| Abstrakt: |
Between 1988 and 1991, the author carried out three field studies at the colony of Nueva Jerusalén. The colony is situated in the Tiara Caliente region of central Michoacán State, west Mexico, near the large town of Puruarán. A charismatic priest, Father Nabor Cárdenas, founded Nueva Jerusalén in 1973, aided by a woman folk-saint, named Gabina Romero, and peasants from nearby towns. At its height, around 1980, the colony was probably home to as many as 5,000 vivientes or colonists, but since then has diminished to around 3,770. Since the colony's inception, more than three-quarters of its inhabitants have been Mexican peasants. The cause of the colony's founding was a series of apocalyptic apparitions of the Virgin of the Rosary to Gabina Romero, an uneducated peasant woman from Puruarán. According to the colony's charter myth, the Virgin gave decidedly apocalyptic warnings of chastisements which would soon befall sinful humanity if her warnings were not heeded. |
