The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol - Eric R. Wolf Notes
Eric R. Wolf: Anthropologist and Historian
Recognized the symbolic nature of culture.
Identified the Virgin of Guadalupe as a single "master symbol" encapsulating the central focus and worldview of the Mexican people.
Traced the Virgin of Guadalupe's origins to 16th-century legend and Aztec goddess worship.
Examined how the symbol expresses major social relationships in Mexican society.
Key Themes of Wolf's Analysis:
As a mother figure, the Virgin is an emotionally rich symbol for life, hope, and health.
Her image also embodies political and religious aspirations.
The symbol links family, politics, and religion; the past and present; as well as indigenous and Mexican identities.
Biography: Eric Wolf (-) conducted fieldwork with agrarian peoples in Latin America and Europe.
Key Interests: The nature of power and the effects of European expansion.
Influential Work: His book Europe and the People Without History (University of California Press, ) argued that peoples colonized by Europeans were not isolated and unchanging but had long been significant parts of global economic processes.
The Virgin of Guadalupe as a "Master Symbol"
Definition: An occasional symbol that appears to "enshrine the major hopes and aspirations of an entire society," also referred to as a "key symbol."
Significance: The Virgin of Guadalupe serves as Mexico's patron saint.
Historical Impact:
During the Mexican War of Independence against Spain, her image led insurgents into battle.
Emiliano Zapata and his agrarian rebels fought under her emblem in the Great Revolution of .
Contemporary Ubiquity: Her image is widely present, adorning house fronts and interiors, churches and home altars, bull rings and gambling dens, taxis and buses, restaurants, and houses of ill repute.
Celebrated in popular song and verse.
Pilgrimage Site: Her shrine at Tepeyac, immediately north of Mexico City, is visited annually by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, ranging from inhabitants of distant Indian villages to members of socialist trade union locals.
Quote from F. S. C. Northrop: "Nothing to be seen in Canada or Europe…equals it in the volume or the vitality of its moving quality or in the depth of its spirit of religious devotion."
Wolf's Clarification of "Master Symbol":
The term does not imply that belief in the symbol is common to all Mexicans; it is not an element of a putative national character or a common denominator for all nationals.
It is no longer legitimate to assume that every member of a national group will exhibit certain regularities of behavior common to other members.
Nations, as complex societies, must possess "cultural forms or mechanisms" that groups within the same social web can use in their formal and informal dealings.
Such forms develop historically alongside nation-formation, requiring social groups caught in these processes to become "acculturated" to their usage.
These forms enable communication and coordinated behavior among constituent groups, providing a "cultural idiom" through which diverse groups can pursue and manipulate their fates within a coordinated framework.
The Guadalupe symbol is particularly rewarding for study because it is not restricted to one set of social ties, but refers to a very wide range of social relationships.
Origin Myth: "The Appearance of Guadalupe"
Date: The encounter took place in the year , ten years after the Spanish Conquest of Tenochtitlan.
Key Figures:
Virgin Mary: Appeared to Juan Diego.
Juan Diego: A Christianized Indian of commoner status.
Location: On the Hill of Tepeyac.
Language: The Virgin addressed Juan Diego in Nahuatl (The Aztec Language).
Command: The Virgin commanded Juan Diego to find the archbishop of Mexico and inform him of her desire for a church to be built in her honor on Tepeyac Hill.
The Miracle:
Juan Diego was twice unsuccessful in conveying the Virgin's message to the archbishop.
The Virgin then performed a miracle: she bade Juan Diego pick roses in a sterile spot where only desert plants typically grew.
She gathered the roses into Juan Diego's ayate-cloth cloak and instructed him to present the cloak and roses to the incredulous archbishop.
When Juan Diego unfolded his cloak before the bishop, the image of the Virgin was miraculously stamped upon it.
Outcome: The bishop acknowledged the miracle and ordered a shrine built at the site of the apparition.
Description of the Miraculous Image: It depicts a young woman without child, her head lowered demurely in her shawl. She wears an open crown and flowing gown and stands upon a half-moon, symbolizing the Immaculate Conception.
The Shrine Today: The shrine, rebuilt multiple times over centuries, is now a basilica (the third highest kind of church in Western Christendom). Juan Diego's cloak with the miraculous image hangs above the central altar.
Syncretism: Guadalupe and Tonantzin
Pre-Hispanic Connection: Tepeyac had not been the first religious site; in pre-Hispanic times, it housed a temple dedicated to the earth and fertility goddess Tonantzin ("Our Lady Mother").
Similarities: Tonantzin, like Guadalupe, was associated with the moon.
Pilgrimages: Tonantzin's temple, like the later basilica, was a center for large-scale pilgrimages.
Evidence of Syncretism: Several Spanish friars attested that the veneration of Guadalupe drew inspiration from the earlier worship of Tonantzin.
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (writing years after the Conquest) observed:
"Now that the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been built there, they call her Tonantzin too…. The term refers … to that ancient Tonantzin and this state of affairs should be remedied, because the proper name of the Mother of God is not Tonantzin, but Dios and Nantzin. It seems to be a satanic device to mask idolatry."
He further noted that people came "from far away to visit that Tonantzin, as much as before," considering this devotion suspect since other churches of Our Lady existed universally.
Fray Martín de León wrote similarly, noting that people referred to the Virgin as Tonantzin and understood it "in the old way and not in the modern way… ."
Fray Jacinto de la Serna (in the 17th century), discussing pilgrimages, noted the purpose of the "wicked" was to worship the goddess, not the Most Holy Virgin, or "kith together."
Conclusion: This syncretism demonstrates a blending of indigenous religious practices with the introduced Christian faith, persisting into the 17th century.
The 17th Century: A Crucible for Mexican Identity
This century, often neglected by historians as a "kind of Dark Age in Mexico," was actually "of the utmost importance in the development of Mexican Society."
Key Societal Developments:
The institution of the hacienda became dominant in Mexican life.
"New Spain is ceasing to be 'new' and to be 'Spain,'" indicating the formation of a distinct colonial identity.
Cultural Need: These new experiences required a new cultural idiom.
Role of the Guadalupe Cult: In the Guadalupe cult, the diverse segments of Mexican colonial society found cultural forms through which they could express their shared interests and longings.
Growth of the Cult: It grew popular during the 16th century and gathered significant emotional impetus during the 17th century.
This period saw the appearance of the first known pictorial representations of Guadalupe (beyond the miraculous original).
The first poems and sermons celebrating her honor and announcing the transcendental implications of her supernatural appearance in Mexico and among Mexicans began to surface.
Paper's Focus: This paper prioritizes the functional aspects of the Guadalupe symbol, its roots, and its reference to the major social relationships of Mexican society, rather than solely its historical tracing.
Guadalupe and Kinship Relationships: The Mother Figure
Premise: Some meanings of the Virgin symbol in general, and the Guadalupe symbol in particular, derive from the emotions generated in the play of relationships within families.
Caveats:
"Some meanings" and "derive" (rather than "originate") are used because the form and function of the family in any given society are themselves determined by other social factors (technology, economy, residence, political power).
The family is just one relay in the circuit within which symbols are generated in complex societies.
The plural "families" is used, as there are demonstrably more than one kind of family in Mexico.
Two Major Types of Mexican Families:
1. The Indian Family
Societal Context: Congruent with the closed and static life of the Indian village.
Husband-Wife Dynamics: The husband is ideally dominant, but labor and authority are, in reality, shared equally between both marriage partners.
Gender Roles: Exploitation of one sex by the other is atypical; sexual feats do not enhance a person's status.
Child Rearing: Physical punishment and authoritarian treatment of children are rare.
Guadalupe's Symbolic Link: This pattern is consistent with the behavior towards Guadalupe noted by John Bushnell in the Matlazinca-speaking community of San Juan Atzingo in the Valley of Toluca.
The image of the Virgin is addressed in passionate terms as a source of warmth and love.
Pulque (century plant beer) consumed on ceremonial occasions is identified with her milk.
Interpretation (Bushnell's Postulate): The Guadalupe is identified with the mother as a source of early satisfactions, never again experienced after separation from the mother and emergence into social adulthood. She embodies a longing to return to a pristine state where hunger and unsatisfactory social relations are minimized.
### 2. The Mexican Family
Societal Context: Congruent with the more open, mobile, and manipulative life in communities actively geared to the life of the nation, where power relationships between individuals and groups hold great moment.
Father's Authority: The father's authority is unquestioned on both the real and ideal planes.
Gender Roles: Double sex standards prevail, and male sexuality is charged with a desire to exercise domination.
Child Rearing: Children are ruled with a heavy hand, and physical punishment is frequent.
Guadalupe's Symbolic Link: This pattern is also consistent with a symbolic identification of Virgin and mother, but within a context of adult male dominance and sexual assertion, often discharged against submissive females and children.
Interpretation: In this context, the Guadalupe symbol is charged with the "energy of rebellion against the father." Her image embodies hope in a victorious outcome of the struggle between generations.
Guadalupe, Christ, Life, and Death
Extension of Symbolism: Successful rebellion against power figures is equated with the promise of life; defeat with the promise of death.
John A. Mackay's Suggestion: A further symbolic identification occurs, linking the Virgin with life and defeat/death with the crucified Christ.
Christ in Mexican/Hispanic Artistic Tradition: Christ is consistently depicted not as an adult man, but either as a helpless child or, more often, as a figure beaten, tortured, defeated, and killed.
Symbolic Equation: Guadalupe stands for life, hope, and health; Christ on the cross symbolizes despair and death.
Psychological Roots: This symbolic equation touches upon the roots of both the passionate affirmation of faith in the Virgin and the characteristic fascination with death in Baroque Christianity, particularly Mexican Catholicism.
Equating Mothers and Hopes: Supernatural mother and natural mother are symbolically equated, as are earthly and otherworldly hopes and desires.
Foci of Hopes:
In the first case (natural mother), hopes center on the provision of food and emotional warmth.
In the other (supernatural mother/rebellion), hopes focus on the successful waging of the Oedipal struggle.
Limitation of Family Analysis: While family relations illuminate the female and maternal attributes of the Virgin symbol, their analysis alone does not fully explain Guadalupe as such, specifically her unique importance to Mexicans.
Guadalupe's Role in Political and Religious Aspirations
Beyond Maternal Attributes: Guadalupe is vital to Mexicans not only as a supernatural mother but also because she embodies their major political and religious aspirations.
For Indigenous Groups
Restoring Hope: The symbol represents more than just life; it restores the hope of salvation.
Context of Conquest: The Spanish Conquest brought not only military defeat but also the defeat of old gods and the decline of old rituals.
Return of Tonantzin: On one level, the apparition of Guadalupe to an Indian commoner represents the return of Tonantzin.
Tannenbaum's Insight: As Tannenbaum noted, "The Church … gave the Indian an opportunity not merely to save his life, but also to save his faith in his own gods."
Validation for Indians: On another level, the myth served as symbolic testimony that Indians, like Spaniards, were capable of being saved and receiving Christianity.
This was crucial against a background of bitter theological and political arguments post-Conquest, which divided churchmen and conquerors into those who deemed Indians incapable of conversion (thus inhuman and fit for exploitation) and those who held that Indians were human, capable of conversion, and deserved tempered exploitation according to Catholic faith and civil processes.
The Guadalupe myth thus validated the Indian's right to legal defense, orderly government, citizenship, supernatural salvation, and salvation from arbitrary oppression.
### For the "Disinherited" (Mestizos, Impoverished)
Emergence of a New Group: This large group arose in New Spain as illegitimate offspring of Spanish fathers and Indian mothers, or through impoverishment, acculturation, or loss of status within either the Indian or Spanish group.
Social Marginalization: For a long time, they had no proper place in the social order. Their very right to exist was questioned due to their inability to command full rights of citizenship and legal protection.
Social Interstices: While Spaniards and Indians had defined legal places, these groups inhabited the "interstices and margins" of constituted society.
Seeking Recognition: Though they acquired influence and wealth in the 17th and 18th centuries, they were still barred from social recognition and power by the prevailing economic, social, and political order.
Guadalupe Myth's Meaning: To them, the Guadalupe myth came to represent not just the guarantee of their assured place in heaven, but also the guarantee of their place in society "here and now."
Guadalupe as a Harbinger of a New Mexican Order
Political Wish: The desire for a return to a paradise of early satisfactions (food, warmth, life without defeat/sickness/death) gave rise to a political wish for a Mexican paradise.
Vision of Mexican Paradise: In this paradise, the "illegitimate sons" would possess the country, and the "irresponsible Spanish overlords" (who never acknowledged the social responsibilities of their paternity) would be driven from the land.
17th Century Ecclesiastics: Began to present Guadalupe as the harbinger of this new order.
Miguel Sánchez's Book ():
Justified the Spanish Conquest of New Spain solely on the grounds that it allowed the Virgin to manifest in her chosen country and establish a new paradise in Mexico.
Equated Mexico with Israel (chosen to produce Christ, Mexico chosen to produce Guadalupe).
Equated Guadalupe with the apocalyptic woman of the Revelation of John (XII:1), "arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars," who was to realize the prophecy of Deuteronomy VIII:7-10 and lead the Mexicans into the Promised Land.
Colonial Mexico was envisioned as the "desert of Sinai," and Independent Mexico as the "land of milk and honey."
F. Francisco de Florencia ():
Coined the slogan, non fecit taliter onmi nationi ("he did not act in such a way for every nation"), which made Mexico not merely another chosen nation but the Chosen Nation. These words still adorn the basilica portals.
Servando Teresa de Mier (on the eve of Mexican independence):
Further elaborated the Guadalupan myth by claiming Mexico had been converted to Christianity long before the Spanish Conquest.
He asserted that Apostle Saint Thomas had brought the image of Guadalupe/Tonantzin to the New World as a symbol of his mission, just as Saint James had converted Spain with the image of the Virgin of the Pillar.
Implication: The Spanish Conquest was therefore historically unnecessary and should be erased from history.
Mexican War of Independence: In this perspective, the War of Independence marked the final realization of the apocalyptic promise.
The banner of Guadalupe led the insurgents.
Their cause was referred to as "her law."
Ultimate Extension: The promise of life held out by the supernatural mother transformed into the promise of an independent Mexico.
This independence meant liberation from the "irrational authority of the Spanish father-oppressors."
It also meant the restoration of Mexico to its status as the Chosen Nation, whose election had been made manifest in the Virgin's apparition on Tepeyac.
Ultimately, "the land of the supernatural mother is finally possessed by her rightful heirs."
Conclusion: The Unifying Master Symbol
The symbolic circuit is closed: Mother, food, hope, health, life; supernatural salvation and salvation from oppression; Chosen People and national independence—all find expression in a single master symbol.
The Guadalupe symbol powerfully links together family, politics, and religion; the colonial past and the independent present; and Indian and Mexican identities.
It reflects the salient social relationships of Mexican life and embodies the emotions generated by them.
It provides a cultural idiom through which the tenor and emotions of these relationships can be expressed.
Ultimately, it serves as a way of talking about Mexico: a "collective representation" of Mexican society.
Source: Wolf, E. R. (). The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol. Journal of American Folklore, 71(279), 34-39.