Knowing History in Mexico: An Ethnography of Citizenship

7: Histories of the Virgin: The Higher Ground of Secular History

94 Chapter Seven Histories of the Virgin The Higher Ground of Secular History H istory was not just told of towns and nations. I also heard and read histories of Catholic figures, especially the Virgen de la Defensa (Virgin of Defense), who spent most of the year in a town near Tapalpa. Before going to Mexico, I had often heard it said that history was a secular kind of knowledge. I took this to mean that God was left out of history altogether, so it would make no difference whether one believed in God or not. But I found in Mexico that God and other figures of devotion , such as the Virgin of Defense, did crop up in things that were told as history. I felt initially that such histories were not secular but religious before realizing—after reading anthropologists such as Talal Asad (2003), Timothy Fitzgerald (2007), and Michael Lambek (2003)—that the relationship between “secular” and “religious” was more complex than it seemed. Some of the Virgin’s histories were still secular, I decided, but in a broader sense of the term. Even if they did not banish divine agency altogether, they still placed divine agency outside the main body of the narrative (Stack 2007[a]). As I have done for the history of towns and nations, I ask what people got from the history of the Virgin of Defense and especially what authority Histories of the Virgin 95 they gained. Knowing the Virgin’s history was less obviously linked to citizenship than knowing Tapalpan or Mexican history. But both history and citizenship did share a secular perspective. Doing history and being citizens involved setting aside religious beliefs and, if only for a moment, bracketing divine agency. Perhaps for that reason, the eminent citizens don Lupe and Fajardo are among my examples of those giving secular histories of the Virgin. However, I will note that even priests and lay Catholic leaders sometimes provided secular histories of the Virgin, and I will suggest that the authority they gained helped to make up for the authority they had lost in other spheres—not least since priests lost their political rights after the Mexican Revolution. Intimate Encounters and Mystical Monologues Devotional practices, predominantly Catholic, permeated the lives of most Tapalpan residents. People crossed themselves publicly, they wore badges of their faith including emblems of saints and virgins, and they talked about the objects of their devotion. Many of these practices were closely identified with the town as a whole. The parish church was visible from any point in the surrounding countryside and towered over the public plaza. I was also woken constantly during religious festivities by the sound of rockets being fired at dawn and the passing of brass bands through the streets. Priests enjoyed considerable authority in Tapalpa, and I often heard people refer to what priests said, whether in a sermon, a meeting, or a social gathering. Many Tapalpans professed devotion to the Virgin of Defense. The Virgin spent most of the year in a nearby town of Juanacatlán, and also stayed in another town, Atemajac. But she visited Tapalpa for two months each year, and her only rival in the devotion of many Tapalpans was the town’s patron, the Virgin of Guadalupe. To describe the Virgin of Defense as an object of devotion is perhaps misleading, since she was anything but a passive object for her faithful. Many Tapalpans enjoyed an intimate relationship with the Virgin, expressed in terms of trust, seduction, and gift exchange. Tapalpans prayed to her for miracles and made her promises of all kinds, such as to walk with her from Juanacatlán to Tapalpa each year. There was much give and take between what Tapalpans did for her and what she did for them. Both depended, my landlady Teresa said, on “the faith you have in her.” Chapter seven 96 I heard many narratives of intimate encounters between the Virgin and her faithful. For example, when I asked Toni, a twenty-year-old Tapalpan, for the Virgin’s history, he wondered whether I meant the history of her healing, adding that the Virgin had healed many people through miracles. I explained that I meant instead how the Virgin came to the Sierra. He recalled that the catechists in Juanacatlán spoke of the Virgin’s history and of a booklet that they had written. Toni could not remember exactly...