Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint

THe cult of Santa Muetrte has grown by leaps and bounds since Dona Queta publicised her in her quesadilla stand in 2001. Before that he worhsip was kept under wraps with only a few people activelyfollowing her. Santa Muerte is a local homegrown Mexicn saint that is not CANONIZED by the Catholic Church. Most of her devotes are Catholic yet this movement seems to have the potential to break off into its own religious movement.There are many saints that Mexican will pray to . THe most noteable one is the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was who the author was researching. Something was missing, a certain enthusiasm and after all theVirgin had been written about many times. Inspiration came when the author heard of the Mexican government destroying like over 40 shrines dedicated to the most holy death. This was part of an ongoing war against the drug cartels and Santa Muerte is a narco saint.Many of her devotees are criminals, drug dealers, prisoners and also prison guards, policemen and soldiers. She is the most popullar saint, surpassing all of them in terms of sales items. But what is the story of this saint or this Grim Reapress. THe books is divided into chapters based on the color of candles her devotees will work with. Black is often the color most associated with her. Black is used for protections and cursing enemies. Back in the 80s and 90s when drug dealers kidnapped an american tourist and sacrificed him in a mixed palo mayombe ritual. Another case hapended in the 90s when a bust displayed Santa Muerte with black candles. The colors that are most popular to work with are white and red.Thee first chapter is based on the brown candle. Brown is used for knolwdge and Enlightenment. This chapter discusses hsitory of Santa Muerte and her possible origins. THe chapter also covers offerings, the hsitory of Dona Queta and David Romo. Dona Queta opened a shrine to Santa Muerte from her quesadilla stand in the crime ridden neighborhood of Tepito. David Romo was allied with the Traditional Catholic Church and he opened up a church dedicated to Santa Muerte. David Romo has since been victimized by the government and was charged with kidnapping. The origins of Santa Muerte are hazy. Some are saying that she is a Mexican version of the Aztec goddess of the dead. But this cannot be because not all Indians were aztecs. Rather she is the Grim Reapress from Spain, who was La Parque or the parched one.The next color they talked about was the black candle. In this chapter the author discusses how she is associated with cursing and protection. The drug dealers will ask her to help them with drug shipments or getting rid of legal authorities. Black is not a popular color but it is one most publicly associated with her. Thanks to cinema and media. White is for protection. Here the author discusses how the Saint protects her followers from witchcraft and other foul magic. Santa Muerte is as much a death bringer as she is a mother, healer and love doctor.Red is the love candle. Most of her petitions are love petitions, especially jilted women who wanted their wayword husbands to change their ways. This has been her traditional roll historically. The other candle are green for justice, good for money, purple for healing. Finally the rainbow for all purposes. If you love Santa Muerte then get this book.

This book is an excellent source for research on the bony lady known as Santa Muerte. It gives a deep dive of the saint, devotion around her, and some of the stories of those who follower. I really liked especially how this book used the different colors associated with saint as point to focus on throughout the book and the multiple layers that are behind her. Definitely worth a read!

The author acknowledges that the "most common version" of Sante Muerte's "indigenous identity" is that she is a kind of avatar of the Aztec Goddess of Death, Mictecacihuatl; a deity that was invoked by her worshippers both in relation to death itself and "for earthly causes," precisely as Santa Muerte is today (p. 27). Being the dominant paradigm endorsed by her contemporary devotees, this should obviously be definitive in terms of ascertaining Santa Muerte's core identity. And indeed, Chesnut adduces proof-positive that Sante Muerte is a fresh instantiation of an ancient Aztec Goddess when he notes that the earliest historical evidence for her cult shows that she had revealed herself to peyote-imbibing Chichimec shamans in the late 18th Century (p. 30). The Aztecs are, of course, a Chichimec people, and peyote use was an integral aspect of their spirituality.Chesnut downplays this evidence, however, in favor of farfetched considerations that bizarrely strive to give Santa Muerte a Catholic provenance and identity. The best datum supporting his crusade is that Santa Muerte appears in a form redolent of the female Grim Reaper figure, La Parca, imported into Mexico by its Spanish colonizers. The fact that the latter is not part of the Catholic religion and has never received a cult, however, precludes her from being the real catalyst behind Santa Muerte. In reality, La Parca is merely a Spanish version of the ancient Roman Fate of Death, Parca Morta, who is thus herself of pre-Christian origin. Moreover, Santa Muerte is worshipped today as a veritable deity, enjoying illimitable supernatural powers in her own right, not a 'saint' interceding with the Christian Trinity on behalf of Catholics or a mere symbol of death like the Grim Reaper. She is thus functionally closer to her Aztec source, Mictecacihuatl, than to the Spanish La Parca; iconography notwithstanding. The fact that she is reported to have been the recipient of periodic human sacrifices strongly confirms this conclusion.Santa Muerte (whose name is better translated into English as 'Holy Death' than as the 'Saint Death' preferred by Chesnut) is clearly a Pagan deity and not a Christian 'saint.' Rather than being invoked to afford her devotees a 'good death' in the Catholic sense of dying after having received absolution for one's sins and the sacrament of Extreme Unction, Santa Muerte is invoked for protection-from or revenge-against one's enemies, avoidance of untimely death, and safe passage to an afterlife that is conceptualized in multifarious ways by her devotees, many of whom are non-Christian.It is disingenuous for Chesnut to define Santa Muerte as a 'saint' of 'folk Catholicism.' The Catholic religion is not, after all, an exercise in religious democracy! Its beliefs are determined by the Papacy, not heterodox laity! And as far as Santa Muerte is concerned, the Church has formally & repeatedly condemned her cult as blasphemous. This verdict makes perfect sense from a Catholic theological perspective, since Christianity teaches that death is a consequence of sin (Ro. 6:23), from which Jesus liberates his followers (Ro. 8:2), not a scythe-wielding Goddess meriting a latreutical cult in her own right!Chesnut has apparent tendentious motives for seeking to eclipse the deeply anti-Catholic and Pagan quality of Santa Muerte: By imprisoning her within the ambit of Catholic Studies, in which he holds a professorship, Chesnut's lucrative study of her cult can continue unabated. In reality, Santa Muerte is a contemporary theophany of an Aztec Goddess seeking to reclaim souls from the Christian religion. Andrew Chesnut's musings about her meteoric rise, albeit containing useful information, should thus be taken with a grain of salt by Catholics and Santa Muerte's devotees alike.

This was a fascinating read about the origins, cultural context and contemporary resurgence of this intriguing saint. The writing style is very accessible,sources are well documented and personal anecdotes add a human dimension to the research. This is not a how to of Santa Muerte ritual although examples of prayers and offerings are given, but a balanced analysis of the current positioning of the Bony Lady in Mexico and the USA. The Lady's followers and enemies and the reasons for their stances are both critically explored. I first discovered Santa Muerte on a fictional TV show and was astonished at the depth of meaning and rapid development of the Lady's appeal that Chesnut reveals. She's definitely not the one dimensional Hollywood bogey man that I first encountered, but a far more complex being who fills the political and spiritual gaps of official neglect. If you have the slightest interest in religion, politics, sociology or anthropology you will find this a real page turner. If I have a single criticism, and its a very minor one, it would be the repetitive nature of the conclusion but that's probably only because Chesnut writes with such clarity that his prose is totally memorable and absorbing. Oh , and the kindle version photos show up as black and white even on my kindle fire which is disappointing, since colour is very important in this work.

For those of us who know that there is something else after we snuff this mortal coil, this book is a 'must have'. She is 'the grim reaper' and every other character known through out time as death, her followers grow in strength to strength each year, millions are already counted amongst her flock. The White Lady as she is called reaches out and touches every one of us, to those touched, for good or bad it makes no difference, being selected is all that counts. She has no favourites giving or taking from the rich and the poor, from killers to the people whose home is the streets. She is the fastest growing religion in the world and it would be foolish for anyone to ignore her power. A superbly written book detailing her origins and rise to power, bible bashers be warned she will never go away, I for one love her simplicity and the power she exerts, a stunningly individual lady may long she reign.

It's clear Andrew Chesnut did his research in this book.It is well-organized, well-written, and debunks many of the myths about the mysterious skeleton saint. At one time the cult worship of Santa Muerte was believed to be the faith of drug cartel members and criminals.The Catholic Church condemns it as blasphemous, evil and, satanic. But Chesnut details how The Skinny Lady now appeals to all walks of life.People from all over the world now flock to her for protection, healing, prosperity, and love.It is perhaps the most scholarly book to date on the folk saint of death. A must-read for all devotees and those thirsty for knowledge about the fastest growing religion in the world.

très bon livre que je conseille pour ceux qui veulent en savoir plus sur cette sainte Mexicainej'ai apprécié la lecture

Great book when you are learning