Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico (review)

Abstract

Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico. By Edward W Osowski. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 2010. Pp. xii, 261. $50.00. ISBN 978-0-816-52855-4.) Mesoamerican peoples were long familiar with miraculous occurrences, and they therefore readily incorporated those of the Spaniards into their new beliefs in Catholicism. Indeed, over the course of the colonial period native leaders appropriated select miracles to suit their purposes and, in many ways, made them indigenous. Their Christian piety consequently affirmed their legitimacy as stalwart members of New Spanish society. Miracles in central Mexico were, of course, cause for celebration, with bell ringing at the churches and entire communities rallying for the occasion. Apparitions, a dead child suddenly come to life, a stone cross on the move, and spontaneous sacred images were among the many marvelous events that the natives personalized. Early miracles included the widely known visitations experienced by Fray Martin de Valencia, head of the Franciscan Apostolic Twelve, which occurred in a cave on a hilltop in Amecameca, Chalco. Now known as the Sacromonte, that hill (ChalchiuhmomoztliAmaqueme), as the Nahua historian Chimalpahin (b. 1579) recounted, was the site where Amecameca's founding rulers established their kingdom in 1241 - not a coincidence. Thus inviolable, the cave was configured by subsequent leaders into a sanctuary with an image of the Santo Entierro (the Holy Burial of Christ, another miracle in its own right) and served as a pilgrimage destination for centuries. Other indigenous miracle sites were not necessarily as prosperous over the long term, due largely to demographic change and interference by Spanish authorities. Undaunted, native leaders sent out alms collectors, who traveled the countryside with a sacred image ensconced in a box strapped to the back of a mule. Musicians and women often accompanied them, and frequently the latter contacted women in distant towns to arrange for exclusive viewing of the saintly icon. The fame of the miraculous cult and the additional revenue benefited the home community and its leaders, and such alms collectors became familiar travelers across the region, much to the chagrin of the Spaniards. By the eighteenth century Bourbon viceroys were implementing various regulations to gain greater control over ostentatious political and religious celebrations in Mexico City and neighboring communities. Two targets were the annual Corpus Christi and Semana Santa festivals, in which the native peoples were heavily invested. For example, San Juan Tenochtitlan and Santiago, the indigenous cabildos in the capital, organized the stately milelong, floral-covered arches that framed and shaded the Eucharist as it was carried about the city in procession. …