Quilt Piece

QUILT PROJECT 2010
 
ULACIT

CULTURA Y SOCIEDAD CONTEMPORÁNEA AMERICANA

Professor: Neli Santiago
Student: Leonie Krug

Resource Notes
My quilt piece shows different images related to a variety of German and Costarican legends. That because I had a hard time choosing two stories I could easily compare. I finally chose the following stories, because they show lots of similarities. My research included phone calls to my mother and my husband’s grandmother.
I have a quilt blanket my grandmother knitted. She made it in the after-war years. She gave it to my mother, and my mother gave it to me. It keeps your feet warm, no matter how cold it gets. For me it keeps the memory of my grandmother alive, so you can imagine that I treasure it.

Piece-of-quilt-Speech
My speech's topic is legends. I will compare the legend of how Jacobus got to Spain, and the legend of the virgin of Cartago, point out their similarities and what effects these legends have on the cultural components: products, practices, perspectives, persons and communities.

1. The legend of how Jakobus got to Spain:
After Jesus death Jakobus went for two years to Spain as a missioner. When he returned he was decapitated in Jerusalem. The Apostel took his body on a ship and did not navigate it. An angel let the ship to Galicia, the kingdom of queen Lupa. They took the body off the ship and put it on a stone, which formed itself like wax into a coffin. They asked for a honourable place for the body to be buried, but queen Lupa didn’t want to give them permission. But then magic things happened, wild bulls suddenly became tame and came to pull a cart with the body up to the queens castle. When she saw what had happened, she became Christian, and gave permission to bury the body.

Products
• The Book "Legenda aurea", printed in 1488 by Anton Koberger in Nürnberg.
The "Golden Legend“ was the most popular book in the Middle Age, much more read than the Bible, written in Latin by the monk and bishop Jacobus de Voragine between 1263 and 1273. It is a collection of the life stories of saints, the life of Jesus and other stories and explains the meaning of the religious seasons and rituals.
• The Jacobus shell, the symbol for a pilgrim.
• A medical card.
• A pilgrim pass to get the stamps, to be able to ask for shelter, to get the Compostela (pilgrimage certificate).

Practices
• The journey to Santiago in Spain (mostly people from Spain, France, Switzerland and Germany).
• People take a stone with them that represents the inner weight they want to free themselves from.
• In Foncebadon people should think about the stone and what weight it represents that they want to lose. From Foncebadon until Cruz de Ferro people walk silently.
Then they leave the stone in a conscientious act, to leave it to the earth to transform it.

Perspectives
• The meaning of the journey, to lose a personal inner weight, to find inner peace.

Persons
• Religious people who believe in the healing effect of the journey.

Communities
• Christian communities, mostly the ones in Spain, France, Switzerland and Germany.

2. The legend of the Virgin of Cartago

On August 2 in the year 1635, the legend of the virgin of Cartago tells that a little girl named Juana Pereira found a little black doll at the creek while she was playing there. Juana took the doll home, but the next day the doll was gone. When Juana returned to the creek, the doll was there. So it happened several times that Juana took the doll home, but the next day the doll reappeared at the creek. The priest heard of it and saw the wonder himself, and decided that the Virgin wanted a cathedral built on that spot. The Catholic Church agreed, and the graceful church is today considered the holiest in Costa Rica, and every August 2, the faithful make their pilgrimage (on foot) to the site.

Products
• The “Basilica de Nuestra Senora de los Angeles”, named for the Patron Saint of Costa Rica.
• Images, statues etc. of the virgin and the cathedral.
• Holy water.

Practices
• The pilgrimage to the cathedral on every August 2.
• People say prayers and ask the virgin for help.
• They take holy water with them to heal the sick at home and to solve personal problems.

Perspectives
• The meaning of the journey, the belief in the healing effect of the journey.

Persons
• Religious, faithful people who believe in the healing effect of the journey.

Communities
• Catholic communities in Costa Rica.