In September 1573, an indigenous woman, who made her living as a laundress, noticed a small but brilliant object that was carried by the current in the middle of the Guadalajara River.

[2] News of this spread along all the Cauca River valley and many people started to gather at the place, where a hermitage was built, turning the woman's humble house into a sanctuary.

A wealthy family from the region decided to donate lands to build a great church, the first hermitage to venerate the holy crucifix on the site where it had first been discovered.

According to the accounts dating from this period, after some collective acts of prayer during the rainy season, a natural phenomenon took place which resolved the problem caused by the lack of a bridge.

He feared an accusation of schism by the Holy Inquisition, and using the excuse that he found the quality of the image so degraded by the handling of the pilgrims who had broken off piece, so he decided to burn it.

In September–October 1757 the Bishop of Popayán, Diego del Corro, visited Guadalajara de Buga, to witness personally the existence of the image, and decided to collect all documents concerning it so as to prepare a case to be sent to Lima, Peru, the official site of the Inquisition tribunal.

On Sunday, 4 March 1956, a priest celebrating the Mass suffered an assassination attempt, but the dagger used by the attacker fractured in the air in three pieces in the presence of many witnesses, a fact that received a lot of coverage of the press.

On 3 February 1969, another person attacked the image causing some damage to it, so an artisan was called to repair it and it was he who confirmed that the Christ is not carved but made of mud and grass similar to that on the shores of the Guadalajara river.

A witness mentioned in ecclesiastic documents of that time of the miracle of the fire in 1605, when the Bishop of Popayan ordered the destruction of the image, there had been a lady named Luisa Sanchez.

A testimony given to one Inquisition Visitador (inspector), in 1665, corresponds to Doña Luisa de la Espada, a daughter of one of the Buga Patriarchs that donated the money to build the first hermitage.

Among the first printed official accounts is the full story of the Miracle of the Guadalajara river written by Franciscan Friar Francisco G. Rodríguez in 1819, the same year Colombia became independent from Spain.

There are records showing that General Simon Bolivar visited Buga among the places he traveled across in his independence campaign for the south west of the country after the battle of Boyacá in his route to Equator.

In 1783 the rector of the Popayan seminar, and also the director of the sanctuary of Buga, with the approval of the Bishop, sent a report to Rome containing an extensive list of miracles of the healings received by the devotees.

Pope Pius VI responded to this communication with 22 “breves perpetuos”, special instructions in which he granted generous indulgences to all the pilgrims that attended the sanctuary.

The image is a full-length representation of a copper coloured skinned Christ, a long haired young man with high cheek-bones and cleft chin covered by curled beard.

Its entire cross is framed by waiving flames made of silver and platinum, possibly added in between the 17th or 18th century that may at the same time represent its divine nature or remembrance of the miracle of the fire, when the image was tested by being put in a bonfire by the orders of the inquisition inspector.

An interesting parallel between the natural predisposition of the Christ of Buga to be hung out in public procession, due to its change of size and weight, and the climate of religiosity in the country.

The solemn act of consecration remained unaltered and was continuously practiced every year, with the presence of every single president of the country up until 1994, when it was derogated by the administration of Ernesto Samper-Pizano who was accused of having financed his political campaign with money from drugs lords.

From an anthropological point of view, the image represents an interesting mixture of Christianity, introduced to South America by the Spaniards, and the cosmology characteristic of the Andean Cultures, whereby God communicates with the humans through rivers.

Buga is currently located in the middle of the Cauca's valley, a region that was populated in ancient times, since at least 1000 years before Christ, by some of the most advanced prehispanic Colombian civilizations: Kalima, Quimbaya, Malagana, Katios, all among the best goldsmiths of the Americas.

Roman Catholic sources claim many miraculous and supernatural properties for the image such as the fact that the figure has maintained its structural integrity over nearly 500 years, while wooden replicas normally last only some few decades before they start to suffer degradation.

Universidad Del Valle, Tesis Professional en Sociologia (October 2013) Media related to Lord of Miracles of Buga at Wikimedia Commons