Transformations of religious consciousness at a Marian shrine: The case of La Tirana, Chile

Abstract

This article is based on van Kessel’s study of La Tirana in Chile in 1970, over a non-representative sample of about one thousand participants including dancers, pilgrims, vendors and tourists. La Tirana is the main Marian sanctuary in the north of Chile. Van Kessel could clearly identify the importance of the religious manda as the main reason of devotion associated with complementary beliefs concerning the Virgin’s miraculous efficacy for those who strictly fulfill her. After nearly fifty years, this study finds out that the manda has tended to disappear and that religious attitudes toward the Virgin have changed; especially those related to the specifications of the fulfillment of the religious promise. Although all these changes go along with an increase in ecclesiastical mediation of the sanctuary devotion, it is the pilgrim’s educational level that best explains these changes in the religious awareness of Chilean Marianism.