Tepeyac or the Hill of Tepeyac, historically known by the names Tepeyacac and Tepeaquilla, is located inside Gustavo A. Madero, the northernmost ''Alcaldía'' or

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

. According to the Catholic tradition, it is the site where

Saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

Juan Diego Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (1474–1548), also known simply as Juan Diego (), was a Nahua peasant and Marian visionary. He is said to have been granted apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe on four occasions in December 1531: three at the hill o ...

met the

Virgin of Guadalupe Our Lady of Guadalupe (), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe (), is a Catholic Church, Catholic Titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with four Marian apparitions to Juan Diego and one to his uncle, J ...

in December 1531, and received the iconic image of the Lady of Guadalupe. The

Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe The Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe, officially called Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe (in English: Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe) is a basilica of the Catholic Church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary in her invoc ...

located there is one of the most visited Catholic shrines in the world. Spanish colonists erected a Catholic chapel at the site, Our Lady of Guadalupe, "the place of many miracles."Diaz, B., 1969, The Conquest of New Spain, London: Penguin Books, It forms part of the Sierra de Guadalupe mountain range.

Pre-Columbian history

Tepeyac Hill "had been a place for worshipping Aztec earth goddesses." Tepeyac is believed to have been a

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

worship site for the

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

mother

goddess A goddess is a female deity. In some faiths, a sacred female figure holds a central place in religious prayer and worship. For example, Shaktism (one of the three major Hinduism, Hindu sects), holds that the ultimate deity, the source of all re ...

Tonantzin Tonantzin ( ) is a Nahuatl title composed of ''to-'' "our" + ''nān'' "mother" + ''-tzin'' "(honorific suffix)". When addressing Tonantzin directly, men use the suffixed vocative form ''Tonāntziné'' [], and women use the unsuffixed vocative fo ...

Coatlaxopeuh ("Tonantzin" is a title of the greatest respect and "Coatlaxopeuh" is a name).

Etymology

In Nahuatl language, Nahuatl, ''Tepeyacac'' is a proper noun, a combination of ''tepetl'' ("mountain"), ''yacatl'' ("nose"), and the relational word ''-c'', ("at"). According to scholars of the

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

language, "the term would generally be expected to mean 'a settlement on the ridge or brow of a hill.' Since ''yacatl'' (the nose going first) often implies antecedence, here the word may refer to the fact that the hill is the first and most prominent of a series of three."

References

{{Authority control Hills of Mexico Landforms of Mexico City Gustavo A. Madero, Mexico City Our Lady of Guadalupe

Pre-Columbian history

Etymology

See also

References