Religion - Overview
One hallmark of the American experience captured in the Museum's collections is the nation's broad diversity of religious faiths. Artifacts range from Thomas Jefferson's Bible to a huge "Sunstone" sculpture carved for a Mormon temple in Illinois in 1844 to a household shrine from the home of a Pueblo Indian in the 1990s. Furniture, musical instruments, clothing, cooking ware, and thousands of prints and figures in the collections have all played roles in the religious lives of Americans. The most comprehensive collections include artifacts from Jewish and Christian European Americans, Catholic Latinos, Protestant Arab Americans, Buddhist and Christian Asian Pacific Americans, and Protestant African Americans. One notable group is the Vidal Collection of carved figures known as santos and other folk religious material from the practice of Santeria in Puerto Rico.
"Religion - Overview" showing 7 items.
Vela de Pancho Villa
- Description
- Pancho Villa is one of the most recognizable leaders of the Mexico Revolution. This civil war, which lasted from 1910-1921, was fought to curb U.S. corporate interests and to redistribute agricultural lands, especially for indigenous communities. It was a social revolution that reasserted popular culture and the value of "Mexican-ness." It was also a prolonged, violent conflict that spread death and hunger throughout Mexico, spurring migrants north, mostly into El Paso, Los Angeles, and other historically Mexican U.S. cities. With them came ideas, images, and language for organizing laborers and the rural poor. These ideas and images percolated in the popular culture of Mexican Americans and reappear in the art and activism of Chicanos in the 1960s and 1970s. On the back of this candle depicting Villa are prayers written in English and Spanish asking him to grant the petitioner some of the insight and prowess that enshrined this bandit, social revolutionary, and media star in the mythology of modern Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- depicted
- Villa, Pancho
- ID Number
- 1991.0741.13
- catalog number
- 1991.0741.13
- accession number
- 1991.0741
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Codex Telleriano-Remensis
- Description
- The civilizations of pre-Hispanic Mexico recorded their histories, religious beliefs, and scientific knowledge in books called codices. Codices are folded pieces of hide or bark that depict both mundane and spiritual scenes with images, symbols, and numbers. Scribes and painters busily recorded daily affairs, filling libraries and temples with books throughout Mexico and Central America. The majority of these illustrated books did not survive the Spanish conquest. But indigenous scribes trained by Spanish missionaries continued writing. While these colonial-era texts were still filled with pictures, over time they referenced the visual language of older Mexican and Maya books less and less. These new books about community histories (including land titles) and secret religious traditions were sometimes bilingual, combining Spanish with either Náhautl (the common language of central Mexico) or a Mayan language, both of which were now written with the Latin alphabet. This image is from an Italian reproduction of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, a manuscript co-written by Spanish friar Pedro de los Ríos about 1550. It documents the religious beliefs, calendar system, traditions, and history of the Tolteca-Chichimeca culture of Central Mexico. Joseph Florimond, Duc de Loubat, (1837–1921) was an American philanthropist who published a series of reproductions of pre-Hispanic and colonial-era Mexican manuscripts, including the Codex Telleriano-Remensis. The Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History houses several reproductions of Mesoamerican codices published for study by French, German, and Italian scholars at the turn of the 20th century.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1900
- Associated Date
- 1900
- publisher
- Duc de Loubat
- ID Number
- 2006.0226.37
- catalog number
- 09449
- 2006.0226.37
- accession number
- 2006.0226
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Retablo del Santo Niño de Atoche
- Description
- The image shown here represents El Santo Niño de Atoche, a depiction of the Christ child common throughout Mexico and the American Southwest. Made by Rafael Aragón in Santa Fe, this particular image is from a retablo, a kind of Catholic devotional art. Aragón came from a family of santeros (religious artisans) who worked during the golden age of Spanish colonial art in New Mexico in the first part of the 1800s. In isolated communities where there were few priests, religious art within the home played a huge role in promoting Catholic beliefs and maintaining religious faith. When this retablo was made, between 1840 and 1850, New Mexico was the most populated region of Mexico's northern territories. Its ancient colonial history was shaped by violent contests over land, trade, and religion between Spanish settlers and various indigenous communities. The exchanges between these peoples, and then later, between immigrants from Mexico and the eastern United States, created several unique cultures in New Mexico. The phenomenon of tourism, beginning in the late 1800s, further transformed New Mexico and its art and craft traditions. Santeros and other artisans are still producing religious images like this retablo, though today many are valued for decorative rather than devotional use.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1840 - 1850
- artist
- Aragon, Rafael
- ID Number
- CL*67.806
- accession number
- 269937
- catalog number
- 67.806
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
La Malinche
- Description
- La Malinche, the title of this lithograph, was the indigenous woman who translated for Cortés between Maya, Náhuatl, and Spanish during his first years in Mexico. Considered either as a traitor or a founding mother by some Mexicans, La Malinche was Cortés's lover and the mother of his favorite son Martín. She and Moctezuma are also central figures in the Matachines dances that are performed in Mexico and New Mexico. Originally commemorating the expulsion of the Moors from southern Spain in 1492, the dance was brought to Mexico where it was treated as a means for Christianizing native peoples. The historical figure of La Malinche, known in Spanish by the name Doña Marina, is also credited for playing an almost miraculous role in the early evangelization of central Mexico. This print, made by Jean Charlot in the 1933, shows a young girl in the role of La Malinche, holding a rattle or toy in one hand, and a sword in the other. Jean Charlot, a French-born artist, lived and studied in Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s. He depicted stylized scenes from the daily life of Mexican workers, particularly indigenous women.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1933
- graphic artist
- Charlot, Jean
- ID Number
- GA*23401
- catalog number
- 23401
- accession number
- 299563
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
"Our Lady of Guadalupe"
- Description
- The Virgin of Guadalupe is a symbol of religious faith and nationhood. As the patron saint of Mexico, she was among the first manifestations of the Virgin Mary in the newly colonized Americas. In a country that has historically been divided in many ways—regionally, ethnically, linguistically, and economically—the Virgin of Guadalupe brings together all Mexicans, north and south of the border. It is no coincidence that many of her devotees see their indigenous heritage reflected in her brown skin—according to tradition, she first appeared to an indigenous Mexican, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, in 1531. Not coincidentally, the site of her appearance, a hill in Mexico City, had been a recently destroyed temple to the Aztec earth goddess, Tonatzin. While echoing the pre-Hispanic past, the Virgin of Guadalupe is an emblem of unity and perseverance that has been invoked in struggles ranging from the Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821) to the organizing and activism of the United Farm Workers of America in the 1960s and 1970s. This image is taken from a paño made by Walter Baca in 1991. Paños are graphic art works designed on handkerchiefs by Chicano prisoners in California, Texas, and the Southwest.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1991
- artist
- Baca, Walter
- ID Number
- 1991.0431.02
- catalog number
- 1991.0431.02
- accession number
- 1991.0431
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Muñeca de La Llorona
- Description
- La Llorona, or the Weeping Woman, is the frightening figure of a heartbroken woman who drowned her children and haunts the night, especially by riversides. Her story is repeated to children throughout Latin America, with numerous versions circulating throughout Mexico and the American Southwest. She has been identified as the Aztec goddess Coatlicue, who, according to one legend, was heard weeping for her Aztec children on the eve of the Spanish conquest. Some identify her as the damned ghost of a poor woman from Ciudad Juárez, who stabbed her children and disposed of them in the Rio Grande in order to win the affection of a wealthy man. According to another legend, La Llorona is actually La Malinche, the crucial interpreter and lover of Hernán Cortés. After the fall of the Aztec capital, and having borne Cortés's first son, La Malinche was replaced by Cortés's first wife (who had been awaiting him in Cuba) and was hastily married off to one of his Spanish companions. La Malinche and La Llorona, whether considered as overlapping or totally separate figures, reappear frequently in Mexican popular culture, north and south of the border.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1990-1991
- maker
- McFall, Jo Anne
- ID Number
- 1991.0859.04
- catalog number
- 1991.0859.04
- accession number
- 1991.0859
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Buffalo Hide Painting of Saint Anthony of Padua
- Description
- The man in this painting, holding an apparition of the baby Jesus, appears to be a saint. Known as Saint Anthony of Padua, the "Hammer of Heretics," he was celebrated for his many miracles and his ability to communicate with rich and poor alike. Missionary priests who proselytized among Indians in what is now New Mexico frequently instructed local craftsman to render his likeness. It had taken decades for Pueblo tribes to accept Christianity. The mission where this painting was created was miles from the Gulf of Mexico, where imported canvases would have been prohibitively expensive and in short supply. Missionary priests worked out a compromise with their Indian laborers, increasingly relying on their skill in rendering animal skins into a workable substitute for scarce European canvases.
- This particular image is credited to a mystery artist known as "Franciscan B" for his recognizable style, rendered in vegetal paints on buffalo hide. According to Mrs. E. Boyd, former curator of the Museum of New Mexico, who examined this piece for possible transfer to the National Museum of History and Technology (now American History): "By the time the Franciscan missionaries were being withdrawn from New Mexico and replaced by Mexican secular clergy, the visiting bishops from Durango, Mexico, the seat of the diocese, repeatedly ordered the removal of sacred images painted on animal skins as not suitable." Following passage of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which transferred New Mexico to the United States, canvas was more readily available and buffalo herds were dwindling. By the close of 19th century, the buffalo was becoming the unofficial emblem of the United States, as prominent as the eagle in American symbolic imagery.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1720
- associated date
- 1700 - 1750
- user
- Tesuque Mission Church
- originator
- Tesuque Mission Church
- maker
- Franciscan B
- ID Number
- CL*176401
- catalog number
- 176401
- 176401
- accession number
- 31785
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center