A Brief Tour: Mary in the Andes

Mary has been a controversial icon of American culture and politics since the beginning of the conquest until today, representing both European militarism and universal motherhood, as well as a “difficult” model of femininity. This figure and her importance in the configuration of Christianity in the New World has been approached through very different perspectives, from different disciplines that range from theology, sociology, and anthropology to history and art history. As a symbol, Mary is as precarious as she is versatile – virgin, woman, mother, queen, teacher, mediator, conqueror, liberator – as well as variable in relation to the particular historical context in which popular fervor formed around her.

Regarding these variations, the Argentine historian Patricia Fogelman uses the concept of “refraction,” understood as an explanatory instrument that allows one to unravel the transformations of the Marian cult in its transfer from Europe to America. Refraction is the change of direction of light rays that occurs after passing from one medium to another, in which the light propagates at different speeds. By equating the Marian cult with the path of light that is transformed generating different optical phenomena, this metaphor is now used as a theoretical tool. Using this concept, Fogelman analyzes the actions that various agents in different media implemented in the processes of construction, transformation, and incorporation of the religious practices that developed around Marian fervor. Referring specifically to this cult, which spread widely following the Counter-Reformation, the author analyzes a certain “matrix” of visible practices from the Spanish Reconquest process, which are reproduced during the Conquest of America and the colonial period.