Santa Muerte Saint of Holy Death Standing Religious Statue 7.25 Inch White Tunic Purification Santisima Muerte Sculpture

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Officials: 3 killed as human sacrifices in Mexico". CNN.com. CNN. 2012-03-30. Archived from the original on 2012-04-02 . Retrieved 2012-04-03. a b c d "La Santa Muerte de Tepito cumple seis años"[The Santa Muerte of Tepito turns six] (in Spanish). Mexico City: Radio Trece. Archived from the original on 2009-02-06 . Retrieved 2009-10-07. a b c d e f g Villarreal, Hector (2009-04-05). "La Guerra Santa de la Santa Muerte"[The Holy War of Santa Muerte]. Milenio semana (in Spanish). Mexico City: Milenio. Archived from the original on 2009-10-16 . Retrieved 2009-10-07. All living beings must inevitably perish; nevertheless, across the ages, human beings have seldom accepted their mortality nor that of their loved ones. And religion has long served as a means to seek to avoid disease and death or come to terms with it, whether in Mexico, Brazil (Chesnut and Kingsbury 2019) or elsewhere in Latin America. One of Jesus’ principal roles was as healer, one could even term him a shaman as Craffert has, positing that his main roles were curing, mediating and prophecy (Craffert 2010). México) Sociedad–Salud > Area: Asuntos sociales. "La Iglesia de Santa Muerte mexicana celebró su primera boda gay y prevé 9 más". ABC.es – Noticias Agencias . Retrieved 2013-02-09. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)

In the capital city, the most common version of the story of the saint’s Indigenous identity highlights her purported Aztec origins. More specifically, Santa Muerte is thought to have originated as Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec goddess of death who along with her husband, Mictlantecuhtli, ruled over the underworld, Mictlan. Like Santa Muerte, the deathly couple was typically represented as skeletons or human bodies with skulls for heads. Aztecs not only believed that those who died of natural causes ended up in Mictlan but also invoked the gods’ supernatural powers for earthly causes, such as healing. With its persecution of Indigenous religion, the Spanish Conquest drove devotion underground and into syncretism with Catholicism. Thus, according to this version, her Spanish style tunics and dresses, and her European accoutrements, the scythe and scales of justice, are but a façade thinly veiling her true Aztec identity (Chesnut 2017, p. 22). Since the mid-20th century and throughout the 21st century, the cult of Santa Muerte and her devotees have been regularly discriminated, ostracized, and socially excluded both by the Catholic Church and various evangelical- Pentecostal Protestant churches in Mexico and the rest of Central America. [78] [79] [80] [81] Kingsbury, Kate; Chesnut, R. Andrew (September 2020). "Holy Death in the Time of Coronavirus: Santa Muerte, the Salubrious Saint". International Journal of Latin American Religions. Nature Public Health Emergency Collection. University of Toronto Press. 4 (1): 194–217. doi: 10.1007/s41603-020-00110-6. ISSN 2509-9965. PMC 7485595. S2CID 221656092.One of Santa Muerte's more popular uses is in matters of the heart. The red candle that symbolizes love is helpful in various situations having to do with love. Her initial main purpose was in love magic during the colonial era in Mexico, which may have been derived from the love magic being brought over from Europe. Her origins are still unclear but it is possible that the image of the European Grim Reaper combined with the indigenous celebrations of death are at the root of La Flaca's existence, in so that the use of love magic in Europe and that of pre-Columbian times that was also merging during colonization may have established the saint as manipulator of love. [48]

Most Americans and Western Europeans would immediately recognize Santa Muerte as a sort of female Grim Reaper with origins in medieval Catholicism. Spaniards would not even have to make allowances for her gender since their own personification of death, known as ‘la Parca’ (the parched one), is a female skeleton. Mexicans devotees, however, are more likely to regard the skeleton saint as an adapted version of an Indigenous goddess of death, whether Aztec, Mayan or Purépecha. As odd as this may seem to foreign observers, for many Mexicans the realities of Indigenous history and the myths of nationalism converge to give the folk saint a local birthplace in pre-Columbian Mexico.Torres-Ramos, Gabriela (2015). Souffron, Valérie (ed.). "Un culte populaire au Mexique: la Santa Muerte". Socio-anthropologie (in French). Paris: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. 31 (31): 139–150. doi: 10.4000/socio-anthropologie.2228. eISSN 1773-018X. ISBN 978-2-85944-913-1. Originally appearing as a male figure, [7] Santa Muerte now generally appears as a skeletal female figure, clad in a long robe and holding one or more objects, usually a scythe and a globe. [8] Her robe can be of any color, as more specific images of the figure vary widely from devotee to devotee and according to the rite being performed or the petition being made. [9]

a b c d e f Velazquez, Oriana (2007). El libro de la Santa Muerte[ The book of Santa Muerte] (in Spanish). Mexico City: Editores Mexicanos Unidos, S.A. pp.7–9. ISBN 978-968-15-2040-3. Devotees not only have set prayers at their disposal but also a number of rituals aimed at compelling Holy Death to cure their afflictions. For instance, La Biblia de la Santa Muerte (Rey 2009) offers five such rituals for healing. The ‘ritual for health’ typifies the genre:Many artists, particularly Mexican-American artists, have played with Santa Muerte's image. One of the images considered to be the most controversial in Mexico is the fusion of Santa Muerte and the Virgin of Guadalupe, into what is sometimes known as GuadaMuerte. This image has been very polemical for many Mexicans as it features Santa Muerte dressed like the Virgin, in blue veil with stars on it, red dress, with a fiery yellow halo behind her head and often in praying pose. It has, according to news sources, been so upsetting to the Catholic Church that Santa Muerte leaders in Mexico have advised against its use, while in the Santa Muerte community some leaders and devotees are angered that their powerful, formidable folk saint would be conflated with a completely separate entity and suffering female figure, the Virgin of Guadalupe, as the practices are different on many levels. [37] [38] Veneration [ edit ] Rites associated with Santa Muerte [ edit ] Figurines of Santa Muerte for sale in Sonora Market, Mexico City.