Princess Erendira

Princess Eréndira of the Purépecha was the princess of the Purépecha from c. 1503–1529.

Life Eréndira was 16–17 when the Spanish came to Mexico. The Tarascan state's cazonci (monarch), Tangaxuan II, had given up his kingdom and people to the Spanish after he saw the downfall of the Aztec Empire to the Spanish. The story of princess Eréndira's subsequent role as a heroine is based on tradition and may or may not reflect actual events, since there are no contemporary records of her existence. The execution of Eréndira's father, painted by Juan O'Gorman. According to the folk legend, Eréndira organized a ceremony in the temple of Charatanga, the moon goddess, and a horse was sacrificed. The next day, a Spanish warrior named Cristobal de Olid approached Tzintzuntzan with a large troop of soldiers.

There are many theories as to what happened to her. Some of which include her suicide by drowning, her leaving to train others for war and that she killed herself for falling in love with a Spanish monk. One legend even claims that she was kidnapped by her own people and put into a temple so that the Spaniards should not find and kill her. She had been a regional figure, but as governor and president, Cárdenas raised her name recognition significantly. She became a symbol of indigenous resistance to the Spanish conquest, specifically as a foil to the role of Cortés's indigenous cultural translator Malinche.

Cárdenas commissioned muralist Fermín Revueltas to paint murals of Purépecha history and reshape the national narrative from one focused on the Aztecs to one rooted in the indigenous people of Michoacán. The story of Eréndira was also used to reshape "Mexico's nation-building ideology of mestizaje" and put the "Purépecha past...as the ideal origin of the Mexican nation."

In popular culture The movie Erendira Ikikunari (Erendira the Untameable) is based on the story of Eréndira.