|
Performance
and Social memory
|
|
Jesus Canchola-Sanchez la virgen de guadalupe (perception
of)
At the age of five my grandmother decided that I, along with dozens of other boys, was to be Juan Diego on the day of La Virgen de Guadalupe. My grandmother prepared for months. It took all that time to gather the money for dues given to the church allowing the privilege, sewing my Juan Diego costume and psychologically preparing me for the exposure. At the time it all seemed like a big game where I got to dress up. I also had a little mustache drawn on my face to better resemble the indigenous man that was chosen by la Virgen de Guadalupe to carry out her wishes. December 12th came and the service was in process. My little five-year-old head did not understand why I had to take white flowers to the statue. My biggest fear at the time was parading through the center aisle with all the parishioners gazing at my small body. While all the other boys did their duty of making tribute to la Virgen, I refused. My refusal came out of fear without understanding the significance attached to this act. My grandmother for the first time got so angry that she pinched me. She didn't do it hard but enough to let out some of her frustration at my rebelliousness. Needless to say, I cried as if she had whipped me. Made in México. Growing up in a Catholic Mexican family is growing up with the image of the mestiza virgin all around you. She is part of Mexico's culture. Here culture is defined as a, "system of shared meanings, attitudes and values, and symbolic forms…in which they are expressed or embodied." As I grew up I came to understand the fervor in which she is idolized. Her image appears in almost any sort of product you can imagine. Today you see her in dice, key chains, hoods of cars, bodies, etc. Guadalupe appears outside of the traditional context in which she appeared. She is a product in the sense that people have made her image part of their acquisitions outside of the church. She is an example of popular culture or the "primitive" as she is transformed from a Catholic deity into a consumer product or commodity. In our case the popular is an, "…obstacle to be removed or a new category of commodities to help increase sales to consumers unhappy with mass production." The formula is not quite that simple as she continues to retain her validity as a celestial figure even within the sphere of an economic mass market. Guadalupe products contain a peculiarity distinct from any generic object in that she "…derives from the fact that the people create at work, and in their lives in general, specific forms of representation, reproduction, and symbolic elaboration of their social relations." The trinkets where her image appears maintain their holy appeal as equal to or at least very close to Juan Diego's ayate in la Basilica. The image retains her symbolic figure even as a product that can be utilized and/or changed. The economic value of a Guadalupe product maintains her position in a capitalistic enterprise where the goal of the vendor is to acquire profit using her image. Yet it is too simplistic to refer to the products containing the image of la virgen as profit oriented products solely. The image itself contains power over those who acquire it. Even in the most (what may seem to be) irrelevant forms, Guadalupe maintains her role of protector. Taxi drivers kiss their dice before beginning their shift, I carry my key chain as a reminder of my mothers' faith for protection against evil, vatos proudly showcase their cars as symbols of their Mexican identity, etc. The product contributes to the reproduction of society yet the symbolic prevails over the practical usage of the product. So, Guadalupe as a product and la Virgen as god's mother interact with each other in the popular of culture? Possibly her transformations are her new adaptation to remain with her people. Could it be that once again the 'pendejo mexicano' is being fooled by the interests of yet another colonizer? The history of her apparition could hold the answer. "I am the mother of God..." For most people, the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe begins in 1531 when she appeared to Juan Diego, an indigenous man in el cerro del Tepeyac. La Virgen appeared on that hill to Juan Diego and Juan Bernardino claiming to be the mother of god. Her request was simple. She wanted to have a temple built for her observance. La Virgen de Guadalupe states, "…I am the eternally consummate virgin Saint Mary, mother of the very true deity, God, the giver of life, the creator of people, the ever present, the lord of heaven and earth. I greatly wish and desire that they build my temple for me here, where I will manifest, make known, and give to people all my love, compassion, aid, and protection." Enduring great hardship Juan Diego accomplishes what the Virgin asks of him. Today in Mexico City stand three cathedrals side by side that have been built to fulfill the request of la Virgen that Juan Diego originally relayed to fray Juan de Zumárraga. Not all three are functional as temples of worship (or the only ones built for la Virgen) and only the most modern contains the holy image that appeared in Juan Diego's cloak. According to oral tradition it took the miraculous image of La Virgen de Guadalupe on the cloak to convince the Spanish friar that Juan Diego's story was valid. Mestizo boy kneels before her image. Two years after my initial refusal to pay homage to the Virgin, my first pilgrimage to la Basilica was performed. My mother had made a promise to la Virgen that needed to be carried through in our trip. The four-hour voyage from Guanajuato to Mexico City was the first step towards fulfilling la promesa. When we arrived to the massiveness of Mexico City we worked our way through metro stations and peseros (mini-buses) to find our way to la Villita. Arriving at the site of la Basilica my eyes could not help but linger on the people traveling on their knees praying towards the image of the virgin. We walked to the entrance of la Basilica passing many vendors selling religious images of every kind. The image of Guadalupe dominated the small stands. They carried all sorts of trinkets with her image. All of them had been sanctified with holy water. Once we found ourselves in the entrance my mother stopped and kneeled. She was fulfilling her promise. It was her turn now to travel on her knees from the entrance up to the image of la Virgen de Guadalupe. Without understanding my mothers' actions, I mimicked her performance and listened to her silent prayer as we approached the image of the mother of god.
It is estimated that during the seven years after her apparition, eight million indigenous people were baptized into the Catholic faith. No one has argued that the apparition of the virgin is solely responsible for the conversion rate but it certainly seems as if her image aided in the process of baptizing Meso-Americans into Catholicism. The image of la Virgen de Guadalupe is one that is regarded to be of utmost relevance to Mexicans, both in Mexico and the United States. Her relevance is not something that has developed through time but something that already existed even before she appeared to Juan Diego and was interpreted by the Spanish to be la Virgen de Guadalupe. The name of Guadalupe is controversial. Some argue that la Virgen de Guadalupe del Tepeyac is the same as Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe Extremadura. Our Lady of Guadalupe Extremadura had as a faithful follower Hernán Cortés. So the Spanish heard Guadalupe and were content with the name since they could connect it to the virgin of Cortés' hometown, Extremadura. Yet when the Virgin appeared to Juan Bernardino and he asked her name, she answered that she was the Immaculate Virgin, Holy Mother of Guadalupe. When the Virgin addressed Juan Diego and Juan Bernardino she addressed them in Nahuatl. Andrés G. Guerrero in A Chicano Theology argues that it is possible that what Juan Bernardino heard was the Virgin call herself Coatlaxopeuh, which is pronounced Cuatlashupe. Coatl means serpent. Perceptions/sensations of an indigenous past/present/future. The connections to the indigenous
past that la Virgen de Guadalupe brings forth are many. Her appearance
in Tepeyac where the Aztec goddess Tonantzin (meaning nuestra madre or
our mother) was worshipped is one of the strongest ties to the pre-Catholic
past. This attests to the majority of the Mexican indigenous peoples'
ignorance of the Spanish name "Guadalupe" well into the 18th
century. The common or preferred name was that of nuestra madre, Tonantzin.
The symbolism of the serpent was entrenched in the Mexica religion. Tonantzin
was la serpíente encantada or enchanted serpent who took many forms
or was known by different names: Yollotlicue, Cuahuicihuatl, Yaocihuatl,
Tzetximihuatl, etc. The versions of who Tonantzin was and how important
she was vary depending on who is giving the account. In general, the writers
agree that Tonantzin was a major divinity, her space of worship or temple
was on Tepeyac (where la Virgen appeared to Juan Diego), and that Meso-Americans
came from all over to celebrate her feasts. Tonantzin was also known as
Cihuacóatl. Cihuacóatl was part of the duality composed
by Quetzalcóatl and the goddess. These two made up the divine pair
in which the principal of Mexica duality, Ometéotl, existed. Here
the beginning of all life and of all things originated. La Virgen mestiza
strategically appeared as an image of connection. La Virgen, "appeared
as an Aztec. No Indian doubted that she was Indian. Moreover, she appeared
to an Indian, one of the downtrodden, not to a Spaniard. We could say
that, politically, she appeared on the side of the oppressed." 'Los indios' claim the bodies
of their children through the image of a transforming/adapting mother.
And the children utilize the image in a context that is comprehensible
to their existence. Joseph Roach in Cities of the Dead utilizes the process
of surrogation to explain the filling of loss with alternates. So in Roach's
terms, La Virgen de Guadalupe is filling the lost space created by the
violent repression of the …it is that in all modes of experience we always base our particular experiences on a prior context in order to ensure that they are intelligible at all; that prior to any single experience, our mind is already predisposed with a framework of outlines, of typical shapes of experienced objects.
The framework in which Mexicans
work when worshipping la Virgen de Guadalupe is one that was outlined
before the Spanish imposed Catholic ritual. The bodies of the participants
in pilgrimages attest to the survival of perceptions/senses that people
were forced to erase. The form of organized erasure utilized by the Spanish
upon the indigenous groups of Meso-America created a need to survive among
people, "…who realized that the struggle of citizens against
state power is the struggle of their memory against forced forgetting,
and who made it their aim from the beginning not only to save themselves
but to survive as witnesses to later generations, to become relentless
recorders." Our ancestors found an opportunity to continue the worship
of Tonantzin via La Virgen de Guadalupe, who eventually became the legitimate
mother of god in the eyes of the Catholic church. Through commemorative
and bodily practices the performance of perception has maintained the
connection among mestizo Mexicans of today with their indigenous fathers
and mothers of yesterday. The pilgrimage, flowers, incense, promises to
the Virgin, Tepeyac, offerings, her mestiza image (and countless other
links) through the sense of the body have maintained their original significance
of identity within a different belief and economic system. La chingada or fucked one. Mexicans have more than one
mother. The second mother appears in the form of la chingada, Malinalli-Tenepal,
Malinche, Malintzin, or Doña Marina. She is presented to us as
an indigenous woman, mother and whore, traitor and a symbolic uterus of
the Mexican people. La Virgen appeared to Juan Diego as god's messenger
while Malinche is thought of as an evil goddess and creator of a new race.
Malinztin sold by her own people to serve and then presented as a gift
to Cortes remains a conflicted historical figure. She is a traitor to
her own people because of her pivotal skill in assisting the Spaniards
to conquer the Aztecs. Whenever you hear Malinche
mentioned, it is in reference to illegitimacy or selling out your own
people. The responsibility of the conquest is laid upon her shoulders.
Andrés G. Guerrero in his Chicano Theology adds that, "Guadalupe
is the Virgin Mother and la Malinche is the raped mother. For Mexicans
and Chicanos both are our mothers. One is our spiritual mother and the
other is one that has been violated." The cosmic cycle continues. …La Conquista coincide con el apogeo del culto a dos divinidades masculinas: Quetzalcóatl, el dios del autosacrificio…y Huitzilopochtli, el joven dios que sacrifica. La derrota de estos dioses - pues eso fue la Conquista para el mundo indio: el fin de un ciclo cósmico y la instauracion de un Nuevo reinado divino - produjo entre los fieles una suerte de regreso hacia las antiguas divinidades femenina. The duality that exists between these two figures speaks to the inner turmoil that exists in the continuing formation of identity. Today we are continuing an unfinished cosmic cycle filled with sensations and perceptions, a cosmic cycle that interacts with capitalistic markets, historical texts, oral history, images, etc. All of our senses within/without our corporal existence drive our actions to conversations linked with bodies of the past. The two mothers, La Virgen de Guadalupe and Malinche, must be merged in their paths to speak of their objectification. The trinket has something in common with "la lengua" and the men who sell her body continue a legacy that informs his children. A dialogue continues throughout our corpses enabling the evolution of our children's interpretation of their beginnings. Self. The image of La Virgen de Guadalupe exists in the walls of my room, the chain of my keys and my conscious memory of her veneration. The juxtaposition that exists between product and faith is something that I owe to my mother. She has given me the gift of transmission. It is precisely in her body that exists the conflict between La Virgen de Guadalupe and Malinche. Through her I am the virginal mestiza and "la chingada."
Adler, Hans and Menze Ernest
A. (eds). On World History Johann Gottfried Herder: An Anthology. M.E.
Sharpe: Armonk, NY. 1997 |