ABSTRACT
From their very first encounter with the people of Mexico in 1517, more than a year before the arrival of Hernán Cortés, Europeans found indigenous images a source of wonder and amazement. The inspiration for these images and their meaning to the natives could only be a matter for speculation, but one fact was inescapable: representations of the divine feminine were clearly recognized. The chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo relates that the Spaniards identified ‘many idols of clay, wood, and stone; figures of gods and what seemed to be their wives’.1 For Cortés and the first conquistadors, all pre-Hispanic religious images were pagan objects and they wasted no time undertaking an aggressive campaign to systematically annihilate the ‘idols’. In doing so, Cortés went against the advice of his own chaplain, Mercedarian priest Bartolomé de Olmedo, who advised that he should not demand the destruction of all the Indians’ idols before they had an opportunity to be educated in the true faith.2 However, for Cortés, the military and the religious projects were inseparable. The conquistador understood himself to be entrusted with a spiritual mission: to replace all pagan idols with Christian images.
