The worship for the holy death in Mexico is popular: ‘People call us satanic’

A row of people is waiting for an open space between two houses. A broad man with tattooed arms has a bottle of tequila in his hand. An older lady in front of him wears two candles. A younger couple a bunch of flowers. They shuffle the space one by one. For a large image of a skeleton, dressed in a green robe, they go on their knees. They close their eyes, requests requests, light a candle, leave their sacrifices. All in the hope that this holy, Santa Muerte, the Holy Death, will hear their prayers.

The Santa Muerte sect is one of the fastest rising religions in Mexico, with an estimated five million Mexicans and another seven million supporters in Latin America and the United States, who worship the Holy. At first glance, anyone who regards the row of people in the Tepito district sees no difference with an average holy worship, as Mexicans do everywhere faithfully with their national patron saint, the virgin of Guadalupe. With roses, silent prayers, and sacrifices, those present look for a moment of connection with the Santa Muerte. The feast of Santa Muerte is celebrated on August 15.

But the tattoos, the scars, the scent of Marijuana in the air, the half -empty drink that are placed in front of the altar, show a different kind of dedication. Dedication by people who do not find any life in the strict Roman Catholic Church and whose prayers because of the content will not be interrogated by God.

Devout worshiper

That was precisely why Enriqueta Romero, known in this neighborhood as Doña Queta, put this altar on the street next to her house in 2001. “I am now eighty, but more than fifty years of loyal supporter of the white girl,” as Doña Queta affectionately calls the holy. Where supporters of Santa Muerte had been worshiped in private spheres for decades, Doña Queta was the first in Mexico to give the Holy a prominent, public place. Because everyone deserved to get to know the generous saint, said Doña Queta. “People became curious. From the start, dozens of people came by. And now look.” With pressing finger, the tan woman points to the rougishing row of people who want to visit her altar.

The people who pray to Santa Muerte are people who cannot make those prayers heard in church

The Tepito district in Mexico City is notorious. Mexicans from outside the neighborhood are advised to go there, tourists have nothing to look for at all. Posters of missing women hang on the broken lampposts. Climbing racks in the sparing playgrounds are rustling, garbage bags are torn on the sandy soil. Addicts walk with a hollow gaze over the cracked sidewalks, on the street corners, boys watch scooters outsiders.

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That she put this altar in Tepito, where she grew up, is logical according to Doña Queta. She is known in the neighborhood as one of the seven convertible From Tepito, one of the matriarchs that provide order, in a place where police officers prefer not to come. “Let’s face it. The people who pray to Santa Muerte are people who cannot let those prayers hear in church. But they must know. Everyone is welcome, I don’t interfere with the lives of others,” she says, sitting at a plastic table in a room next to the altar. She sells candles, bracelets and images from the Santa Muerte.

She cleans the window for the image every day, wipes the axis off the floor and cleans up the half -empty bottles of alcohol. Every first day of the month she receives thousands of believers for her altar, and then pray together. “They are very normal prayers,” says Doña Queta. “People call us satanic, but we have no strange rituals or ceremonies. Santa Muerte is like any other saint. People get their power here, their love and support.”

However, the believers in line for the altar in Tepito are not eager to talk to journalists. Only Joaquín, with large black sunglasses, wants to say something. He is a devout worshiper of Santa Muerte. “My mother had cancer, it just got better. A neighbor suggested offering to Santa Muerte. My mother was healed later,” he says. He goes along the altar with flowers every week.

Raid

The worshiping of dead has been part of Mexican culture for centuries, and many scientists say that the origin of Santa Muerte goes back to the Azteek empire, whose worship of Mictlantecuhtli, the god of the underworld, was partly taken over by Spanish Catholics from the colonization. The worship of skeletons received a further boost in the early twentieth century, at the time of the Mexican Revolution, when the cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada La Calavera Catrinaa female skeleton in expensive clothes, drew. She became the most famous part of a series of etchings in which he named death as part of equality between people. We all die, he thought.

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Since Posada, skeletons have become a prominent part of modern Mexican folk art, including by artist Diego Rivera. At the same time, Día de Muertos – the Mexican day of the dead that was melted together with the Catholic Allerzielen and All Saints’ Day, was introduced to the current form at the end of October and the beginning of November. Mexicans set up altars at home and at cemeteries and make sacrifices to commemorate deceased relatives. The real worship of Santa Muerte, however, started around the 1940s, but always indoors. Until Doña Queta opened her altar in Tepito.

People come here from very good neighborhoods that are afraid to be extorted or abducted

According to Fabian Acosta Rico, theologian and researcher, Santa Muerte is for many people as an alter ego of the Blessed Virgin of Guadelupe, the patroness of Mexico. “You don’t ask the Virgin of Guadalupe to eliminate your rivals, to become successful drug smuggler, to survive a robbery. You ask that for the Holy Death,” says Acosta Rico. He emphasizes that followers of Santa Muerte are without exception Catholic. “An important difference with other saints is that Santa Muerte has never really existed. She distinguishes herself because one appeals to her if others cannot help saints. If even Sint-Judas does not help, they turn to holy death.”

Contemporary context

Death does not discriminate. It is something that Doña Queta repeats several times, sat next to the altar in Tepito. Drug dealers, prostitutes, but also agents who risk their lives every day, make sacrifices to Santa Muerte, she says. Also within the gay community there are followers of Santa Muerte, precisely because their sexual preference, their love or their wedding wish is not in the traditional church. “But don’t think it is only about outsiders and poverty people. People come here from very good neighborhoods, who are afraid to be extorted or abducted.” For opponents, especially from the Roman Catholic Church, Santa Muerte is primarily a religion for criminals.

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A prominent pastor of Santa Muerte in Tepito was shot in Mexico City in 2017. To his murder, people saw him as a spiritiual leader, with perhaps a number of shadow sides, but after that it became clear that this Pancho Cayagua was a co-founder of Unión Tepito, the most prominent drug cartel in the Mexican capital. In the city of Guanajuato, a spiritual leader was shot in front of her altar.

And regularly when authorities fall into places that belong to drug bosses, they find altar for Santa Muerte. A recent example is the murder farm in Teuchitlán, where the Jaliscokartel assords would train and bodies would burn illegally. It ensures that religion is still being associated with crime by the church, politics and media.

According to anthropologist Blanca Estela Bravo Lara, who has turned the Santa Muerte religion her research area, the phenomenon must be viewed in a contemporary context. “Of course, Mexico is a Catholic and has a special bond with the dead, but the popularity also has to do with the postmodern era,” she says. “This era is characterized by hedonism and materialism. In the past we were busy with ourselves to come to terms, to do a fine for the suffering of Jesus, to go to heaven. Now we want other things. Things you don’t ask for God or a traditional saint.

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