In my past articles covering the controversy around the carved figure from the Amazon Synod, I arrived at the conclusion that — contrary to the accusations from the usual suspects — there is no evidence that a pagan ritual took place in the Vatican.
The statue could represent, depending on who you asked, a kind of Marian depiction of Our Lady of the Amazon, or a mere symbol of life and fertility, without idolatrous intentions. The Pachamama references (which could not be directly traced to the statue) were probably
connected to a concept of Mother Earth inspired by St. Francis of Assisi’s Song of Creatures and the ecological movement.
However, all this evidence was gratuitously dismissed by papal critics who just kept repeating and repeating and repeating that the statue was a depiction of Pachamama. Not Pachamama as an abstract reference to the planet earth, but the goddess Pachamama of the Andean pantheon. They stubbornly clung to this explanation, notwithstanding the constant denials from official voices from the Vatican and REPAM.
Since the idea that the statue is a pagan idol will not go away any time soon, it’s worth asking: who is Pachamama, anyway? Please note, we are not asking this question because we think the “pagan Pachamama” hypothesis is anywhere near true, or because we think that we can convince people who have made up their minds in favor of convenient narratives. However, just like
the Zeigeist conspiracy theory was making the rounds some years ago, spreading the ridiculous notion that Christianity was just plagiarized and repackaged paganism, it is important for Catholics to be familiar with Pachamama in order to adequately prevent false claims from being disseminated beyond the boundaries of ideological echo chambers.
An example of anti-Marian propaganda. See the forced parallels based on appearances. Nothing new under the sun.
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The Andes, a failure to inculturate
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According to the critics, the picture on the right is “clearly” the same thing as the others
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The two paths
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Mother Earth, Mother Mary and the West
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Mother Mary, Pachamama and the Andes
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Marian representations of Pachamama
During the Vatican Garden controversy, many people claimed expertise on Pachamama by appealing to arguments like: “The carved figure is
clearly Pachamama. Just do a simple Google Search and you will see.” It is an argument that has, alas, been repeated often during the whole kerfuffle: just isolate yourself from any evidence contrary to your narrative by shouting “It is clearly what I think it is. Do you think I’m stupid?”
Scholarly articles, however, do not validate this notion. Pachamama is usually not depicted as a native pregnant naked woman. The way Pachamama has been inculturated with Mary shows us its original form, as Linda Hall explains:
Many attributes of Andean depictions of Santa Maria could be related directly to native manifestations of the sacred. One of the most important was the connection with mountains, an association directly linked to Pachamama, the earth mother. A consistent feature of Andean representations of Mary is the triangular shape of her dress, a reference, according to Carol Damian, “to the shape of a mountain and, especially, her role as Pachamama, the Earth Mother.” In several examples from the colonial period, the Virgin as Pachamama is taken to an extreme with Mary appearing within the mountain itself.
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Another noteworthy example can be found in a small church near the town of Urcos, a few miles from Cuzco. This image emphasizes the significance of rock, obviously part of the spiritual landscape of mountains and the connection with Mary. Rocks, in indigenous spirituality, are often wak’as, that is, sacred places, objects, or personages. This image, the Virgin of the Candlestick of Kaninkunka, is painted directly on rock above the altar of a church. Her blue mantle forms the characteristic triangular shape as she looks majestically out at the congregation. As Damian points out, “She is not a painted representation of a mountain … she is the rock of the mountain and venerated as the wak’a.”
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[T]he most usual form of representing the Virgin as Pachamama is painting her on a triangular rock in her advocation as the Virgin of Candlemas; in this way the concept of Maria/Mountain and Maria/Stone is emphasized.
This makes sense, since Pachamama is Mother Earth. Of course, any inculturated version of the goddess must emphasize its telluric symbolism. One of the most striking examples is the Potosí Madonna. Potosí is a mountain in current day Bolívia. Linda Hall explains how Potosí’s majesty and height made its identification with Mother Earth very natural in indigenous spirituality. Later on, Potosí came to also be identified with the Virgin Mary, and one small hill nearby (Huayna Capac) with the child Jesus, being embraced by His holy mother.
The Potosí Madonna draws from this double identification. As Pachamama, her body is a mountain holding trees, horses and men. As Mary, she has the Trinity hovering above her, crowning her head.
However, the most famous depiction is actually the Mamacha Belén, an appellation both to Pachamama and to the Mother of Bethlehem, as described by Hall:
Her iconography is that of the Queen of Heaven, recalling the Inka Coya. She carries the baby Jesus in her arms but stares impassively out at the viewer, aloof and self-contained. The numerous paintings of her in Cuzco style are all statue paintings, as she was in fact a dressed statue. She too is depicted with ropes of pearl draped in moonlike crescents across her robes and with the ubiquitous Andean rosettes, flowers, and birds. In the representation we have of her in the seventeenth-century series of paintings, she is dressed in white and gold, her long black hair woven with flowers.
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Miracles associated with Mary-Pachamama
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Pachamama and the Devil
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The proper ordering of Pachamama
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Conclusions
This article was not written because I accept that the controversial wooden statue was Pachamama, the goddess. As I have said several times, the figure was, for the REPAM organizers and the Vatican officials, a mere non-idolatrous representation of the Amazonian peoples, fertility, womanhood and Mother Earth (here, understood not as Pachamama, the goddess, but as it is usually referred to by a Christian-influenced ecological movement). Also, for at least some of the natives, that figure acquired a Marian connotation as a depiction of Our Lady of the Amazon, and this was on display during the Vatican Garden ritual.
However, given that many people have accepted as dogma that the figure was Pachamama (the goddess), I think it is important to allow those who are actually confused or honestly concerned to better understand what Pachamama, the goddess, really is. Its significance is not necessarily pagan, and not necessarily irredeemable for an orthodox Catholic. The meaning of Pachamama is not the same before and after Christianity was introduced to South America. Before, it was certainly a cruel deity that could be associated with practices contrary to human dignity. It was also not virginal, as fertility goddesses usually are not. But afterwards, it acquired a symbolism that allowed God’s grace to enter and sanctify it through the maternal influence of the Theotokos. This benign Marian influence is well-documented and no amount of Wikipedia editing can erase that.
Of course, my studies show that Pachamama is not necessarily innocuous. The pagan Pachamama may still be worshipped in certain parts of the Andes, more isolated from Christian influence. However, that was not the case of the Amazonians at the Synod, who were clearly Catholic. Yes, it’s true that Mary-Pachamama may be associated with syncretism, as Dr. Brewer admits, being so exalted as to feature in a “quaternity” alongside the Holy Trinity. But this happens with the Virgin Mary even without any association with Pachamama, in many uncatechized populations (and not necessarily South American). That is not a reason to bend to Protestant complaints and do away with Marian devotions altogether. Yes, Carnival rituals for Mary-Pachamama are meant to stave off her intervention during some days in order to allow the festivities, but the fact that she is asked to tolerate the Devil during Carnival does not deny that she is the one who will imprison him as soon as Lent begins. And yes, Mother Earth has been associated with New Age movements, but it has also been used in orthodox (and even Church-approved) ways by Catholics, both inside and outside South America, as I have demonstrated.
Instead of destroying that which we do not understand, let us be discerning enough to see the “seeds of the Gospel” present in that native woman that presented the wooden figures as Our Lady of the Amazon. …
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