Gita Introduction

La China Poblana, Mexico

November 07, 2007

Dear Nikhil and Neil:

I last wrote to you about an Indian Princess who sailed to Korea and was the mother of the largest clan in Korea, known as the Karak or Kim.  This week, I am writing to you about another Princess who ended up in Mexico, although against her will.  It is a sad story, but true. This information was obtained from an article in IANS –Sunday 09/21/2003 and also from “India-Mexico: Similarities and encounters throughout history” by Eva Alexander Uchmany, Univ of Mexico. All of this information was written by three Jesuit priests who had heard much of Meera’s stories during confession and were determined to beatify her.

The story is as follows:

Meera (La China Poblana) was an 11-year-old Indian Princess when kidnapped by the Portuguese who colonized parts of India at that time. (Spanish conquistadors and Portuguese sailors ruled the seas in the 1600s.  Many hundreds of thousands of Indians, like the Africans, were taken out of India by the Europeans - the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, and the English – as servants, household help or slaves. )

  Meera was born in a Princely family in Rajasthan or Gujarat.  Meera remembered her father to be the Lord of a certain area, in addition to being a physician and a seer, “who knew how to quieten the tempests.”  Meera’s memories were distant and blurred, but she remembered her family as belonging either to the Kshatriya or Brahmin class.  One day at the tender young age of 11, when she was walking with her brother, she was kidnapped by Portuguese soldiers and taken by boat to Cochin, on the Malabar Coast.  She remembered the Portuguese Pepper Factory and a Fort.  She states that she was sold in Cochin as a slave.  In Cochin, she was evangelized and baptized by the Jesuits who gave her a Christian name, Catarina De San Juan.  After Cochin, her Portuguese captors took her to various ports, during which time she stated she was “mistreated” and suffered cruel imprisonment.

She was finally taken to Manila, Philippines and sold to Miguel De Sosa.

Throughout all this time, she missed her father and wanted to see him.  In Manila, she was made to take part in a procession and carry a Cross as a “penitent” and to do “penance” for her sins!!  At this point, she heard a voice saying “I will be your father” and she saw an image of Jesus of Nazareth.  She had several similar visions later in life.

De Sosa sold her in Puebla, Mexico to a rich merchant with whom she lived her difficult life from that tender young age until the age of 82 when she died.  She was told she had to marry a fellow slave, but “on the condition of separation of beds with the pillows and crucifixes.  Finally, her husband left her.  The Jesuit priests took this as yet another sign of her saintliness.  She died a slave in 1688 after a life of great suffering and sorrow.  Her unfortunate and difficult existence caused her to have various illnesses and respiratory complications.  She was nearly paralyzed at the time of her death, at the age of 82, still a slave bedridden with nobody to care for her, even though she was loved by many.

When Meera died, Church Bells were rung and people ran from allover, so that the  streets were crammed and guards could not hold the people back.  Her tomb, still preserved, announces that she was given to earth by the land of Mogor (land of Moghuls, meaning India) “after having lived for 82 years, loved principally by God.”

Catarina De San Juan (1609 to 1688).  The dress style now known as China Poblana is that of a white blouse, and a colorful embroidered red and green skirt. This is what Meera had been used to wearing in India and it has become the dress most worn in Mexico now.

La China Poblana means the Chinese girl from Puebla, but Chinese meant anything coming from the Far East, and Meera was brought to Mexico from the Philippines.

Three separate Jesuits priest wrote books based on her confessions to them and argued for her beatification based on her virtuosity and saintliness. However, in 1619, the church banned the three books written about her life by the Jesuits who were asking for her beatification and declared that the books were “useless, improbable, revelations, visions and apparitions, full of contradiction and improper, indecent, and impetuous comparisons, with no more foundation than the vain credulity of the author.”  Even though the church denied her Sainthood, the town where she lived carries her name China Poblana and her dress is worn by all Mexican women to this day. Her piety was so great that although she has not been made a saint yet, there have been many requests to beatify her.