Abstract
According to Marilyn Ekdahl Ravicz, "[a] complex culture which had produced notable scientific and esthetic creations, as well as a highly evolved social system, was laid low and virtually destroyed. If we are to posit that the indigenous writers of the time were actively recreating the character of Mary as an indigenous woman or possibly a mestiza or "mixed-race person," how does that change our understanding of the ways in which the Nahua were also actively resisting the Spanish conquest? [...]knowing that for indigenous actors, "putting on the costume of a deity made that being manifest in one's own person,"8 does the embodiment of the Virgin Mary as an indigenous actor convert the actor into a Christian, or does it convert Mary into a Nahua? While Burkhart provides an indispensable groundwork for my research on this topic, I believe that in order to comprehend more fully the levels of resistance written into the character of Mary, it is useful to view the distinctions between Beacon and Wednesday through the lenses of Scott's "hidden transcripts" and Mignolo's "border thinking." [...]by bringing other texts from the period into the conversation, I am able to demonstrate that this anti-colonial resistance is not unique to Holy Wednesday but can be seen clearly in several plays within Nahua evangelist theatre in the years after the conquest. According to Stafford Poole's translation of the sermon from the Nahuatl, he notes that the text refers to Our Lady of Guadalupe as looking much like, "one of your mothers.