Puerto Rico's Wooden Saints:
Images of
The Virgin of the Magi
Click on the thumbnails
to open the images in their own page
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 Carlos Santiago |
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 Nitza Mediavilla de Toste 1996 |
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 José A. Rosado 1998 |
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The Magi have
been popularly revered in Puerto Rico for many centuries and they have
been frequently linked with other Marian saints in images such as the
Three Marys, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Cleofas. The Magi are also known as the Three Kings, so there arises a confusion with an ancient cult of the Virgin of the Three Kings that exists in Spain--the name referring to the Catholic Kings of Spain and not the Magi. But in Puerto Rico the tradition of the Virgin Mary and the Three Kings is likely to have been brought by immigrants from the Canary Islands, which links Mary to the Magi: The Arrival of the Virgin of the Magi from the Canary Island tradition During the winter of 1545, some goat herders were pasturing their flocks in La Dehesa, on the isle of El Hierro, as had been the herders custom on that island since time immemorial. The closeness of a ship that was sailing West attracted their attention and they looked for a location where they could observe it better. The sailing ship passed Orchilla point. However, soon afterwards the ship turned about and crossed its own wake to return to the Sea of Las Calmas. It came to a stop in a sheltered bay. The goat herders moved closer to see what was happening. They observed how the ship's crew maneuvered the sails to reorient the bough of the ship toward the West and pass by the Orchilla point yet once more. Soon afterwards the ship heaved about and returned to the bay a second time. This strange behavior kept repeating over and over again until the herders decided to alert the Mayor, Bartolomé Morales, who decided to come down the next day with a group of armed men to see what was happening. All along the ship kept trying to unsuccessfully abandon the Sea of Las Calmas, because at each attempt the wind would change and force the ship back barely a few meters from land. The sailors were as puzzled as the herders. So when they saw a group of islanders approach the shore, they disembarked on a rowboat and went to meet them to tell them what was happening. After a period of conversation, each returned to their tasks: the herders returned to their goats and the sailors returned to their struggle with the strange circular winds. Thus passed the hours, days, weeks...and the ship continued its strange circular navigation. This continued until the ship's provisions came to an end and Bartolomé Morales was alerted so they could purchase foodstuffs. The captain remarked that he had no money, but he could give in payment an image of the virgin Mary that he had on the ship. They quickly agreed and the exchange took place on the 6th of January of the new year of 1546. All of a sudden a breeze began to blow which propelled the ship eastward, at the instant that the islanders were depositing the image in one of the caves of Caracol. The winds persisted this time and the ship became smaller as it sailed into the horizon. Because it was the day of the Magi, the decided to name the recently-acquired image the Virgin of the Magi, as it is still known. Redacted from this source . |