What is the role of the Virgen de Guadalupe in Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya?

The Virgen de Guadalupe is the Southwestern Catholic
equivalent of the Virgin Mary, and is said to have appeared to a peasant along the banks
of the Guadalupe River.  Anaya's story, which takes place in New Mexico in the 1940s,
has characters which venerate the Virgen de Guadalupe, as residents in that area
currently do, and his book is full of references to
her.

This starts in chapter one, where Antonio sees the
Virgen carrying Ultima's owl up to heaven.  It answers a difficult spiritual question
for him:  What happens to baby's who have not been baptized and therefore forgiven for
their natural sins? The Virgen carries them to heaven instead of "Limbo" which more
strict Catholics of that time believed.

So the Virgen is
really a native saint, with dark features, who was said to have spoken the native
language.  It is one of many ways in which Bless Me, Ultima
portrays the mix between Spanish Catholicism and native ways and beliefs.  Ultima
herself is another way.