Santa Muerte : Sainte Matronne de l’amour et de la mort

Kingsbury, Kate; Chesnut, R. Andrew

doi:10.3138/anth-2019-0004

Cited by 4 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…And like most folk saints, Santa Muerte is amoral, therefore she may also be supplicated not only for good deeds but also bad, such as to bring death and bad luck to enemies. For this reason, Santa Muerte has often been mislabeled by the press, media and US law enforcement authorities as a narco-saint, that is to say a saint venerated solely by narco-traffickers (Kingsbury and Chesnut 2020a).In previous articles and a book, we demonstrated how the portrayal of Santa Muerte as narco-saint is erroneous and revealed the folk saint's many other roles, whether as matron saint of the drug war being supplicated by both sides of the law (Kingsbury and Chesnut 2020a), as protector of women in a state where gendered violence is widespread (Kingsbury 2020, Kingsbury andChesnut 2020c), or as a holy healer turned to for favors of health, especially in the current context of coronavirus (Kingsbury and Chesnut 2020b).…”

Section: Santa Muerte the Female Folk Saint Of Deathmentioning

confidence: 90%

Syncretic Santa Muerte: Holy Death and Religious Bricolage

Kingsbury¹,

Chesnut²

2021

Religions

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In this article, we trace the syncretic origins and development of the new religious movement centered on the Mexican folk saint of death, Santa Muerte. We explore how she was born of the syncretic association of the Spanish Catholic Grim Reapress and Pre-Columbian Indigenous thanatologies in the colonial era. Through further religious bricolage in the post-colony, we describe how as the new religious movement rapidly expanded it integrated elements of other religious traditions, namely Afro-Cuban Santeria and Palo Mayombe, New Age beliefs and practices, and even Wicca. In contrast to much of the Eurocentric scholarship on Santa Muerte, we posit that both the Skeleton Saint’s origins and contemporary devotional framework cannot be comprehended without considering the significant influence of Indigenous death deities who formed part of holistic ontologies that starkly contrasted with the dualistic absolutism of European Catholicism in which life and death were viewed as stark polarities. We also demonstrate how across time the liminal power of death as a supernatural female figure has proved especially appealing to marginalized socioeconomic groups.

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Section: Santa Muerte the Female Folk Saint Of Deathmentioning

confidence: 90%

Syncretic Santa Muerte: Holy Death and Religious Bricolage

Kingsbury¹,

Chesnut²

2021

Religions

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“…In mythology, Santa Muerte is not imagined as a virgin; consequently, she is said to be open to prayers of a sexual nature and petitions from women of all sexual orientations. Imagining the saint in this manner enables women to accept their sexuality, as opposed to associating this with sinfulness as in the Roman Catholic rhetoric (Kingsbury and Chesnut 2020b). Furthermore, although she is caring, Santa Muerte may also be ireful and vindictive.…”

Section: Who Is Santa Muerte?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Zaniyah, a devotee of Santa Muerte whom I met lighting a white candle for her husband, related to me how she worried about his safety daily and prayed to Holy Death to let him live. With three children to feed and no income of her own, his death would spell disaster, not only leading to financial precarity but also possible physical dangers as single women are at higher risk of violence (see Kingsbury and Chesnut 2020b).…”

Section: Lady Justicementioning

confidence: 99%

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Death is Women’s Work: Santa Muerte, a Folk Saint and Her Female Followers

Kingsbury

2020

Int J Lat Am Relig

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Santa Muerte is a new religious movement that originated in Mexico. It centers on devotion to death. It has come under fire from the Catholic Church, the Mexican State, and mass media across the Americas. In misrepresentations that are often racist, and sexist, Santa Muerte has been portrayed by the above institutions as a 'narco-saint', that is a saint worshiped by narcotraffickers, and the religion portrayed as one that only violent, barbaric males follow This article counters this erroneous depiction suggesting that devotion to death is women's work. I detail how Santa Muerte has long been appealed to by women who have been at the fulcrum of the expansion of the movement. I describe how knowledge of Santa Muerte continues to be germinated by women who through gynocentric thanatological praxis are empowered and fashion spaces in which to deal with the violence, precarity and poverty that riddles the Mexican post-colony.

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“…By the 1990s, the saint of death had developed into a multi-faceted miracle worker who could be propitiated for any number of favours from financial success to health problems (Chesnut 2017; Kingsbury and Chesnut 2020a; Kingsbury and Chesnut 2020b;Pansters 2019). At this time, small-and large-scale effigies of the saint began to be sold in Mercado Sonora, the 'witchcraft market' located in the Mexican capital.…”

Section: Death Goes Publicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holy Death in the Time of Coronavirus: Santa Muerte, the Salubrious Saint

Kingsbury

Chesnut

2020

Int J Lat Am Relig

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As Santa Muerte prayer cards and candles circulate in Mexico with petitions of protection against COVID-19, we consider death as doctor in these tumultuous times proving that the folk saint of death is not solely a narco-saint, as the press depicts, but is supplicated for miracles of COVID healing and protection from the virus. We not only reveal the importance of religion for coping with pandemics but also focus on the notion of death as healing and as a giver of life. We decolonize knowledge of Santa Muerte and explore the saint’s syncretic origins, hailing not only from the European Grim Reaper during times of plague but also from Indigenous thanatological epistemologies that account for her dual powers of gifting life and also doling out death.

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Santa Muerte : Sainte Matronne de l’amour et de la mort

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

Syncretic Santa Muerte: Holy Death and Religious Bricolage

Syncretic Santa Muerte: Holy Death and Religious Bricolage

Death is Women’s Work: Santa Muerte, a Folk Saint and Her Female Followers

Holy Death in the Time of Coronavirus: Santa Muerte, the Salubrious Saint

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