Santa Muerte Cult in Resurgence

My South Texas wife had heard of this bizarre, centuries-old cult before I read this news article, but it was unfamiliar to me. Apparently in San Antonio, Mexicans often display the Grim Reaper-like logo of this death cult on their cars. Her view is that it is more a display of machismo then an actual allegiance to this cult

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) - A death cult that venerates a scythe-wielding skeletal figure is booming in Mexican border cities south of Texas where hundreds have died this year in all-out drug war.

The centuries-old pagan cult of Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, has sprung back up in Mexico in recent years and claims some 2 million faithful, ranging from elite politicians to kidnappers and gangsters.

The revival began in Mexico City. Now, roadside shrines to the ghoulish figure stud highways approaching the U.S. border around the city of Nuevo Laredo, where more than 45 people have been killed in the drug fight so far this year.

Craft stall holders and shops called "hierberias" that sell potions and other esoteric items are stocking up on skeletal talismans and statuettes of Santa Muerte, who resembles a gaudy version of the grim reaper.

Some stalls offer figures made from ground-up ox bones that stand three-feet (one-meter) high. Others sell discreet talismans, candles and amulets, which traders say sell faster than those honoring Mexico's much loved Virgin of Guadalupe.

The recent surge in popularity in Nuevo Laredo (just across the river from Laredo) has been attributed to the increasing violence in the drug war there:

Experts on the cult say its following on the border is being driven by the spiraling death toll there, as drug hitmen seek Santa Muerte's protection while they kill rivals.

"What better homage to Santa Muerte Could there be than offering her up several people every day?" said Homero Aridjis, a writer whose best-selling book on the cult is now in its fifth edition.

This religion has its defenders. Searching through Infotrac, a subscription periodicals database, I've found an article in the March 4, 2005 issue of America's Intelligence Wire that records a protest of devotees against misconceptions of their faith:

Hundreds of Mexican devotees of Saint Death _ a quasi-Catholic faith that worships the skeletal figure of death _ marched through downtown Mexico City Friday to demand respect for their religion and its followers.

Holding banners reading "Respect Religious Freedom" and "We are not criminals or drug addicts," marchers drawn from some of the city's roughest barrios carried statues of the elegantly-clad Grim Reaper down the city's main boulevard.

[snip]

"In many parishes, they say our people are all drug addicts or criminals," said Juan Manuel Cortes, 27, who officiates masses at the main Mexico City death shrine in a crime-ridden section of the old downtown. "That's not true, but we also don't close our doors to anybody."

"They say we have some bad characters, but don't they also in the Catholic church, where they worship San Judas Tadeo?" Cortes noted, referring to an official Catholic saint, St. Jude Thaddeus, who has been informally adopted in Mexico as the patron of lost causes, thieves and police.

Lucia Sanchez, a street vendor who, like many on the march, carried white gladiolas in the procession behind the grinning skeleton shrines, said simply, "they should respect our faith."

[snip]

The faithful regard La Santa Muerte as an angel or saint who only kills based on God's orders. "It's better to make her you're friend," Almanza noted.

John Thompson goes into greater detail in a 1998 issue of The Journal of the Southwest. He describes it as a fetishistic religion:

In spite of her appearances in the United Stares, it's still much easier to find Santisima Muerte's image on the Mexican side of the border. In 1994, in the border city of Nogales, Sonora, I bought a Santisima Muerte pendant from a young girl on the street. "What's it for?" I asked. "Protection," she said. More recently, in April of 1997, I went to Nogales, again looking for Santisima Muerte in the magic stores. No problem: the saleslady at Yerberia Medicinales sold me Santisima Muerte soap, Santisima Muerte candles, Santisima Muerte aerosol spray, and a red plastic statue of Santisima Muerte about five inches tall, with magical seeds molded into its base. As I expected, she also carried the Oracion de la Santisima Muerte, in the same format I had seen years before in Magdalena.

This religion has also blended with nearby Caribbean faiths:

So we see that Santisima Muerte is a multifaceted image, an image that changes to meet the nee& of whomever is using it at the time. Interestingly, some vendors in the Mercado Sonora have recently initiated Santisima Muerte into Santeria, the Afro-Cuban religion making strong inroads in Mexico and the United Stares. Followers of this religion commonly identify certain Catholic saints with the orisha, deities of the Santeria pantheon, and several of the Mercado Sonora vendors who sell the paraphernalia of Santeria rituals told me they identify Santisima Muerte with Oya, the orisha who is "duena de la puerta del cementerio y diosa de las tempestades.... Ademas es la que domina a los muertos."(56)

I'll be glad to e-mail these articles to anyone who does not have Infotrac access.