Volume 24, Number 9 · May 26, 1977
The Triumph of the Virgin of Guadalupe
By J.H. Elliott
Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness 1531-1813
by Jacques Lafaye, translated by Benjamin Keen, with a Foreword by Octavio Paz
University of Chicago Press, 336 pp., $22.00
Perhaps it is as well to begin with the story, since—rather oddly—Jacques Lafaye, the author of this fascinating book, never actually gets around to telling it. Between December 9 and December 12, 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian called Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac (now in the northeastern suburbs of Mexico City) and commanded him to tell the bishop of Mexico, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, to build a church there. The bishop was not convinced, and, being an enlightened Renaissance European, demanded proof. The Indian duly returned with winter roses from Tepeyac, and as he laid out the cloak which enfolded them, it was seen to be miraculously painted with an image of the Virgin, since venerated throughout Mexico as the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Review, 3400 words
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