From Pyramid to Church

The landscape of Mexico had always been a sacred one, dotted with the pyramids and temples of its inhabitants.  The ruins we have left to see are magnificent tributes to cultures that once thrived and that live on in the unique Christianity that evolved from the encounter between the indigenous beliefs and the Spanish Catholic church.  I would like to point out that the ruins were originally all vibrantly painted (as were the ruins of Greece and Rome). They were not the white/gray color that we now see. There are some books available that through transparencies show their very different original appearance.

Uxmal, Yucatan 

After the Conquest, the landscape was refurbished with conventos (churches plus living quarters for the friars) and churches springing up in large numbers in Central Mexico as well as in the Yucatan.  These convent/churches tended to be mammoth structures and were home to the friars who were  evangelizing the indigenous, as well as being worship spaces.  The very first one of these I visited was St. Nicolas de Tolentino in Actopan.

St. Nicolas de Tolentino, Actopan, MX

The first time I saw this convent,  my jaw dropped.  It loomed massive, stony and imposing in front of me,  It’s vertical stone walls crowned with jagged parapets, standing next to it I felt dwarfed.  These "fortress churches" were huge, overwhelming structures and as  we shall learn shortly, this effect was not lost on their audience.

Seen below is San Bernardino de Siena, in Coyoacan near Mexico City, one of my favorite conventos which has an elegant and beautifully restored interior.

San Bernardino de Siena, Xochimilco, MX

   

In the Yucatan, the early convents were similarly large, but tended to be different in style largely because of the needs of the different physical environment and kinds of building materials that were available.   Here are two of my favorites.  Directly below is San Antonio de Padua in Izamal, Yucatan.  This convento has the largest enclosed atrium (patio or courtyard) in the Americas and for this reason has been dubbed "the Vatican of the Yucatan".

San Miguel Arcangel, Mani Yucatan

It was here in Mani, in 1562, that the infamous Bishop Diego de Landa ordered the burning of all the Mayan codices (books).  Only three fully-authenticated Mayan codices survive and all are now located in Europe.  Notice the horseshoe-shaped opening to the left of the entrance. This is the "Indian Chapel", an out-door chapel where religious services were held
at first for the indigenous, newly acquainted with the church, and not yet used to worshipping in an indoor space.

The question remains why these buildings resembled huge fortresses.  It was not for protection of the friars who lived and worked there; this was not an area with any ongoing physical threat.  By the time that they were constructed, at least in Central Mexico, the conquest had been finalized.  True, some of their mammoth scale was functional- there were large numbers of indigenous to be evangelized and space was needed.  But there was an even more important reason.  These new buildings, symbolic of the new religion, had to compete with the structures of the old religion.  They had to be every bit as impressive and monumental as the temples and pyramids, the Templo Mayors, the Chichenitzas that spoke religious power to the indigenous.  These were people from  complex and ancient religious traditions. If the Christian god, the god who had defeated the old gods was indeed the most powerful, he needed an impressive house. The architectural marvels that the Spanish built, as we shall see with much indigenous assistance, were exactly this. 

Spanish Conquest: A Battle of Images

While it is true that the conquest of the Americas was achieved through the Spaniard's superior fire-power, there were other things to consider.  The diseases that they brought to the New World, like smallpox, to which the indigenous had no immunity, resulted in huge epidemics that reduced their population.  Plus,  there was another piece of "heavy artillery" that, as you will see,  in the long run was probably the most potent.  I am referring to the religious images of the Spanish.

The Spanish were threatened by the images of the indigenous, such as these below photographed at the Museo de Antropologia in Mexico City.   Throughout the Conquest, it was routine for the Spanish to destroy such "idols" of those they subjugated. 

Why were images so important? Weren't they just inanimate objects?  The answer, as well shall see, is no.

The Spanish were very attached to their own images, to the point of carrying them into battle in the form of battle standards.  It was routine for the Spanish to carry a banner with the Virgin Mary in the form of Guadalupe of Extremadura who differs from the later and more widely known Guadalupe.  (This diversity of representations of Mary can get confusing and I will delve into them in a future post.) The Spanish also replaced indigenous images with their own, as was the case when Cortes put a statue of the Virgin in one of Montezuma's temples, thereby claiming it for his own.

                                     The "heavy artillery": Guadalupe of Extremadura

So what are images and why are they so important?  To make a very long story short images are not just for looking. They acquire a life and power of their own and the god or goddess in the image is charged with "presence."  Humans often respond to religious images interactively, as if they were living beings. This was the case with the subjugated indigenous as well as the Spanish and so, in addition to the outright war-fare, a sort of proxy war was fought with religious images.  

The film "La Otra Conquista" ("The Other Conquest") is a magnificent demonstration of the
deep attachment that people have to their images and I highly recommend watching this movie to understand the role that images played in the Spanish Conquest.  I also recommend David Freedberg's book, "The Power of Images", for its general theory of images.