Person or Statue: The Complex Religious Images of Latin America

Image of Jesus Nazarene, Viacrucis Aquatic, Granada, Nicaragua

When I first shared photos from the Via Cruces Aquatic from Holy Week in Granada Nicaragua, a friend asked me if the red-robed figure you can see at the front of the boat was a statue or a person.  Another friend, a priest, jokingly asked if it was me. As I thought about it, I realized that these comments are much more profound than they seem.

The figure in the red robe is Jesus Nazareno, one of the Jesus images used in Holy Week events in Latin America. (For a fuller discussion of these images, please refer to the March 28, 2013 post of this blog: "Jesus of Mexican Holy Week"). Here is the front of this image:

Jesus Nazareno, Viacrucis Aquatic, Holy Tuesday, Granada Nicaragua

Jesus Nazareno, Viacrucis Aquatic, Holy Tuesday, Granada Nicaragua

As you can see the image is wearing a wig made of human hair and the eyes are glass and life-like and it is definitely more true-to-life than the marble or plaster statues we are used to in churches in this country. This is the way the religious images of Latin America are created; they were meant to be true to life to make the Christianity more "real" to the newly-converted indigenous peoples of the region.

These images are treated like people in many ways; they are dressed and cared for and the  celebration of their festivals orchestrated by groups known as cofradias or confraternities, each of which is headed by a mayordomo, who are predominantly male although there are some females, as well.  In the photo below, the words "Cofradia de Jesus Nazareno" are written on the back of the blue t-shirt worn by the woman indicating that she is a member of the group from her church responsible for the image of Jesus in the above three photos.  She was the one in charge of collecting the donations that the many other boats participating in this Viacrucis Aquatic would give to this lead boat containing the image.

Jesus Nazareno cofradia member, Viacrucis Aquatic, Granada Nicaragua

Religious images are an important part of Latin American church communities.

They are central to the worship of a congregation, a focus of religious life and play a role in the financial life of the church.

Religious processions are a focus of life in Latin American cities, such as the Holy Wednesday procession seen below in Granada Nicaragua.  In it the revered images that are the focus of Holy Week, the last week of Jesus' earthly life and ministry, are carried from the church and through the city's streets in beautiful and reverent processions of enormous intensity that are the focus of the entire community. 

Holy Wednesday Procession, La Merced Church, Granada Nicaragua

Below, church members carried an image of Jesus a long distance to be used in a procession in another town.

Group transporting image, Masaya, Nicaragua

On Holy Wednesday evening and Holy Thursday day in Nicaragua churches bring certain images out for the people to see at closer view, touch and to buy religious objects connected with the image. This is both an opportunity for people to be physically close to the images they simultaneously revere and love and for the church to make the money it needs for the care for these images and the church itself. The leafy structures the images are in are called "huertos", which roughly translates as "garden" and some of the huertos can be very elaborate and beautiful, decorated with fruits and vegetables.    

Image of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Holy Wednesday, Granada, Nicaragua

Image of Jesus, Holy Wednesday, Granada, Nicaragua

Image of Mary, Holy Wednesday, Granada, Nicaragua

Religious Articles for Sale, Holy Wednesday, Granada, Nicaragua

The Good Friday morning procession in León reflected the kinds of feelings that the people have for these images.  Here, in the photo below, as the image of Mary met with that of Jesus the crowd broke out into applause.  To them, there was no line between image and person.

Images of Jesus and Mary Meeting in Procession, Leon, Nicaragua

On Good Friday, as in all Christian services, between the hours of 12 and 3, the hour of the crucifixion, there was a long service in the church in Subtiava, Leon.  At 3 pm, the traditional hour of Jesus' death, his image was removed from the cross with much ceremony and placed in the gilded tomb that would be carried in the Good Friday procession. 

Image of Jesus Crucified, Good Friday, León, Nicaragua

                               

             Image of Jesus in Tomb, (Señor Sepultado), before Good Friday procession, León, Nicaragua

I was totally unprepared for what happened.  As Jesus' body was transferred to the tomb, a crowd of people rushed forward to watch, many of them with cell phones in hand taking pictures. These were not tourists but believers, members of the church.  For them, the reality of what was happening was so intense, that they were reacting as if someone had really been killed.

Church members in front of Jesus in Tomb, Good Friday, León Nicaragua

Roots of the Image in Meso-american cultures:

It may be difficult for many people raised in the United States and other western European cultures to understand this kind of attachment to images.  It is not idolatry, but something of another order. The Protestant Reformation with its suspicion of images colored much of the Christianity that followed it. Images remained important in Spanish Catholicism which was a breed apart from the religious life of Europe and this influenced the form Catholicism took in its colonies. 

Anthropologist Serge Gruzinski, a specialist in Latin American cultures, feels that there is also something else at work.  This, he cites, is the notion of of ixiptla,  inherent in the pre-hispanic cultures of the area, that divinity could be contained in objects. "The ixiptla was the container for power; the localizable epiphanic presence; the actualization of the power infused into an image." * In this scenario, an image is not just a representation of something

but actually contains the power of the divinity it represents.  

The people I see in Latin America want to be near these images, to touch them, and through touch absorb their divine energy.  Below is a piece of cloth that was for sale Holy Wednesday evening.  It had been touched to the reclining image of Jesus seen below and  is believed to contain the divine energy of the image with which it was in contact. It was being sold for a very small amount of money and was meant to be pinned to clothing and worn close to the body.

Holy article sold at Holy Wednesday display of images, Granada, Nicaragua

  

Image of Jesus, Holy Wednesday, Granada Nicaragua

Conclusion:

Holy Week in Latin American is a very powerful experience for both the believers who participate in the rituals, as well as visitors to the area who may not even participate in Catholic religious beliefs.  What makes it a powerful experience is the palpable love and reverence of the people there for their religious images, who are "real" in so many ways.These images are confidants, healers, and hold out hope to many who do not have much.  These images belong to everyone from the richest to the penniless street beggar, accept the love of all, and are available with completely equality, which is so different than much of life in the Latin American world.  

*Serge Gruzinski, "Images at War", 2001, p. 50.

An Ancient Ritual Comes to Life in Nandaime, Nicaragua: Holy Wednesday Flagellants

Holy Wednesday, Nandaime Nicaragua

                                   

The person in the photo above may look like a street thug, but he actually is a participant in one of the most unique Holy Week events in Nicaragua and you will not read about this event in Nicaragua guide-books. Nandaime hosts one of the most original interpretations of Holy Week rituals on its streets  the Wednesday before Easter, Holy Wednesday. This day, to all appearances, looked like a normal day in this small town in the Southwest of Nicaragua town about a half-hour outside of the lovely colonial city of Granada.  

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The town was quiet, but there was an atmosphere of anticipation and people were lined up along the steers waiting for something.

One tour brochure had stated that at Noon on Holy Wednesday, the church bells ring and "people start making a lot of noise". It turned out that the noise was a part of something a whole lot bigger and extremely interesting.

Santa Ana church, Nandaime, Nicaragua

Santa Ana church, Nandaime, Nicaragua

Above is the town's church, peaceful with its courtyard empty.  Yet, the rest of Nandaime was anything but peaceful that day.  Minutes before, at noon, the church bells had rung 

and a crowd of costumed people, mostly young, had taken off from its courtyard brandishing whips. One can be seen below taking a rest.  The crowd's objective was to hit (and I can personally attest, not lightly) anyone one in their path or anyone they could lay hands on. 

Holy Wednesday Participants, Nandaime Nicaragua

Holy Wednesday participants, Nandaime Nicaragua

The armed horde made two rounds of the town's streets streets and at 12:30 sharp they returned to the church yard and it was all over.  Costumes were removed and there was no more whipping.  The whole event lasted exactly one half hour and despite the seeming free-for-all atmosphere, was very structured and ritualized. 

Yard of Santa Ana Church, Nandaime Nicaragua

The Tools:

Whip used Holy Wednesday, Nandaime Nicaragua

Whip used Holy Wedneday, Nandaime Nicaragua

Whip used Holy Wednesday, Nandaime Nicaragua

The Flagellantes:

Medieval Spanish Flagellante

Self-whipping has existed within various religious groups since ancient times as a personal practice of penance for sins.  Around the 11th century in Europe it became more wide-spread and popular as a form of penance within the Catholic church and was taken up by radical factions within the church, later to be condemned by the church as heretical and banned by many rulers.  These groups of flagellants in Medieval Europe would march en masse through the cities whipping themselves, and bleeding as a public show of piety.  It was a popular movement that cropped up throughout Europe particularly in times of famine or plague; it was believed that self-mortification purged sins.  

The resemblance of this Nandaime participant to the Medieval flagellant above is unmistakeable, with the exception that he had not been whipping himself, but everyone else he could get to. Despite the excitement and laughter, the roots of this celebration are quite profound.

Holy Wednesday participant, Nandaime, Nicaragua

On a much smaller scale, processions of hooded flagellants are still a feature in Mediterranean Catholic countries and in Latin America. Penitential practices are often tied to the church season of Lent, of which Holy Week is a part. Nowadays they are more often symbolic than the out and out self-mortification of former times; the Holy Wednesday event in Nandaime is one such instance. Likely, flagellation was once practiced more openly in the area, and the low-level, time-limited whipping that is a part of Holy Wednesday is a cultural memory of these events. 

Nandaime's Holy Wednesday whipping spree is an accepted part of the towns' culture and more or less taken for granted by the people there as a fun event.  Everyone seems to have a lot of fun with it despite the occasional painful hit.  Although it may look like wanton aggression to the visitor, it is very ritualized and religious in nature.  It begins in at the church with church bells and ends there as well. 

Holy Wednesday in Nandaime is an enactment of the ancient flagellatory practices with a twist- the participants are not whipping themselves, as in the old times, but are whipping everyone else; everyone, willing or not, gets to participate in the penitential activity.   Holy Wednesday in Nandaime is both a remembrance of the old penitential practices and a modern parody of them that stands the old practice of self-flagellation on its head. It is unclear whether or not the mostly young participants in the Holy Wednesday melee are aware of its origins.

Ex-Convento of Santiago Apóstol Cuilapan: A Unique Monastery in Oaxaca

Ex-Convento of Santiago Apóstol, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

History is vibrant in this 16th monastery located near the town of Zaachila in Oaxaca. The ex-convento of Santiago Apóstol is described by Richard Perry, the Mexican architecture specialist, as "one of the most original churches in the Americas". This is because of its open-air basilica, which in colonial times was covered with a thatched roof and used as an open-air church;  the same function was performed by the atriums of other monasteries. A basilica is a very old church architectural form featuring a single hall, double rows of columns and a semi-circular apse (domed vault) at its end.  

The "basilica", Santiago Apóstol, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

View from within basilica looking outward, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

History:
The pre-conquest inhabitants of this area were Mixtec Indians living in an area that was largely Zapotec;  Cuilapan participated in the cultural heritage of both of these groups.   During colonial times each year the victory of Mixtecs over Zapotecs in Cuilapan was celebrated in the basilica and the church contains the grave of a Zapotec princess, as well.   Connection to cultural heritage continues to this day.   Every July 25th during the celebration of the church's patron saint Santiago (James) there is a ceremonial dance, the Dance of the Conquest, to mark the Aztecs' defeat by Cortés.  The Aztecs had been an enemy of the local Zapotecs and Mixtecs, by 1450 crossing over into the Valley of Oaxaca to control their trade routes and collect tribute from them.  Cortes' defeat of the Aztecs put an end to their subjugation.

Friars of the Dominican order arrived in Oaxaca in 1528 and over the years built a network of impressive monasteries in the area as a part of their effort of converting the indigenous peoples.  (see May 20, 2013 post about another one of these, Yanhuitlan- http://colonialmexicoinsideandout.blogspot.com/2013/05/yanhuitlan-oaxaca-colonial-culture.html).  Cuilapan was begun in 1550 and work was continued until the 1570's and stopped in 1580, remaining unfinished until the present. In the 18th century, the religious orders became increasingly less important as the secular clergy began to be in charge of religious life in Mexico.  The Dominicans left Cuilapan in 1753, at which point Santiago Apóstol ceased to be a monastery, becoming an ex-convento.

Portrait of Cuilapan Convent Complex with roof intact, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

Historical Portrait of Cuilapan Convent complex, Cuilapan,  Oaxaca MX

Construction:

In order of construction, the open-air basilica was built first and used as a worship space while the main church was built.  At one point, a wood roof covered the open church and the far arch in the arcade of the basilica was blocked to further enclose it;  although the side arches are now open again, the back arch remains blocked. The two portraits, which hang in the monastery's cloister, show Cuilapan as it looked in colonial times with the basilica enclosed,  although in one of them the roof is partly gone which could have referred to the later collapse, but this is unclear.

Blocked back arch, Santiago Apóstol, Cuilapan, MX

The Church:
Although the church, still in use as a house of worship, is built on a grand scale, its interior is rather stark, bare and lacking in the elaborate altarpieces and statuary seen in other Oaxacan churches. The entrance to the church, tucked-away, in a courtyard is completely plain, lacking the elaborately-carved façade that is typically present.

Church Entrance, Santiago Apóstol, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

The church interior is plain with none of the elaborately-carved and guilded side altars that would normally be seen in a building of this stature.

Santiago Apóstol church, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

The church is entered through the rear, which is where its door is located. The photo shows the  starkness and lack ornamentation of this area.  

Door  and rear of Santiago Aspóstol Church, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

Main Altar, Santiago Apóstal, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

The side chapel used for adoration of the Holy Sacrament is the most decorative space with the church; notice the colorful wall murals that remain.

Side chapel, Santiago Apóstol, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

In comparison with many Oaxacan churches, Santiago Apóstol has sparse statuary; its most impressive image is a folk sculpture of Santiago on horseback, that is a very typical image in Oaxaca.

Santiago Apóstol,  Church of Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

Princess Donaji:

Tomb of Princess Donaji, Santiago Apóstol Church, Cuilapan Oaxaca MX

The tombstone of Princess Donaji, a 16th century Zapotec convert to Christianity who was the daughter of the last king of the Zapotecs.   Recalling Oaxacan history, there had been endless battles between the Mixtecs and Zapotecs and Donaji was taken by the Mixtecs as a pledge of peace, to be killed if the Zapotecs did not keep their word.  Zapotec warriors burst into Mixtec territory after the peace had been reached and Donaji was killed. The legend says that her head and face were found perfectly preserved in a field; her body was buried in the church, presumably, to attract new Zapotec converts.

The Cloister:
The Cuilapan convent contained sixteen cells for friars as well as the common living and working areas.

View of Cuilapan Cloister, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

Courtyard of Cuilapan cloister, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

Exterior corridor of Cuilapan cloister, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

Interior Corridor of Cuilapan cloister, Cuilapan, Oaxaca  MX

Cloister Murals:

The Cuilapan cloister interior was once a rich visual environment with many walls covered with murals; some of these still remain,  although in varying degrees of deterioration.  The most important of the murals is the "Tree of Martyrs", seen below. Each individual monk portrayed holds a palm, symbol of their martyr status.

     

                                     

                       Tree of Martyrs,  Cuilapan cloister, Cuilapan, MX

This kind of a tree is a device that various groups have used to define their long genealogy to establish an identity of deep-rootedness, significance and authority. In the colonial world it was, more or less, a marketing device used by various religious orders to establish their legitimacy  among the indigenous peoples they were aiming to convert.  The idea of tree resonated deeply with the Mesoamerican psyche, as world trees were a motif in many Mesoamerican cosmologies, embodying the four cardinal directions and the tree as an axis mundi connecting underworld with the sky and earthly planes.

Other murals reflecting Renaissance motifs, as seen below, were common in colonial Mexico.  This is explored in the March 11, 2014 post of this blog:  http://colonialmexicoinsideandout.blogspot.com/2014/03/italian-renaissance-in-colonial-mexico.html

Niche formerly containing devotional image, Cuilapan cloister, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

Wall mural, Cuilapan cloister, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

This arch below reveals the remnant of the kind of Renaissance floriate decoration typical of these monasteries. Symbolically this type of decoration reflected the idea of Paradise and often contained images of local flora.

Floriate arch decoration in Cuilapan cloister, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

As was the practice in monasteries, various luminaries of their order such as the bishops below, were shown in the wall murals.

Wall mural, Cuilapan cloister, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

Wall mural, Cuilapan cloister, Cuilapan, Oaxaca MX

Although Santiago Apóstol may not be Oaxaca's most ornate worship space, it is certainly  an interesting one.  Cuilapan's open-air "basilica" is unique in Mexico and it is the only church to house the tomb of a legendary Zapotec princess.  The stark interior and exterior of the church is so unexpected that it contributes to Cuilapan's unique identity.