What is Tepeyac?
Tepeyac (teh-peh-YAHK) is the name of the hill where the Aztecs worshipped an earth goddess known as Tonantzin. This is the story of how colonization, religious oppression, and Indigenous resistance would all be held within one of the Goddesses of the Americas - Our Lady of Guadalupe.
It was a time of Spanish and Christian colonization and the deep oppression of Indigenous peoples. Every day, a Chichimec man named Cuauhtlatoatzin ("the talking eagle") would walk by a hill called Tepeyac. One day an indigenous woman appeared on the hill and spoke in Nahuatl - an indigenous language spoken by the Chichimec people - and asked for him to go to Mexico City and tell the bishop there to build her a temple on the hill at Tepeyac. On three separate occasions, the man who came to be known as Juan Diego, attempted to convince the bishop to hear the message from the holy lady and each time was pushed away.
Cuauhtlatoatzin would return to Tepayac and describe how no one would ever listen to “un Indio” and would more likely imprison him on sight if he tried again to speak on behalf of the holy lady. Still, she insisted that it was his voice that had to speak truth to power. Finally, she offered him a miracle of winter roses from the Spanish home of the bishop to carry in his poncho as evidence of his divine assignment. Carrying these and his deep love for the Lady, Cuauhtlatoatzin fought his way in one last time to try and speak to the bishop. Reaching him, he spilled the miraculous roses across the vestibule and on the poncho where he had carried them appeared the image of the holy lady who had sent him. Stunned by the miracle, the Bishop was finally moved to believe the man and his message.
But, on the hill where the indigenous goddess was worshipped, a Christian basilica was built shaped in the Christian practice and absorbing the goddess Tonantzin into the Mother Mary figure and renaming her Our Lady of Guadalupe - a fate of erasure shared by countless Black and Indigenous goddesses for millennia. Still, the people remembered and have fiercely loved their Goddess of the Americas as the protector of our people, of our children, and of our movements for social justice. To this day, people travel by foot and on their knees for miles to make pilgrimage to Tepeyac and honor Tonantzin - Our Lady of Guadalupe.
It is a complicated and beautiful story of power and oppression and resistance and rebellion and what it means to believe in the voices of our people. It is this spirit and mandate that we carry into our work in community and through our collaborations at Tepeyac Consulting… deep trust, impactful tools and powerful platforms to speak truth and liberation to power.
It was a time of Spanish and Christian colonization and the deep oppression of Indigenous peoples. Every day, a Chichimec man named Cuauhtlatoatzin ("the talking eagle") would walk by a hill called Tepeyac. One day an indigenous woman appeared on the hill and spoke in Nahuatl - an indigenous language spoken by the Chichimec people - and asked for him to go to Mexico City and tell the bishop there to build her a temple on the hill at Tepeyac. On three separate occasions, the man who came to be known as Juan Diego, attempted to convince the bishop to hear the message from the holy lady and each time was pushed away.
Cuauhtlatoatzin would return to Tepayac and describe how no one would ever listen to “un Indio” and would more likely imprison him on sight if he tried again to speak on behalf of the holy lady. Still, she insisted that it was his voice that had to speak truth to power. Finally, she offered him a miracle of winter roses from the Spanish home of the bishop to carry in his poncho as evidence of his divine assignment. Carrying these and his deep love for the Lady, Cuauhtlatoatzin fought his way in one last time to try and speak to the bishop. Reaching him, he spilled the miraculous roses across the vestibule and on the poncho where he had carried them appeared the image of the holy lady who had sent him. Stunned by the miracle, the Bishop was finally moved to believe the man and his message.
But, on the hill where the indigenous goddess was worshipped, a Christian basilica was built shaped in the Christian practice and absorbing the goddess Tonantzin into the Mother Mary figure and renaming her Our Lady of Guadalupe - a fate of erasure shared by countless Black and Indigenous goddesses for millennia. Still, the people remembered and have fiercely loved their Goddess of the Americas as the protector of our people, of our children, and of our movements for social justice. To this day, people travel by foot and on their knees for miles to make pilgrimage to Tepeyac and honor Tonantzin - Our Lady of Guadalupe.
It is a complicated and beautiful story of power and oppression and resistance and rebellion and what it means to believe in the voices of our people. It is this spirit and mandate that we carry into our work in community and through our collaborations at Tepeyac Consulting… deep trust, impactful tools and powerful platforms to speak truth and liberation to power.