, a recently-
converted Aztec peasant, had a vision of a young
woman, a lady, while on a hill in the Tepeyac
desert, near Mexico City. The lady in the vision
asked him to build a church where they stood on
the hill. Juan Diego told the local Bishop, Juan de
Zumárraga, of the apparition; doubtful, he asked
for proof. Juan Diego later returned to the
Tepeyac desert hill; again, the lady appeared to
Juan Diego, who told her of the bishop’s request
for proof of her apparition. The lady then
instructed Juan Diego to go to the hill top, where
he found Castilian roses — native to Durango,
the bishop’s Spanish home town — and which
did not bloom in winter. Juan Diego cut the
roses, placed them in the apron of his tilma
cloak, and delivered them to the bishop; an
imprint of the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared on
the tilma, formed by the soil and the Castilian
roses.
 By mid 16th century was a
little chapel on top of
Tepeyac hill.
In 1555 archbishop Alonso
de Montúfar ordered to
refurbish it.

While the archbishop extolled the

miraculous ways of the Virgin of
Guadalupe, the Franciscan provincial
considered it a mundane version
that contradicted many years of
fight against idolatry.
 The criollo invention of the Virgin of
Guadalupe
• There is no doubt that the cult of the Virgin and
the proliferation of shrines seem to justify this
Mariology (R. Vargas Ugarte, Historia del culto de
María en Iberoamerica y de sus imágenes y
santuarios más celebrados, 1956).
• Apparitions are emblematic symbols of the local
and ethnic identity (Alicia A. Barabas, 1989).
– By 1570s the cult of the image of Guadalupe became
popular between Spanish and Criollos.
 The criollo invention of the Virgin of
Guadalupe
• The new archbishop of
the New Spain, Pedro
Moya de Contreras,
planned to build a
parish on top of the
Tepeyac hill, where the
Spanish elites and the
Viceroys used to go to
accomplish with their
devotional duties.
The criollo invention of the Virgin of
Guadalupe
• These books were linking
the Marian apparition
with a Mexican religious
identity still growing.
• Miguel Sánchez’s work
(Mexico, 1648) expressed
the desire for “criollo”
self-assertion that was
gradually linked to the
cult of the “image-
miracle” of Tepeyac.
• In 1649 the priest of the
shrine of Tepeyac, father
Luis Lasso de Vega,
published Huei
tlamahuiçoltica omonexiti
in ilhuicac tlatocaçihuapilli
Santa Maria totlaçonantin
Guadalupe in nicam huei
altepenahuac Mexico
itocayocan Tepeyacac (The
great event of the
apparition of the Great
Lady of the Sky, Saint Mary,
our beloved Mother of
Guadalupe, nearby the City
of Mexico, in a place called
Tepeyac).
 The criollo invention of the Virgin of
Guadalupe
• Lasso’s book recovers the religious pre-
Colombian memory of the narrative through
the references of the Flowered Land of the
Nahuatl paradise.
– Christian resacralization of Tepeyac by means of
the Virgin of Guadalupe. She will help us to fight
against idolatry.
– Lasso wants to make the Virgin of Guadalupe
closer to the natives
Other images, such as the Archangel
Gabriel or the Trinity, became
popular as a reflection of their
Providencial mission in the context of
eternal struggle against the Devil’s
actions.