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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2015
On July 1, 1917, a publication calling itself La Madre Matiana hit the newsstands in Mexico City. The newspaper promised a bold take on politics and society, and its masthead revealed a mission both madcap and grandiose: A prophetic, truth-telling newspaper; it will block the sun with a finger, bark at the moon, and serenade the morning star. This earnest but rather comical statement of endeavor appeared in each issue, and Mexicans of the time would have seen in addition an irreverent parody in the publication's name. The periodical's founder, Angel Prieto, had appropriated a clairvoyant character from popular lore to serve as his paper's alter ego. He chose well—the prophecies of madre Matiana had provoked Mexicans for over half a century and gained renewed prominence during the Mexican Revolution. In the years leading up to the newspaper's emergence, various publications had revisited the Matiana legacy.
I would like to thank several colleagues for generously commenting on previous drafts of this essay: Elizabeth Wright, Enrique Pupo-Walker, William French, Celso Castho, and Kristina Boylan. This essay also benefited from the classic workshop treatment at Vandcrbilt Universitys Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities. I would like also to thank the anonymous reviewers ofThe Americas for their review and contributions to this article. In addition, a number of friends and colleagues at various conferences have offered very helpful and challenging suggestions.
1. La Madre Maana (September 9, 1917).
2. Se aproxima el fin del mundo: las profecas se cumplen, May 1914, Jean Chariot Collection, University of Hawaii at Manoa Library. Posada died in 1913, making this broadside an early posthumous publication. However, as was common in the popular press, images were frequently used multiple times to illustrate distinct events. For example, this lithograph appeared in an 1894 broadside concerning an earthquake in Mexico City. See Tyler, Ron, ed., Posadas Mexico (Washington D.C.: Library of Congress and the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, 1979), p. 180.Google Scholar A cursory Web search turns up other instances of the lithographs use. Apparently, it headed a printing of El Corrido del Fin del Mundo circa 1895–1900; see . Accessed July 28, 2011. It also graced a different earthquake broadside in 1912; see . Accessed July 28, 2011. The latter image resides at the Museo Jos Guadalupe Posada in Aguascalientes.
3. Unas profecas falsas, Ecos (May 30, 1914). This article claims that Mariana and the prophecies were alcanzando celebridad indudable entre las muchedumbres populares. The translation is mine.
4. See La Revista Mexicana (April 16, 1916).
5. This essay is part of a larger research project on constructions of female piety and the Mariana legacy. The project spans the period from the mid-1800s to mid-1900s and is currently under contract at the University of New Mexico Press with the working title Searching for Madre Mattana: Prophecy and Female Piety in Modern Mexico.
6. For the general characteristics of satire,see Quintero, Rubn, Introduction: Understanding Satire, in Quintero, Rubn, ed., A Companion to Satire (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 1–12.Google Scholar
7. See Forbes, Amy Wiese, The Satiric Decade (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010).Google Scholar For colonial Latin America, Julie Greer Johnson argues that Creole satirists scathing portrayal of a multiracial society and ineffective imperial administration laid the groundwork for processes of American self-definition. See her Satire in Colonial Spanish America: Turning the New World Upside Down (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993).
8. On the broader complexities of nationalism, popular culture, and national identity in Mexico relevant to the period under consideration here,see Schmidt, Henry C., The Roots of Lo Mexicano: Self and Society in Mexican Tltought, 1900–1934 (College Station: Texas A M Press, 1979);Google Scholar Lomnitz-Adler, Claudio, Deep, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001);Google Scholar Prez Montfort, Ricardo, Estampas de nacionalismo popular mexicano: diez ensayos sobre cultura popular y nacionalismo (Mexico: CIESAS, 2003);Google Scholar and Beezley, William H., Mexican National Identity (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9. For the representation of the Indian, see Earlc, Rebecca, Return of the Native: Indians and Myth-Making in Spanish America 1810–1930, (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press: 2007).Google ScholarSee also Wright-Ros, Edward, Indian Saints and Nation-States: Ignacio Manuel Altamiranos Landscapes and Legends, Mexican Stud-ies/Estttdios Mexicanos 20: 1 (Winter 2004), pp. 47–68.Google Scholar On bandits, see Dabove, Juan Pablo, Nightmares of the Lettered City: Banditry and Literature in Latiti America,1816–1929 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10. This synopsis is based on the pamphlet Las profecas de Mariana, 1861, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, and Profecas de Mariana, Biblioteca Nacional (BN), Fondo Lafragua, RLAF 348 LAF. The latter text is found in a bound collection of popular almanacs. The first pages were removed, so it is missing the title page with the date and the publication information is incomplete. The cataloguing information lists 1858. For a Revolutionary-era version, see Profecas completas de la madre Mattana (Mexico: Imprenta Gutenburg, 1914) in the Biblioteca Nacional de Mexico (BN).
11. Profecas de Mariana sobre los sucesos que han de acontecer en esta capital, Mexico City: Valds y Redondas, 1847. Held at the University of Texas, Arlington Library.
12. Diario de Avisos [Mexico], July lOand 15, August 6, and September 3, 1857. Each pamphlet cost one real at the Librera Abadiano. A more attractively illustrated version could be purchased a decade later at the Blanqucl bookstore: Calendario de las profecas de la madre Maana (Mexico: Imprenta de A. Boix, under the direction of M. Zornoza, 1867) in the Sutro Library at the San Francisco branch of the California State Library.
13. Profecas de Mariana, 1858; Las profecas de Mariana, 1861; and Calendario de las profecas de la madre Mattana, 1867.
14. Liorens, Antonia Pi-Suer, Introduccin, in Historiografa Mexicana 4, Antonia Pi-Suer Llorens, ed. (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, 1997).Google Scholar
15. See Eich, Jennifer Lee, The Other Mexican Muse (New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2004);Google Scholar Jaffary, Nora E., False Mystics (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004);Google Scholar Lavrin, Asuncin, Brides of Clrrist (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2008);Google Scholar Lavrin, Asuncin, and Loreto Lpez, Rosalva, Dilogos espirituales (Puebla: Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de la Benemrita, Universidad Autnoma de Puebla and Universidad de las Amricas, Puebla, 2006);Google Scholar Lavrin, Asuncin, and Loreto Lpez, Rosalva, Monjas y beatas (Mexico City: Universidad de las Amricas Puebla, Archivo General de la Nacin, 2002);Google Scholar and Garca, Antonio Rubial, La santidad controvertida (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, Facultad de Filosofa y Letras: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1999).Google Scholar
16. In the former camp, Guillermo Prieto, a well-known liberal writer, confessed a weakness for the popular calendarios (almanacs) of the era and recalled encountering madre Mariana in their pages. See San Lunes de Fidel, Siglo (December 16, 1878). For Prieto, these texts endured as a guilty pleasure, reminding him of juvenile fantasy and the budding joys of reading. For more on the calendario tradition, see Beezley, , Mexican National Identity, pp. 25–31.Google Scholar See also Quionez, Isabel, Mexicanos en su tinta (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropologa e Historia, 1994).Google Scholar
17. See Profecas, descubrimientos y opiniones opuestas, El Boquiflojo (March 17, 1870). In this article, the publication maligned the prophetess as a product of a bygone obsession with divination and mocked the new eras seers in their suit coats and slacks. The irony, which would have been immediately apparent to Mexican readers at the rime, was that El Monitor was perhaps the most renowned voice of secular liberalism. In a similar vein, Manuel Gutirrez Njera criticized a Catholic newspaper: see El Ministerio de Hacienda y las profecas de la madre Mariana, in focritos inditos de sabor satrico, Mary Eileen Carter and Boyd G. Carter, eds. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972).
18. See Payno, Manuel, Los bandidos de Ro Fro, 2nd ed. (Mexico City: Porra, 2000), pp. 20–24.Google Scholar Mariana is not a common name, and thus I take Paynos use of it to be a reference to the Mariana prophecies. In the novel, this Matiana is called on to resolve an exceptionally late pregnancy. She tells her patroness that the Virgin of Guadalupe requires a sacrificial victim, and she kidnaps an illegitimate, upper-class child. Ultimately, she abandons the infant in a garbage dump, and his subsequent fate propels the narrative. Ironically, the patient goes into labor due to the shock caused by the notion of child sacrifice. Payno is mocking belief in miraculous cures; here, such a cure succeeds but not because of the alleged magic.
19. Unas profecas falsas, Ecos (May 30, 1914). The author did not provide an actual date, but he made this comment while criticizing the prc-Revolutionary history of the prophecies.
20. Dionisio A. Jess Mara to J. Reyes Velasco, Archivo Histrico del Arzobispado de Mxico (ARAM), December 14, 1883, Caja 222, cxp. 31. It is not clear if he ever published this manuscript.
21. Luis, G., Duarte, Profecas de Mattana acerca del triunfo de la iglesia (Mexico: Imprenta del Crculo Catlico, 1889).Google Scholar Letters between Duartcs collaborator, Antonio Martinez del Caizo, and the Archdiocese of Mexicos provisor discuss making sure the revisions to the manuscript will please the ecclesiastical censors; see Antonio Martnez del Caizo to Provisor, Archivo Histrico de la Arquidicesis de Mexico (AHAM) (September 24, 1889), caja 208, cxp. 64, 1889. See also Antonio Martnez del Caizo to Provisor, AHAM (October 4, 1889), caja 208, exp. 64, 1889. The censor Vito Cruzs report was ultimately included in the book and also remains in the arch-diocesan archive; see Vito Cruz, AHAM (November 8, 1889), caja 208, exp. 64. Duarte may have known Dionisio de Jess Mara, but I have found no record of their acquaintance.
22. Las profecas de Mariana vindicadas, El Tiempo (November 23, 1889); Coincidencia, El Tiempo (June 20, 1890); and Las profecas de Mariana, El Amigo de la Verdad (August 29, 1891). The latter publication quipped that liberal invective served only as additional proof of the prophecies merits.
23. For example, sec La prensa, El Siglo XIX (September 3, 1890) and Predicciones de la madre Mariana, La Patria (September 6, 1891).
24. El Tiempo (April 26, 1898). Short notices advertising its sale appeared in many subsequent issues.
25. Notas editoriales, El Abogado Cristiano (November 26, 1914). In addition, On July 14, 1917, exactly two weeks after La Madre Matianas initial publication, a different Mexico City newspaper commented on the prophecies. It dealt with them at arms length, addressing the visions within an essay on popular myths, but nonetheless promised to republish the sensational prophecies of madre Mariana see Confeti (July 14, 1917). I have not been able to find a copy of this version of the prophecies.
26. El Porvenir (July 7, 1927).
27. Wright-Ros, Edward, Revolutions in Mexican Catholicism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2009),Google Scholar chapter 7.
28. For example, three essays from Guadalajaras El Informador mention madre Mattana in this manner: Enrique Francisco Camarena, Hace Cincuenta Aos (April 4, 1965); Los 50 aos de vida periodstica de E Informador (October 5, 1967); and Zenaido Michel Pimenta, Infundados temores al terminar el Siglo de Las Luces, January 9, 1977.
29. Pea, Carlos Gonzlez, Empezamos a pagar, El Universal (July 24, 1947).Google Scholar
30. See Lomnitz-Adler, Claudio, Death and the Idea of Mexico (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Zone Books, 2005), p. 26.Google Scholar Lomnitz-Adler makes no mention of the madre Mattana legacy, but his source (see footnotes 8 and 9) does; see Lope Blanch, Juan M., Vocabulario mexicano relativo a la muerte (Mexico City: Direccin General de Publicaciones, 1963), p. 24.Google Scholar and footnote 26. Lomnitz-Adler asserts that the name Matiana is a derivation of matar (to kill). Lope Blanch, however, doubts this linguistic connection. He emphasizes madre Marianas role as a legendary figure and claims that she had become a symbol of antiquity, witchcraft, and sorcery. He does not discuss when these associations emerged. In the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century texts that I have analyzed she is not depicted as a personification of death, although in some sources, like La Madre, she is sometimes portrayed as having returned from the dead.
31. Knight, , The Mexican Revolution, vol.2 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), pp. 411–415.Google Scholar
32. For an overview of anticlericalism at this rime see Fallaw, Ben, Varieties of Mexican Revolutionary Anti-clericalism: Radicalism, Iconoclasm, and Otherwise, 1914-1935, The Americas 65: 4 (2009), pp. 481–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
33. Somoano, Jos Snchez, Modismos, locuciones y trminos mexicanos (Madrid: Manuel Minucsa de los Ros, 1892), p. 91.Google Scholar
34. See Real Espaola, Academia, Diccionario de autoridades, facsimile edition, vol. 2 (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1963), pp. 449–450.Google ScholarThis early eighteenth-century Spanish dictionary defines salir de madre as to exceed in superabundance in some action, be it good or bad.
35. See Robinson, Linton H., Mexican Slang (Campo, Calif: Bueno Books, 1992), pp. 38–43.Google Scholar Chingar means to rape or violate, but often is loosely translated as fuck. Hence to be the chingan is to be the perpetrator of the act of violation or domination and to be the chingado/a is to be the subjugated victim. Octavio Paz famously explores the centrality of this dynamic centrality in the Mexican national psyche in Tlje Labyrinth of Solitude ( New York: Grove Press, 1985), pp. 74–88.
36. Robinson, Linton H., Mexican Slang, pp. 38–43.Google Scholar Prez, Martnez Jos, Dichos, dicharachos y refranes mexicanos (Mexico City: Editores Mexicanos Unidos, 1977), p. 229.Google Scholar
37. Martnez Prez, Dichos, p. 154. A related expression fulfilling much the same function is \Ni madrc\\ see Espaola, Real Academia, Diccionario de la Lengua Espaola, vol 2 (Madrid: Editorial Espasa Calpe, 2001), pp. 1413–1414.Google Scholar This dictionary, published in Spain, treats Mexican colloquial usage.
38. Espaola, Real Academia, Diccionario de la Lengua Espaola, vol. 2, pp. 1413–1414.Google Scholar
39. Ramrez, Arturo Langle, Vocabulario, apodos, seudnimos, sobrenombres y hemerografa de la Revolucin, (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, Instituto de Investigaciones Histricas, 1966), p. 52.Google Scholar Sec also Espaola, Real Academia,Diccionario de la Lengua Espaola, vol. 2, pp. 1413–1414.Google Scholar
40. Robinson, , Mexican Slang, pp. 38–40.Google Scholar Romper la madreais a common equivalent phrase. Often these are deployed as threats, as in Te voy a partir la madre (roughly equivalent to Im going to break your face).
41. See Martinez Perez, Dichos, p. 30. Although not common everywhere, no tiene madre is also used a superlative. In both cases we could say they serve as the equivalent of English phrases like off the charts or out-of-sight. See also Robinson, Mexican Slang, p. 39.
42. For the prefix des-scc Real Academia Espaola, Diccionario de la Lengua Espaola, vol. 1, p. 755. For desmadre, see vol. 1, p. 790.
43. Langle Ramrez, Vocabulario, p. 37.
44. Martnez Prez, Dichos, p. 94.
45. Smith, Colin, Collins Spanish Dictionary, (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), p. 248.Google Scholar
46. A more polite way of calling someone shameless is sinvergenza. It denotes a lesser degree of shameless-ncss. See Espaola, Real Academia, Diccionario de la Lengua Espaola, vol. 2, pp. 2072.Google Scholar
47. see Santamara, Francisco Javier, and Icazbalceta, Joaqun Garca, Icazbalceta, Diccionario de mejicanismos (Mexico City: Porra, 1959), p. 676.Google Scholar and Martnez Prez, Dichos, p. 208. Regarding this phrase, the latter quips, En pocas palabras: es un hijo de la chingada. In doing so he equates no tiene madre with being chingado/a, that is, the product of violent sexual domination. An example of the lack of madre to signify someone or something that is beyond the pale of social norms appears in Juan Rulfos short story Luvina. In this text, rustic peasants deadpan their deep suspicion of the Mexican government: Tambin nosotros lo conocemos [el gobierno] De lo que no sabemos nada es de la madre del gobierno (We know the government too but we know nothing about the governments mother). See Luvina, in Juan Rulfo, Obras (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1987).
49. Quintero, Introduction.
50. I refer to Mario Morenos comedie alter ego Cantinflas, a barrio buffoon whose absurd send-up of twentieth-century Mexican modernization captivated film audiences throughout Latin America.See Pilchcr, Jeffcry, Cantinflas and the Chaos of Mexican Modernity (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2001).Google Scholar
51. Quintero, Introduction.
52. See Escandn, Carmen Ramos, ed., Presencia y transparencia (Mexico: Colegio de Mexico, 2006);Google Scholar Muiz, Elsa, Cuerpo, representacin y poder (Mexico: Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana and Miguel Angel Porra, 2002);Google Scholar Martnez, Apen Ruiz, Nacin y gnero en el Mxico revolucionario: la India Bonita y Manuel Gamio, Signos Histricos 5 (2001 ), pp.55–86.Google Scholar and Pablos, Esperanza Tun, Mujeres que se organizan (Mexico City: Porra, 1991).Google Scholar For a representation of the field in Mexico, see Fernandez-Aceves, Maria Teresa, Imagined Communities: WomenIntroduction History and the History of Gender in Mexico, Journal of Womens History 19: 1 (2007) pp. 200–205.Google Scholar For a broader portrait of the issues and theoretical approaches see William, French E. and Bliss, Katherine Elaine, Introduction, in Gender, Sexuality, and Power in Latin America Since Independence (Lanham, Md: Rowman Littlefield, 2007). Recent English-language works on the Revolutionary era include Jocelyn Olcott, Revolutionary Women in Postrevo-lutionary Mexico (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Olcott, Jocelyn, Mary, Vaughan K.,and Cano, Gabriela,eds., Sex in Revolution (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006);Google Scholar Smith, Stephanie J., Gender and the Mexican Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Stephanie Mitchell and Patience Schell, eds., The Womens Revolution in Mexico, 1910–1953 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).
53. The pathbreaking text in this regard is Jean Franco, Plotting Women (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989). For an examination of gender and nationalism in literary depictions of race, class, and romance, see Sommer, Doris, Foundational Fictions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).Google Scholar For the depiction of women in film, see Tun, Julia, Mujeres de luz y sombra en el cine mexicano (Mexico City: Colegio de Mxico, 1998).Google Scholar In the arena of painting, Frida Kahlo has inspired what is almost a separate branch of gender studies. For an overview of important Frida books, see Salomn, Grimberg, Review: Thinking of Death, Womens Art Journal 14:2 (Autumn 1993-Winter 1994), pp. 44–50.Google Scholar For useful essays addressing the various polemics, see Barber, Elizabeth, Art Critics on Frida Kahlo, Art Education 45: 2 (March 1992), pp. 42–48;Google Scholar Oriana Baddeley, Her Dress Hangs Here, Oxford Art Journall4;l (1991),pp. 10–17.See also Udall, Sharyn R., Frida Kahlos Mexican Body, Womens Art Journal 24: 2 (Autumn 2003-Wintcr 2004), pp. 10–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
54. Daniel Cabrera, the director of El Hijo del Ahuizote, represents an example of the heroic journalistic figure. See Margarita Espinosa Blas, El Hijo Del Ahuizote: un peridico americanista, in La prensa decimonnica en Mxico, Adriana Pineda Soto and Celia del Palacio Montel, eds. (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicols de Hidalgo, Universidad de Guadalajara, and CONACYT, 2003).
55. Piccato, Pablo, The Tyranny of Opinion (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2010).Google Scholar For more on the conceptualization of public opinion and efforts by factions to define and control it, see Gerald L. McGowan, Prensa y poder, 1854–1857 (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mxico, 1978). For the religious dimensions, see Brian F. Con-naughton, Conjuring the Body Politic from the Corpus Mysticum: The Post-Independent Pursuit of Public Opinion in Mexico, 1821–1854, The Americas 55:3 (1999), pp. 459–79 and Brian F. Connaughton, A Most Delicate Balance: Representative Government, Public Opinion, and Priests in Mexico, 1821–1834, Mexican Studies/Estttdios Mexicanos 17:1 (2001), pp. 41–69. For the Catholic press in the mid-nineteenth century, see Erika Pani, Una ventana sobre la sociedad decimonnica, Secuencia, nueva poca, 36 (1996), pp. 67–88.
56. For example, Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities., rev. ed. (London and New York: Verso, 2006); Craig J. Calhoun, Nationalism, Concepts in Social Thought (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Ernest Gcllner, Nations and Nationalism (Maiden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers, 2005); Smith, Anthony D., Chosen Peoples (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003);Google Scholar and Smith, Anthony D., National Identity (London: Penguin, 1991).Google Scholar For a summary of approaches to identity formation, see Cerulo, Karen A., Identity Construction, Annual Review of Sociology 23 (1997), pp.385–409.Google Scholar
57. See Yuval-Davis, Nira , The Bearers of the Collective, Feminist Review 4 (1980), pp. 15–27.and Gender Nation (London and Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 1997).Google Scholar
58. Yuval-Davis, The Bearers of the Collective, p. 15.
59. Calhoun, Nationalism, pp. 1-7.
60. Yuval-Davis, Gentler & Nation.
61. Ibid. This kind of representation of women in nationalist discourse appears in Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, pp. 35–40.
62. Jill Lane, Blackface Cuba, 1840–1895 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).
63. Knight, Alan, Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo in Mexico, 1910-1940, in The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940, Graham, Richard, ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), pp. 71–114.Google Scholar See also Batalla, Guillermo Bonfil, Mxico profundo (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
64. See Bantjes, Adrian, Mexican Revolutionary Anticlericalism: Concepts and Typologies, The Americas 65: 4 (2009), pp. 467–80.Google Scholar See also Knight, Alan, The Mentality and Modus Operandi of Revolutionary Anticlericalism, in Faith and Impiety in Revolutionary Mexico, Matthew Butler, ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 21–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
65. Although male, the Cuban blackface character most reminiscent of madre Mariana is the negrito catedrtico (little black professor). A fictional invention, he mocks black attempts to master high culture and emulate the educated. The character constantly assumes a preposterous air of grandeur while making a mess of erudite Spanish. In something of the same way in which the fanatical Mariana is a stereotyped female fool, the catedrtico is the black buffoon. In tact, such was the popularity of this figure that a newspaper called Los Negros Catedrticos specialized in political satire in the voice of this comic figure. See Lane, Blackface Cuba, pp. 71–86 and 96.
66. Castaeda, Maria del Carmen Ruiz, et al., El periodismo en Mexico (Mexico City: Editorial Tradicin, 1974).Google Scholar
67. For an entertaining baptism in these publications, see Ruiz, Rafael Barajas, El pas de aEl Ahuizote (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 2005);Google Scholar El pats de aEl Llorn de Icamoles (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 2007); and La historia de un pats en caricatura (Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Direccin General de Publicaciones, 2000).
68. see Barajas, , El pats de El Llorn de Icamole, p. 45.Google Scholar
69. Interestingly, a French satirical newspaper, La Caricature, employed the motto castigai ridendo mores (one chastises character/habits by laughing at them) in the 1830s. For this publication the point was to discipline political leaders through ridicule; it was conceived of as a tool to broaden political participation during monarchical rule. See Forbes, The Satiric Decade, p. xiii. The same Latin motto was also in use in the Brazilian satirical press, and Brazilians also employed a subtide similar to Mexicos jocoserio (srio-moleque). See Marco Aurlio Ferreira da Silva, Corrige os costumes rindo, Humor, vergonha e decoro na sociabilidade mundana de Fortaleza (1850–1890) (Ph.D. diss., Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, 2004). Da Silva (p. 101) stresses the complex meaning of the phrase—it connotes punishment and correction via censure, but it also suggests moralizing through humor about habits seen as deviant or subversive to the social order. He argues that in its Brazilian usage it also targeted customs deemed irrational or ridiculous from an elite perspective.
70. Pregunta de las beatas al seor provisor, Centro de Estudios de Historia de Mxico, CONDUMEX (Puebla: Oficina Liberal, a cargo de Cabrera, 1823).
71. see Pani, Erika, Ciudadana y muy ciudadana? Gender and History 18: 1 (April 2006), pp. 5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
72. In some ways the recourse of Mexican conservatives to ethically pure female figures echoes notions of womanhood and morality that animated the strategic feminization of abolitionism in Brazil. See Kjttlcson, Roger, Women and Notions of Womanhood in Brazilian Abolitionism, in Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World, Pamela Scully and Diana Paton, eds. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005), pp. 99–120.Google Scholar
73. For Mexico, the classic picaresque character is Pedro Sarmiento, more commonly known by his nickname el Periquillo Sarniento. See Lizardi, Fernndez de, El periquillo Sarniento (Madrid: Ctedra, 1997)Google Scholar and Luis Leal, Aspects of the Mexican Novel from Lizardi to Elizondo, Arizona Quarterly24:1 (Spring 1968), pp. 53–64. For the nation-building import of the novel, see Bcntez-Rojo, Antonio, Jos Joaqun Fernndez de Lizardi and the Emergence of the Spanish American Novel as National Project, Modern Language Qttarterly 57: 2 (1996), pp. 325–339.Google Scholar
74. Examples include El Ahuizote and El Hijo del Ahuizote. On the former see Barajas, El pats de aEl Ahuizote.9 Because the latter focused on criticism of the Diaz government and involved legendary artists like Jos Guadalupe Posada, its articles and cartoons have been widely reproduced. See Ricardo Flores Magn, Regeneracin, 1900–1918 (Mexico: Hadsc, 1972) and Manuel Gonzalez Ramrez, La caricatura poltica (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1974). See also Espinosa Blas, El Hijo del Ahuizote.
75. Aside from journalistic representations, a good example of these types of characters can be found in nine-teenth-century puppet theater. The staff of La Madre was probably familiar with El Negrito and Vale Coyote; see Bee-zley, Mexican National Identity. The news clown Brozo (journalist Vctor Trujillo) carried on this tradition in the 1990s and early 2000s; see Accessed July 21, 2011. Brozo is a vulgar, lecherous, social critic. His character is a deliberately inappropriate street humorist, enjoying sexual puns and barroom jests as he comments on events and politics. His television show, El Maanero, also parodied the santoral. A cursory search at www.youtube.com for el maanero brozo turns up a host of video clips.
76. Price, R.M., On Religious Parody in the Buscn, Modern Language Notes 82: 2 (March 1971), pp. 273–279.Google Scholar The novels often cited in this regard are Mateo Alemns Guzman de Alfarache (1599) and Francisco de Quevedos Historia de la vida del Buzcn, llamado Don Pablos, ejemplo de vagamundos y espejo de tacaos (1626).
77. Barajas, El pas de El Ahuizote,; pp. 86–91. In this case, it is also a tongue-in-cheek reference to the nationalist overtones of the Virgin of Guadalupe apparition narrative.
78. See Barajas, El pas de El Ahuizote, p. 78 and Barajas, El pas de aEl Llorn de Icamole, p. 32.
79. Soto, Hilarin Fras y, Los mexicanos pintados por s mismos, facsimile edition (Mexico: Porra, 1974), p.227.Google Scholar See also Salas, Maria Esther Prez, Costumbrismo y litografa (Mexico: UNAM, 2005).Google Scholar
80. La Casera (June 1, 1879), in El pas de aEl Llorn de leamole, pp. 169–173.
81. For more on the Padre Cobos character, see Barajas, El Pats de El Ahuizote,pp. 94–103. In the context of liberal hero worship, his invocation of Miguel Hidalgo (and Jos Mara Morelos) made Cobos a potent nationalist symbol.
82. Few know of this saint, but he is the patron of Comi tan, Chiapas. See Navarrete, Carlos, Documentos para la historia del culto a San Caralampio, Comitdn, Chiapas (Chiapas: Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas, Consejo Estatal de Fomento a la Investigacin y Difusin de la Cultura, Instituto Chiapaneco de Cultura, 1990).Google Scholar
83. See Santamaria and Garca Icazbalceta, Diccionario, p. 735. Although it is interesting to consider, I do nor perceive any allusions to Afro-Mexican origins beyond her surname in the texts or cartoons featuring doa Caralampia. She is perhaps best seen as a reference to the mixed-race urban working class that she represents. In addition, words mocking lower-class taste, style, or intelligence often have racist origins. For this term see Santamara and Garcia Icazbalceta, Diccionario, p. 750.
84. It is important to note that these female figures are not thinkers. As Jean Franco notes for other representations of women, they do not possess the civilizing, evaluative gaze reserved for men. Franco, Plotting Women, pp. 79–102. Instead they depend on innate understandings, tricks, or revelations for their powers of discernment.
85. La Revista Mexicana (July 8, 1917).
86. I have been able to locate only one issue of the first era (1917): La Madre Mattana of September 9 of that year. It appears to have been published from at least July to September. The newspaper rc-cmcrged in the mid-1920s, and 15 issues from 1923 reside in the collection of the library at the University of Sonora.
87. Kanellos, Nicolas, and Martell, Helvetia, Hispanic Periodicals in the United States, Origins to 1960 (Houston: Arte Pblico Press, 2000).Google Scholar
88. La Revista Mexicana (April 16, 1916).
89. La situacin mexicana,La Revista Mexicana (April 16, 1916).
90. For the former, see La Revista Mexicana (November 19, 1916). For the jests about shaving, see La Revista Mexicana (July 8, 1917) and La situacin de Venus (March 16, 1919).
91. Tpicos del da, La Revista Mexicana (October 29, 1916). See also Una disputa de enterradores, La Revista Mexicana (October 28, 1917).
92. Elecciones, La Revista Mexicana (August 13, 1916). Here they claimed that most of the population hoped for an outcome like that foreseen by Mariana.
93. Carta sin sobre al dizque presidente Venustiano Carranza, La Revista Mexicana (July 21, 1918).
94. Carta sin sobre a la madre Maana, La Revista Mexicana (January 5, 1919).
95. Una interview con la madre Mattana, La Revista Mexicana (December 12, 1917).
96. J. Sauza Gonzlez, En casa ajena. Mentiras piadosas, El Informador (March 3, 1920).
97. Prosas dominicales, El Porvenir (March 23, 1920).
98. Las profecas de madre Maana, El Porvenir (May 26, 1920).
99. Profecas completas de la madre Maana, 1914.
100. La Madre Maana (September 9, 1917) mentioned agents in Orizaba, Veracruz, Crdoba, and Nogales. In addition, extant issues from 1923 are housed at the University of Sonoras library, suggesting that La Madre reached that northern state.
101. Nuevo jefe militar en potrero del llano, El Demcrata (August 29, 1924).
102. Reprinted in La Revista Mexicana (July 8, 1917).
103. La Revista Mexicana, (July 8, 1917). In this case they employed the Spanish saying: Para que la cua apriete, tiene que ser del mismo palo (for the wedge to fit tightly, it must be made of the same wood). The implication of this turn-thc-tables phrase is clear. Matiana was the clergys creature in the newspapers estimation, but now she would attack her onetime masters.
104. In its original meaning a beata is a female member of a lay order. However, in common usage it refers to women who make a show of their Catholic piety and their allegiance to the Catholic Church. The term often connotes a sanctimonious prude and a clerical sycophant. Nonetheless, it can also mean simply churchy. When used with the augmentative suffix-owe to make beatona it is always pejorative. By extension beatera refers to the useless pious actions or expressions of conservative actors. See Real Academia Espaola, Diccionario de la Lengua Espaola, vol. 1, p. 304. Sec also Smith, Collins Spanish Dictionary, p. 93. For an example of its sarcastic and misogynist usage in liberal texts, see Milagros de la Reforma: la beata, miscelnea 376, no. 5 (Guadalajara, Biblioteca Pblica de Jalisco, 1858) This pamphlet pretends to be a zoological tract analyzing the beata as one of the nations animals. They appear as the Churchs harpies and are defined as a super-abundant class of elderly spinsters who shun all useful work and dedicate themselves to church attendance and slavishly attending to priests. The author asserts that sexual frustration is the true motor of beata life; that is, that their passionate commitment to religion is simply veiled lust for clergymen.
105. For metiche see Santamara and Garca Icazbalceta, Diccionario, p. 720. As evident in the examples provided in this reference work, it is frequently used to describe women and gossip.
106. For a definition of marimacba see Smith, Collins Spanish Dictionary, p. 465, where it is translated as a mannish or butch woman. According to the Real Academia Espaola, Diccionario, vol. 2, p. 454, it refers to a woman who due to excessive weight or masculine actions appears to be male. This fits the image on the 1917 masthead of La Madre.
107. See Lear, John, Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), pp. 341–50.Google Scholar
108. For a discussion of Carrancista politics, administration, and the political climate in Mexico between 1916 and 1920, see Knight, The Mexican Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 435–493.
109. La Revista Mexicana (July 22, 1917).
110. La Madre Mattana (September 9, 1917).
111. Ibid.
112. Lear, Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens, pp. 341–58.
113. Often he appears with a hook sticking out of the stump of his famously missing arm. For example, in La Madre Mattana of June 28, 1923, he appears as a night watchman with Article 27 of the new constitution dangling from his hook. In short, he only half-heartedly guards the portion of the constitution dealing with land ownership, national sovereignty, and the prohibitions against church property ownership.
114. On Carranzas efforts from 1916 tol920 and prevailing attitudes towards governance and corruption, see Knight, Mexican Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 478–490.
115. Ibid., pp. 493–494. See also Tamayo, Jaime, El obregonismo y los movimientos sociales (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 2008).Google Scholar
116. Concurso de hembras modernistas, La Madre Mattana (May 24, 1923); Desmadres, La Madre Mattana (May 31, 1923).
117. In attendance was an organized group of Yucatecan women led by the radical feminist Elvia Carrillo. These women shocked many Mexicans with their calls for sexual freedom, sex education, and contraception; sec Ana Lau J., Las luchas por transformar el estatus civil de las mexicanas in Integrados y marginados en el Mxico posrevolucionario, Nicolas Crdenas Garca and Enrique Cuerra Manzo, comp. (Mexico City: Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana, Xochimilco, 2009), pp. 297–348. Lau analyzes the impact of this congress on pp. 325–332.
118. Cabeza Pelada, Viva el amor libre y la nivelacin de los secsos! La Madre Mattana (May 31, 1923).
119. Lo que vio, oy, olfate, y gust Cabeza Pelada en el ltimo combate de flores, La Madre Mattana (May 24, 1923).
120. Rmulo Daz, S.J., Calamidades sociales, La Madre Mattana (June 28, 1923).Google Scholar
121. See Buffington, Robert, Homophobia and the Mexican Working Class, 1900-1910 in The Famous 41, Irwin, McCaughan, Edward, J., and Nasser, Michelle Roco, eds. (New York: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 193–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
122. Desmadres: agraristas y rancheros, La Madre Mattana (June 28, 1923).
123. See Prieto, Jorge Meja, Albures y refranes de Mxico (Mexico City: Panorama Editorial, 1985).Google Scholar According to this author, La Madre excelled at the albur and represents a historical model of this expressive genre.
124. Monsivis, Carlos, A mor perdido(Mexico: Ediciones Era, 1977), p. 342.Google Scholar Monsivis here looks at the vulgar commentary of 1960s-cra publications. He criticizes them as boorish and predictable, but emphasizes the prominent place of this crass kind of Mexican identity in the formation of public consciousness. He traces the journalistic tradition to La Madre. Monsivis describes a kind of general reveling in the notion that Mexicans are particularly ingenious when it comes to scatological humor and synonyms for sexual intercourse.
125. La Madre Mattana(June 7, 1923); the translation is mine. Monsivs (Amor perdido, p. 342) provides additional examples from La Madre: No me aprietes los limones porque te llenas de jugo (Dont squeeze my lemons or you will be covered in juice) and No me cierren las petacas que faltan dos talegas (literally, dont close the suitcases on me because two sacks still are not in; figuratively, dont close those big buttocks on me because my balls are still coming). For a discussion of the Nhuatl-derived petaca, see Santamara and Garca Icazbalceta, Diccionario, pp.837–838.
126. The word lengua (tongue) and its derivations have rich and varied connotations. See Santamara and Garcia Icazbalceta, Diccionario, pp. 659-660; Real Academia Espaola, Diccionario, vol. 2, pp. 1362–1363; and Smith, Collins Spanish Dictionary, p. 436. Here, La Madre is working from a large number of expressions, such as lengua larga, mala lengua, and lengun, all of which refer to someone producing foolish, verbose, or malicious speech, or gossiping impertinently.
127. Calhoun, Nationalism, pp. 1–7.
128. Beezley, Mexican National Identity.
129. Chasteen, John Charles, National Rhythms, Afi-ican Roots: The Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance, 1st ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004).Google Scholar
130. For example, the El Ahuizote cartoon of February 5, 1884, wherein the Constitution of 1857 is depicted as a bold Athena-like figure, shows how she was; by 1874, there appears a ravaged wench, wrecked after what they have done to her. See Barajas, El pats de El Ahuizote,image 55, pp. 150 and 284.
131. For example, see Tejedor, F., Los espantos y la credulidad, Sucesos para todos (December 14, 1937);Google Scholar Bustamante, L. F.,El hombre de la tnica morada, Jueves de Excelsior (April 18, 1946);Google Scholar Nez, Lucio Mendieta, Lo que no har el Consejo Nacional de Economa, El Universal (July 24, 1946);Google Scholar and Futurismo presidencial, La Crtica (February 1, 1955).
132. Yez, Agustn, Las tierras flacas, 1st ed. (Mexico: Editorial Joaqun Mortiz, 1962).Google Scholar
133. Yez, Agustn, Al Jilo del agita, 2nd ed. (Nanterre, France: Signatarios Acuerdo Archivos ALLCA XX Universit Paris , 1996).Google Scholar
134. See Sommer, Foundational Fictions.