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Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture Lectures on the History of Religions Sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies New Series, Number Eleven Virgin op Guadalupe, Mexico. IM7166 7IND PIL6RIMTI6e IN CHRISTIAN CULTURE Anthropological Perspectives Victor Turner and Edith Turner NEW YORK COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1978 LIBRARY OP CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Turner, Victor Witter. Image and pilgrimage In Christian culture. (Lectures on the history of religions; new ser.. Bibliography: p. Includes index. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK COPYRIGHT © 1978 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA In memory of Max Gluckman 1910-1975 teacher and friend who died in Jerusalem THIS VOLUME is the eleventh to be published in the series of Lectures on the History of Religions for which the American Council of Learned Societies, through its Committee on the History of Religions, assumed respon sibility in 1936. Under the program the Committee from time to time enlists the services of scholars to lecture in colleges, uni versities, and seminaries on topics in need of expert elucidation. Subsequently, when possible and appro priate, the Committee arranges for the publication of the lectures. Other volumes in the series are Martin P. Nils son, Greek Popular Religion (1940), Henri Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion (1948), Wing-tsit Chan, Religious Trends in Modem China (1953), Joachim Wach, The Com parative Study of Religions, edited by Joseph M. Kitagawa (1938) , R. M. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (1939) , Robert Lawson Slater, World Religions and World Community (1963), Joseph M. Kitagawa, Religion in fapanese History (1966), Joseph L. Blau, Modern Varieties of fudoism (1966), Morton Smith, Palestinian Parties and Poli tics That Shaped the Old Testament (1971), and Philip H. Ashby, Modern Trends in Hinduism (1974). Contents Preface xiii CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Pilgrimage as a Liminoid Phenomenon 1 CHAPTER TWO Mexican Pilgrimages: Myth and History 40 CHAPTER THREE St. Patrick's Purgatory: Religion and Nationalism in an Archaic Pilgrimage 104 CHAPTER POUR Iconophily and Iconodasm in Marian Pilgrimage 140 CHAPTER FIVE Locality and Universality in Medieval Pilgrimages 172 CHAPTER SIX Apparitions, Messages, and Miracles: Postindustrial Marian Pilgrimage 203 CHAPTER SEVEN Conclusions 231 APPENDIX A Notes on Processual Symbolic Analysis 243 APPENDIX BChronology of Lough Derg Pilgrimage 256 Bibliography 261 Index 273 Illustrations Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico following page 76 Our Lord of Chalma, Mexico Way Station on the Road to Chalma, Mexico Our Lady of the Remedies, Mexico Ex-votos to Our Lady of the Remedies, Mexico Ex-votos to Our Lady of the Remedies, Mexico Pilgrims to Our Lady of the Remedies, Mexico Plate 4 Statue of St. Michael the Archangel, Mexico Conchero dancer, Mexico Plate 5 Ex-votos on the Way of the Cross, Sacromonte, Mex- Death-dancer at a Mexican saint's festival Plate 6 Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico Plate 7 Dormition of the Virgin, Church of Our Lady of lza- mal, YucatSn Offerings of com to Our Lady of Izamal, Yucatan Plate 8 El Nino Santo of Tlaxcala following page 140 Plate 9 Station Island, Lough Derg, Ireland Mass at the Gable of the Apparition, Knock, Ireland Plate 10 Our Lady of Walsingham, England Pilgrimage Plaque at Walsingham, England Plate 11 The Santissimo Bambino d'Aracoeli, Rome Plate 12 Grotto of Massabielle, near Lourdes Benediction of Pilgrims, Lourdes 7/laps Map 1 Major European Pilgrimage Shrines 5 Map 2 St. Patrick's Purgatory 109 Preface this book began as a set of six lectures, "The Pilgrimage Pro cess/' sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies, Committee on the History of Religion, in the series entitled "The American Lectures in the History of Religion." Though the lectures were delivered by Victor Turner, they were the product of joint authorship by Victor and Edith Turner at every stage, from field and library research to completed manuscript. The book differs from the lectures in the emphasis it lays on cul ture rather than behavior. The lectures focused on social structures and processes associated with pilgrimages; the book examines in more detail the theological doctrines and popular notions which promote and sustain Christian pilgrimage, and the symbols and images which embody them. Not that we consider the ideas, norms, values, symbols, and other constructs, which constitute the "coherent system of symbols and meanings" (Schneider 1968:8) of Catholic pilgrimage, to be fully independent of pilgrim behavior. Rather do we regard such "cultural units" (to use Schneider's term) as "expressed in" (see Hanson 1975:102) actual pilgrim behavior. Thus we find that the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for example, is intrinsically involved with several con crete aspects of Marian pilgrimage, from the origin of many Marian