The Politics of Devotion: Indigenous Spirituality and the Virgin of Chiquinquirá in the New Kingdom of Granada.

CHIBCHA (South American people); MIRACLES; CACIQUES (Indigenous leaders); SPIRITUALITY; DEVOTION; MARY, Blessed Virgin, Saint

This article examines the interplay among belief, devotion, and indigenous politics in the early colonial New Kingdom of Granada. It does so by examining changes in the cacicazgo of Tinjacá in relation to the growth of the cult around the Virgin of Chiquinquirá, whose image perpetrated her first miracle in 1586. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, natives had begun to attend the church erected to honor the miraculous image in overwhelming numbers for Corpus Christi and Holy Week. Wills and reports by ecclesiastical administrators suggest that indigenous commoners engaged with the cult for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, orthodox Christian devotion. Meanwhile, evidence from a seemingly unrelated legal trial suggests that indigenous leadership in Tinjacá may have seen Christian devotion as a channel for activism against the predations of Spanish settlers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]