The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol

Abstract

Eric WoJf(~3-99) was one of most significant American anthropologists of twentieth' century, serving as a leading advocate and clear expositor of a scholarly,. politically accountable historical materialist approach and advancing study of peasant or agrarian societies. He conducted fieldwork in both latin America and Europe. Wolf gives central place to power and its effects on (1999); his book on consequences of European expansion on the people without history (1982) has been particularly influential. These interests are evident indirectly in this exemp~; lary interpretation of a master symbol (in Ortner's terms, a summarizing key symbol) that gained national importance in Mexico. The essay illustrates both nature of such a symbol and process of syncretism (cultural mixing). Wolf suggests how imposition of Christianity was localized to provide continuity with pre-Hispanic (Aztec) religion, yet in such a manner as to conceal continuity from conquerors. He thus draws a close link between religious practices, resistance, and state power. Themes raised by Wolf will be pursued in Part IV. Wolf also provides an insightful analysis of Virgin as a mother-figure, thus implicitly illustrating that symbols can become especially powerful when they draw on both deep psychological and social structural dimensions (a point explicitly ~rticu­ lated in Turner 1967). Interestingly, Wolf draws on two kinds of mother-images which figure longing and rebellion, respectively. The Guadalupe symbol links psycholo~ gical sources with political longing and struggle for class and national deliverance and dignity. For a powerful psychoanalytic interpretation of Virgin in another cultural context (Italy), see Parsons (1969), as well as subsequent work by Carroll (1986). There is much work from a theological and missionary perspective on what is called inculturation, i.e., adaptation of Christianity to local understandings. Anthropologists are more likely to look at way symbols and symbolic practices provide foci and means of struggle and resistance to hegemony of colonizers and other THE VIRGIN