Tijuanagringo :
TurinfoGuadalupe
...miren los curiosos lectores... let curious readers look... the holy church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is in Tepeyaca, where Gonzalo de Sandoval had his base camp when we won Mexico... la santa iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, que está en lo de Tepeaquilla, donde solía estar asentada el real de Gonzalo de Sandoval cuando ganamos a México...
Bernal Diaz del Castillo
Verd.Hist.Conquista, CCX, (1580?).
The feast day of this vision of the Virgin mother of God is December 12th. The night before, on the 11th, people stay up and sing good morning to her from the afternoon all evening long through the climax at midnight when she becomes her day. Parades and fiestas are celebrated all over Mexico this night and the holy day of the 12th. One TV network sweetheart-deal links the Basilica at Tepeaca with all the world, even if none of us can spell Tepeaquilla, while pop superstars sing las mañanitas and all and more, with a million Mexicans, Indians and Mestizos and Criollos, jammed into the church and filling the huge plaza outside, and meanwhile in every city and town and village and church the people are praying and rejoicing with a magnificent outburst of music and song.
Except for the Jehovah's Witnesses, of course, and a scattering of other hyper-protestants and atheists who for once agree that she is (beware) a goddess (beware).
The run-on sentence never stops even if the calendar does have its one big day. She is rather a vision from eternity onto now, a picture for four images, when the Indian saint Juan Diego saw her and heard her speak his own language Nauatl Aztec. She frightened him one day with a voice of hummingbirds and flowers on the witching rocks of the holy mountain outside Mexico City. He was scared. Didn't come back. But she got him again next time he finally crossed the spooky old hill. There were no bears there but he came back.
OKAY Okay so we're playing a little loose with the story. Actually the story is his uncle was sick so he couldn't go back over the spooky old hill. But anyway, eventually she got him. The Queen of Heaven and Empress of America has her winning ways. You better believe it. Mary is sweet as roses and gentle birdsong yes. And eventually she got her message through.
"Build me a church," she said. But then Juanito told her the bishop did not listen to him, so she answered, "show the bishop these flowers, then."
So Juan Diego picked the flowers, and carried them in his cloak, and when he got to the bishop's palace, he opened his cloak to show the flowers to his eminence, and -- lo and behold! The inside of the cloak was now painted with a full-length crowned woman's figure surrounded by stabbing rays and standing on the horns of a dark moon supported by a childlike figure. The beautiful olive-colored lady holds her hands in the attitude of prayer and blessing. Inside the dark pinpoint of her eyes can be spotted the silhouette of kneeling men and women... but... suggestion hath its power, too.
This is the image that Mexico loves and adores. I have to confess I do too. This is the image that came to comfort a conquered, more-than-decimated, enslaved and tortured people. This is the image who spoke in Aztec (Nauatl) and then got written down in a book in Aztec Nahuatl about which scholars shall debate for ages to come as to what was literature and what was reality. This is probably the image that became a great scandal in 1556 when a Franciscan priest named Francisco Bustamante appears to have preached against her, saying no, no image can cure disease or cause miracles, only God, and well, the people said then, so it was God, eh? Okay then. It is.
Never mind that we don't know how many times it has been repainted or what. Never mind never mind never mind reality, this is myth we be talking now.
Gringo curious should remember their is some depth of criticism against this popular story. The witnesses and agnostics dance on the heads of their pins, too. Yes.
Oh, and in response to reader Paula's question:-- No, no volcanoes were involved. That was Paricutin four centuries later. sorry....
The Mexican people, meanwhile, celebrate Guadalupe as their very own and special Mother of God. She is the spiritual Mother of Mexico. Only the eagle with the snake comes close to such power.
Tijuana celebrates...
In Tijuana, the night of the eleventh is welcomed by singing and going dressed up to church. Many children are clothed in little Juan Diego suits, tipico Indian clothes of rough white cotton shirt and pants with huarache sandals on the feet. Women will often wear those spectacular multicolored Mexican dresses. Part of the fun is seeing all the people dressed thusly, greeting each other and taking photos.
Many people make walking pilgrimages of prayer and song. The largest of these processions we have seen is the parade from the Mercado Hidalgo zone up into downtown, ending at the cathedral. Tractor trailer combinations of various sizes haul dioramas and tableaus, you know, like trucks pulling flatbed floats, yes. On the large flatbeds, men and women dressed in traditional costumes portray events either from the story itself, or later history where Guadalupe figured (like as the banner of Hidalgo during the war for independence).
Behind each moving display mariachis and singing people march through the streets with the trucks, up from the river to Constitucion Avenue, then down that street to Third (Tercera), and out a couple blocks before turning back to the cathedral on Segunda (Second) and Niños. While this procession/parade works its way around downtown, they shoot off skyrockets from every few corners. The parade is roughly from 8:30 until 10:00. It comes down Constitution around nine (but NO time is Firm, and Mikey and Dano give you no guarantees).
The scene at the cathedral, meanwhile, is packed. Packed. PACKED. The crowds inside have been listening to mariachi and more mariachi and prayers and mass and all that. Outside, people in costume and regular street clothes are crowded around the church streets, taking their picture in front of various photo-statues and eating snacks. From now until New Year the block in front of the church is shut down and full of tents with comedores (eating spots) and booths for shopping and playing carnival games. Quite a scene, this little market remains in place all of December, just two blocks west of Revolution. Watch your wallets and purses, friends, but Do Enjoy the Scene.
Meanwhile, sometime maybe before ten, certainly some good time before midnight, the parade procession arrives from the market, with all its different trucks and tractors and all big and small from many different market workers and owners. They struggle to offload a huge floral offering (like ten feet across, like some ancient monument) made with vegetables and fruits as well as flowers (hey, it IS from the Market people, eh?) -- they struggle to offload it from a forklift and wrestle it by hand -- many hands and strong arms -- inside the church, where is slowly moves down the main aisle toward the altar, through the jam-packed applause of thousands.
Of course then there is more music and prayers and all the power of fiesta. Outside, hundreds of baby boys and little girls dressed up like the Indian saint or Mexican lady stay up late with their parents and have their pictures taken in front of various statues of the Virgin, of the Nopal cactus, of Juan Diego. Several of the truck tableaus will perform the ritual speeches one last time, "Build me a church, gather these roses," etc.
The next day, the 12th, is the holiday for real. But all night long until dawn and then all day you can hear firecrackers popping off here there everywhere. Both our landlords' dogs go nuts. Heh. Last year one brok Mikey's kitchen window trying to get inside away from all the boom boom bam WHAT BLAMITY Blam Boom ssssssssPOW... well, it was really my window, not his. Some things are still fict....