Santa Muerte Shrine, Tultitlan, Mexico

Santa Muerte--literally "Holy Death" or "Saint Death"--is the sacred figure of death personified as a woman. She is venerated by an ever growing number of people in Mexico and beyond, and is especially popular with disenfranchised members of society such as criminals, prostitutes, transvestites, homosexuals, prisoners, the very poor, and other people for whom conventional Catholicism has not provided a better or a safer life. The phenomenon is thought to have its roots in a syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics.

We at Morbid Anatomy have long been fascinated by the phenomenon of Santa Muerte (on which more here) and, whilst in Mexico last week for the Morbid Anatomy Day of the Dead field trip, we had the very good fortune--thanks to our good friend Dr. Andrew Chesnut--to visit to the epic Santa Muerte shrine in Tultitlan, Mexico. Founded in 2007 by Jonathan Legaria Vargas (aka “Comandante Pantera"), the shrine--marked by a 75 foot tall figure of "The Skinny Lady"--consists of a series of small pavilions devoted to Santa Muertes wearing different colored gowns, and thus bearing different powers; Red, for example, is love; Gold is money; and black is protection). Each pavilion is stuffed with candles, drawings, flowers, stuffed animals, liquor, cigarettes, incense and other offerings; one pavilion is even devoted to healing broken Santa Muertes!

In 2008,“Comandante Pantera" was killed by gunfire. Since then, the shrine has been lovingly run by his mother, Enriqueta Vargas. In a very touching way, this shrine to Saint Death also seems to act as a memorial for her lost son.

Above are a few photographs of the shrine. You can see a full photoset by clicking here.

Thanks so much to the lovely Señora Vargas the rest of her crew, who were incredibly gracious and welcoming to us all. We also invite you to stop by The Morbid Anatomy Library to see some of the artifacts we acquired in the shrine's most excellent giftshop. To learn more the history of the shrine and the Santa Muerte phenomenon in general, check out the Most Holy Death website by clicking here. You can learn more about Enriqueta Vargas and her shrine by clicking here.

Santa Muerte: My Search for the Bony Lady: Guest Post and Photos by Tonya Hurley, Author of "ghostgirl" and "The Blessed"

In the aftermath of Sunday's amazing Viva la Muerte: The Mushrooming Cult of Saint Death event (photos here!), please enjoy this guest post just in from macabre authoress--and soon to be Morbid Anatomy Library Writer in residence--Tonya Hurley, who penned the New York Times bestselling ghostgirl series and new The Blessed Trilogy. All of the wonderful photos you see above were also provided by Tonya.

Santa Muerte: My Search for The Bony Lady

While in Mexico recently for a book tour, I visited a market in Guadalajara where I encountered a skeletal figure, robed, with long black hair holding a scythe and globe standing in a shop window. A Grim Reapstress of sorts, standing shoulder to shoulder with statues of Jesus, St. Jude and The Virgin of Guadalupe. I’d been doing research into the lives of the saints and martyrs, but here was one I’d never come across. Many revered as saints and martyrs were regarded as misfits and people that actively sought death, however, none actually embodied death as far as I’d ever heard.

She goes, I was told, by many names -- Lady Of Shadows. Holy Girl. Lady of the Night. The Skinny Lady. Santa Sebastiana, the female equivalent of St. Sebastian, known also for symbolizing a holy death. Frowned upon by the Church and the upper classes, worshiped secretly for centuries by the working classes, Santa Muerte had become the Patron saint of ‘outcasts’ and the downtrodden, invoked privately by many living alternative lifestyles: gay, transgender, bi-sexual, and even criminal ones - drug traffickers, pickpockets and prostitutes among others - on the fringe of mainstream society, who seek her favor and protection.

In current times, her devotional cult had come up from the underground, mainly as part of the Day of the Dead celebrations held widely in Mexico. If the Day Of Dead had a Queen, she would be it. Altars are erected in her honor, festooned with cigarettes, flowers, traditional sugar skulls, coins and candles. She even has her own rosary.

The more research I did, the more questions I asked, the more apprehensive I found people were about answering my questions or even discussing the topic. Which only made me more curious. Saint Death seemed to be shrouded in mystery, suspicion and warnings. One person who was willing to talk told me a story of a bus driver “sacrificing” his passengers to Saint Death by making them exit the vehicle and running them over. Another person warned me NEVER look a spiritual leader’s wife in the eyes.

At my request, my publishing team in Mexico arranged for me to visit to a market in Guadalajara and an altar in Mexico City. I was cautioned that these places could be dangerous and were far outside the usual tourist stops. I was told not to take my purse, wear jewelry or go at night.

Our first stop was the Mercado de San Juan, or as the locals call it, Taiwan de Dios, market in Guadalajara, where clumps of herbs hung low from the ceiling, and bare light bulbs dangled over statues of Santa Muerte effigies. Special oils, incense, and candles promising romance, money, health, erections, and everything in between were offered for sale.

Next, we were taken to the town of Tepito, outside of Mexico City, the center or Santa Muerte worship in Mexico, by Martin George, a self-professed spiritual leader of Santa Muerte, who explained to us that Santa Muerte is a mixture of Aztec beliefs (including men symbolizing life and women symbolizing death) and traditional Catholicism that the Spanish brought over during the Conquest. He led us to a life-size statue of Santa Muerte built by a local hair dresser, erected on an altar behind glass and steel bars and explained that she stood at an equal distance between the ancient Aztec Cathedral and the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, pretty much encapsulating the mixture of ancient indigenous and European culture that is Santa Muerte. He went on to explain that followers also celebrate traditional Catholic saint days, but they celebrate the day of their death, and not the day they were born. For them, Santa Muerte is “The Way,” which is what the triangle hand sign (bottom image) means, in life and in death and she is the one that comes to carry you home to heaven making her, in some ways, the most important saint of all.

The second and final altar was an unplanned surprise. We found it driving through Colonia Doctores. Right there for all to see on the side of the busy highway -- a statue of Jesús Malverde “narco-saint” or “angel of the poor” in a tuxedo standing next to a seated Santa Muerte in a wedding dress, encased in glass (fourth image down). Behind the monument was another building with a huge painting of Jesús Malverde surrounded by painted machine guns and Santa Muerte effigies (fifth image down). A small winding ladder lead up to another floor, which housed a Santa Muerte prayer chapel where an effigy of Santa Muerte stood, adorned by flowers and candles, with walls lined with plastic funeral arrangements (top image). This was the chapel where the rosary is said by 5,000 of the faithful on the first Monday of each month, and a major celebration in honor of Santa Muerte takes place on November 1, when the statue is dressed as a bride and decorated with hundreds of pieces of gold jewelry brought as gifts by those whom she has favored in the past year.

When one stepped outside to get the full view, they could see both floors – Jesús (life) on the bottom and Santa Muerte (death) on the top. “The Way” below and “Heaven” above.

I am not going to pretend that I understand the inner workings of Santa Muerte from a single visit to a market, a shrine and a chapel, but the image of the Lady Of Shadows and those who believe in her have stayed with the outcast in me.

Special thanks to all who made this adventure possible including Elizabeth, Estella, Cecilia, Atu, Tracy, Michael, Martin and Arnoldo.  

Thanks so much to Tonya Hurley for this guest post and all the wonderful images! You can find out more about her work by clicking here. If you are interested in knowing more about Santa Muerte, she has been extensively discussed on this blog; you can learn more on these recent posts (1, 2, 3, 4)

"Santa Muerte, Posada’s Mexico and the End of Times" Guest Post by Salvador Olguín, Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence

 

For this non-end-of-days end-of-days, a word on Death in Mayan and Mexican culture from new Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence Salvador Olguín:

I’ve been following the Morbid Anatomy blog for quite some time. This is my second guest post in the blog (the first can be found here); this time I am officially writing as Morbid Anatomy’s new Scholar in Residence. I told Joanna Ebenstein I wanted to write a few lines to commemorate such major occasion as the end of the 13th baktun of the Mayan calendar –that is, the 13th cycle of 144,000 days since the world began, otherwise known as The End of Times. Posting this text after the announcement of the Morbid Anatomy Library’s recent acquisition of a lot of Santa Muerte artifacts, also celebrated in this article by David Metcalf, is a happy coincidence. Finally, being able to use this post to introduce Posada’s Mexico, a book about José Guadalupe Posada recently acquired by the MA library, is a real treat.

José Guadalupe Posada was a Mexican engraver and illustrator who started working in the late 1800s as a cartoonist. He produced a vast number of etchings, most of which first appeared in the news papers and cheap periodicals published in Mexico City during the last decade of the 19th and the early 1900s. Posada’s was a time of social turmoil. The publications where he worked criticized the autocratic government of Porfirio Díaz for favoring Mexico’s Europeanized higher classes over the workers and the dispossessed. In this milieu, Posada used his art to satirize the rich and powerful, but also to illustrate current events and the news: murders, cases of cannibalism, floods, earthquakes and the End of the World, which people in Mexico believed was imminent 100 years ago.

Posada created a series of iconic characters like Don Chepito Marihuano (Mr. Chepito The Pothead), a gentleman who entertained the habit of smoking large amounts of weed. You can see him holding a skull, Hamlet-style, in the bottom illustration above. One of his most iconic illustrations was La Calavera Garbancera, later baptized as La Catrina by Diego Rivera. She came to represent Death personified for all Mexicans. Posada conceived her as a working class woman of mixed Native American and European blood, wearing a pretentious French hat. Later Rivera painted her in one of his murals (4th image down), but instead of using her as a vehicle of social commentary he dressed her up in a full fancy gown, making her a proud symbol of the unification of Mexico’s dual roots: Spanish and Native American. The fact that this symbol is embodied as a skeleton shows the importance of the personification of Death in Mexican iconography, and makes La Catrina a direct precursor of Santa Muerte.

Most Mesoamerican cultures had a cyclical notion of time. There were times of destruction and times of renewal. There had been other Worlds, and other versions of Humanity in their mythical pass, and there would be new worlds and a new humanity in the future. A Mayan wouldn’t be surprised that the world didn’t come to an end: today marks the beginning of the 14th baktun. Death remains the only certain thing in life; believing She’s a person, a being that watches over us, is certainly a soothing idea. Knowing She likes to smoke, drink, and feast like Santa Muerte does is simply the best. Take a look at these images from Posada’s Mexico, now available for researchers at the Morbid Anatomy Library.

You can find out more about Santa Muerte in these recent posts (1, 2); you can find out more about our upcoming Santa Muerte lecture and party by clicking here, and more about The Morbid Anatomy Library by clicking here. You can find out more about Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence Salvador Olguín by clicking here. All images are scans from Posada’s Mexico, a book about José Guadalupe Posada recently acquired by the Morbid Anatomy library.

"Viva la Muerte: The Mushrooming Cult of Saint Death"--A New Event Just in Time for The End of the World

It seems only appropriate to announce Morbid Anatomy's newest event "Viva la Muerte: The Mushrooming Cult of Saint Death" on this day, December 21, 2012, which many believe to be the end of the world as predicted by the long-cycle Mayan calendar.

This epic event--which will take place on Sunday February 3rd--will investigate via lecture, moderated Q and A, mini exhibit of newly acquired Santa Muerte materials and general merrymaking the fascinating and growing phenomenon of "Santa Muerte," a new Mexican-based religion born of the fertile mix of indigenous Mayan and Aztec beliefs with that of Spanish Catholicism.

Full information follows; very much hope to see you there!

Oh, and happy end of the world, everybody!!

"Viva la Muerte: The Mushrooming Cult of Saint Death" : Lecture, Book Signing and Party
Illustrated lecture by Professor R. Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint; Q and A moderated by The Revealer's David Metcalfe; Music and cocktails by Friese Undine; Santa Muerte and Jesus Malverde wedding cake and Funeral floral arrangements compliments of Tonya Hurley and Tracy Hurley Martin; Mini-exhibit of newly-donated Santa Muerte materials from the Morbid Anatomy Library
Date: Sunday, February 3
Time: 7:00 (Doors at 6:00)
Admission: $12
Produced by Morbid Anatomy and Borderline Projects
*** Copies of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint will be available for sale and signing

On Sunday, February 3rd, please join us to celebrate the Morbid Anatomy Library's new acquisition of a large and spectacular lot of materials relating to Santa Muerte, a Mexican-based “cult” or possibly even a “new religion” which takes as its central figure a sanctified Lady Death. Literally translating to “Holy Death” or “Saint Death,” the worship of Santa Muerte--like Day of the Dead--is a popular form of religious expression rooted in a rich syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics.

Tonight's celebration will begin with a highly-illustrated lecture on the roots, history and worship of Santa Muerte by Dr. R. Andrew Chesnut, Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint. Following, attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions during a Q and A which with the lecturer and death in Mexico scholar Salvador Olguín moderated by David Metcalfe of The Revealer.

Come early (doors open at 6) and stay late to enjoy thematic music and special artisanal cocktails utilizing the favorite spirits of "The Boney Lady" herself, compliments of Friese Undine. You can also admire--and indulge in!--a special Santa Muerte and Jesus Malverde Wedding Cake compliments of our generous Santa Muerte artifact donors Tonya Hurley and Tracy Hurley Martin, and take in a temporary mini-exhibit of the amazing donations themselves. There will also be gorgeous funeral floral arrangements by Emily Thompson Flowers, and Dr. R. Andrew Chesnut will be happy to sign copies of his new book Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint which will be available for sale.

More here. For more on Santa Muerte and the Morbid Anatomy Library's new lot of artifacts, click here.

Morbid Anatomy Library Acquisition Number 1,352: New Lot of Santa Muerte Related Materials from Mexico

The Morbid Anatomy Library is delighted to announce the acquisition of a new lot of materials related to Santa Muerte, which is, depending on whom you ask, a Mexican-based "cult" or "new religion" which worships death as a female saint.

"Santa Muerte," which literally translates to "Holy Death" or "Saint Death," is popular in Mexico and the United States with disenfranchised populations for whom conventional Catholicism has not provided a better or safer life. It is thought to have its roots in the rich syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics.

The artifacts donated to the library, many of which you see above, include sacred books and pamphlets, devotional statues, magical soaps and oils, charms, incense, and even "La Biblia de la Santa Muerte." They were generously donated by Friends of Morbid Anatomy Tonya Hurley and Tracy Hurley Martin as found on their travels in Mexico. Stay tuned for a series of future guest posts documenting their travels.

These artifacts are now on display and available to researchers. The library will host no-appointment-necessary open hours tomorrow, Sunday December 16th, from 1-4:30. Address and directions here. For more on the fascinating Santa Muerte--and more images!-see this recent post.

Santa Muerte, San la Muerte and The Fascinating History of Death Personified in Latin America

I took the photos you see above over a series of trips to Los Angeles to document the fascinating phenomonon of Santa Muerte, a sacred figure worshipped as part of the larger pantheon of Catholic saints in Mexico and now also, with the wave of Mexican migrants, in the United States as well. Thought to have its roots in a syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics, the name literally means "Holy Death" or "Saint Death," and she--also fondly referred to as "The Skinny Lady--tends to be worshipped by disenfranchised members of society such as criminals, prostitutes, transvestites, the very poor, and other people for whom conventional Catholicism has not provided a better or safer life.

Doing some research into the matter, I recently stumbled upon Frank Graziano's Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America, which offers fascinating insight into the genesis of both Santa Muerte and the very similar San La Muerte tradition, which developed independently from a similar native/Catholic syncretism in other areas of Latin America; I also would give anything to see one of the bizarre theatrical productions described below:

In the Jesuit missions, the publication of many books included, in 1705, a translation of Juan Eusebio Nieremberg's De la Diferencia Entre lo Temporal y Eterno. Among the engravings in the book was one of a triumphant personified death, holding a sickle (a variation on the scythe) in one and and an hourglass in the other. Death as a skeleton also appears in another image, which was likewise copied from a European original. 

These engravings document the presence of the Grim Reaper in the missions, but more important in folk culture were theatrical productions staged by the Jesuits for the Guaranís' religious instruction. The performances often included Christ's resurrection, with props of skulls and bones and with the Grim Reaper in the supporting cast for dramatization of Christ's triumph over death. Such performances contributed to fixing the personified image of death within a religious context. 

Almost all the artists in Jesuit missions were Guaranís who were trained by Europeans. These indigenous carvers of saints thought of their work more religiously than artistically: "Image-makers quite literally believed that they were making saints and gods." This observation is particularly suggestive in the context of San La Muerte, whose traditionalal carvers were likewise creating, not representing, a supernatural power. For the Guaraní mission artists, "The reality of things was not expressed by imitating their visual appearance, as in European art, but by capturing their essence." The imagery, including the image of death personified, was adopted from European traditions and then invested with this "essence." The carvings transcend mere representation and become empowered in themselves like amulets.

All of this also brings to mind the wonderful 18th century book La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte (The Astounding Life of Death); more on that here.

All photos you see above are from my trips to Los Angeles to document the Santa Muerta phenomenon; for more, click here to see my complete Flickr set.