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1:\> FILE INFO.EXE
[ According to the Peruvian journalist Jose
Carlos Mariategui, there was too much coincidence about the apparitions of
European Saints in Peru. Mariategui mentions that the Catholic Church adapted
their own traditions to blend with the locals.
The Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes also argues something similar in relation to
the Virgin of Guadalupe. Fuentes states that there is a strong coincidence
about where the image of the Virgin appeared, similar to what happened in Peru.
This place was a sacred location as well.
In the project of Colonization nothing was accidental. Before the colonizers
touched or removed something in the locals’ land, they studied it. One of the
architects behind this project was King Phillip II, even though there are no
records that demonstrate that he went to the Americas. He was also
knowledgeable of the locals’ culture; “…upon hearing that the people of Peru
still adored the sun, the Gods of the mountains and mother earth, he ordered
various images be made for Cusco. Among these images he commissioned a large
beautiful Christ with a copper color and features that would allow the Indians
to recognize themselves in it.”
This knowledge was used to accommodate their culture within the locals’
culture; for instance, they knew that nudity was considered a form of disgrace
in the Andes. In order to avoid conflict, the images of Christ needed to be
dressed, even though the Catholic Church agreed that Christ had been crucified
without clothes.
Knowing and understanding the foundations of the locals’ culture facilitated
the process of invasion.]
2:\> DISTORT AND TRANSFORM.EXE
[ Many of the imported images that came from
Europe were already prepared to fit in specific places in the Americas. The
intention behind this was to replace the locals’ deities with equivalent
European religious versions. In Bolivia, for instance there are paintings of angels
that appear next to natural elements that were sacred for the Andeans. “In one
way or another, the religious in America became aware of this relationship
between angels and celestial phenomena, and created the series of angels with
these names, so as to encourage the substitution of star idolatry within the
Christian faith.” The
plan of overlapping Gods was also achieved through the process of association. Another
example can be seen in the engraving of the Virgin of Remedios. The graphic
shows how the Virgin emerging from of a local plant,
altering the relationship of the local with nature. After which they understood
their land through the combination of foreign and local symbols. By making the
foreign look local they calmed down the spirits of revolution in the locals’
minds.]
Jose de Mesa and Teresa Gisbert. "Angelic
Ways." Franco MariaRicci (FMR), no. 85 (1997): 32.
Katzew, Ilona, and Luisa Elena Alcalá. 2011. Contested
visions in the Spanish colonial world. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County
Museum of Art. 240.
3:\> CROP MARKS.EXE
[ Once
the European images were placed on top of the locals’ deities, the environment
needed to be altered. Many churches and altars were built on the locations
where these images apparently appeared. “…Just as the sanctuaries of these cult
figures were often situated at the margins of cities, between urban and openly
rural places, in places where people of all classes and conditions would come
together, so the legends and the stories were inclusive, combining native
elements with others of European origin.”
The purpose of building churches was to solidify the colonizers’ presence.
These new landmarks functioned as factories and bunkers. They operated as a
surveillance system to maintain control of the society and to produce more
images. Their goal was to expand the colonizers’ territory to eradicate the locals’
past. As it happens today in the territory of Palestine, “many Palestinian
villages that once existed in what is now Israel…have become parks, and other
open spaces, erasing the existence of their prior inhabitants from public
memory.”
Even though this is an indication of a direct form of colonization, it does not
mean that a direct colonization is still practiced today as it was in the past.]
Kennedy, Dane Keith. 2016. Decolonization: a very short
introduction. 98.
