Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings in Mexico

Mexican statues and paintings like the Virgen de Guadalupe and the Se?or de Chalma are endowed with sacred presence and the power to perform miracles. Millions of devotees visit their shrines to request miracles for health, employment, children, and countless everyday matters. When miracles are granted, devotees reciprocate with votive offerings. Collages, photographs, documents, texts, milagritos, hair and braids, clothing, retablos, and various representative objects cover walls at many shrines. Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings in Mexico explores such petitionary devotion in depth through extensive fieldwork supported by research in a vast body of interdisciplinary scholarship. The study's principal themes include sacred power and human agency, reification, projective animation, faith as a cognitive filter, sacred power transfer, social and narrative construction, positive framing, collaborative and deferred control, vows (juramentos), and miracle attribution. The book is written in two alternating voices, one interpretive to provide an understanding of miracles, miraculous images, and votive offerings, and the other narrative to illustrate the interpretive chapters and to bring the reader closer to experiences at the shrines. Among the many miraculous images treated in the book are the Cristo Negro de Otatitl?n, Ni?o del Cacahuatito, Se?or de Chalma, Se?or de la Misericordia (Tepatitl?n), Se?or del Rayo, Se?or de las Tres Ca?das (Teotilalpam), Virgen de los Dolores de Soriano, Virgen de Guadalupe, Virgen del Pueblito, Virgen de Juquila, Virgen de los Remedios, Virgen de San Juan de los Lagos, Virgen de Talpa, Virgen de Tonatico, and Virgen de Zapopan.

Auteur

Frank Graziano is John D. MacArthur Professor of Hispanic Studies at Connecticut College. His previous books include The Millennial New World, Wounds of Love: The Mystical Marriage of St. Rose of Lima, and Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America.

Résumé
Mexican statues and paintings like the Virgen de Guadalupe and the Seor de Chalma are endowed with sacred presence and the power to perform miracles. Millions of devotees visit their shrines to request miracles for health, employment, children, and countless everyday matters. When miracles are granted, devotees reciprocate with votive offerings. Collages, photographs, documents, texts, milagritos, hair and braids, clothing, retablos, and various representative objects cover walls at many shrines. Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings in Mexico explores such petitionary devotion in depth through extensive fieldwork supported by research in a vast body of interdisciplinary scholarship. The study's principal themes include sacred power and human agency, reification, projective animation, faith as a cognitive filter, sacred power transfer, social and narrative construction, positive framing, collaborative and deferred control, vows (juramentos), and miracle attribution. The book is written in two alternating voices, one interpretive to provide an understanding of miracles, miraculous images, and votive offerings, and the other narrative to illustrate the interpretive chapters and to bring the reader closer to experiences at the shrines. Among the many miraculous images treated in the book are the Cristo Negro de Otatitln, Nio del Cacahuatito, Seor de Chalma, Seor de la Misericordia (Tepatitln), Seor del Rayo, Seor de las Tres Cadas (Teotilalpam), Virgen de los Dolores de Soriano, Virgen de Guadalupe, Virgen del Pueblito, Virgen de Juquila, Virgen de los Remedios, Virgen de San Juan de los Lagos, Virgen de Talpa, Virgen de Tonatico, and Virgen de Zapopan.

Contenu

Acknowledgmets Preface Señor del Rayo MIRACULOUS IMAGES Ambiguity Attributes Faith, Presence, and Power Projective Animation Poetic Faith Simulacra Otatitlán PETITIONARY DEVOTION Votive Exchange Reciprocity The Miracle of Everyday Life Juquila SEEING THROUGH FAITH Faith as a Cognitive Filter Miracle Attribution Medical Miracles Marco COLLABORATIONS Sacred Power and Human Agency Disclosure Proximity and Contact Juramentos Remedios VOTIVE OFFERINGS Taxonomy As Befits a House of God The Strange Life of Objects Presence Votive Texts Retablos Chalma RESEARCH SITES Index Notes