The Tilma of Guadalupe: An Image on a Cloak

Above the altar of the modern Basilica of Guadalupe, behind glass, hangs a length of coarse cloth about 1.7 metres tall. On it is the image of a young woman with a dark, gentle face, hands joined, standing on a crescent moon and wrapped in a blue-green mantle scattered with stars. She is surrounded by golden rays and held up by an angel. The Church calls her Our Lady of Guadalupe. Millions of pilgrims come to see her every year. The cloth is venerated as the tilma (cloak) of Juan Diego, an Indigenous convert. According to the tradition, in December 1531 the image appeared on it when he opened the cloak before the bishop of Mexico and let fall the roses he had been told to gather on the hill of Tepeyac.

The tradition and its texts

• The account. The classic narrative is the Nican Mopohua ("Here it is told"), written in Nahuatl. It tells of four apparitions to Juan Diego, the Virgin's request for a church, the bishop's demand for a sign, and the roses in December.
• Its date. The Nican Mopohua was first printed in 1649 by Luis Lasso de la Vega, as part of the Huei tlamahuiçoltica. Most scholars attribute its composition to the Indigenous scholar Antonio Valeriano (c. 1520–1605), which would place it in the sixteenth century. The date and authorship are debated.
• Its most famous line. In the Virgin's words to Juan Diego: Cuix amo nican nica nimonantzin? "Am I not here, I who am your mother?"

The documented history

• 1556. Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar promoted the devotion at the shrine of Tepeyac. The Franciscan Francisco de Bustamante preached against it, saying the image had been "painted yesterday by an Indian, Marcos". This is usually identified as Marcos Cipac de Aquino, a known Indigenous painter. The archbishop's inquiry (Información of 1556) is a real document. It proves that the image and its cult existed by 1556, and it proves that its origin was disputed even then.
• 1648–1649. The first printed accounts appeared: Miguel Sánchez in Spanish (1648) and Lasso de la Vega in Nahuatl (1649).
• 1921. A bomb hidden in flowers beneath the image exploded. The image was undamaged, while a bronze altar crucifix was bent by the blast. The crucifix is still displayed.
• 1996–2002. The long-time abbot of the Basilica, Guillermo Schulenburg, doubted that Juan Diego was a historical person. A Vatican-appointed commission defended his historicity, and Juan Diego was canonised in 2002. Historians remain divided.

The cloth and the image under study

• The fibre. The cloth is traditionally described as agave (ixtle) fibre. Some studies suggest other plant fibres, and no fibre analysis has been fully published under independent conditions.
• Infrared study (1979, sometimes dated 1981). The biophysicist Philip Callahan photographed the image in infrared. He reported that the face, hands and robe showed no underdrawing and were not explained to his satisfaction. He also reported that the moon, the angel, the gold rays, the stars and parts of the mantle show signs of later additions and retouching with ordinary paints. Both findings are regularly cited, by opposite sides.
• Popular claims that NASA found the image "alive", that it has a human body temperature, or that reflected figures can be seen in the Virgin's eyes have no published scientific support. The eye "figures" are interpretations of enlarged photographs.

Symbology and sacred encoding

An image readable in two languages of faith. Scholars have long noted how the image speaks to both Spanish Catholic and Nahua viewers. The Woman of the Apocalypse (Revelation 12), "clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet", is standard European Marian imagery. The dark face, the mantle of stars, and the Tepeyac hill, previously associated by some sources with the goddess Tonantzin ("our revered mother"), gave it meaning in the Indigenous world. How deliberate that double meaning was is debated.

A national symbol. The Guadalupe image became the banner of Mexican independence (Hidalgo, 1810) and of later movements. It is a documented case of a sacred image becoming a national emblem.

Connections

Aztec religion (ch43), the Great Goddess (ch48), where Guadalupe and the Aztec mother-goddess Tonantzin are discussed, Marian devotion and apparitions, and the Shroud of Turin (V04), another image whose making is disputed.

From The Divine Archives · https://getconexto.com/vault/tilma-of-guadalupe.html