The carving is the centre of the annual Fiesta Grande de la Virgen (Great Festival of the Virgin) that draws thousands of pilgrims from around the world in December.

The most accepted holds that it was left there by a Spanish soldier or by priests who had fled with the statue after the 1549 attack on the city of La Serena by the indigenous population.

[1] After four centuries of veneration in Andacollo and devotion coming from beyond Chilean borders, Cardinal Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro decreed on 15 June 1899, at the command of Pope Leo XIII, that the statue be given a Canonical coronation.

[2] The town of Andacollo is visited every year by thousands of pilgrims from Chile and abroad, the majority of whom come for the Fiesta Grande de la Virgen (Great Festival of the Virgin) which takes place in December.

It starts each year on December 23 and lasts for at least five days, during which the statue is dressed in her crown and special clothes embroidered with gold, then carried in a solemn procession to the basilica accompanied by dance groups and pilgrims.