Difficulties in co‐opting a complex sign: Our Lady of Guadalupe as a site of semiotic struggle and entanglement

Abstract

The Cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the product of appropriations authored by both the Aztecs and the Roman Catholic Church, has served as a tool of empowerment, dominion, and accommodation. Central to this contested cult is an indigenous reinvention of the Virgin Mary that is simultaneously index, icon, and symbol. This study demonstrates the difficulties in attempting to selectively appropriate the desirable features of such a sign while excluding those deemed undesirable. In attempting to appropriate certain features of the Virgin it deemed desirable, the authors argue, the Church also annexed aspects of the Aztec religious tradition at odds with the teachings of Catholicism. While Catholicism's attempt to co‐opt this Virgin extended the influence of the institutional Catholic Church, the authors suggest, it also undermined the integrity of the faith the Church promotes by fostering a form of popular Catholicism contrary to the teachings and practices of orthodox Catholicism. This study is grounded in data obtained through interviews conducted with pilgrims in the vicinity of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe immediately prior to, during, and after the Virgin's annual feastday (December 12). The authors also draw upon anthropological, historical, and religious studies scholarship to make sense of the pilgrims’ beliefs and place them within the broader historical and religious contexts in which they operate.