Folk religion in Argentina (in Spanish: religiosidad popular; "popular religiosity") comprises a range of religious practices, beliefs and expressions that have emerged among the country's common people and outside the formal doctrines and organised structures of institutionalised religions.[1] As Catholicism has historically been the dominant religion in Argentina, the most widespread form of folk religion in the country is folk Catholicism.[2]
There is also the case of traditional Catholic saints whose cult has been magnified to somewhat heretical dimensions, like Saint Expeditus, Saint Cajetan, Saint George or Saint Benedict.[3]
Folk Catholicism
editMarian devotions
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According to Enrique Dussel, devotion to the Virgin Mary was the preferred method of Spanish colonizers to evangelize the indigenous peoples, since the latter unified her image with that of the Pachamama, a sort of Earth Mother goddess in the Andes.[4] In addition, Marian cults arose in places that were already the object of pre-Columbian worship, obscuring their original uses.[5] A paradigmatic example of this is the Virgin of Copacabana, a devotion that originated in the Bolivian city of the same name and spread throughout the Altiplano and northern Argentina during the colonial era.[4] The Copacabana devotion has its origin in an earlier local cult around a huaca, a small sacred stone, which eventually became an image of the Virgin Mary in later versions of the legend.[6] The Virgin of Copacabana began to become popular as an object of worship and pilgrimage after a statue of her was placed on the altar of the local church in 1583.[7]
Saints and beatified people
editFolk cults and devotions
editNorthwest
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The Northwest region is made up of the provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Catamarca, La Rioja and Santiago del Estero, and represents the area of the country historically linked to the Andean civilizations of Bolivia and Peru.[8]
Northeast
editCenter region
editBuenos Aires Metropolitan Area
editPatagonia
editSee also
editReferences
edit- ^ Ameigeiras 2008, pp. 7–12.
- ^ Ameigeiras 2008, p. 31.
- ^ Ruiz Díaz & Redondo 2023, p. 9.
- ^ a b Dussel 2016, pp. 107–108.
- ^ Dussel 2016, p. 108.
- ^ Dussel 2016, p. 109.
- ^ Caballero Espinoza, Angela María (2010). La virgen de Copacabana: Construccion de identidades de genero en torno al imaginario de una mujer madre en los Andes (Master's thesis) (in Spanish). La Paz: Facultad de Humanidades. Universidad Mayor de San Andrés. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
- ^ Mallimaci 2013, p. 16.
Bibliography
edit- Ameigeiras, Aldo Rubén (2008). Religiosidad popular. Creencias religiosas populares en la sociedad argentina (PDF). Colección "25 años, 25 libros" (in Spanish). Los Polvorines; Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento; Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno. ISBN 978-987-630-045-2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 December 2023. Retrieved 23 June 2024.
- Coluccio, Félix (2007) [1986]. Cultos y canonizaciones populares de Argentina. Biblioteca de Cultura Popular (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Sol. ISBN 978-950-9413-10-8. Retrieved 19 February 2024 – via Google Books.
- Dussel, Enrique (2016). El catolicismo popular en la Argentina (PDF). Obras Selectas 7. Sección II - Historia y Teología (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Docencia. ISBN 978-987-506-415-7. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
- Mallimaci, Fortunato, ed. (2013). Atlas de las creencias y actitudes religiosas en la Argentina (PDF) (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Biblos. ISBN 978-987-691-008-8. Retrieved 14 March 2024 – via CLACSO.
- Mallimaci, Fortunato; Giménez Béliveau, Verónica; Esquivel, Juan Cruz (2019). Sociedad y Religión en Movimiento. Segunda Encuesta Nacional sobre Creencias y Actitudes Religiosas en la Argentina (PDF) (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET). Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Laborales (CEIL). ISSN 1515-7466. Retrieved 6 July 2024.
- Ruiz Díaz, Emiliano; Redondo, María, eds. (2023). Devociones populares argentinas (PDF) (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno. ISBN 978-987-728-167-5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 March 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
External links
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Media related to folk saints of Argentina at Wikimedia Commons
