The Virgin in the Mirror: Reading Images of a Black Madonna Through the Lens of Afro-Cuban Women’s Experiences

Pérez, Elizabeth

doi:10.5323/jafriamerhist.95.2.0202

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…php/la-virgen/ (accessed on 26 November 2023). 8 For a contemporary view of such complexities, see (Perez 2010). 9 For footage of the September 8th procession in Chipiona, see the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnwB52X9TBQ (accessed on 26 November 2023).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sacred Pathway, Devotional Praxis: Actors, Aché, and Landscape at the Sanctuary of Regla, Cuba

Niell

2023

Religions

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The ferry from Havana to Regla, Cuba, transports visitors from today’s cruise ship docks across a brief stretch of water in about 20 min. Despite its brevity, this watery passage symbolically foregrounds the Marian devotion on the southern rim of the grand harbor. In this way, water conjoins African diasporic histories of enslavement, labor, survival, resistance, daily life, and religiosity within Havana Bay, into which two urban geographies project. Regla historically served as a municipality for dockworkers and shipwrights and became an enclave for identity creation, civil association, and religious worship for people of African descent. The church and sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de Regla (“Our Lady of Regla”) has nurtured this connection as it houses effigies of the venerated Virgin, adorned in blue. The Virgin of Regla represents one of two, along with El Cobre, of the most important Marian devotions on the island of Cuba and is the focus of insular and diasporic pilgrimage. In Regla, the Virgin’s nautical iconography decorates the sanctuary and historically connects her to the working populations who sustained this devotion as they serviced Havana Harbor with their labor. Adjacent to the church is a waterfront park that looks out on the water and the city of Havana beyond. Bordered on one side by a low wall, the park incorporates a large ceiba tree, ceiba pentandra, also known as the silk cotton or kapok tree, a tropical species with a large trunk and spreading tree canopy native to Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean, northern South America, and West Africa (with a similar variety found in South and Southeast Asia). This article considers landscape as a methodology for examining the interplay of this tree and the adjacent church as interwoven and mutually reinforcing sites of devotion for the worship of the Virgin Mary and the oricha Yemayá in Regla, Cuba, with a view toward a broader set of local and global spaces.

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Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sacred Pathway, Devotional Praxis: Actors, Aché, and Landscape at the Sanctuary of Regla, Cuba

Niell

2023

Religions

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“…We have no historical evidence of this, however, beyond the indisputable popularity of the image among the Afro-descendent population in the region and the fact that she is popularly known as La Virgen Cimarrona (Zayas Micheli 1990). 33 This term suggests the strong association between this figure and the experience of enslaved communities and their descendants, in a manner analogous to how La Virgen de la Regla may encapsulate the experiences of Afro-descendant women in Cuba (Pérez 2010). For this reason, the image of the Virgin of Montserrat, also known in Puerto Rico as “La Virgen Morena,” is often present in religious altars of what are known as “Afro-American religions,” widely practiced on the island 34…”

Section: Colonial Paths: From Puerto Rico To Equatorial Guineamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Iconic Paths of La Verge de Montserrat in Catalonia and Beyond: A Comparative Approach from History and Anthropology

Canals

Muñoz²

2022

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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La Verge de Montserrat is a statue of the Virgin Mary and her son found in Catalonia in the eleventh century in which both characters are depicted as “Black.” This female figure occupies a particular position in current Catalonia since she is considered the patron saint of the country and constitutes one of the symbolic cornerstones of Catalan nationalism. Through the concept of “iconic path,” this article tracks the formation and evolution of this image in Catalonia from its inception until the present day, bringing special attention to the roles and significances that it has acquired within the context of the current pro-independence movement. We also draw a comparison between the “lives” of this image in Catalonia and its development in other countries, namely Puerto Rico, Equatorial Guinea and Sardinia. In each of these places, the image of the goddess has been reinterpreted according to local viewpoints. Yet these conceptualizations are not fixed or homogeneous, but radically dynamic and problematic. The iconic paths of images diverge and converge across time giving birth to new creative exercises. Through this approach, our aim is to propose a relational and processual model for the study of religious images, and images in general, as historical objects.

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Black Madonna

Crowley¹

2020

Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion

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The Virgin in the Mirror: Reading Images of a Black Madonna Through the Lens of Afro-Cuban Women’s Experiences

Cited by 6 publications

References 3 publications

Sacred Pathway, Devotional Praxis: Actors, Aché, and Landscape at the Sanctuary of Regla, Cuba

Sacred Pathway, Devotional Praxis: Actors, Aché, and Landscape at the Sanctuary of Regla, Cuba

The Iconic Paths of La Verge de Montserrat in Catalonia and Beyond: A Comparative Approach from History and Anthropology

Black Madonna

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