by Jim Griffith, guest contributor
La Santa Muerte (“Holy Death” or “Saint Death”) is an extremely popular Mexican folk saint who is not recognized by the Catholic Church, even though her devotion shares much of its structure, behavior, and worldview with Catholicism. A personification of Death, she is frequently represented as a robed and hooded skeleton, holding a globe of the Earth and a scythe.
Although antecedents of her devotion may be found on both sides of the Atlantic, her current popularity seems to have begun in the Post World War II era. Her great popularity as a source of assistance stems in part from the fact that she does not demand any ethical behavior of her devotees, but rather “asks no questions.” Her devotees may be found in all levels of Mexican society in Mexico and the United States. She seems to be especially popular among the very poor and marginalized portions of society. She is also associated in popular belief with the drug trade.
Her image appears in many contexts: on prayer cards, candles, and statues (including at least one in Sonora carved out of ironwood), on amulets and jewelry, on posters, on altars, and in roadside shrines and chapels. (In 2009, the Mexican army demolished large numbers of such shrines in the northern border states.)
Several shrines and chapels to Santa Muerte can be found along Sonora’s highways near the border. Of particular interest here is a cluster of some fifteen shrines, some of which have never been finished, on International Highway 15, just south of Nogales, Sonora’s airport. I saw the first of these, an elaborate domed chapel, in 2006. Within a few years it had been joined by a long row of others. A few years after that, somebody smashed the heads of the life-sized statues, and otherwise desecrated the shrines. Many of the heads were replaced shortly after. The shrine cluster still stands, to the best of my knowledge.
Of the many contexts in which Santa Muerte appears, the most rare, in my experience, are murals. I have seen her represented on a storefront in Agua Prieta, Sonora, but not in an overtly devotional context. The four murals I share here are the only ones I am aware of. Three are from the chapels south of Nogales and one is from Tucson, Arizona.
Santa Muerte’s iconography is complex. Her representations can be in any one of seven different colors, each one representing a side of her personality or an area in which she is known to help. For example, if one prays for help in affairs of the heart, one might well purchase a red candle. A black candle helps when asking for protection from or harm to one’s enemies. A gold candle accompanies petitions for prosperity, and so on.
SUGGESTED READING
Chesnut, R. Andrew. 2012. Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint. New York: Oxford University Press.
All the photographs in this series are by Jim Griffith:
Group of Santa Muerte chapels on Highway 15 south of Nogales, Sonora. August 2008.
Santa Muerte poster from Nogales chapel group. Note the scythe, the globe, the white robes, and the cape of dollar bills. October 2003.
Mural of Santa Muerte from the same chapel group. She is seated on a throne, writing wih a quill pen. The top of the throne has skull finials and a central crown over a lozenge bearing the letters “JA”. ”Santa Muerte” appears vertically below the table, flanking a horizontal “CULIACAN” and some unreadable letters and numbers. May 2012.
Mural of Santa Muerte from the same chapel group. She is seated on a throne, writing wih a quill pen. The top of the throne has skull finials and a central crown over a lozenge bearing the letters “JA”. ”Santa Muerte” appears vertically below the table, flanking a horizontal “CULIACAN” and some unreadable letters and numbers. May 2012.
Mural of Santa Muerte from the same group. She is clothed in brown and accompanied by an axe, a globe, scales, a five pointed star, a raven, and a black cat. The axe may be a substitute for the more common scythe. I have found no reference to ravens or black cats in the literature. However, they seem to be in keeping with the general “spookiness” of these murals. October 2008.
Botanica Santa Muerte, W. Irvington Rd., Tucson. She is faceless and clad in white, with wings, a scythe, and skeletal hands. This image is unique in my experience. May 2012.