The Virgen de Chiquinquirá and Muisca Religion

The paper proposes a new approach and a new analysis of the Virgen de Chiquinquirá, the most famous religious image in Colombia, produced around 1550 in the Eastern Cordillera within the context of the local indigenous Muisca religion. The analysis is primarily concerned with the materiality and with the formal and stylistic qualities of the image painted on a Muisca cloth (known as manta in Spanish). The image was compared with primary sources from the colonial period in order to highlight the importance of the muisca contribution to its production and to the subsequent devotion to it. Relying on the theories of perspectivism, we point out the agency of objects such as múcuras, tunjos and cloths in the creation of belief. Finally, we claim that the Virgen de Chiquinquirá was a Muisca votive object since its inception