La Corua Digital Art
  • Home
    • Roots
  • Traditions
  • Barrios
    • Gardens
  • People
    • Music
  • Folklore
  • Border
    • En Memoriam
  • Graphics
    • THCC
  • Codex
CODEX

Mi Adelita - An Interpretation

12/31/2011

 
Mi Adelita
I created this painting styled as an ex-voto; a votive offering to a saint or divinity, given in fulfillment of a vow. (Click on photo to enlarge)

Adelita (la soldadera) stands tall, gazing forward, carrying a young child in a traditional indigenous sling. On her thigh rests a Carabina 30/30— (Winchester 30/30) decorated with a rose and two hummingbirds; both powerful Yoeme (Yaqui) symbols. She is dressed plainly, in a Tehuana style skirt. She shows signs of struggle but is poised and undeterred. She is the enduring Woman Warrior Spirit personified, the unsung strength of the world.

The girl child Adelita carries represents a new generation of life. She could be the child of Adelita, or a rescued child separated from her own natural mother. She sleeps peacefully.

  • Blood on the ground: Mexico’s bloody history and ongoing struggles.
  • Aztec calendar motif: embodies sun & earth deities Tonatiuh & Tlaltecuhtli – both related to sacrificial blood.
  • Border Fence: symbol for all that is ridiculous.
  • Skeletons: ancestors, perished migrants.
  • Rattlesnake: Animal guardian, powerful transformative medicine. Also connected to the Aztec serpent goddess, Coatilcue, and Cihuateteo; one who guards the spirits of women who died in childbirth.
  • Prickly pear cactus: (in this case opuntia var. Santa Rita) Food & sustenance for desert survivors.
  • Mourning Dove w/creosote bush sprig: Desert peace symbol.
  • Banner: In English: “If you want peace, work for justice.” --Pope Paul VI
  • River: Santa Cruz River; without which human settlement in this far corner of the Sonoran desert would not have been possible.
  • La Virgen de Guadalupe: Our Holy Blessed Mother and Empress of the Americas, sprung from the ancient Aztec mother goddess Tonanztin. Some believe that she holds the spiritual blueprint of the U.S. Southwest.

    La Corua
    A blog of inspirations, interpretations-- things that move me in this place where I'm planted.

    Codices

    All
    Aboriginal
    Barrios
    Border
    Cultural
    En Memoriam
    Folklore
    Graphics
    Migrants
    People
    Sonoran Desert
    Spiritual
    Traditions

    Archives

    April 2021
    September 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    September 2018
    April 2018
    September 2017
    September 2016
    June 2016
    November 2015
    April 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    July 2013
    October 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    December 2011
    August 2011


 Home | Traditions | Barrios  | People  | Folklore  | Border  | Graphics ​|​ Codex

La Corua-Baboquivari-Mts
*  La Corúa  was a large water serpent that lived in springs of water and protected them. They say it had a cross on its forehead and cleaned the veins of water with its long fangs or tusks. It was a shy creature but could sometimes be caught sunning on the rocks of the spring.  According to Sonoran folk beliefs, if one killed the Corúa, the spring would dry up.  Vanishing water sources and  economic pressures have pushed the folklore of La Corúa  to the dustbin of history on both sides of the border, but La Corúa remains in the minds and memories of elders in the Pimería Alta.

Serpents have been sacred for millennia to indigenous peoples throughout the Americas and are respected as guardians of water sources and bringers of rain.

* Beliefs and Holy Places - A Spiritual Geography of the Pimeria Alta  -  James S. Griffith, University of Arizona Press, 1992

Background painting:  Baboquivari Peak - the monolith landmark defining the Baboquivari mountains southwest of Tucson. The center of Tohono O'odham cosmology, it is sacred and is the home of I'itoi, their Creator and Elder Brother. The peak is visible from Casa Grande in the northwest, south into Mexico.  (I'itoi is also the figure in the O'odham 'Man in the Maze' basket design.)

© La Corua Digital Art | All rights reserved 2022 |
  • Home
    • Roots
  • Traditions
  • Barrios
    • Gardens
  • People
    • Music
  • Folklore
  • Border
    • En Memoriam
  • Graphics
    • THCC
  • Codex