The
cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe sums up the mexican
way of being in all its multicolored diversity.
These photos were taken in different parts of Mexico
City and its surroundings on december the12th, the
anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin in a
hill near the city about 400 years ago. These images
bear witness to a celebration in which every idiosyncrasy,
every hope of a people are manifested.
In
a time marked by the sign of change, this document
corroborates the validity of religious faith.
"This
book is about the urban Guadalupana (Virgin of Guadalupe)
of the 20th Century, in our current society, efficient,
triumphant in these days, dispenser and receiver
of a modern cult, crowded with the industrial civilization
symbols.
Some other sacred figures remain distant, in the
heights and pure in their theological profile almost
abstract. Guadalupe has always been contaminated
by her people’s lives. She was early seen
receiving copal, food, offerings and dances, not
very different from the ones that were accepted
by their nahuas preceding deities. The anti-idolatry,
Christcentric friars immediately raised their voices
against that function of idol.
She (Virgin of Guadalupe) won: first the local Catholic
church, and then the Vatican church accepted the
people right to celebrate and adore her as they
wanted, and the indigenous kept their Nahua and
Aztec manners alongside the Christian centuries".
José
Joaquín Blanco
(Introduction fragment)
BACK
TO TOP
|
