Subversive bodies - sacred bodies

Gender bending in a Venezuelan religion

Cesar Escalona, Venezuela.

Maria Lionza is the name of a goddess of indigenous and mestizo origin who as a symbol, centralizes an
indigenous religion of the Venezuelan territory that has been configured continuously and accelerated in the
historical time of this nation. The goddess Maria Lionza, a sacred woman who embodies the deepest identity
senses of Venezuelan culture. Originating from a confluence of mythological slopes: Amazon and Andean
dramatically converged before the European colonization, generating multiple versions of an untamed woman,
who before the passage of colonial time was superimposed on figures of legendary character, advancing in a
hidden way and sheltered by populations rural and peasant women who made it reach the twentieth century,
catalysing and giving fruit to a religious system that goes under its provocative figure.

A religion of the bodies through which practitioners of religion receive messages through trance rituals and
spiritual possession, which allow physical, discursive and mental communication with the deities that the
goddess directs. Polytheistic religion that owns a complex sacred pantheon constituted by a series of mythical,
legendary and historical local, national and universal identities, and more specifically of the official and local
history of the Venezuelan territory. Speaking of María Lionza is talking about cultural resistance, the social
actors who historically have configured and constituted this complex religious system come from different
sectors of Venezuelan society but more specifically from subaltern identities, that is why Maria Lionza as
indigenous and mestizo goddess, it shelters in its religion a series of deities and spiritual entities of different
subcultures or social ethnic groups which are not positioned or reflected in the official religions, which
historically have attacked this religious system for the rich anticolonial symbolism and which is committed to a
diversity and cultural plurality that can become threatening to Western institutions and power.
 Maria Lionza celebration day. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.

The history of the religious system must be understood as a continuous integration of

imaginaries, rituals and religions that have converged in the Venezuelan territory. A great
manifestation of the Latin American spirit: territories and nations that have protected a
plurality of racial, ethnic and ideological origins, but in the case of this Venezuelan religion,
the integration and expression of subcultures is noticeable, how are you going this religious
system have the different religious and symbolic spiritual cultures of indigenous and native
groups of the Latin American territory more specifically Venezuelan with its Amazonian,
Andean and Caribbean aspects that the Venezuelan territory congregates, besides the strong
religious conflict that was generated in the colony with the imposition of Catholicism in the
Latin American territories before this reality, Maria Lionza coupled the ritual and imaginary
religions of the enslaved of the brought of Africa in the colony. This union of imaginary rituals
and religions was channeled under the figure of the goddess Maria Lionza and in a territory of
a state of Venezuela, called Yaracuy in which there is a mountain that bears his name, a
mountain that since pre-Hispanic times has been the scene of funerary rituals and at present it
is the primordial center of this religion.
 Maria Lionza procession. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2015.

María Lionza is a body religion, from the images the imaginary represented in its symbols,
images and statuettes, to the centrality of the rituals of this religion that manifest themselves in
rituals of spiritual possession in which spirits of the sacred pantheon are incorporated into the
believers previously trained to receive in their body the spiritual entities that come to do healing
rituals, to give messages as spiritual guides. Maria Lionza is a religion of the body where there
is also a plurality of expressions: male and female bodies that have a plasticity and flexibility to
be seen as a material and a platform for gender change in ritual contexts, it is also a religion
where participants express openly his corporality and the sensual desires of the body. The
warrior body of the natives, the powerful sensual body of Afro-Africans, the techniques of
Viking fakirism, the sensuality and power of indigenous women and the sacredness of Catholic
saints, all these bodily possibilities can be seen and venerated in the religion of María Lionza
that shelters all this plurality of corporal manifestations.
 Maria Lionza sacred pantheon. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2016.

Maria Lionza in her sacred pantheon possesses the widest plurality and integration of ethnic,
social, political and symbolic identities of the whole planet, mainly in her we see manifested the
three ethnic roots of the Venezuelan society: the indigenous, the European Hispanic and the
afrodescendant , which as symbolic pillars establish a notion of ethnic integration that is
manifested in the imagery and positions of the gods, but also Maria Lionza as an integrative
religious system also Integra symbols that have often been imposed by other religions such as
Catholicism and its pantheon of Catholic saints, in addition to the current influences of
Santeria and Paleria as Afro-Caribbean religions. In the religion of María Lionza we can find
images and symbols of the peasantry, of the workers sectors, of the popular Venezuelan tradition
as drivers, housewives, but also integrates elements of identities of the New Age known as gods
of India, Egyptians and from China. In recent decades he has also integrated subcultures and
subalterns such as the saint malandros who were criminals in life who are now venerated as
protection saints.
Maria Lionza devotee. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2018.
Due to this ethnic, historical, cultural, and symbolic diversity that shelters the region of María
Lionza, it is a setting and a territory that has allowed a complete and open integration of the
different manifestations of gender diversity and expressions of sexual desire. Maria Lionza is a
religious platform Widely open to sexual diversity and to the expression and spiritual treatment
of sexuality, love and romance. In this scenario we have documented and interpreted groups of
subalterns as transsexuals and homosexuals have configured small societies within the religion
and the ritual times in which they take advantage of their performative gifts and also a duality
that these people know how to handle between the masculine and the feminine. have positioned
themselves in the religious system of the last decade in a prominent way to homosexuals and
transsexuals in the mountain of Maria Lionza, now they are seen as powerful priests and
priestesses of the religious system coordinating rituals by statising the altars and channeling
masculine and feminine spirits of powerful and colorful way.

Tomasa. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.

Winnie. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.
India Rosa. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2018.
India Rosa. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2018.

Negrita. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2018.

When finding a space for identification, socialization and spiritual response to
their problems, the incidence of homosexual and transsexual groups that also make
up devotional and pilgrimage groups to the mountain of Maria Lionza have become
popular in the last decade. their efforts are channeling and bringing aesthetic and
symbolic elements to this religious system in many cases transforming even the
aesthetics of the altars and the image of the goddess, which increasingly resembles
the goddesses and western aesthetics of Drag Queens and beauty contests.

Makeup for the goddes. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.
Makeup for the goddes. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.

flowers for the goddes. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.
Posseion and cleaning ritual. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2018.
In Maria Lionza religion, the transsexual and homosexual body positions itself in a
wide space of cultural resistance where the western boundaries of gender and
corporality are reaffirmed and vanished. It is a space of plurality where different
ethnic racial class possibilities and expressions are intertwined and how we can
evidence of gender and sexual expression.

Negra Francisca. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2016.

Negra Francisca. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2016.
Negra Catalina. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2016.

Negra Catalina. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.

The transsexual body is highly valued and also transgressive in this religion as we
speak of people who unfold the normed limits of the Western genre and through
this religious system can make a powerful use of their needs. But also spiritual
skills to transcend the material limits of the body embodying both male and female
entities in the rituals of Maria Lionza.

Nino and hers patients. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.
 velación. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.

Blessing of Catalina. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2015.

Tomasa and devotee. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2014.
The return. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2018.
Negra Francisca kiss. Maria Lionza Mountain, Yaracuy, Venezuela, 2015.