The Virgin of Guadalupe

Several legends connected with the founding of the city of Mexico are commemorated at the present day, and are therefore of interest to modern readers. That the legend concerning the Virgin of Guadalupe has still a wide acceptance among the peasantry of Mexico is attested by the fact that in every church, monastery, convent, palace, and hacienda in Mexico, there may be found an image of that Virgin, and the name Guadalupe is continually given in baptism to both male and female infants in the city, irrespective of the number or variety of other names they may bear. The legend, as told by Don Ignacio Barillo y Perez, is substantially as follows: Tepeyacca, a hill about three miles north of the present city of Mexico, was noted, in old times, for the rites celebrated there by the native Indians in honor of the mother of their gods. At about daybreak on December 9th, 1531, Diego, a converted Indian, was crossing the hill, on his way to mass, when, as he reached the summit, he heard sweet music above his head, and, looking up, he beheld a brilliant white cloud, surrounded by a rainbow, and in the centre a beautiful lady. The apparition, addressing him in his own language, told him that she was Mary, mother of God, and that she wished a temple built to her on that very spot. She bade him bear this message from her to the Bishop, Don Francisco de Zumarraga. He did so, but the Bishop put him off with an evasive answer, supposing him to be under the spell of some hallucination. The Virgin appeared to the Indian again, and bade him try a second time to move the Bishop. He made another effort, but was repelled, this time with the warning that, if he would be listened to seriously he must bring a sign from the Virgin to attest his status as her emissary. On Juan's repeating this to the Virgin, she promised to give him such a sign as was necessary, when he and the Bishop should meet the next day. Meanwhile, the Indian's uncle had fallen ill with a fever which threatened fatal results. In waiting upon the sufferer, Juan Diego neglected his appointment with the Virgin. She appeared to him once more, and bade him be of good cheer, as she would restore his uncle to health in an instant. She then sent him to the top of the hill Tepeyacca, to bring her the flowers which he would find growing there. He climbed to the summit, and there, where usually only barren rocks were to be seen, he found a bed of rare and odorous flowers, wet with dew. He gathered them in his blanket and took them to the Virgin, who blessed them and bade him carry them to the Bishop as a sign from her. For some time Juan was denied admission to the Bishop's palace. The attendants made sport of him and plucked at the flowers, which were endowed with a virtue that held them fast in their place. But when at last the Indian entered the Bishop's presence, the flowers fell suddenly apart, and in the place where they had been was an exquisite figure of the Virgin herself, painted miraculously on the surface of the blanket. The flowers, fresh and dewy in the midst of winter, were enough of themselves to dispel the skepticism of the Bishop, but the portrait excited his devout wonder yet more; and the next day he repaired, with a multitude of religious persons, to the hill of the heavenly visitation. The Indian was called upon to point out the exact spot where the Virgin had first appeared to him; and when he seemed to be in doubt, a fountain gushed forth to indicate the site. Juan then asked permission to visit his uncle, which being granted, he took with him several of the Bishop's retinue to vouch for what they saw. They not only found the aged Indian alive and whole, but they learned from his own lips that, at the hour when the Virgin had assured his nephew that all was well, she had appeared to him also, had cured him, and had bidden him build a temple at Tepeyacca, where her image should be called Holy Maria de Guadalupe.

The fame of these miracles spread abroad, and a hermitage was reared on the hill, to which, two years and fifteen days later, the Virgin's miraculous image was transferred.

A legend still more closely connected with the founding of the city of Mexico, is commemorated by the device upon the Mexican coins. An eagle, a serpent and a cactus appear on the obverse; the rising sun on the reverse. The legend, as related by Prescott, is as follows: "After a series of wanderings and adventures which need not shrink from comparison with the most extravagant legends of the heroic ages of antiquity, they (the Aztecs) at length halted on the southwestern borders of a lake, in the year 1325. They there beheld perched on the stem of a cactus which shot out of a crevice of a rock that was washed by the waves, a royal eagle of extraordinary size and beauty, with a serpent in his talons and his broad wings opened to the rising sun. The oracle announced this an auspicious omen, as indicating the site of a future city. They immediately began its foundation by sinking piles into the shallows. On these they erected their fabrics of reeds and rushes, and made a precarious living from fishing and from the wild fowl which frequented the waters." This is probably the origin of the chinampas, or floating gardens of mud heaped on rafts of reeds and brush, which in later times were so remarkable a feature of Mexico.

The source of this legend may be traced to Tenoch, one of the Aztec chiefs at the time of the founding of the city. Tenoch means "Stone cactus," and it is likely that from him was derived the name Tenochtitlan or "Stone cactus place." This name, inscribed as it was in picture-writing, may have suggested the well known prophecy that "the war god's temple should be built where a prickly pear (or cactus) was found growing out of a rock, and perched on it an eagle holding a serpent." At all events, Tenochtitlan was the original name of the city founded on the present site of Mexico in 1325, which for many years afterwards probably remained a cluster of mud huts. Mexico literally means the "residence of the god of war." Europeans gave it this name from the war god of the Aztecs, Mexitli. At the time of the conquest of Mexico by Cortez (1519), it was the largest and most civilized city on the American continent; and it is still the largest and finest city of Spanish America, covering an area of 10 square miles. "The broad, well paved and gas-lit streets present a picturesque appearance, with their quaint two-and three-storied stone houses, gaily painted in white, red, yellow, or green, and terminating everywhere with a background of rugged sierras or snowy peaks which, owing to the bright atmosphere at this elevation, seem quite close, although really 30 or 40 miles distant. All the main thoroughfares converge on the central Plaza de Armas, or Main Square, which covers 14 acres and is tastefully laid out with shady trees, garden plots, marble fountains, and seats. Here also are grouped most of the public buildings, towering above which is the Cathedral, the largest and most sumptuous church in America, built on the site of the great pyramidal teocalli or temple of the tutelar god of the Aztecs." The present edifice (in the form of a Greek cross) was founded in 1573 and finished in 1657, at a cost of $400,000 for the walls alone.