Empire unusual suggested

138 PASSPORT TO MAGONIA
when they reached for them, they were astonished and let him go.
Juan was taken once more to the bishop.
Juan Diego put up both hands and untied the corners of crude
cloth behind his neck. The looped-up fold of the tilma fell; the
flowers he thought were the precious sign tumbled out and lay in
an untidy heap on the floor. Alas for the Virgin's careful arrangement!
But Juan's confusion over this mishap was nothing to what he
felt immediately after it. Inside of seconds the Bishop had risen
from his chair and was kneeling at Juan's feet, and inside of a minute
all the other persons in the room had surged forward and were
also kneeling,
The bishop was kneeling before Juan's tilma, and, as Ethel
Cook Eliot remarks, "millions of people have knelt before it
since," for it has been placed over the high altar in the basilica of
Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Mexico City. The tilma consists of
two pieces, woven of maguey fibers and sewn together and measuring
sixty-six by forty-one inches. On this coarse material, whose
color is that of unbleached linen, a lovely figure can be seen,
fifty-six inches tall.
Surrounded by golden rays, it emerges as from a shell of light,
clear-cut and lovely in every detail of line and color. The head is
bent slightly and very gracefully to the right, just avoiding the long
seam. The eyes look downward, but the pupils are visible. This
gives an unearthly impression of lovingness and lovablcness. The
mantle that covers the head and falls to the feet is greenish blue
with a border of purest gold, and scattered through with golden
stars. The tunic is rose-colored, patterned with a lacc-likc design of
golden flowers. Below is a crescent moon, and beneath it appear
the head and arms of a cherub.
In the six years that followed the incident, over eight million
Indians were baptized. In recent times, sonic fifteen hundred persons
kneel before Juan Diego's tilma (still intact with the image's
radiant colors) ever}' day.
Juan's uncle was cured. As he was awaiting the priest, too weak
even to drink the medicine his nephew had prepared, he saw his
room suddenly filled with soft light. A luminous figure, that
of a young woman, appeared near him. She told him he would
get well and informed him of Juan Diego's mission. She also said,
NURSLINGS OF IMMORTALITY 139
"Call me and call my image Santa Maria de Guadalupe"—or so
the message was understood.
But was this the intended meaning? Following the research of
Helen Bchrcns, Ethel Cook Eliot suggests that the Indian word
used by the apparition was Tetlcoatlaxopeuh, which could be
transcribed phonetically as Deguatlashupee. To Spanish ears, this
would naturally sound like "De Guadalupe." But the apparition
spoke the same Indian dialect as Juan Diego and his uncle—
she even looked like "a young Indian girl"—and she had no reason
to use the Spanish term ascribed to her. Tetlcoatlaxopeuh means
"Stone Serpent Trodden on." Helen Bchrcns assumes that the
apparition was thus announcing that she had supplanted Ouctzalcoatl,
whom the Indians had idolized as a feathered serpent.
This impressive story contains a magnificent symbolism. Not
only docs it bring us back, through the stone serpent, to the Maya
monuments we discussed at the beginning of this book, but it
also reminds us, in several important aspects, of the many talcs of
fairies we have reviewed: the mysterious, sweet music announcing
that the fairy draws near; the flowers (roses once again) that grow
in an impossible place; and the sign given to the human messenger,
which changes nature as he goes away, like the coals given
to human midwives by the gnomes that changed to gold; the
numerous similar symbols found in countless talcs;* and finally,
the cosmic symbolism, the crescent moon under the Virgin's feet,
as in the lines of Revelation:
And there appeared a great sign in heaven; a woman clothed with
the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and upon her head a
crown of twelve stars. 6
"LOOK BUT DO NOT TOUCH"
It was a very great wonder, a sign, in heaven indeed, the marvelous
airship that flew over the United States in the spring of
* Indeed, we cannot help but recall here the words of llartland in his
Science of Fairy Talcs: "This gift of an object apparently worthless, which
turns out, on the conditions being observed, of the utmost value, is a commonplace
of fairy transactions. It is one of the most obvious manifestations
of superhuman power,"