198 UNIT 2 COLONIAL MESOAMERICA
to collective experiences generated by elaborate ritual, rather than to private prayer
and contemplation.
The friars attributed the shortcomings they saw in native religion to shortcom-
ings of the Indians themselves. They characterized the Indians as weak and sensual,
childish, more attracted by outward appearances than by inward meanings. Blind to
the spiritual aspects of native religion, they concluded that the Indian personality
lacked a spiritual dimension. Recall that the friars holding these views were the In-
dians’ staunchest defenders, far less prejudiced against them than were most other
Europeans in the colony, many of whom equated the Indians with brute animals.
This view of the Indians echoed the attitude that many urban and educated Eu-
ropeans took toward people of the lower classes, especially rural peasants. By label-
ing the Indians in this way, the friars placed them into a familiar category. They could
then talk about, preach to, and interact with Indians according to the same tactics
they would use with uneducated peasants in their European homelands. They could
thus, in a sense, deny the immense cultural differences separating them from the
native peoples.
The friars’ attitude had other important implications. Of most significance, the
belief that the Indians were spiritually inferior justified a policy of keeping them out
of the priesthood. With very rare exceptions, Indian men in colonial Mesoamerica
were not allowed to become priests. Indian women were only rarely allowed to be-
come nuns, even though some chose to live like nuns and even entered convents as
servants and companions to the more privileged daughters of Spaniards. This pol-
icy reinforced the colonial status quo, helping to keep the Indians in a dependent,
inferior position relative to Europeans and their descendants (the same exclusion-
ary policy applied to persons of mestizo and mulatto background).COLONIAL SOCIETY
The social structure of colonial Mesoamerica was based on the hierarchical ranking
of categories of people who were defined in ethnic and racial terms. We have seen
that in the wake of the reconquistain Spain, the Spaniards became increasingly in-(continued)
home, they interacted as individuals with Spaniards and with Indians from other communities.
When their priests encouraged them to take up the Guadalupan devotion, they could now iden-
tify with a cult that represented the larger colonial society centering on the capital city, and that
spoke to them as individuals and as Indians rather than as members of local ethnic groups.
During Mexico’s struggle for independence, the cult began to serve as a focus of national
identity. Today, the Virgin of Guadalupe is viewed as a mestizo or Indian woman, the “dark”
(morena)virgin. The story of her apparition to a humble Indian is an important national myth,
symbolizing the merging of Spanish and Indian cultures, under divine sanction, into the Catholic
and mestizo nation. Papal decrees have named Guadalupe the queen and patroness of Mexico
and empress of the Americas. John Paul II canonized Juan Diego in 2002. (See Chapter 14 for more
on the cult.)