Zona Rosa, Part III: Mexican Divas

During my trip to Mexico City, I found myself in the presence of superstars: Our Lady of Guadalupe, Juana In�s de la Cruz, and Santa Muerte.

Tonantzin

The roots of the word "diva" are the same as "divine." Catholic theology says Our Lady of Guadalupe (identified as the Virgin Mary) is a saint, not a goddess. But when we understand her background, Our Lady is true diva, Catholic saint, Aztec goddess, and an inspiration for Mexico's fabulous Lesbian nun-poet.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine is the second-most visited Catholic site in the world. According to legend, a simple Aztec peasant in the sixteenth century named Talking Eagle had visions of a spirit woman who spoke to him in his native language of Nahuatl. She told him she was Tonantzin ("Our Mother") and she wanted a church built at the site of the visions, a hill named Tepeyac. To prove his story, Talking Eagle brought the local bishop a cloak full of roses that had miraculously bloomed at the site. When he poured the flowers from his cloak, a picture of the spirit woman appeared on the fabric. This cloak-picture is, in effect, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and she is enshrined in the hearts of Catholics everywhere.

Nowhere is she more beloved than in the hearts of Native Mexicans.

Tepeyac Hill was formerly the site of an Aztec temple dedicated to Tonantzin Coatlicue or "Our Mother of the Snake Skirt." Talking Eagle's spirit woman is likewise associated with Aztecs and clothing. She was imprinted on a traditional garment made from the maguey plant, a big spiky aloe plant that provided the Aztecs with cloth, pulque (an alcoholic beverage), and spines with which they pierced themselves in acts of devotion. Tonantzin has golden spikes coming from her body, calling to mind the long maguey thorns used for ritual bleeding.

People still incorporate pain in their devotion to Tonantzin. I saw a woman slowly making her way across the plaza on her knees.

Nayely Flores, sister of my friend Oscar back in Columbus, escorted me to the shrine with two of her friends on that overcast Sunday afternoon. I asked my three guides (all fine Mexican divas in their own right) if Tonantzin were the same woman as the Virgin Mary, and they all said yes. I also asked them about visiting a shrine to Santa Muerte, the skeleton-saint of drug lords, thieves, the poor, and transpeople. They said no. "You do not want to go there," they warned me.

Back to Tonantzin. Tepeyac Hill overlooks not one but two massive churches, one in Spanish Colonial style and the other a circular turquoise-roofed building designed to give tens of thousands of people visual access to Tonantzin, who is enshrined in a spectacular setting of lights and paneling directly over the altar. Two moving sidewalks are under the altar so that people can be close to the image, which hangs several feet above them, even when services are going on. Along the wall behind the sidewalks are brass pictures of Talking Eagle, who was made Saint Juan Diego by Pope Juan Pablo II. A big statue of Juan Pablo stands outside the new church.

Aztec Symbolism

But that's not all. The shrine is actually a series of shrines. There is another church dedicated to Saint Michael atop the actual hill, marking the spot where Talking Eagle met Tonantzin. In front of the building are four angels: Michael, Rafael, Gabriel, and Uriel. Michael is first, holding a blade over a big snake. Sun images hang above either side of the entrance. In front of the church is a big cross with a flaming heart in the middle and crowned with thorns. Inside the church and to the left are statues of Saint Martin de Porres, the African-Peruvian saint framed by a grand ceramic tile image of the moon, and Jesus framed by a ceramic-tiled sun.

From the viewpoint of Catholic iconography, there is nothing out of the ordinary about those statues and symbols. But when we compare them with Aztec symbols, a new world comes forth.

The winged image of Saint Michael towering over a snake calls to mind the symbol of Imperial Mexica, the vast territory ruled by the Aztecs: an eagle dominating a snake in its claws. Saint Martin with the moon evokes the powerful black-night God Tezcatlipoca, while Jesus with the sun calls to mind the white-day God Quetzalcoatl (Feathered Snake). Jesus' Sacred Heart is outside of his chest, parallel to the Aztec custom of cutting out the heart as an act of devotion to the sun. Even more dramatic is the big cross with the Sacred Heart, flaming and pierced with thorns. Aztecs put the cross in a circle to symbolize this current age, which they called Fifth Sun (Age of Quetzalcoatl), fueled by the sacrifice of a humble God and protected by fire-breathing snakes.

Walking down Tepeyac Hill, the Aztec symbolism is even more obvious. Two rows of fountains come out of the side of the hill with waterspouts shaped like the feathered snake's head of Quetzalcoatl. Further on, there is a dramatic representation of Aztec people, from nobility to peasant, with offerings to Tonantzin. They bring flowers, vegetables and fruits, what most of the Aztec Goddesses demanded from their followers.

There is a separate church on the bottom of the hill dedicated to Talking Eagle, the only Aztec saint in Catholicism. His statue in that church shows him with the cloak-portrait in front of him. It looks as if the image were actually within his body, and he had been sliced down the middle and the wound held open by golden spikes so that Tonantzin could be revealed.

Outside the church is a statue of the bishop kneeling in front of Talking Eagle, a reversal of the subjugation of Aztecs to Spanish priests and conquistadores. This statue is in a small rose garden, and a rose had been placed in the hand of the bishop as if he were offering it to Talking Eagle and Tonantzin. Even more telling is the modern bell tower in the grand plaza, which has the circular Aztec Calendar Stone on one side of it, a sacrificial platform that represents Fifth Sun and the Age of Quetzalcoatl.

Do I believe the image of Tonantzin is miraculous? Indeed I do, but not the way the Catholic Church says she is. God did not paint her. Rather, she is the work of an Aztec genius.

In promoting the unfounded story of a simple peasant meeting the Virgin Mary, Catholic authorities deny an unnamed Aztec artist credit for creating a masterpiece on maguey canvas. The message: savages couldn't have done it, so God did it for them. Nevertheless, the pre-Christian spirituality of the Mexica people comes through Our Lady of Guadalupe, with the unspoken blessing of a sixteenth century bishop who realized the people needed their own way to Heaven as well as the new ways of the Spanish.

College for Cats

On the same day that I visited the massive Pyramids of the Sun and Moon north of the city, I went to the Universidad de Claustro de Sor Juana, the University of the Cloister of Sister Juana (http://www.ucsj.edu.mx/central/perfiles.php).

It is a small educational institution in the heart of the historical district of Mexico City, surrounded by old buildings and shops for musicians. Fitting, since Sister Juana In�s de la Cruz, the university's namesake, was an accomplished musician. And playwright. And theologian. And poet.

And chef. Juana had once been punished for insubordination by being exiled to the kitchen. She took that opportunity to not only hone her culinary skills, but to ask scientific questions about the nature of cooking. "If Aristotle had cooked," she wrote, "he would have written much more."

The university is built over the convent where Sister Juana lived, long ago in the seventeenth century. The place is beautiful, with a large courtyard in the middle. But it is not designed for tourists. I was only able to get in by showing my academic credentials. There is no gift shop, no place to buy memorabilia related to one of the most celebrated people in Mexican history and an icon of the Mexican LGBTQ community.

Perhaps the guarded attitude of the university, its protective pose and restricted access, is because it has no ties with the Catholic Church despite Sister Juana's commitment as a nun her entire adult life. Perhaps its independence from such a powerful institution is due to Juana's insistence that women be treated as equals, a stance that eventually got her officially silenced by her male superiors. Perhaps it is due to her love poems to another woman and the university's commitment to LGBTQ issues as well as women's rights, that these things have made the university the target of nasty comments or even threats of violence. Or maybe it was the way Juana praised Our Lady of Guadalupe, implying she is dark-skinned ("Morenica la esposa est�, porque el sol en el rostro le da") and relating her color to Aztec spiritual sensibilities concerning the sacredness of the Sun-as-Deity.

Regardless, I found myself in a place where there were lots of people but nobody to talk to. Not only were there lots of people, there were lots of cats. Along a wall in the central courtyard were several cat beds, one with a big black cat asleep in it.

I finally found a place where I could buy some journals sponsored by the university. While talking with a young woman there, I said I wrote for Edge, an online Gay news site en los Estados Unidos.

It was by playing the Gay-card that the doors to the university opened for me.

I was introduced to Cecilia Nu�ez in the Creative Writing Program. She welcomed me into her office, where we talked about Juana, Aztecs, Tonantzin, LGBTQ topics, and Cecilia's website-blog C-Queer (http://radiocqueer.blogspot.com/p/sobre-c-queer.html). Cecilia gave voice to the fierce pride that people in the university have for Juana and the progressive view she had of the world, despite all the obstacles placed in her way, and a sense of humor mixed with empathy that allows such easy co-existence between people and all those cats.

The big black cat's name is Bagheera.

Revisiting Holy Death

As mentioned earlier in the article, I was discouraged from seeking out Santa Muerte. Wouldn't you know it- she kindly stopped for me.

My last day at the Museo Nacional de Antropolog�a (http://www.mna.inah.gob.mx/) and I was irresistably drawn to images of skull-faced spirit women, including Tonantzin Coatlcue, the Goddess who became Mexico's dearest saint, and Cihuateotl, Mother of Gods.

The most prominent of the skull-women are those representations of the Cihuateteo, spirits of women who died in childbirth. In the Aztec worldview, such women were honored as warriors who died fighting to bring new life into the world. These deities gave women hope of celestial reward in a world where life expectancy was not more than 35 years for commoners, and rates of mortality during childbirth were high.

From our cultural perspective in the USA, we see skull-faced women as accursed, scary, and demonlike. We should, however, understand that such images could be empowering for Aztec women. As Cihuateteo, they became fierce spiritual protectors that helped the nation's living army and escorted the setting sun.

I have no doubt that the pervasive use of skull imagery with regard to powerful Goddesses lives on in the person of Santa Muerte, Our Holy Mother who unites us all, no matter what status we have or what we've done. Rich or poor, we will all die someday. And Santa Muerte will be there to greet us, to love us, to help us on our way.

I find her comforting. I find them all comforting.

Note: I'd like to thank the many people who were so very kind to me in Mexico City: Mario Stalin Rodriguez de la Vega, Claudia Valery-Perez, Nayely Flores and her two gracious friends (and her brother Oscar and uncle Robert), Cecilia Nu�ez, Marguerita at the visitor's desk in the Museo, Jos� Alfredo Vera at the Coatetelco Archaeological Zone, and the fine staff at the Eurostars Hotel on Londres in the Zona Rosa.