She drinks tequila, smokes pot, and is worshipped by perhaps two million throughout Mexico. Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, is showing some wear from her years of hard living: instead of the angelic likening usually afforded to saints, her depiction is a hooded skeleton, often accompanied by a globe and scythe. The message of her accessories—death has a long reach, and it is universal.
She represents a syncretism of Mesoamerican and Catholic beliefs, somewhat akin to Bondyè, the higher God of Haitian Voodou, which combines Western African beliefs with Catholicism. Throughout Mexico’s poorest communities Santa Muerte has been prayed to for decades to deliver succor. And mete out retribution. In Tepito, one of Mexico City’s poorest neighborhoods, experts believe Sante Muerte is more revered than Jesus Christ.
Her popularity spread over the past decade, thanks in large part to the narcocultura that pervades Mexico. Now candles, tiny statues, and palm-sized prayer cards with Santa Muerte can be found in hundreds of shops in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and elsewhere. Among Mexican-American teens, typically more middle class than devotees in Mexico, Santa Muerte has become a symbol that allows them to reconnect with a part of their heritage.
Santa Muerte may have deeper roots. According to a recent article in The Economist, some anthropologists link her provenance to Aztec underworld gods. Others, notably David Romo, a priest at one of two temples devoted to Santa Muerte in Mexico City, trace her image to the outbreak of the bubonic plague in Italy.
It is said that Santa Muerte doesn’t judge—How could she sit in judgment, she doesn’t have eyes?—but she does offer protection from danger. Undoubtedly gangsters fancy the idea that Santa Muerte doesn’t discriminate between the good and the bad, but her appeal extends to others on the margins of Mexican society, such as cart vendors, taxi drivers, prostitutes, and petty criminals. The unrepentant don’t make model Catholics, and most probably aren’t interested in confessing their sins, or hearing that they should, “Go forth, and not sin again.” But they aren’t exactly atheists either; they tend to live by codes, perhaps believe in kharma, and think that formal institutions are nothing more than a tool of repression. Santa Muerte fits the niche.
Unsurprisingly, Santa Muerte’s prominence has incurred the ire of the Catholic Church. Catholic priests insist Santa Muerte is a satanic cult that encourages violence. The government is uncomfortable too. Last year, the army destroyed dozens of Santa Muerte altars in the northern state of Nuevo León, ostensibly for links to the drug trade. In response, parishioners staged a rally in Mexico City calling on religious freedom.
Despite the pressure from the authorities, the popularity of Santa Muerte is unlikely to wane anytime soon. The group’s draw on the poor is likely only to increase as Mexicans struggle to recover from recession. North of the border Father Marco Mercado, of the Good Shephard Catholic Church in Chicago, worries that “Santeria” is on the rise among his parishioners. Perhaps it’s only fitting for a society with such a large informal job market to have an informal saint as well.
