Our Lady of Coromoto Fashion

When the city of Guanare was founded in 1591, the Indian tribe who inhabited the region, the Cospes, fled to the northern jungle. When the Roman Catholic Church began to evangelize its efforts were at first resisted. There is a legend that the Virgin Mary appeared twice to the chief of the local tribe, once in 1651 in a river canyon when she told him to be baptized, and again, when he was still refusing baptism, on September 8, 1652, when she appeared in his hut. This time he is said to have tried to grab her and she vanished, leaving behind a small painting of her.