Mirra y Domingo

Day #4: History of Ladybugs and Chat Noirs Past.

Their names are Catarina de San Juan and Domingo Suárez. 

And i just love my culture so much that i had to dig a lot because apparently i don't know shit about it.

I found the origin of the China Poblana, the most common traditional female figure besides the Adelitas in my culture. Apparently, as the legends say, she was an indian little girl, called Mirra who was kidnapped by portuguese pirates and brought to Mexico by the orders of the viceroy to be a slave of his. Legend says that either she escaped from her captors and hid in a convent or that she was sold for ten times the price the viceroy was going to pay for her to a rich farmer. 

The one where she escapes and joins the convent, she gets re-named as Catarina de San Juan, and grows to be praised as a miraculous lady who had visions of the virgin Mary and baby Jesus.

The one where she gets sold to the rich Farmer as a slave, she lives all her life under the protection of said farmer and his wife, already being re-named as Catarina de San Juan. When the farmer dies he establishes on his will that even after his death his wife would take care of her on the condition to get married to the "Chinaco" of their farm. And this is where Domingo Suárez enters. 

A Chinaco was a farmboy in humble farms. I really don't know why Domingo was working in Catarina's Farm since they were a very rich one, and in rich Farms it was supposed to be the Charros, the ones whom did the job, switching from Farmboy work to entretainment.

Catarina was partially forced to marry Domingo, since there was a rumor that they had something going on. And legend says that even when they got married they slept on different beds because she was very religious and had previously taken vows of chastity back in India when she got re-named. People always said she was miraculous.

After Domingo died she went fully nun and moved to another convent to spend the rest of his life at peace. Then she kept having visions of the virgin Mary and baby Jesus. When she died she became a saint and is still today venerated in the state of Puebla in Mexico.

Legend says she was always wearing a sari along other indian traditional clothes. That's how she got the nickname of china [wich means chinesse] even if she was indian, because antique dumb mexican people used to call chinesse EVERYTHING that came from asia. Legend also says [as you know legends can be very confusing] that she got the nickname because of her husband, the chinaco, being called "The Chino" and she being "The China". 

Now, after all this mexican culture lecture I will tell you that I chose these two amazing people to be the past bearers of the miraculous because everything was so fitting and she was even called Catarina, wich means ladybug in spanish and... I pictured her in china poblana's red outfit fighting evil along side with El Charro Gato Negro and I just couldn't resist it. I'll talk about their secret identities on the next picture. Of them dressed as La Catarina Miagrosa and El Gato Negro.