Abstract

TARACENA ARRIOLA, Arturo. La virgen de Guadalupe en Guatemala: Los juandiegos, las marías y las indias bonitas. Práctica religiosa y subalternidad étnica. Península [online]. 2005, vol.1, n.0, pp.171-197. ISSN 1870-5766.

Through the study of the implementation and development of the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Guatemala, we present an analysis of one of its most spectacular traits: the 200 year-old-custom of dressing non-indigenous children as "Indians", specially as "Juandiegos and Marias", during the December 12 festivities. However, this tradition is not intended to assume the Other's identity, but to obtain the Virgins favor. This has led some to interpret this as anti native people act, in which people deliberately recreate certain dress and cosmetic styles to indicate that the children are "not Indians". Inspired by a beauty contest in Mexico City at the beginnings of the 20'h Century, that "transvestite tradition" would lead to a particular fashion of "pretty Indians" among the women who were involved in the festivities. Soon after they were censored by Church authorities because of the "mundane" character they brought to the religious festivity. Such fashion would then become a secularizing process, which was characterized by the re-appropriation of the festive world of the Guadalupe tradition by political satire, and also by the rise of non-indigenous beauty queens wearing the «typical dress» as it was recovered by the State.

Keywords : Guatemala; Guadalupanismo; inter-ethnic relations; religiosity; ethnic and religious cross-dressing.