PRESS AND MYTHS REGARDING THE MARIAN SANCTUARIES

Abstract

A selection of quotations (1967-1970) shows us a Chilean press inspired in libe ral ideology- inherited from the colonial past- that fights aga in s t religious ideology and culture of the north chilean pilgrim movement keeping up the worship of the Virgin Mary in her most famous shrines: La Tirana, Las Peñas and MaryAyquina. In that struggle nacional press utilizes the myths of the « Enlightment» and of « Public Opinion». In that same ring foundation myths of the shrines are being mobilized ina defensive strategy by the pilgrims to legitima te their worshiping of the Holy Virgin. The authot presents a content analysis of these myths in an ethnohistorical and anthropological approach in order to demonstrate that the Virgin of the shrines was traditionally seen as (he 9/ver of life and health and, as such, as the successor of Pachamama, the Earth Mother of the Andes religion. The analysis also elucidates the ancient antithesis between the religious culture of the lower classes of Aymara and Mestizo chrlstians on the one hand, and that of the local dominant white upper class ofgovernors, clergyman and hacendados.