Abstract
This article explores the role played by images of the Virgin Mary in the ordering of space during the colonial period, as well as in the disruption of such order as a gesture of resistance by subordinate groups. In the Real Audiencia de Quito of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, civil and religious authorities used miraculous images of the Virgin Mary as aids in the founding of reducciones, which assured the imposition of Christian civility upon the Native population. Legal records suggest that in the second half of the eighteenth century Indigenous communities deployed similar strategies as a means of asserting their own concerns. Native actors physically manipulated Marian images in times of conflict, moving them around or apprehending them either to legitimize their desertion of colonial settlements or to resist forced relocation. In both the early colonial period and in the eighteenth century, the key strategy of shaping sacred landscapes was implemented in both Andean and Christian traditions.
Highlights
In Compendiosa Relación de la Cristiandad, published in 1773, Bernardo Recio provides a detailed account of shrines in different provinces of the Real Audiencia de Quito that housed miraculous images of Christ, the Virgin Mary and saints (Recio [1773] 1947, pp. 293–303)
Titicaca (Alcalá 2010; MacCormack 1984; Salles-Reese 1997) or Our Lady of Chiquinquirá in New Granada (Cummins 1999; Cousins 2019), this study discusses the way in which ordinary, non-miraculous statues of the Virgin Mary were put to work by Indigenous actors in the rural periphery of the Real Audiencia de Quito, a region that has been ignored by historiography
In the Christian tradition, apparitions of the Virgin Mary, the unexpected discovery of hidden images or miracles performed by Marian statues legitimized the founding of pilgrimage shrines or towns
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Titicaca (Alcalá 2010; MacCormack 1984; Salles-Reese 1997) or Our Lady of Chiquinquirá in New Granada (Cummins 1999; Cousins 2019), this study discusses the way in which ordinary, non-miraculous statues of the Virgin Mary were put to work by Indigenous actors in the rural periphery of the Real Audiencia de Quito, a region that has been ignored by historiography. By contrast, sculptures and paintings were already bound to the history and identity of individual towns; because of this, they could act on behalf of Indigenous communities By this time, Indigenous actors, like other subordinate groups, had already acquired empirical knowledge of Spanish legal practice and had become active participants in a colonial lettered culture. Religious images figure prominently in such contexts as the final recourse, once legal actions had failed
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