Material Religion and the “Mystery” of the Black Madonnas

Since its beginnings, anthropology has been interested in the study of religious images and, more specifically, in the social relationship that “believers” establish with them within and outside of ritual processes (Lévy-Bruhl Reference Lévy-Bruhl1927; Tylor Reference Tylor1994). In recent decades, this field of study has generated a vast and fascinating body of literature that falls under the generic term “material religion” and highlights the importance of objects, senses, and bodies in religious experience (McDannell Reference McDannell1995; Morgan Reference Morgan2010, Houtman and Meyer Reference Houtman and Meyer2012).

A key idea we can extract from this vast debate is that, counterintuitively, “religious images”—images that seek to depict divinities or spirits and operate as mediums with the hereafter, and thus acquire a value in terms of presence—are highly problematic, multiple, and unstable objects (Engelke Reference Engelke2007; Belting Reference Belting and Jephcott1994). One thing that makes religious images problematic objects is the ambiguity of the semiotic relation they maintain with their “referent”—the supernatural being represented through the image (Feedberg Reference Feedberg1989). As classic authors such as Tylor and Lévi-Bruhl indicated, it is often difficult if not impossible to determine whether believers conceive of images (more or less consciously) as the divinities themselves or “only” as their representations (Belting Reference Belting2011). What we observe is that religious images constantly oscillate between one paradigm and another depending on the relations established and the context in which interactions occur. In any case, religious images always have the potential to become an image-person; that is, to fully identify with what they depict (Malamoud and Vernant Reference Malamoud and Vernant1986).

It is also important to point out that religious images are ontologically multiple objects, defined differently depending on the social agents with whom they interact. We can take the example of the Black Madonna of Montserrat, which is a religious image, a political symbol, a national icon, an example of cultural heritage, a work of art, and a tourist attraction, among other meanings. All of these ways of conceiving the black Madonna coexist today, often overlapping yet without contradictions. This characteristic is not exclusive to religious images, and anthropology teaches us that any “object” or “subject” can, at least potentially, be “interpreted” in different ways depending on the individual or culture. Our stance, however, is that, due to their singular and ambiguous nature, as well as their high social and symbolic value, religious images are particularly “suitable” for this type of ontological pluralism.

Finally, as historical objects, religious images are intrinsically unstable and changing.Footnote ⁴ They undergo a constant process of transformation and reinvention from both an aesthetic point of view (today, for example, we encounter comic representations of the black Madonna unthinkable only a few years ago) and in terms of their uses and meanings (as demonstrated by the current use of the Black Madonna of Montserrat by some in the LGTBI movement).

Further, as noted, the black Madonna is a paradigmatic example of “black virgins,” or Vierges Noires in the French tradition.Footnote ⁵ We should briefly address the “mystery” surrounding this type of representation. Most authors who have studied these images (Huynen Reference Huynen1972) have started with the same question: why are there images in which the Virgin Mary appears (in some cases, with her son) as a black woman? The recurrence of the question seems to suggest a racial bias that associates whiteness with the norm and blackness with otherness: because they are conceptualized as black, these are the “other” virgins and, as “others,” they needed to be explained and justified. What is the origin of these representations, which are found in different Roman Catholic regions such as Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, and Latin America?

A classic trend, today very questioned, maintains that black virgins are Christian reinterpretations of pagan divinities associated with the land, fertility, and female power, in the majority of cases of Phoenician or Egyptian origin (Durand-Lefebvre Reference Durand-Lefebvre1937; Emile Saillens Reference Saillens1945). Others have examined them from a psychoanalytical perspective (Gustafson Reference Gustafson1990), conceiving them as an expression of unconscious elements inherent to the Christian tradition. A widespread theory maintains that what we today call “black virgins” (at least in the European context) were originally images in which Mary appeared with white skin which blackened over time as a result of smoke, incense, and dirt (Scheer Reference Scheer2002: 1418). What is interesting about this theory is that the majority of the blackened Madonnas were later painted black, as the blackening was understood as a “decision” made by the image itself. Some scholars (Oleszkiewicz-Peralba Reference Oleszkiewicz-Peralba2007; Moss and Cappannari Reference Moss and Cappannari1953) combine both perspectives, recognizing the existence of both virgins that were originally black and virgins that were originally white and later blackened and repainted.

Within the analysis of black virgins, it is important to add the “non-European” or “non-Western” versions of the images of Mary in which she appears as a Black, indigenous, or mestiza woman. This is the case of the Latin American or African versions of the virgin that in many cases present autochthonous “ethnic” or “cultural” traits (such as in Equatorial Guinea). The “autochthonous” population tends to reclaim the “authenticity” of these images, seeing them as an example of the universality of Mary, capable of appearing in different places and under different types of “humanity.” Yet the majority of sacred art experts interpret them as examples of “syncretism” resulting from colonization processes.

The most accepted hypothesis today in relation to the image of La Verge de Montserrat states that it was originally a white image that blackened very quickly and was subsequently repainted as black.Footnote ⁶ As we will show, the blackness that defines her has played a key role in the meanings attributed to this image in different periods of her history.

La Verge de Montserrat in Catalonia

In Catalonia the term “Montserrat” has a double meaning: First, it refers to the mountain of Montserrat, a place also known as “the magic mountain” (la muntanya màgica)Footnote ⁷ and characterized by a particular orography that explains the etymology of the word [mont: mountain; serrat: serrated]. But “Montserrat” also refers to the Mother of God, who since 1881 has been named the patron saint of Catalonia and whose image has been located since the twelfth century in the monastery situated on the mountain. Also important is that the name “Montserrat” has been used since the 1920s in Catalan female anthroponomy, and has become one of the fifteen most common names in the principality.Footnote ⁸ This sheds light on the close relation between the icon, the country, and its people.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, Catalan society, and particularly political Catalan nationalism, has raised the image of the Black Madonna of Montserrat to the rank of national symbol (Impériali Reference Impériali2008), to the degree that it is difficult to understand the evolution of the phenomenon of contemporary Catalan nationalism without reference to the “life” of this image. In historical terms, the social and patriotic significance that this Madonna has acquired today, and her role in social conflicts during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, stem from the emergence of Romanticism and the subsequent rise of Catalan nationalism. What follows is a brief historical overview of this era.

From the outset, Catalan nationalism was divided into two opposing models: one linked to Catholicism and the other to laicism, two extremes still common today. The first model is clearly in evidence in the insignia “Catalonia will be Christian or it will not be at all,” which dominates the Monastery of Montserrat’s main facade. This phrase is attributed to the Bishop Torres i Bages (1846–1916), a driving force of the politically conservative, Catholic Catalan nationalism that was constructed in the principality during the last third of the nineteenth century as a result of the Renaixença.Footnote ⁹ In the weekly paper La Veu de Montserrat (1878), odes were published to the Black Madonna of Montserrat and the country was urged to defend a model of religious regionalism. The first national appropriation of the Madonna appeared as part of this trend.

The Catholic and regionalist model of Catalan nationalism was opposed to a laic, progressive, and republican Catalan movement. This second model revolved around the figure of Valentí Almirall (1941–1904), who had served in the Federal Democratic Republican Party (Partit Republicà Democràtic Federal) before the First Spanish Republic (1873–1874). This movement opposed the monarchy and the central role of religion, which distanced it from Torres i Bages’ Catalan nationalism.

In addition to these two currents, at the end of the nineteenth century an anti-Christian Catalonia developed within working class movements, which starting at the beginning of the twentieth century stirred up anticlerical revolts. The city of Barcelona took on a somewhat mythological meaning for the working-class movement, especially the anarchist movement, and became known as the “rose of fire” (Rosa de Foc), or the “city of bombs,” on account of its attacks on political, religious, and bourgeois institutions. The contemporary history of Catalonia is defined, to a large extent, by its conflictual relationship with the church (Delgado Reference Delgado2002).

Within this context, the Black Madonna of Montserrat became, from the end of the nineteenth century, an icon arousing feelings of both devotion and subversion, often simultaneously, acquiring a double organic and disruptive dimension: As a spiritual national saint associated with Catalan nationalist claims, she invokes the idea of national community for the majority, including among progressive movements. Yet, as a figure fundamentally linked to the church and to the conservative Catalan nationalism dominant among the middle-class, she is targeted by anticlerical movements and appears at the center of revolutions, iconoclastic acts, and class struggles.

Bearing in mind this context, we will structure our discussion of the evolution of the Black Madonna of Montserrat in Catalonia around three closely linked concepts: national appropriation, mutual protection, and creative subversion.

National Appropriation

The first public display of the symbolization of the image in national terms occurred on 11 September 1881, when she was proclaimed the patron saint of Catalonia. This date commemorates the anniversary of the fall of Barcelona during the final siege of the Spanish War of Succession (1701–1714), which meant the principality’s loss of its own constitution and its submission to direct rule by the kingdom of Spain. Since 1881, 11 September has been a key date for Catalan nationalism,Footnote ¹⁰ and starting in 1886 it began to be regularly celebrated in public commemorations that continue today (Anguera Reference Anguera2008). Therefore, the act of proclaiming this black Madonna Catalonia’s patron saint is linked to the entrenchment of a new national calendar and the establishment of a historical memory of the country’s losses of liberties.

This imbrication between Montserrat and Catalan nationalism became evident during the Franco dictatorship (1939–1975). Up to that point, La Moreneta was an image associated with conservative Catalan nationalism, but from this period on it was adopted as a symbol of all nationalist families, including the abovementioned progressive movements. This dictatorship was the longest period of Catholic Church hegemony in Spain both in sociological and political terms. For Catalan nationalism, however, it was an ill-fated period, which once again brought the suppression of self-governing Catalan institutions, as well as the Catalan language, and the persecution of Catalan nationalist leaders, who were imprisoned, murdered, or exiled. The president of Catalonia, Lluís Companys (1882–1940), was executed by the new regime, and the Generalitat Footnote ¹¹ was exiled for almost forty years.

In 1947, only six years after the Civil War ended, the enthronement of what was known as the “Verge Bruna”Footnote ¹² took place in the Benedictine Monastery of Montserrat. There, defying the regime, attendees and organizers used Catalan in a public event for the first time since the beginning of the dictatorship (Dowlyng Reference Dowlyng2006). The consecration of the icon provided a place for political opposition. That day, the crowd interrupted the speech of the regime’s Minister for Foreign Affairs by singing “el Virolai” and they used the opportunity to read letters from Catalan exiles such as the cellist Pau Casals (who died an exile in Puerto Rico in 1973). Finally, two mountaineers from the clandestine Front Nacional de Catalunya, a Catalan nationalist party that dissolved in 1990, hung a senyera (Catalan flag) on one of the peaks of the mountain of Montserrat, and flyers in defense of Catalan were distributed among the fifty thousand attendees (Bardolet Reference Bardolet1997).

In 1956, as a consequence of these events, writers from the Països Catalans (Catalan countries)Footnote ¹³ offered a literary coronation to the Black Madonna of Montserrat to thank her for her “courage,” in another political act praising Catalanness linked consubstantially to the cult to the image. Taking part were authors such as Salvador Espriu, Joan Fuster, and Pere Quart, all renowned figures in the cultural sphere of the Catalan language during the twentieth century’s second half.

Again, the Black Madonna of Montserrat as a national symbol initially appeared in association with the Catholic and conservative Catalan nationalism of Torres i Bages. However, the enthronement event in 1947, exploited by opponents of Franco’s regime, led to the use of the icon in secular sectors, which turned La Moreneta into a core symbol of the Catalan nationalist movement. This is a sheer example of what Hank Johnson has aptly named “religio-oppositional subcultures” (Reference Johnson1989). These two attitudes in relation to the black Madonna can still be perceived today.

As a result of Catalonia’s independence process, the strong inter-classist and inter-confessional nature of the image’s use has become still more evident. Thus, the Monastery of Montserrat has become the stage for secessionist protests that have assembled all types of political sensitivities (from the CUP to the more conservative wing of the PDCATFootnote ¹⁴). The missals of the monastery have openly discussed the freeing of Catalan political prisoners, thereby defying the episcopal conference, the Catholic Church’s highest body in the Spanish state, which opposes the Catalan independence movement. The Catalan National Assembly and Òmnium, the main civil entities of Catalan sovereignty, promoted an event in support of the political prisoners in which a human chain was formed to carry photos of the prisoners to the replica of the virgin at the summit of Cavall Bernat, one peak of the Montserrat range (figure 2). All of these examples reveal that the mythification of the space and the icon of the Black Madonna of Montserrat by political and cultural Catalan nationalism is the most defining and long-standing element of the image. This political aspect can also be observed in many of the image’s diasporas, such as that in Alghero.

Figure 2: Independentist pilgrimage to Montserrat, 2018. @FaranelCIM.

Nevertheless, the image of this black Madonna has also been used since the Civil War by sectors opposing Catalan nationalism. Aware of its symbolic potential, they have tried to imbue it with new ideological content associated with Spanish nationalism. The first notable such display was by the regiment of Tercio de Requetés de la Virgen de Montserrat, a military unit made up of Catalans who participated in the Francoist uprising in 1936. For a more recent example, in 2018, during the independence conflict, a Spanish nationalist group placed a Spanish flag at the feet of the black Madonna. A digital channel that reported on the events did not hold back and labeled the offering an “offense.”Footnote ¹⁵ This type of “national desecration” shows the nature of the icon as an image-person (Mitchell Reference Mitchell2005) and the metonymical relation between the black Madonna and Catalonia. It also illustrates how the real political rivalry surrounding this image no longer takes place between the different sectors of Catalan nationalism, as was the case at the end of the twentieth century, but between those in favor of and those against political Catalan nationalism.

Creative Subversion

The third key category with which to understand the evolution of the image of the Black Madonna of Montserrat is that of “subversion.” We use this term to refer to a set of transgressive, and often creative practices around the icon that first emerged in 1975, coinciding with the end of the dictatorship. These practices, which often mix politics with artistic experimentation, update and reinvent the iconoclastic and anticlerical impulse that has flourished in Catalonia since the beginning of the Civil War. In this new anticlericalism, imbued with political satire, the black Madonna becomes subject to diverse claims and discourses.

One example of this newer wave of subversion of the image took place in 1987 when a group of rock climbers seized it at the summit of Cavall Bernat.Footnote ²⁴ In several anonymous letters they demanded ransom and threatened to violate the figure. It was never returned, and soon after a replica replaced the stolen one.

In 2013 another controversy arose over what the episcopal conference deemed an “inappropriate” use of the icon. The trigger was the Christmastime sale of a black Madonna caganera,Footnote ²⁵ a figure of a shepherd defecating, by traditional Catalan nativity scene makers. The event raised such a commotion that they were taken to court for offending religious sentiment. That year the controversial figure was the second most sold in Catalonia, after a pro-independence caganer (figure 3).

Figure 3: Moreneta caganera. Canals personal collection. Roger Canals photo, 2021.

The most controversial event in recent times was when the Socialist Organisation of National Liberation—Endavant (OSAN)—deployed the image for a campaign supporting the LGTBI community, an explicitly transgressive and at the same time openly pro-independence act. In their campaign poster, the black Madonna and Our Lady of the Forsaken—patroness of Valencia, with white skin—kiss under the slogan, “Against religious oppression, love however you want,” a claim that was both anti-religious and pan-Catalan.Footnote ²⁶ This campaign ignited criticism from religious entities that considered it a desecration, and they promoted further compensatory masses in the city of Valencia. One year later, in response to the angry reactions, the independence and anti-capitalist youth organization ARRAN decided to animate the poster further and filmed a performance in which two girls kissed in front of the image at the Monastery of Montserrat. This film was widely shared on social media on 26 April, the day of LGTB visibility (figure 4).

Figure 4: Poster from ENDAVANT. Estima com vulgues (Love however you want). Used with maker’s permission.

On 11 September 2013, anarchist collectives used the image satirically as part of their boycott of the main activities that the independence movement had planned for Catalonia’s national day. This date has always been one for holding sovereignty protests, which have been mass protests since the movement’s beginning in 2012. Since then, the protests have made the most of the human potential gathered, organizing large performances. In 2013, protesters were called to form a giant 11-kilometer-long V in Barcelona, called “Via Catalana.” It could be seen from the sky with the colors of the Catalan flag and was used by anarchist collectives who converted it into a giant A, adding a second protest to the central intersections. They employed an image of the Virgin of Montserrat wearing an anarchist militia hat bearing the motto “Catalunya will always be blacker than the black Madonna” (the color black defines anarchism). This is yet another example of subversion and iconic appropriation, in this case by a third community that does not, theoretically, fall under Catalan or Spanish nationalism.

We can add to these examples the countless memes and visual jokes about the black Madonna circulating on the internet.Footnote ²⁷ In one, with a notable Spanish nationalist tone, she appears as a Marian figure crushing the urns used in the first independence consultation in 2014. Others show the national police detaining her for being “black” and a Jihadist, because she wears a veil. These volatile and often anonymous memes are related to the long iconoclast tradition we have noted, taking it to extremes and adapting it to new digital formats and language modes. These new images have, recursively, contributed to the icon of La Moreneta’s meaning.

This brief historical overview shows that, since the nineteenth century’s end, the image of the black Madonna has been subjected to a constant process of re-mythification. It has been appropriated by different political movements and subjected to antagonistic twists that have altered what it has come to represent and how it has been used through a process of iconic appropriations, instrumentalizations, and subversions. In contemporary Catalonia, we are witnessing a struggle of legitimacies taking place around how the image is used and defined. All of the actors involved seem to take for granted the consubstantial link between the virgin and the country, though implicitly. It is as if everyone accepted the idea that redefining the virgin opens doors to reinventing the nation’s identity; or, on the contrary, that devising a “new” Catalonia must entail transforming the meanings and uses of the black Madonna’s image. Furthermore, we can perceive in this iconic dispute that the black Madonna has always been “more than an image.” Along the lines of Pina-Cabral (Reference Pina-Cabral2019), we can say that La Verge de Montserrat is a “meta-person,” or rather a meta-image: she is kidnapped, offended, worshipped, and even threatened with violation, but is also capable of protecting the country and guiding its national destiny. She has suffered the tragedies of the “Catalan people” while also being a transcendent entity that has situated itself above historical contingencies. For the black Madonna, image, person, and country become blurred: Montserrat does not only represent or “symbolize” Catalonia, but makes it, at least partially.

The intimate link of mutuality between Catalonia and the black Madonna inspired us to compare the evolution of the image there with its presence in other territories. The sections that follow will explore some of these iconic paths, examining the lives of La Moreneta in Puerto Rico, Equatorial Guinea, and Alghero. This exercise of comparison is of interest both analytically and politically. Our non-Eurocentric approach will challenge well-established analytical categories such as “original” and “copy,” and “center” and “periphery.” Our stance is not just that all images of La Moreneta are equally legitimate (that is, all are “original”), but that the figure’s complexity can only be grasped by assuming a relational stance that can pull its multiple versions into dialogue. La Moreneta is not an image, but rather a set of heterogenous yet mutually related copies that are always in motion.

We have not chosen these three countries randomly; they represent three different cultural areas—the Caribbean, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Africa—and therefore, three potential models of “local reappropriation” (Muñoz and Canals Reference Muñoz and Canals2020). We will show that these models range from iconic dissociation (Guinea and, partly, Puerto Rico) to iconic identification (Alghero).

Colonial Paths: From Puerto Rico to Equatorial Guinea

We have seen that La Mare de Déu de Montserrat is an image deeply rooted in Catalonia. It is also a universal image, present on four continents. According to data provided by the Monastery of Montserrat, in 2018 150 replicas of La Moreneta were recorded in churches outside of Catalonia, in twenty-nine countries (though this number is not definitive).Footnote ²⁸ The iconic paths of these images are diverse and range from missionary exportations during colonial occupations to the establishment of replicas in new locations for political or individual, personal reasons. Here we will analyze two colonial episodes: sixteenth-century Puerto Rico and twentieth-century Equatorial Guinea.

The image of the black Madonna is found widely across Latin America and the Caribbean due to historical interactions between Catalonia and the lands of the badly named “New World,” and more specifically, to evangelization policies pursued there starting in the sixteenth century.Footnote ²⁹ In Puerto Rico, the cult of the Virgin of Montserrat centers mainly on the town of Hormigueros, where she is the local patron saint, though La Montserrate (as she is known there) is considered a national divinity and is well-known by the entire population. The main festival devoted to her takes place on 8 September. Hormigueros, in the west of the island, lies at the foot of a high hill upon which sits the Basílica Menor de la Virgen de Montserrate (Basilica of Our Lady of Montserrate).

The history of the cult and the La Montserrate image here is relatively unknown and there has been much confusion.Footnote ³⁰ The most plausible hypothesis is that the cult to the black Madonna arrived on the island during the sixteenth century through the actions of Catalan Benedictine monks, in a context in which the indigenous population was nearly exterminated and the European settler-colonists were benefiting from the labor of enslaved Africans (Picó Reference Picó1986). The first historical evidence of the construction of the temple that bears her name dates to the sixteenth century. The oldest written canonical account of the myth of La Montserrate in Hormigueros and the cult associated with her appears in the 1644 writings of Diego de Torres Vargas (1615–1670), a priest from the San Juan Cathedral.Footnote ³¹ The oldest wooden sculptures that have been found devoted to her on the island, and specifically in the zone of Hormigueros, are from the eighteenth century (Mac Coy Jordán Reference Mac Coy Jordán2011: 145). As in other places in Latin America, the wooden sculptures and holy print images were key to the spread of the cult of Montserrat in Puerto Rico (Quintero Rivera Reference Quintero Rivera2003). Put differently, La Montserrate became popular in the Caribbean not only through images but rather as an image.

The most widely known myth about what is known as “the miracle” of La Montserrate relates the story of Giraldo (or Gerardo) González, a sixteenth-century farmer. One day, at the foot of Hormigueros mountain, he found himself alone facing a bull ready to attack him. The farmer beseeched the virgin for help, and she appeared with her son and miraculously stopped the beast, which kneeled before the apparition. Some versions say this farmer was of Catalan origin, and others say he was blind. In any case, many ex-votos, wooden sculptures (talla de madera), and paintings refer to this miracle (figure 5). The most popular is from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and can be seen in the Cathedral of Hormigueros.Footnote ³² A second myth attributed to this virgin tells how, years after the first apparition, Giraldo González’ daughter became lost in the woods for three days and three nights. Everyone in the town searched for her in vain. Finally, the Virgin of Montserrat found her and took her back to her parents. The version of this story compiled by the local historian Cayetano Coll Toste describes the goddess as a woman with coffee-colored skin and black eyes (Reference Coll Toste2007), and many versions and ecclesial writings portray her as a “trigueña” (dark-skinned).

Figure 5: Top left: the miracle of La Montserrate in Puerto Rico, Roger Canals photo, 2011. Bottom left: La Montserrate, Basilica Menor de Nuestra Señora de Montserrate (Hormigueros, Puerto Rico), Roger Canals photo, 2011. Right: La Montserrate with the mountains of Montserrat in the background, main painting of the Basilica Menor de Nuestra Señora de Montserrate (Hormigueros, Puerto Rico).

Among people from Hormigueros, an idea circulates that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Virgin of Montserrat’s image was accepted and reappropriated by freed black slaves on the island. That it was a black virgin would likely have encouraged this appropriation. We have no historical evidence of this, however, beyond the indisputable popularity of the image among the Afro-descendent population in the region and the fact that she is popularly known as La Virgen Cimarrona (Zayas Micheli Reference Zayas Micheli1990).Footnote ³³ This term suggests the strong association between this figure and the experience of enslaved communities and their descendants, in a manner analogous to how La Virgen de la Regla may encapsulate the experiences of Afro-descendant women in Cuba (Pérez Reference Pérez2010). For this reason, the image of the Virgin of Montserrat, also known in Puerto Rico as “La Virgen Morena,” is often present in religious altars of what are known as “Afro-American religions,” widely practiced on the island.Footnote ³⁴

One main characteristic of the representation of the Black Madonna of Montserrat in Puerto Rico is her iconographic plurality. The goddess is represented through different ethnic traits, “white,” “Black,” “mestiza,” or “Indian.” This is common in the Caribbean, a region historically marked by intense “racial” and cultural fusion (McDannell Reference McDannell1995). We can identify at least four canonical representations of the Virgin of Montserrat on the island. The first is as the black virgin, often with features reminiscent of Romanesque art, found mainly in the ex-votos and the wooden sculptures, and more resembling the “original” image from Catalonia. The second corresponds to an eighteenth-century painting in which the virgin appears as a white woman, with the mountains of Montserrat in the background. One hypothesis is that the image of the Mother of God corresponds to the Virgin of Oriola, in Valencia (Spain), and the mountains of Montserrat were likely represented by holy print images from Catalonia brought over by Benedictine monks. In a third representation, in the basilica of Hormigueros we find the Virgin of Montserrat depicted as a white woman. This image became popular in the late nineteenth century and is the most official representation of this figure, used by the church for processions and institutional announcements. Lastly, in esoteric shops one encounters an image of the Virgin of Montserrat as a black divinity but with a white son. It is difficult to date the origin of this representation, but we can easily interpret it as a more or less conscious materialization of “whitening” policies, in which the whitening of the Latin American population was seen as a historical duty in the name of social, moral, and cultural progress. In addition to these representations, we find images that local people (sellers of the botánicas) have described to us as “Indian” or “mulatto.”

During our fieldwork we found that some believers were unaware of the figure’s Catalan origin, or else questioned it, stating that “their” divinity had mistakenly received the name of a Catalan virgin but that she was originally a Puerto-Rican Marian apparition.Footnote ³⁵ This was the stance taken by one of the monks who dwelled in the church, who reinforced in his speech the “authenticity” and “locality” of La Montserrate. In another case, a young inhabitant of Hormigueros, who defined himself as having African roots, stated that La Montserrate was originally an “African divinity” (without specifying which oneFootnote ³⁶) with no relation to Catholicism, and even less with the Catalan world, and that enslaved people had intentionally “syncretized” the deity with the Virgin Mary so as to protect their cults from the control of the missionaries. These alternative narratives regarding the iconic path of the La Verge de Montserrat image reveal how the proliferation of versions of the “initial” image led to in a process of iconic dissociation. According to these narratives, what we understand as a “copy” of the image no longer refers to the alleged original image but to another entity, which remains somehow “hidden” beneath the apparent uniformity of different versions.

These processes of iconic dissociation, which we find also in the Equatorial Guinean case, are neither homogeneous nor irreversible. They are not homogeneous because there are Puerto Rican believers who link La Montserrate with Montserrat, and in Catalonia some claim that the Black Madonna of Montserrat is of African origin.Footnote ³⁷ They are not irreversible because, as historical products, the myths associated with images can change in varying contexts.

The Equatorial Guinean case reveals another example of a colonial iconic path, though its similarities with the Puerto Rican case are few, due especially to the way in which religion, and especially the Catholicism, is conceived there. The colonization of Equatorial Guinean occurred much later, and its duration was far shorter. Catholicism was introduced in Africa much more recently, excepting the case of Aksum and the Congo (Ki Zerbo Reference Ki Zerbo1985). Although the new faith became deeply rooted through the missions and colonial violence, its practice has always remained multiform and permeable to local “religions,” probably because the missionization of the African population was much less effective than in Puerto Rico. Yet, unlike the Latin American cases, in Africa the Catholic religion and traditional religions coexisted more in practice, depending on uses and contexts.

Another huge gap between Central Africa and Latin America is found in the presence and centrality of the images. Generally, in religions of the former the cult of spirits is not conveyed through a material representation. Probably for this reason, despite the evident presence of virgins in the territory of Equatorial Guinea and the devotion to these images, autochthonous virgins have not proliferated, nor has their material aspect become an essential element for devotion. The only black virgin that has emerged on the African continent is that of Bisila, an image related to the exportation of Montserrat to that territory (Muñoz and Canals Reference Muñoz and Canals2020).

To understand the Black Madonna of Montserrat’s presence in the Gulf of Guinea, we must grasp the importance of the missions as institutions there during the colonial period. The Spanish state arrived on the island of Bioko around 1858, but it was not definitively occupied until the early twentieth century. The 1883 arrival of the Claretian order, of Catalan origin, gave a definitive boost to the colonization. Three years later the Claretians represented half of the white population on the island (Creus Reference Creus1996), which was mainly inhabited by Bubis, a Bantu ethnic group.Footnote ³⁸ The Claretian strategy, based on missions and agrarian colonization, was justified by the discourse of civilization. Through the educational system, Claretians introduced Christianity via various strategies, including religious replacement. This is a crucial aspect of how the Virgin of Montserrat took root there.

However, contrary to what we might suppose, it is unclear that the Claretians introduced the Black Madonna of Montserrat because they thought the colonized populations would accept it because it was black. Analysis of the primary sources the order published at the time indicates there were many different reasons. The local journal of the Catholic Church in Equatorial Guinea (La Guinea Española) shows that the black Madonna was introduced at the same time as other virgins, such as La Verge del Pilar and La Verge de la Mercè. We think the Black Madonna of Montserrat evoked the colonial Catalan community’s sentiment of national identity, mainly among missionaries and businesspeople. The first altar devoted to La Moreneta in Equatorial Guinea was in San Carlos, today’s Luba. Although we do not know exactly when the virgin was established as a patron saint, we know that the image arrived after that, on 13 December 1904. So, initially there was no physical image in the territory, and what we see is an iconic path marked by a dissociation between cult and image. This dissociation undoubtedly went against Catholic norms, and it has endured until today.

Again, there appears to have been no religious strategy behind establishing the black Madonna in Equatorial Guinea. Missionaries and businesspeople of the territory organized a collection to purchase the image in the peninsula.Footnote ³⁹ Twenty-five people made donations, most of them Catalan. Its arrival in 1904 inaugurated the cult of the icon. Through the image, Catalan communities living in Bioko were appealing to their identity, in theory with no nationalist connotation, although, again, there were at that time connections between conservative Catalan nationalism and the church. All the missionaries would sing these verses when they left the port of Barcelona for tropical territories, entrusting their fate to the Virgin of Montserrat: “Tomorrow on a fragile boat / I must sail out to sea / I will say goodbye to my country / the last goodbye, perhaps / If God does not want me to return / I will leave my heart to you, / Virgin of Montserrat” (García, Nogué, and Zusman Reference Garcia, Nogué and Zusman2008: 134).

Later, her image and patronage arrived in Rebola, in the island territory of Las Palmas, and in the continental region of Efulan. The story of the latter icon reveals the unique process through which the Black Madonna of Montserrat was transformed in Equatorial Guinea and its syncretic relationship with the indigenous identities from which new cults and transmuted figures appeared. This initiative was not local but came from the colonist community. At the origin of this path, we find Modest Gené (1914–1983), a Catalan sculptor who arrived at Francoist Guinea in 1957. His publicly funded artistic mission was a commission at the service of imperialism, to model indigenous prototypes within the scope of what is known as “scientific racism” (Sánchez Arteaga Reference Sánchez Arteaga2006).Footnote ⁴⁰ During this same period he also worked for the missions, sculpting religious imagery.

His first sacred work in Equatorial Guinea was a new reproduction of the Black Madonna of Montserrat for the church of San Carlos. That was his last replica of the icon, and he then decided to transform the figure and “make her African.” He created several black Mothers of God for different equatorial locations, the most unique being the one he made in Efulan in 1966. The sculpture is very large, wears local clothing, and has facial features of the Fang ethnic group, the majority population in the area.Footnote ⁴¹ Two years later, in 1968, he sculpted the Virgin of Bisila (figure 6), inspired by his work on the Virgin of Montserrat and representing a creative fusion of the Virgin Mary and the Bubi spirit Bisila. With this icon, a new cult based on religious replacement began, but it incorporated elements of the “traditional” religion of the local Bubi communities. The missionaries tried to liken the Bubi fertility spirit Bisila to the Catholic virgin, and created an image based on the imagery of Western virgins, which up to that point had no material appearance. The image inaugurated the new Bubi cult. The cult recognized the legitimacy of Catholic rites in Equatorial Guinea, because there were many Christians due to the colonial project and because Bisila was the first and only African virgin to be recognized by the Vatican, in 1987. The Bubi cult remains active today.Footnote ⁴²

Figure 6: Version of the statue of Bisila belonging the the Associació catalano-guineana Verge de Bisila (Barcelona). Roger Canals photo, 2017.

In the images of Montserrat and Bisila we observe a dialogue between two complementary icons, and their paths share many features. The sculptor who defined Bisila was clearly inspired by the La Moreneta and explored ways to make her face and body African. Moreover, the Virgin of Montserrat was already present on many altars on the island during the twentieth century. These circumstances explain the complementarity of the two figures in both cults and the frequent transmutation between the two icons. We observed this in 2017 during the celebration of the day of Bisila in the town of Rebola on 15 August, in the church of Montserrat.Footnote ⁴³ The black Madonna’s image presided over the altar beside Bisila. That day, some of the popos Footnote ⁴⁴ clothing that people wore sported the image of the black Madonna in the form of a holy print image, and the mass mixed references to the two virgins.

Today, the cults complement each other. The Virgin of Montserrat in Equatorial Guinea arrived on the request of a Catalan community that longed for its home symbols, and indirectly it highlighted the violent process of acculturation and missionary Christianization. Further, the rise of the Catholic cult of Bisila responded to the church’s need to transform the “pagan” religion through religious replacement—a process that led to a new cult, without banishing precolonial sacred practices—with a figure created by a sculptor clearly inspired by the Black Madonna of Montserrat. After independence the two images took separate paths and today, they are accepted and worshipped both in Equatorial Guinea and in the diaspora. The two virgins in both contexts generate new dialogues and forms of rituality, because just as Montserrat arrived in Equatorial Guinea more than one hundred years ago, Bisila arrived in Catalonia in the 1970s and gained ground as an icon of African communities in the city of Barcelona.

The Reencounter of Alghero

The last iconic path of the Black Madonna of Montserrat that we will describe is located in the Mediterranean. The history of La Montserrat in Alghero dates to 1960, although on the island of Sardinia it goes back further. To understand this iconic path we must begin at the time of the Catalan-Aragonese crown, which Sardinia was under.Footnote ⁴⁵ During the Catalan control of the island from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the northeastern city of Alghero was repopulated by Catalans and the Sardinian population was expelled from the region, which explains the different linguistic roots in the island’s ethnic map (Caria Reference Caria1990).Footnote ⁴⁶ Between 1706 and 1715, during the Spanish War of Succession (1701–1715), the crown lost the majority of these territories, including the city of Alghero. This milestone marks the end of any effective Catalan presence in the city with the cessation of sovereignty to the House of Savoy. Then began a forgotten period that lasted until the Renaixença, when this small territory that had preserved the Catalan language was “rediscovered.” At the end of the nineteenth century a national consciousness linked to language and traditions was born in Catalonia, and a new contact was initiated, almost by chance, to reestablish historical links. This is known as the first “reencounter” (el retrobament).

It began in 1864, when a Sardinian filing clerk named Ignazio Pillito took part in the Jocs Florals de Barcelona, a literary exhibition to promote the Catalan language, established in mid-nineteenth century Catalonia. Manuel Milà i Fontanals, one of the notable intellectuals of the Renaixença present at the exhibition, asked Pillito where he had learned Catalan, and he replied that he had always known how to speak it at home, in the city of Alghero. Catalan intellectuals thus discovered that the language was used there, and began a series of trips that culminated in a visit by Eduard Toda in 1888. He was responsible for this reencounter, and the popular interest it generated on the shores of both sides of the Mediterranean Sea through his two books Un poble català d’Itàlia: L’Alguer (1888), and Records catalans de Sardenya (1903). Toda also promoted the Algherese creation of a Catalan cultural institution called La Palmavera (also the name of a Catalan nationalist group founded in 1966), which solidified the new cultural awareness. The impact of Renaixença was not limited to the local scene, and it initiated a larger process of cultural links and transmissions between the “Catalan Countries,” which in Alghero culminated in the arrival of the Black Madonna of Montserrat in 1960.

Despite the numerous contacts and trips between the two territories and a mutual curiosity, from the 1910s, when La Palmavera closed, Alghero once again became isolated from the Catalan countries. The survival of Catalan in the territory remained exceptional, being spoken by as an isolated linguistic minority. And, as one would expect, the city’s linkage with Italy meant that it followed a politically different course, within tumultuous circumstances. The disconnection can be explained by the impact of both world wars and Mussolini’s long dictatorship. Not until after the Second World War did a second Algherese Renaixença occur, with a revived appreciation of the language and culture and the creation of new associations such as the Centre d’Estudis Algueresos (today, Obra Cultural l’Alguer).Footnote ⁴⁷ Yet, in this context, Catalonia and the other Catalan-speaking territories, apart from the French Roussillon, suffered the darkness of the Franco dictatorship and the Spanish state’s repression of subnational identities. Paradoxically, this is why in 1960 the definitive event of territorial “town twinning” occurred, an act of resistance that had the Black Madonna of Montserrat as its icon and protagonist.

On 24 August 1960, a boat with 139 intellectuals from Catalan-speaking territories arrived at Alghero from Barcelona. They found the festive port packed with welcoming Catalan exiles and thousands of Algherese. As a prominent part of the joining of the towns, a replica of the Black Madonna of Montserrat was taken from the boat and carried in procession through the city to the cathedral, where she remains to this day. It is said that the image guided the boat on the crossing and protected it from a storm. The popular fervor that accompanied the event is still recalled in the Sardinian city, and it was the culmination of the contacts between two separate realities that had been forced to live separately. The trip was possible because of Pere Català, who had “rediscovered” Alghero in 1957 and that same year published the essay Invitació a l’Alguer Actual (Reference Català Roca1957). It was through that contact, and the work carried out with the Centre d’Estudis Algueresos, that this cultural voyage was organized, inspected and overseen though it was by the Franco regime. The evident exaltation of Catalan nationalism led the regime to send a threatening notice to participants, and the Spanish press completely ignored its success. The idea of having the black Madonna participate was suggested during the preparations for the voyage when Abbot Aureli Escarré, a monk from the monastery and a renowned Catalan nationalist and Franco opponent,Footnote ⁴⁸ offered a replica of the Virgin of Montserrat for the crossing. This image was taken from the Monastery of Montserrat to Barcelona and stored in the Mercè Church until the departure date. The image was moved from the sanctuary to the Algherese Cathedral, a trip which had explicit mythological connotations—it was presented by intellectuals from La Renaixença as a type of return to Ithaca to inaugurate the revival of Catalonia—that could not be explained so much by religious reasons as by the political opposition and nationalist demands expressed through a symbol—the black Madonna—that had taken on a national sacredness.

One year after this journey to the city of Alghero, the Catalan Jocs florals took place there. Since 1941, this event had been held in exile and had drawn large numbers of Catalan nationalists and Franco opponents.Footnote ⁴⁹ It led to a rebirth of the local culture, the editing of magazines and books in Catalan, and the creation of an activist space for the entire Catalan-speaking community, in one of the few Catalan countries not occupied by the dictatorship.

Today, the black Madonna of Montserrat dominates the cathedral of Alghero. With her are crests representing the mountain of Montserrat, recalling the inseparable link between the icon and that landscape. The local population clearly knows the image, although only the Catalan nationalist minority still elevate it to the rank of national icon. In this regard, it is important to observe that Alghero exemplifies the iconic closeness between black virgins. One of the most popular virgins in Alghero, who arrived before the Black Madonna of Montserrat, is the Madonna of Vallverd. In Sardinia, the latter divinity is more popular than the former and is associated with the fields, shepherds, and Sardinian culture. Her chapel is on the city’s outskirts amid grazing fields. A seventeenth-century legend tells how, at that time, people wanted to take Vallverd to the cathedral but the image “refused to go,” wanting to remain in the rural setting.Footnote ⁵⁰ Several attempts to take the image to the city center failed. Since the “restoration” of the Black Madonna of Montserrat in the 1960s, a relationship has developed between the two virgins, with the Montserrat virgin being associated with the Catalan culture and urban life and Vallverd with the Sardinian world and rural life. This complementarity has led to exchanges of images—iconic gift and counter-gift—between Alghero and Catalonia. In reciprocity for the trip from Montserrat to Alghero in 1960, in 2002 a replica of the Madonna of Vallverd was gifted to Montserrat. These image exchanges have helped weave together both political relationships and national identities. They also display the value of the replica, which appears as an extension of the original, with which it retains a relationship of continuity. We see that the copy acts like an extension of the original image, while the original image is an extension of the divinity and also of the nation’s landscape and population. Between the territories, images, and people a series of relationships of participation and alliance have been established, which link objects, subjects, and places, through which unfolds history, understood as a non-linear process produced in the social field.