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the virgin as national symbol     TheVirginasNationalSymbol The Cases of Bolivia, Mexico, and Argentina chapter seven    During the three hundred years of Spanish rule in Latin America, the advocations of Guadalupe in Mexico and of Candelaria, especially Copacabana, in the region of the Andes that would become Bolivia, gained power and reverence. By the time of the independence movements at the beginning of the nineteenth century, both were strong, both were centers for pilgrimage, and both would be invoked for their aid in the wars on the insurgent side as well as on the Spanish side. In fact, these advocations would be contested between opponents.TheVirgin as warrior had returned vividly to the struggles. When these regions gained their independence, Copacabana and Guadalupe as symbols of the new nations became important unifying factors, rallying points that gave comfort and legitimacy in the disturbing flux of political, social, and economic changes. The case of Argentina was somewhat different. Though the arrival of the Virgin of Luján was dated from the early colonial period, her significance as a political symbol and as a warrior did not emerge strongly until the early twentieth century. Still, the purposes of national unity and cohesion that the advocation served in Argentine politics, though not perhaps as successful, were strikingly similar to those of Copacabana in Bolivia and Guadalupe in Mexico. In essence, these countries were using a “sacred language,” in Benedict Anderson’s phrase, of signs and symbols focused on advocations of theVirgin rather than a shared “written script” to create a sense of nation. Both the Copacabana and Guadalupe advocations became true regional devotions, centers of pilgrimage, associated with miracles in individual and larger contexts. Though popular religion and sanctioned belief have it that  ,       the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared very early, in , documentation on the apparition to Juan Diego, as we have seen, dates from the middle of the seventeenth century. In contrast, the statue of Copacabana was created in , and the documentation is closer in time to the beginning of the cult and its development much easier to trace.Two Augustinians—Alonso Ramos Gavilán, noted earlier, whose work was published in Europe in , and Antonio de la Calancha, whose volumes appeared in —have given us a good picture of events surrounding the image and of the widespread popularity of the cult. Copacabana was located at LakeTiticaca, the sacred lake not only of the Inkas but also of Aymara-speaking populations. It was prime territory for evangelization, both around the lake and also throughout the highlands. As noted in the previous chapter, reports of miracles began immediately , to the point that even before the end of the sixteenth century, the native population is said to have feared that some wealthier or more powerful community would remove the statue. She was not removed, though; the location was far too useful to the Spanish for purposes of evangelization to permit such a fate. Her chapel and her image were located at the very heart of the sacred landscape of the Andean highlands, while the Guadalupe site, though certainly used in the preColumbian period, was not nearly so central.Thus Copacabana has continued to be a pilgrimage destination throughout the colonial period and into the twenty-first century. The rites conducted there combined Christian and native elements, as they do today. The image of Our Lady of Copacabana was securely grounded in the landscape very quickly after its production and associated with the Spanish political as well as religious project. The Spanish, taking advantage of the location on a peninsula leading out into the sacred LakeTiticaca, found it a convenient destination for those coming into the region for Andean as well as for Christian religious purposes.The nature of the lake might well make native populations more willing to believe that theVirgin, now firmly established in this holy place, had miraculous powers.The conflation of Andean and Christian religion in this deep-rooted “contact point with the sacred” was convenient for the Church and for the Crown. The statue of theVirgin produced by FranciscoTitoYupanqui in the late sixteenth century was quickly provided with ceremony, miracles, and an edi- fice to mark its importance.The image and the site were soon given into the care of the Augustinians (), a move that the political authorities believed would guarantee a large number of priests in attendance. In less than twenty years, a new chapel was begun to accommodate the growing reverence; it was [3.14.246.254] Project...

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