Images and More Images

 

The first time I started thinking about the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Juquila it was because of the “stuff”–what scholars  call “material culture.”  Catholic pilgrimages are complicated: at the center we find the famed miraculous image, but alongside them we also find an array of items deployed as offerings, decor, and adornments. Another way to think about it is that there is a lot of staging in theses settings. There is also, typically, a steady flow of souvenirs that devotees take home. Back in 2001 when I was working  in Oaxaca City’s Archdiocesan Archive, I was astounded by all the wads of old receipts for the parish of Santa Catarina de Juquila (a small town now, then just a village). From the 1860s to 1900s they itemize hiring musicians, painters, carpinters, printers, candlemakers, and fireworks technicians. The priests running the shrine also purchased thousands of prints featuring Our Lady Juquila, ranging from small, pocket-sized, to large, full-page. Sometimes they ordered them printed on red paper. In the archive I imagined them being hauled to the shrine in thick stacks, and then being dispersed one-by-one from Juquila all over the region in the hands of devotees. I have a faded, slightly blurry, 3 x 5 inch, Juquila from this era in a no-frills, tin-and-glass frame with a tightly braided loop of brown string attached to the top. I purchased it in a flea market in Puebla, and I’ve wondered who it belonged to and where it was hanging as it faded.

The image above is the contemporary equivalent, in a way. It is a Virgin of Juquila t-shirt design. Anyone can take it and have it applied to a shirt, or something else. You don’t even have to go to the shrine. I like how it speaks to an old phenomenon, the perpetual reproduction and mobility of images. In fact, in its repetition it  shouts a multicolored “Juquila, Juquila, Juquila…!” It is a representation that says “reproduce me.” It is both traditional and innovative. Beyond the fact that it features four images, the version of Juquila used is almost identical to the old prints from the 1800s. But then these camiseta Juquilas are like power ranger virgencitas, and they are meant to be displayed together. What represents a more modern identity statement than the t-shirt? It is casual and cool and personal.  They speak for us, and travel with us, on the street, into buildings, and wherever else we wander. We can produce them in bulk. Wearing this you are announcing your tie to Juquila and Oaxaca. You are identifying with her and other devotees. She is with you…until you change your shirt.