Santa Muerte

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Icon of Santa Muerte

Santa Muerte (Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte [Spanish for Our Lady of Holy Death]) is a female deity and folk saint in Mexican folk Catholicism and Neopaganism. A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, and more recently Evangelical pastors, her cult has become increasingly prominent since the turn of the 21st century.

Her present day following was first reported in Mexico by American anthropologists in the 1940s and was an occult practice until the early 2000s. According to R. Andrew Chesnut, Ph.D. in Latin American history and professor of religious studies, Santa Muerte is at the center of the single fastest-growing new religious movement in the world.

History

After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the worship of death diminished but was never eradicated. According to one account, recorded in the annals of the Spanish Inquisition, Chichimecs in central Mexico tied up a skeletal figure, whom they addressed as "Santa Muerte," and threatened it with lashings if it did not perform miracles or grant their wishes.

In contrast to the Day of the Dead, overt veneration of Santa Muerte remained clandestine until the early 2000s. When it went public in sporadic occurrences, reaction was often harsh, and included the desecration of shrines and altars. At the beginning of the 20th century, José Guadalupe Posada created a similar, but secular figure by the name of Catrina, a female skeleton dressed in fancy clothing of the period. Posada began to evoke the idea that the universality of death generated a fundamental equality amongst all human beings. His paintings of skeletons in daily life and that La Catrina were meant to represent the arbitrary and violent nature of an unequal society.

Veneration of Santa Muerte was documented in the 1940s in working-class neighborhoods in Mexico City such as Tepito. At present Santa Muerte can be found throughout Mexico and also across the United States and Central America. The New Religious Movement of Santa Muerte first came to widespread popular attention in Mexico in August 1998, when police arrested notorious gangster Daniel Arizmendi López and discovered a shrine to the saint in his home. Widely reported in the press, this discovery inspired the common association between Santa Muerte, violence, and criminality in Mexican popular consciousness.

Prevelance

Since 2001, there has been "meteoric growth" in Santa Muerte belief, largely due to her reputation for performing miracles. Worship has been made up of roughly 12 million adherents, with the great majority of devotees concentrated in Mexico, the US, and Central America. In the late 2000s, the founder of Mexico's first Santa Muerte church, David Romo, estimated that there were around 5 million devotees in Mexico, constituting approximately 5% of the country's population.

The meteoric rise of this New Religious Movement has engendered considerable controversy. In March 2009 the Mexican army demolished 40 roadside shrines near the U.S. border. In 2005, the New Religious Movement was brought to the United States by Mexican and Central American immigrants, and by 2012 had tens of thousands of followers throughout the country, primarily in cities with large Mexican and Mexican-American populations.

As of 2016-2017, devotion to Santa Muerte is the fastest-growing new religious movements in the world, with an estimated 12 million followers, and the single fastest-growing new religious movement in the Americas. The COVID-19 pandemic saw further growth in the New Religious Movement as many believed that she would protect them against the virus.

Attributes

Santa Muerte is a personification of death. Unlike other Latin American folk saints, Santa Muerte is not, herself, seen as a dead human being. She is associated with healing, protection, financial wellbeing, and assurance of a path to the afterlife.

Although there are other death saints in Latin America, such as San La Muerte, Santa Muerte is the only female saint of death in the Americas. Iconographically, Santa Muerte is a skeleton dressed in female clothes or a shroud, and carrying both a scythe and a globe. Santa Muerte is distinguished as female not by her skeletal form but rather by her attire and hair. The latter was introduced by a believer named Enriqueta Romero.

Symbols

Other objects associated with Santa Muerte include scales, an hourglass, an owl, and an oil lamp. The scales allude to equity, justice, and impartiality, as well as divine will. An hourglass indicates the time of life on earth and also the belief that death is not the end, as the hourglass can be inverted to start over. The hourglass denotes Santa Muerte's relationship with time as well as with the worlds above and below. It also symbolizes patience. An owl symbolizes her ability to navigate the darkness and her wisdom; the owl is also said to act as a messenger.

A lamp symbolizes intelligence and spirit, to light the way through the darkness of ignorance and doubt. Owls in particular are associated with Mesoamerican death deities such as Mictlantecuhtli and seen as evidence of continuity of death worship into Santa Muerte.

Veneration

Santa Muerte dressed as an Aztec

Rituals dedicated to Santa Muerte include processions and prayers with the aim of having a miracle granted. Some believers of Santa Muerte remain members of the Catholic Church, while others are cutting ties with the Catholic Church and founding independent Santa Muerte churches and temples.

Santa Muerte altars generally contain one or multiple images of the saint, generally surrounded by any or all of the following: cigarettes, flowers, fruit, incense, water, alcoholic beverages, coins, candies and candles. Tobacco is also used for personal cleansing and for cleansing statues of Santa Muerte. Some followers of Santa Muerte believe that she is jealous and that her image should not be placed next to those of other saints or deities, or there will be consequences.

According to popular belief, Santa Muerte is very powerful and is reputed to grant many miracles. Her images are treated as holy and can grant miracles in return for the faith of the believer. As Señora de la Noche ("Lady of the Night"), she is often invoked by those exposed to the dangers of working at night, such as taxi drivers, bar owners, police, soldiers, and sex workers. As such, devotees believe she can protect against assaults, accidents, gun violence, and all types of violent death.

Her effigies are dressed differently depending on what is being requested. Usually, her vestments are differently colored robes, but it is also common for the effigies to be dressed as a bride (for those seeking a husband) or in European medieval nun's garments similar to female Catholic saints. The colors of Santa Muerte's votive candles and vestments are associated with the type of petitions made.

Santa Muerte has no official annual feast day but November 2, Day of the Dead, appears to be becoming the favored date. Many larger shrines and temples hold annual celebrations on the date of their founding. The most prominent is November 1, when the believer Enriqueta Romero celebrates her at her historic Tepito shrine where the famous effigy is dressed as a bride. Others celebrate her day on August 15.

Places of worship

The New Religious Movement of Santa Muerte is generally informal and unorganized. Since worship of this folk saint has been, and to a large extent still is, clandestine, most rituals are performed at altars in the homes of devotees. Recently public shrines have been appearing across Mexico. The one on Dr. Vertiz Street in Colonia Doctores is unique in Mexico City because it features statues of Jesús Malverde and Saint Jude along with Santa Muerte. Another public shrine is in a small park on Matamoros Street very close to Paseo de la Reforma.

Shrines can also be found in the back of all kinds of stores and gas stations. As veneration of Santa Muerte becomes more accepted, stores specializing in religious articles, such as botánicas, are carrying more and more paraphernalia related to her worship. Historian R. Andrew Chesnut has discovered that many botanicas in both Mexico and the U.S. are kept in business by sales of Santa Muerte paraphernalia, with numerous shops earning up to half of their profits on Santa Muerte items. This is true even of stores in very well known locations such as Pasaje Catedral behind the Mexico City Cathedral, which is mostly dedicated to stores selling Catholic liturgical items. Her image is a staple in esoterica shops.

There are those who now call themselves Santa Muerte priests or priestesses, such as Jackeline Rodríguez in Monterrey. She maintains a shop in Mercado Juárez in Monterrey, where tarot readers, curanderos, herbal healers, and sorcerers can also be found.

Shrine of the Most Holy Death

The establishment of the first public shrine to the image began to change how Santa Muerte was venerated. The veneration has grown rapidly since then, and others have put their images on public display, as well.

In 2001, Enriqueta Romero built a shrine for a life-sized statue of Santa Muerte in her home on 12 Alfarería Street in Tepito, Colonia Morelos in Mexico City, visible from the street. The shrine does not hold Catholic masses or occult rites, but people come here to pray and to leave offerings to the image. The effigy is dressed in garbs of different colors depending on the season, with the Romero family changing the dress every first Monday of the month. This statue of the saint features large quantities of jewelry on her neck and arms, which are pinned to her clothing. It is surrounded by offerings left to it, including: flowers, fruits (especially apples), candles, toys, money, notes of thanks for prayers granted, cigarettes, and alcoholic beverages that surround it.

On the first day of every month Enriqueta Romero or one of her assistants lead prayers and the recitation of the Santa Muerte rosary, which lasts for about an hour and is based on the Catholic rosary. On the first of November the anniversary of the Tepito Santa Muerte shrine erected by Enriqueta Romero is celebrated. This Santa Muerte is dressed as a bride and wears hundreds of pieces of gold jewelry given by the faithful to show gratitude for miracles granted, or to ask for one.

The celebration officially begins at the stroke of midnight of November 1. Thousands of faithful turn out to pray the rosary. For purification, marijuana smoke is used instead of incense, which is traditionally used for purification by Catholics. Food such as cake, chicken with mole, hot chocolate, coffee, and atole are served during the celebrations, which features performances by mariachis and marimba bands.

LGBTQ associations

Santa Muerte is revered and seen as a saint and protector of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) communities in Mexico, since LGBTQ+ people are considered and treated as outcasts by the Catholic Church, evangelical churches, and Mexican society at large.

Many LGBTQ+ people ask her for protection from violence, hatred, disease, and to help them in their search for love. Her intercession is commonly invoked in same-sex marriage ceremonies performed in Mexico. The Iglesia Católica Tradicional México-Estados Unidos, also known as the Church of Santa Muerte, recognizes gay marriage and performs religious wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples.

Criminal associations

In the Mexican and U.S. press, devotion to Santa Muerte is often associated with violence, criminality, and the illegal drug trade. She is a popular religious figure in prisons, both among inmates and staff, and shrines dedicated to her can be found in many cells.

Altars with images of Santa Muerte have been found in many drug safe houses in both Mexico and the United States. Among Santa Muerte's more infamous devotees are kidnapper Daniel Arizmendi López, known as El Mochaorejas, and Gilberto García Mena, one of the bosses of the Gulf Cartel. In March 2012, the Sonora State Investigative Police announced that they had arrested eight people for murder for allegedly having performed a human sacrifice of a woman and two ten-year-old boys to Santa Muerte.

Criticisms

Since the mid-20th century and throughout the 21st century, the New Religious Movement of Santa Muerte and her devotees have been regularly discriminated, ostracized, and socially excluded both by the Catholic Church and various evangelical-Pentecostal Protestant churches in Mexico and the rest of Central America

The Catholic Church has condemned devotion to Santa Muerte in Mexico and Latin America as blasphemous and satanic, calling it a "degeneration of religion." When Pope Francis visited Mexico in 2016, he repudiated Santa Muerte on his first full day in the country, condemning Santa Muerte as a dangerous symbol of narco-culture.