WEBVTT - O Death, Part 4: Santa Muerte and... 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.080 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:16.440 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:18.119 And I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:21.520 And we're back with the fourth and final I think 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:22.680 is it the final for now? 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.639 Par I mean, death is always final business. But I 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:28.479 don't know. We're gonna We're gonna see we have a 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:30.560 we have a fair amount of notes here, and it 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:32.840 kind of comes down to if we will get done 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.920 with them. In a way, it's kind of like the 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.720 the log. Once the log is burned to completion, then 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.600 it's over. But maybe we won't burn all of the log. 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:44.120 Ellieger there. 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.360 Yeah, but I was gonna say this is the fourth 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:52.320 and potentially final part in our series on personifications of death, 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:56.880 when death becomes not not a process or an abstract concept, 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:01.560 but a person or an embodied character. Probably won't do 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:03.720 a full recap of what we covered in the last 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.200 episodes because it's been a lot of ground at this point. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.960 If you are new to this series, you probably want 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.680 to go back and listen to the earlier episodes first. 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:16.680 Yeah, because we break down some basic categorizations and concepts 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.920 that we then returned back to again and again as 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:22.120 we break down other examples and so forth. 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:24.920 So I flagged this when we left off at the 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.160 end of the last episode, but today I wanted to 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.240 come back and talk about a specific example of a 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.320 death personification that I found really interesting as I was 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.640 reading a paper about this character. Specifically, this is a 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:45.400 feminine death personification that is actually, according to some scholars, 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.240 the matron deity of one of the fastest growing new 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.680 religious movements in the Americas, and this figure is known 0:01:54.720 --> 0:02:00.640 as Santemirte, which means Saint Death or Holy death in Spanish. Rob, 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:02.280 I've got some imagery for you to look at in 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:07.640 the outline. Here, would you say, in common appearance, a 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:12.120 fairly typical in some ways grim repress, a female grim reaper, 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:17.040 kind of a skeletal figure, clothed and enrobed in a way, 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.080 with a garment covering the head, kind of a veil 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.480 or a hood. In one representation we have here, she's 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.799 drawn with a halo around her head or at least 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.640 kind of an aura around the crown coming down. 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:30.400 To the base of the head. 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.520 And then in another representation she's actually quite colorful. You know, 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.360 she's decked out with a sort of rainbow back drop, 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:42.680 with a scythe and with some interesting objects in her hands. 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.200 Yeah. Yeah, that second image, you know, not surprising. I 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:50.000 think most of us familiar with the various colorful depictions 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:55.440 of death iconography in Mexican culture. But yeah, just a 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.440 quick glance at this character, you know what she's all about. 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.080 She's clearly some sort of an embodiment of death, and 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.480 there's a yeah, a sense of the weighing of the scales. 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.400 And you know, I don't know if we really mentioned 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:12.200 this or not, but the human skull in and of itself, 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:15.799 you know, is a very evocative image for a number 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.519 of reasons. You know, it's what's inside our head, that's 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:20.840 what we look like with no skin on our head. 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.440 But also it always appears to be grinning, you know, 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:29.240 it is. There is a it's easy to read the 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.600 skull as smiling, as if again there's a secret joke. 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.520 And we've already described what it means when death jokes. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:44.200 Grinning or grimacing, I guess, but a certain gritted teeth expression, yeah, 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.400 either going through something difficult or trying to hold the 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:52.680 chuckle in. But yeah, so my main source on Santa 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.720 Morte Here is going to be a twenty twenty one 0:03:55.800 --> 0:04:01.520 paper published in the journal Religions called syncredit Santamerte, Holy 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.000 Death and Religious Bricklage by a pair of scholars named 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:09.720 Kate Kingsbury and Our Andrew Chestnut. Kate Kingsbury is an 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:14.800 anthropologist affiliated with the University of British Columbia, and Our 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.120 Andrew Chestnut is a professor of Latin American history at 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:22.320 Virginia Commonwealth University, and at the time this paper was published, 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.080 the authors together explained they had fifteen years of cumulative 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:30.039 experience studying Santa Marte across different parts of the Americas. 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:31.960 So these are authors who have written a lot on 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.000 the Santa Marte figure and phenomenon. So, first of all, 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:41.720 who is Santa Marte. She is a Latin American folk 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:47.200 saint with devotees concentrated especially in Mexico, but in other 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.880 countries of North, Central and South America as well. So 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:55.800 a folk saint is a person or figure who many people, 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:01.760 especially within a Catholic influenced culture, consider holy, but who 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.640 has not been officially canonized. 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.080 By the authorities of the Catholic Church. 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:09.960 So Rob, you and I have actually talked about some 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.640 non official saints fairly recently. I think we talked about 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.440 Saint Swithin in English traditions. 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:19.840 That's right. Yeah, and I believe they've been one or 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:23.000 two others. Yeah. I guess the thing about a folk 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.520 saint is it enough people make a case for it, bam, 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.240 folk saint. Like if enough people were saying Coffin Joe 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.240 is a saint, then we have to acknowledge the idea, 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.240 even if it is not approved by the Catholic Church. 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:35.960 Yeah. 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:40.159 So, folk sainthood is recognized by the people, usually the 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.640 working classes, through a kind of emergent up from the 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:48.640 ground process. Folk saints can be either originally real people 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.320 who actually existed, or they can be legendary or mythical figures. 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:57.320 The people who believe in folk saints usually believe them 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:01.840 to be not only examples of holina, yes, but sources 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:07.640 of power, figures that possess supernatural powers and the ability 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:13.920 to provide blessings. And so despite not being formally recognized 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.880 by the Church and often being explicitly condemned by the Church, 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.240 the authors say that these folk saints are usually seen 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.280 as more relatable and with a greater ability to provide 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.920 healing and aid and comfort, especially to the people of 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:33.320 Latin American cultures, which the authors argue is in part 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.880 because the origins of these folk saints are typically closer 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.280 to the people in terms of time and space and 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:46.640 life experience than the origins of the canonized saints. Many 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:51.520 people in Latin American cultures, also, the authors say, prefer 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:57.080 folk saints to canonized saints, specifically because they exist outside 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.440 the sanction of the official church, and therefore their relationship, 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.279 you know, the people's relationship to the saint is kind 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:08.080 of freer. It is not mediated by the costs of 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:12.200 associating or going through the church, and it's not mediated 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.400 by the authority of a priest. So, for example, there's 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.680 no priest that can tell you what is and is 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.680 not an appropriate way to talk to or relate to 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.120 a folk saint like there would be in you know, 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.160 for official Catholic saints within the church. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.040 So in a way it's closer to the heart and 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.360 unperturbed by the intellects of others. 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:34.560 Yeah, that's right. 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.920 So, for example, there's nobody telling you what it's appropriate 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.480 to ask for or how you need to ask that 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:43.720 you're doing it wrong. Yeah, I mean you could say 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.320 that the official church, and you know, I'm not trying 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:48.400 to make a judgment here, this is just this is 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:53.080 a common perception the official church is laiden with moral judgment. 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.360 Like what if I need a blessing, if I need 0:07:56.400 --> 0:08:01.800 supernatural help with something, but from the church active what 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.880 if I am not asking for an appropriate goal, or 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.480 what if the church judges me to be in a 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.840 state of sin and you know, I show up saying 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.160 I need help with a problem, but from the church's 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.080 point of view, my problem is that I need to 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.960 repent and confess my sins before I come asking for help. 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.680 And so you know, there's just kind of you're at 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.840 an impasse there about like goals and priorities with the church, 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:27.840 but with a folk saint, you're not going to be 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:29.760 dealing with a hierarchy like that. 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:31.600 The relation to the. 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:36.600 Supernatural being is more on your own terms. So yeah, 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.199 So folk saints are often seen as in some ways better, 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.480 more miraculous, or more helpful than Catholic saints for these 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.320 multiple reasons, maybe cultural affinity. Their origins are closer in 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.160 cultural proximity and thus they're more relatable, and for reasons 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:55.360 of freedom. There's less restriction or instruction on how you're 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.280 supposed to relate to the saint. There's no implicit or 0:08:58.320 --> 0:08:59.240 explicit judgment. 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:01.240 Folk saints, the. 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:05.360 Authors say, often have a tragic death story, beginning as 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:09.320 real people who perished by violence or sometimes under the 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:14.040 oppression of authorities, or maybe in extreme poverty. They cite 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.720 the work of an anthropologist named Flores Matos, who calls 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.920 these figures the miraculous dead, and so they give one 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.040 example of another type of folk saint or miraculous dead 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.600 figure known of in Mexico, who is named Juan Saltados 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.920 and Wan Soldados is based on a soldier in Tijuana 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.960 who was said to have been framed for a horrible 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.600 crime and executed by firing squad in the nineteen thirties. 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.440 And then the story goes that after his death, his 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.400 ghost began to cry out from his grave to proclaim 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:49.800 his innocence, and the spirit of Juan Soldados started granting 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.680 people miracles, giving people miracles if they came to his 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.760 gravestone to ask for help, and a bunch of figures 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.880 like this exist with the understanding that it is so 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.760 thing about their tragic death and thus their relationship to 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:09.679 death that helps give them power to perform miracles. The 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:13.400 followers of Santa Morte often believe her to be the 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:18.520 most effective of these folk saints or miraculous dead, perhaps 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.960 because she's not just one of the miraculous dead, but 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.000 is the embodiment of death itself. 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.600 So for listeners out there, go ahead, describe what does 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:30.520 she look like? How do we know her when we 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:30.959 see her? 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.800 So we sort of alluded to this earlier, But she 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.480 takes the form of a female grim reaper or a 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:42.360 grim repress, said often to be based on a classic 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:47.600 Iberian grim repress figure called Laparca. So she's a grim 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.600 repress with a skeletal body and a skull face, usually 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.640 dressed in a long gown and a mantle meaning like 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.240 a cloak or a cape, often with a hood, and 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.040 the authors highlight that she has several characteristic items in 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:05.360 her hands in her left hand, usually a scythe. And 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.320 there's one note in the later in the paper where 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:13.720 the authors mention a common saying that wives whose husbands 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.600 had gone out roaming would would come back, would come 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:20.160 and ask Santa Marte to use her size to bring 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:24.040 errant husbands back. Home, so you can think of it 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.480 in that sense. It sounds almost not like a like 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.760 a blade or weapon, but like a shepherd's crook, you know, 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.320 pull them back. But I think it also has the 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.080 more common, you know, reaping imagery that we that we 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:39.000 just get from your classic Grim Reaper. And then so 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.120 that's her left hand. In her right hand she sometimes 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.439 has a globe like a representation of the planet Earth 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.559 or the scales of justice. She also has an animal companion, 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.400 which is an owl, and this could be for a 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:59.160 number of reasons. There are traditional associations between owls and 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.680 death in and some meso American religions. And then also 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.640 there is the association of the owl with wisdom in 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.000 a lot of traditions. And then to read here, I'm 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.720 going to read directly from Chestnut and Kingsbury about how 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.120 her name is put together. So they write quote in English, 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.440 she is called Saint Death or Holy Death. The name 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:25.280 Santa Muerte explicates her identity. In Spanish, Muerte means death. 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:30.600 Santa translates both as holy and as saint. But Santa, 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.280 it should be noted, is the female word for saint 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.640 in Spanish, and the saint is perceived by her followers 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:41.319 as of the female gender. She is a quote liminal, fierce, 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:46.400 feminine persona and is seen as an quote all powerful 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.800 and protecting mother who can solve all problems, who has 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:51.640 the power to. 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.080 Give and take away. 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.360 So this comes a bit back to when you were 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.520 talking about gender in the last episode, Rob. It seems 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.880 to me that Santa Morte is interesting because she is 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:08.200 one of these death figures that not only has a gender. 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:10.920 You know, you can imagine some death personifications that are 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.559 gender neutral or you can't really tell what gender they're 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:17.840 supposed to be, and then some some personifications have a 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:21.200 clearly intended gender, but maybe it's not necessarily supposed to 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.840 mean anything. But in this case, it seems like the 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:29.080 gendered embodiment is meaningful, Like she something about her being 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.280 death being a woman brings meaning to the relationship with her. 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.559 So there may be some sort of stereotypical nurturing context 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.400 to her, comforting context to her. But then, as we've 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.280 been discussing, with room for other connotations as well. 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:47.960 Yeah, I mean, as they say, I think the powerful 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.079 and protecting mother aspect of her is an important part 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.880 of what she is. So she's represented in all different 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:57.960 kinds of media. You can have pendance worn around the neck. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.440 She might sometimes just be an image Jnan devotional candle, 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.439 or she can be in full sized statue form at 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.480 the head of a shrine. Believers will turn to her 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:13.120 for miracles and other aid, as you do with some 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.959 of these other folk. Saints are miraculous dead, and often 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.680 they believe she has the power to bring good health, 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:24.800 to bring success in love, to bring deliverance from money troubles, 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.360 and all other kinds of blessings. So it's not just 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.880 stuff that we think of as inherently connected to death. 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:34.680 She can bring boons of all sorts. 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:38.520 That is interesting yet, because you might expect her powers 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.360 to be, you know, to borrow from dungeons and dragons, 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.560 spell classification. You might expect her to be a necromancy specialist, 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.480 you know, and all her abilities would be nechromatic in 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:50.640 one form or another. But yeah, once you're getting into 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:55.960 general blessings and financial boons, then you're in different territory. 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:02.160 Now where does this interesting sort of wide ranging power 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.120 come from. We'll come back to that, because that's actually 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:05.800 a core part of what they argue in the paper. 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.239 I'm going to be focusing more on their general characterization 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.600 of Santa Marte, but they're also making an argument about 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.960 culturally where she comes from, so we'll come back to that. 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.920 Another thing that's important is that the authors note that 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:24.240 Santamerte has been grossly misrepresented by some sensationalist media reporting 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:29.160 that has treated her as some kind of Narco saint. 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.000 That's a term used to refer to her narco saint, 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:36.240 a sort of cult figure worshiped exclusively by criminals and 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:40.120 drug traffickers. The authors say this is not correct at all. 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.600 She's venerated by all kinds of people, especially by the 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:47.840 poor and by people without much individual access to power, 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.880 So it's not that she is never invoked by anybody 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.240 related to the drug trade or drug war. The authors 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:59.520 say that actually she is regularly supplicated by people on 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.200 both sides of the law within the drug war in Mexico. 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.080 But she also says that lots of people were turning 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.880 to Santa Marte for protection during the first year of 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:13.040 the COVID pandemic, and that she is widely seen as 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.120 a protector of women in places where there is a 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:20.320 special thread of gender based violence. The author is also 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.320 mentioned that there is you know, of course, no formal 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:28.320 authority or structure within the faith, so there's nothing like 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:32.440 the Catholic hierarchy. So you can have people kind of 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:37.200 striking out to honor her or relate to her in 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.400 whatever way they see best. So you get these chapels 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:45.440 and shrines that are sometimes opened and operated by independent 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.880 religious entrepreneurs, but a lot of the faith is actually 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.520 conducted in private, like in private homes and at family alters. 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:57.000 And because there are no formal rules, there are no structures, 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.720 there are no authorities. There's just great freedom in how 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.520 the faith of Santa Marte is practiced. And the authors 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.879 again I mentioned this a minute ago, but they identify 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:10.000 that freedom as a key part of the appeal. However, 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:14.400 so you know, that's sort of the heteropraxy aspect. There's 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:16.720 just a lot of diversity in how people honor and 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.760 relate to Santa Marte. But they also say there are 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.639 some common trends that they've identified in their study of 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:24.359 this phenomenon. 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:26.240 So, first of. 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:31.000 All, altars and chapels are important. Most devotees of Santa 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.919 Marte will visit the nearest chapel devoted to her, to 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.879 her at least like once a month, and so people 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.360 visit these chapels and they say prayers and leave offerings. 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.359 Lots of people have altars within their homes, often consisting 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.720 of like a small statue of the saint on a 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.760 table or a votive candle. And the offerings can take 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.960 a lot of forms. They might be foods, like chocolate 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.800 or other candy I've seen some. Sometimes fruits are given. 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:03.919 The offerings might be flowers. They could be alcoholic beverages 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:08.200 like beer or tequila. Sometimes it's cigarettes or other smokables. 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:11.959 There are bottles of water. Actually, the authors say quote 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.360 as the skeleton saint is said to be perpetually parched. 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:18.320 Everything she drinks it just goes right through. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:18.880 Yeah. 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:20.960 No, I don't know exactly how to read the tone 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:22.800 on that phrase, but I think I take that as 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.320 there being a bit of playfulness in the relationship between 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:32.440 her devotees and her. But she's also she's commonly understood 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.280 as a folk saint of the powerless, of the marginalized 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.960 and oppressed, So the people with the least power, or 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.200 the people who live closest to meeting death are thought 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:47.400 to be especially within her domain. The author's cite previous 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.200 work by a scholar named Olaskyevitch Peralba, who argues that 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.960 she is appealing quote among liminal sectors of population that 0:18:56.080 --> 0:19:00.439 deal with transitions and transgressions, such as people working on 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:07.840 the streets e g. Street vendors, criminals and prostitutes, migrants, inmates, policemen, troops, 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:12.639 prison guards, social workers, and lawyers. So it's interesting that 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.600 it's not just like a cohort of natural allies there. 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.480 You know, you have people in all different types of professions, 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:20.520 maybe on both sides of the law and so forth. 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.920 But it's everybody on law and order, all the characters. 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.320 But not just that. I mean also it's a lot 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:34.360 of connections to maybe danger or connections to what they 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:39.520 say again is transitions and transgressions, liminal spaces. And the 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:41.920 authors say also her appeal is fairly broad, so it's 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.840 not just that domain. They say that you will find 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:49.359 her devotees among people everyone from housewives to fishermen, they say, 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.879 but all kinds of people, especially the poor, who feel 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:58.760 less connection to the priesthood of the institutional church. And 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:03.320 the authors argue that her appeal in modern times extends 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:07.040 to so many people in part because of a pervasive 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:12.720 feeling of unsafety and a resulting metaphysics of disorder related 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.960 to the ongoing drug war. Of course, this effects not 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.359 just people involved in the drug trade or in fighting it, 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.639 but it involves a lot of innocent people caught in 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.120 the crossfire. And the authors argue that in this context, 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.160 for many people sort of within her domain, especially poor 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.560 people in certain parts of Mexico, for these people, living 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.560 entails a feeling of constantly standing up in the face 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:37.119 of death. 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:38.720 Quote. 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.040 However, instead of standing up to death, many in Mexico 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:46.280 have instead entered into a religious relationship with death, wherein 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:50.919 she is imagined as possessing the supernatural puissance, meaning like 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:55.840 a power or strength to protect them from perishing. So 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:00.720 there's this belief, not necessarily that death is just a 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.720 bad thing to be protected from. There are elements of 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.639 that in the understanding, but it's also a power you 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:10.920 can appeal too to spare you and the people you love, 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.879 or to be redirected into a kind of general power 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.320 of blessing to bring you protection and boons in your life. 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.159 And so in this the authors invoke an idea of 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:26.399 a kind of interdependence between death and power. Just power 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:27.960 to act within reality. 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:30.520 Yeah, it comes back to, you know, a lot of 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:35.560 what we've been discussing here about how these dealing with death, 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:42.720 dealing with complex and semi chaotic or chaotic situations, violence 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:46.560 on a mass scale. You know, we can feel lost, 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.600 untethered and are you know, we have limited abilities to 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:55.359 make sense of it all, but we can reach out 0:21:55.560 --> 0:22:00.159 to something. If we personify some of what's going on, 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.560 then we have something at least in our own minds 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.879 that we can deal with, that we can reach out to, 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:08.439 we can seek to appease, that we can seek the 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:09.840 guidance of, and so forth. 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:14.639 Yeah, but especially interesting that it's not just in domains 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:17.720 related to death. That's like the thing that's most interesting 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:30.080 to me about this. So anyway, everything I've been talking 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.880 about so far is just sort of from the general 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:37.439 background sections of their paper. Actually, the main point that 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:42.040 they're arguing in this paper is they're making an interesting 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:46.920 argument about the origins and development of the Santamorte belief. Specifically, 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.679 the authors are making the claim that, in contrast to 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:55.320 some previous writing which they think over emphasized or exclusively 0:22:55.359 --> 0:23:00.000 acknowledged the Catholic or European cultural roots of the deaths 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:04.479 ain't they say, In reality, Santa Morte is a syncretic figure. 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:08.639 A syncretic meaning a figure that emerges from the combination 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.399 or synthesis of elements from different cultures. In this case, 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:16.240 they're going to identify two main cultural inputs. One of 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:21.280 them is European Catholicism. It's the Catholic or Iberian grim Repress. 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:25.879 So this is a European and specifically Spanish Catholic moment 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:29.639 of death figure in female form, which was not a 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:32.879 god really as understood by the Christians, but it was 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:35.879 more of an image that served as a memento mori 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.040 or was a kind of teaching tool. So the image 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:42.760 reminds you that death is coming, and thus you need 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:45.720 to get right with Christ and confess right right. 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.919 And as we're mentioning being not completely shackled the doctrine, 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:53.879 it does leave you open to interpret it and present 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:58.040 it in various ways throughout European literature. 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:00.920 Yeah, so that's one input that they say. If you 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:05.840 just acknowledge that input, the Sentamorte belief doesn't make a 0:24:05.840 --> 0:24:07.919 whole lot of sense. It's hard to make sense of 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:11.400 where a lot of its features come from. So they say, actually, 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:16.640 a huge input on it is pre Columbian indigenous thanatologies, 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:20.960 the death deities and other personifications of death from the 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:26.040 religions and cultures of pre Hispanic meso American peoples. And 0:24:26.080 --> 0:24:28.439 then finally after this they also talk about this you 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:31.480 might have heard in the title there's the bricolage aspect. 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:35.800