# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/Our Lady of Guadalupe

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OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
THE hill of Guadalupe is a place of pilgrimage for Christians to-day, as it was for nature-worshippers more than a thousand years ago, when it was called Tapeyacac. Here stood a temple of the goddess of corn, sometimes named the fruit-bearer, also mother of the gods. When the Spaniards came they told the people that in praying to this principle of life they were doing an evil thing. The invaders smashed the temple into ruin and tore up the road that led to it, but the natives kept climbing to the top to give their homage, as of old, to the creative forces that were symbolized in their statues. It was not deemed advisable to keep the Mexicans virtuous by killing, maiming, robbing, and enslaving them too constantly, lest they should become restive, yet the good priests were in distress that the natives refused to put the "Christian God mother in place of the heathen mother of the gods." But all came about as they would have it, without long resort to violence, for on the 9th of January—this was in 1531—a reformed native who bore the Christian name of Juan Diego heard angels singing on this hill as he passed it on his way to mass, and a shining lady appeared to him with an order to report to the bishop what he had seen and heard, and to tell him that she wished a church to be built, in her name, on the hill where she was standing.
​In no wise disturbed by this vision, for he was an Indian, Juan Diego repaired to the functionary and delivered the divine command. The bishop was sinfully suspicious, or obtuse, seeming to think that if any such order were given it should have been to him, personally, rather than to an ignorant Aztec, and he refused to build. Juan went back to the hill and told the shining lady that the bishop was sceptical. She directed Juan to climb the hill again next day, so he went back in the morning, which was Sunday, and she sent him to the bishop with the same order. His excellency sent the Indian packing again, and told him to bring proof that what he said was true. Juan trudged back to the hill-top, and on relating this second failure was ordered by the shining lady to return again next day, when she would cure the bishop of his doubts. Juan was kept so busy with these errands for two days that his poor uncle at home became very weak with hunger and neglect, and on reaching his cabin the old man bade him hurry for a priest to shrive him, for his end was near. Early in the morning the Indian, now weary with much travel, set off for town, and, fearing to have more errands put upon him, he went around the mountain, his bare feet patting softly over the earth, but again the shining lady arose in his path and repeated her command that the bishop should build a church for her. Juan begged to be allowed to pass, for his uncle was dying. The shining one bade him ​not to think of the old man, for he had already recovered his health through a divine ordinance. The messenger must pick the flowers at his feet and carry them to the bishop in his blanket. Flowers? There were no flowers in that barren spot. Why, yes! For, look: the ground was gay with them. The Aztecs loved color and perfume, and to gather these pretty blossoms was a congenial task. Juan filled his blanket and hurried to the bishop, hoping that he would be convinced at last. And he was; for it was found that the juice of the crushed flowers had painted on the blanket, which he immediately took from its owner, a beautiful portrait of the shining lady,—none other than the Holy Virgin.
This portrait was seen to be authentic, for it was the same as one in the village of Guadalupe, in Spain, and forthwith the hill of Tepeyacac became the hill of Guadalupe, and the bishop made all haste to amend for his unseemly doubts by beginning work on the church, long since replaced by one of the finest cathedrals in the Western world. The bishop and Juan together had little difficulty in proving to the Indians that the spot was henceforth sacred to the Virgin, and that heathen worship could be tolerated there no longer. The hill is now a place of yearly pilgrimage, by sanction of the pope, who set aside the 12th of December for that purpose, and confirmed the choice of the people in making Our Lady of Guadalupe ​protector of New Spain. She has ever been a kind patron; she has led them in their wars for liberty; from 1629 to 1634, when the city of Mexico was a Venice, Our Lady of Guadalupe lived there, in order to make the water go down.
On the hill are a stone mast and chapel that were set up by sailors whom she delivered from shipwreck. The mast with its sail they carried on their shoulders all the way from Vera Cruz, and after planting it here they encased it in stone that it might endure forever. Near by is the spring that broke out when she angrily stamped her foot on learning of the bishop's obstinacy. The mud about this holy well is eaten by the devout for its moral and healing properties. Juan Diego, in effigy, upholds the pulpit in the chapel of the well, and his blanket, with its radiant picture, is framed in gold and silver in the great church, "the holiest shrine in Mexico."