santisima muerte_on the origin and devlopment of a mexican occult image

8/3/2019 Santisima Muerte_On the Origin and Devlopment of a Mexican Occult Image

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Journal of the Southwest

Santsima Muerte: On the Origin and Development of a Mexican Occult ImageAuthor(s): John ThompsonReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 405-436Published by: Journal of the SouthwestStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40170073 .

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Santsima Muerte:On the Origin and Developmentof a Mexican OccultImageJohn Thompson

Thestripperat theReyesy Reynas Dancing Bar, on Repblicade Cubain the centerofMexicoCity, approachedand askedif I spokeSpanish.Tes,I do. WouldI buyher a drink? Of course.As she ordereda glass ofama-retto and leaned wearilyon the table, my eyewas drawn to thesilverpen-dant wedged betweenher breasts.I recognized the shape of SantsimaMuerte. I pointed: Who's hat? It's Santsima Muerte. Tell me more, Isaid. Well,God and Santsima Muerte lookafter me, shesaid, fingeringthependant. I loveLa Muerte,becauseofhergreat fairness, and hergreatunpredictability.Youknow,Death can come at any time, and eventuallydoescome to all, rich orpoor.I nodded. Wesat quietly or a few moments.A bottle brokenearby.Shesmiled, and held up the image on the silverchain. I would like togive this to you, she said. Wouldyou accept it? Ofcourse. She removed the pendant and chain, and clasped it carefullyaround my neck. There,she said. Promise me you'll take this with youto the United Statesand never throw it away. I promised.But, I asked,doesn'tthis leaveyou withoutprotection?Ohno, shesaid. Look.Sheopenedan amulet bag tied to her wrist and pulled out a small skull carved ofbone. This is all I need,shesaid, and smiled.1

This is the story of a Mexican occult image: SantsimaMuerte, HolyDeath, the robed, skeletalfigure of Death herself. In recent yearsI havewatched the devotion to SantsimaMuerte grow in Mexico, and now Ifind her image more frequently in the United States. If she's movinginto the neighborhood, it behooves us to make her acquaintance.A note to the fearful: although a thoroughly evil figure to some,in current popular belief SantsimaMuerte is a complex, multi-facetedspirit, possessing great power which can be used to achieve both good

John Thompson livesand works n Tucson,Arizona. He dedicates thisessay o Dr. Noemi Quezada. Thompson'srticle "Santo Nio de Atocha"waspublished n theSpring 1994 issueof Journalof the Southwest.


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406 Journal of the Southwestand evil ends. No longer the sole property of the sorcerer,she now oc-cupies a place of honor in the Mexican popular pantheon. She availsherself to "good" Catholics and "bad" witches alike. Indeed, afterpur-suing Santsima Muerte through central Mexico and the borderlandsfor severalyears, I have reached my own level of appreciation and re-spect for this flexible folk deity, and for the ingenuity of the Mexicanimagination that has invented and re-invented her.SantsimaMuerte apparently began life as a specialist in love magic.The printed prayer to her, the Oracin de la Santsima Muerte, is amodern-day throwback to a specific form of medieval Spanish lovemagic: the spell to bring back a wandering lover. Now, however, San-tsima Muerte has gone beyond love spells to become a shadowy pa-troness of all kinds of Mexican magic, the pale and implacablecounter-part of that other great protector of the Mexican soul, the Virgin ofGuadalupe.In this paper, I begin by describing my encounters with SantsimaMuerte in Tucson and along the U.S. -Mexico border. I then discussthe phenomenon of Mexican oracionesand printed spell cards in gen-eral, looking especiallyat the Mediterraneanorigin of the erotic domi-nation spells we find in Latin America today. Next, I try to understandthe history of the Oracin de la SantsimaMuerte itself a spell of eroticdomination- in colonial Mexico. Finally,I look at Santsima Muerte sincreasinglydiversified role in Mexican magic and religion today,with anod to her growing presence in the United States.

In 1997y in Tucson,Arizona, I boughta smallglass bottlecontaininghalf an ounce of Santsima Muerte perfume. It cost $1.50. The SkippyCorporation,based n Detroit and LosAngeles, made thestuff so the bot-tle was also labeledin English:"HolyDeath.v Theliquid in the bottlewasbrightred. I called theshop ady overto openthe lockedcase and retrieveabottle or me. What's t for, I asked.I have no idea, she said. The irst bot-tle in the displaywas only partlyfull. She uncappedthe bottle behind it,whichwas alsohalf full, and somewhatrecklesslyoppedoff the irst bottle.Careful there,I said, don't spill any. . . . Ehh,shesaid, tossingthe secondbottleaway, I don't believe n thisstuff I paid for thebottle,took t home,and openedit to smell the Perfume of Holy Death. It smelled like straw-berrycandy.


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Santsima Muerte < 407I first met SantsimaMuerte in 1992, in Magdalena, Sonora, Mex-ico, just south of the Arizona border. Pilgrimsvisit the reclining imageof San Francisco Xavier n Magdalenaon his feast day in October; non-pilgrims also come to town for the carnivalatmosphere. In one of themany religious souvenir stores lining the plaza, I bought a folded pieceof paperentitled Oracin de la Sta. Muerte. I studied the printed imageof Santsima Muerte on its cover, the image that I would later come toknow so well: a grinning skeleton in a long gown, veiled and haloed,holding the Earth in one hand and a balancingscale in the other.Unfolding the paper,I found the actual Oracin de la Santa Muerte.I tried to interpret the prayer; t began by asking Jesus Christ to bring"Fulano,"2 amed and humiliated, to the feet of the supplicant.Next, itinvoked Santsima Muerte, Holy Death, for protection. It then askedDeath to torment Fulano, so that he never rests and "always thinksof me."3Three other prayerswere also printed on the folded paper.The Ora-cin al Espritude la Personainvoked Fulano's own spiritto bring him,broken and humiliated, back to the supplicant's feet. The Oracin alAngel de la Guarda askedFulano's GuardianAngel to make him forget"the woman he has" and return to the woman reciting the prayer.Lastly,the Oracin a la Sbila, or Prayerto the Aloe Plant, asked forgood luck, protection, and freedom from evil, seemingly as a kind ofantidote to the heavybusiness of the other three prayers.(I would latersee this particularpackage of prayers,printed together and sold underthe SantsimaMuerte title, wherever I traveled in Mexico.)Later, back in Tucson, I found SantsimaMuerte's image at a His-panic magic supply store called Flores Nacional. In 1994 I found herthere on a laminated wallet card, with a shorter version of the Oracinde la Sta. Muerte on the back. I also found her picture on a small bagof magic powder, with the legend, in English: "to conquer love." Overthe following yearsI would find other Muerte items at Flores Nacional,including the vial of Skippybrand SantsimaMuerte perfume, red San-tsimaMuerte candlesfrom Chicago, and a canister of SantsimaMuertespiritual ncense produced by the Indio Poderoso Company,also of Chi-cago, with the Oracin de la Santsima Muerte printed in both Spanishand English.Eventually,I discoveredanotherArizona outlet for SantsimaMuerte:the Southwest Supermarketchain, widespreadin Arizona and currently


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expandingntoTexas,California, nd New Mexico.In Juneof 1997, 1boughta SantsimaMuertecandleoff the shelf n one of the SouthwestSupermarkettoresin Tucson. The Muertecandles,displayedalong-side the SaintJude, Nio de Atocha, and Pancho Villacandles,aremadeby the Reed CandleCompanyof SanAntonio, Texas.4All the


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Santsima Muerte < 409Southwest SupermarketsI've visited in Tucson carry the Muerte can-dles, and the assistantmanagerof the St. Mary's Road store assured methat all branches carry pretty much the same inventory. I called abranchin Phoenix to check, and it also carries them.Interestingly, the popular El Charro restaurant n Tucson buys San-tsima Muerte candles at Southwest Supermarkets or resale as curios inthe restaurant'sgift shop. There they are referred to as "Day of theDead candles," apparentlyunaware of the prayeron the back wherebya scorned woman curses her man for leaving her and works a spell ofdomination to bring him back. (From what I have seen, there is no di-rect historical connection between Santsima Muerte and the variousDay of the Dead celebrations in Mexico. As the image of SantsimaMuerte becomes more common and accepted, though, it may getsome popular use during Day of the Dead.)In spite of her appearances n the United States, it's still much easierto find Santsima Muerte's image on the Mexican side of the border.In 1994, in the border city of Nogales, Sonora, I bought a SantsimaMuerte pendant from a young girl on the street. "What's it for?" Iasked. "Protection," she said. More recently, in April of 1997, I wentto Nogales, again looking for SantsimaMuerte in the magic stores. Noproblem:the salesladyat YerberaMedicinalessold me SantsimaMuertesoap, Santsima Muerte candles, SantsimaMuerte aerosol spray,and ared plasticstatue of SantsimaMuerte about five inches tall, with magi-cal seeds molded into its base. As I expected, she also carriedthe Ora-cin de la SantsimaMuerte, in the same format I had seen yearsbeforein Magdalena.I asked her what the image was for. "Well,"she said, "for love. Andfor protection from your enemies." Indeed, the candle I bought had"Contra Mis Enemigos" printed under Muerte's image on the front."Is the image primarily used by women?" I asked. "Both men andwomen use her," she said, "for both reasons: love and protection." "Isthe image relativelynew in Nogales?" "No, she's been around a longtime." "How long?" "Oh, I don't know . . . many years, a long time."She told me that the magic supplies she stocked the usual arrayofcandles, powders, liquids, statues, books, printed prayers,and shrink-wrappedamulets on cardboard mostly came from Mexico City,with afew things coming from Monterrey. "In Mexico City," she said, "peo-ple use Santsima Muerte all the time, but here, in Nogales- well,they're a little afraid."


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410 > Journal of the SouthwestA few blocks farther away from the border, Felix Castro runs theCentrobotanica Azteca in a narrow alleyway off the main street. Hedisplays his herbs and magic paraphernaliaon a metal shelf bolted tothe wall, and the people seeking his assistance rest on a shaded benchduring their consultation. He does a good trade in Santsima Muerteitems, especially the oracin, which he sells as a part of a love magicpackage, along with a dead hummingbird. He tells me to place thehummingbird which comes dried, wrappedin red thread, and stapledto a piece of cardboard next to a photo of the woman (or man, as thecase may be) that I desire. Then I am to recite the prayerto SantsimaMuerte until my loved one comes to me.5As I traveledfarther into Mexico, I would come to realize that San-tsima Muerte's presence along the border, well established as it is,pales next to her reign in the center of the country. If, as the owner ofthe Nogales magic store noted, border inhabitants are still ua littleafraid" of Santsima Muerte, they may only be behind the times. Butmore on that later.It was a slow weekday afternoon at the Mercado Sonora, the mainmagic marketin MexicoCity.I sat withSantiago Bastida on emptycratesbehind his booth,wherehe sellsreligiousgoods, magic supplies,and sewingnotions.Santiago is one-thirdofCitrun Nueve Santiago, one of the mostprolificpublishersof oraciones n Mexico,and I was trying to understandhow the businessworks.Betweencustomers,Santiago described,with un-disguisedglee, the brainstormingsessionsduring which he and his two as-sociatesdream up new oraciones oprint. Wehavesome newproductscom-ing out, he said: a line of Santera oraciones,anotherofccVudv raciones,a line dedicated to Satanistfigures, and, ohyes,a seriesof Wiccanspellsprayersto trees,that sort of thing. But Santiago, I said, I didn't thinkWicca was establishedn Mexico. It's not, he exclaimed. We're oing to es-tablishit!The Oracin de la Santsima Muerte wasn't the only prayercard Ibought in Magdalena, Sonora. I found severalother oraciones for salethere as well, of severaldifferent varieties:prayers o "official"religiousfigures (e.g., Santo Nio de Atocha, Santo Nio Cieguito); to folksaints, historical or legendary (Juan Soldado, Jesus Malverde, NioFidencio); to more ephemeral spirits(SantsimaMuerte, Tomasito He-rrera,Juan Perdido); and to other sources of power, such as the Power-


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Santsima Muerte < 411ful Hand of the Badger (la Mano Poderosa del Tejn), the Master Key(Llave Maestra), and the Miraculous Buddha of Love (Milagroso Budadel Amor).Later, on several trips to Mexico City from 1995 through 1997, Iwould collect more than 150 different oraciones from street vendorsand the magic booths in the public markets. Santiago Bastida told methat Citrun Nueve Santiago alone has printed more than two hundreddifferent oraciones over the years. (My many attempts to get a list fromhim have failed;he forgot the list at home, or decided it didn't exist af-ter all, or failed to show up at an appointed time. I suspect either thelist doesn't exist or he simply doesn't want me to have it.)Most Mexican oraciones are printed on a colored cardstock knownas cartulina, with an image on one side and the prayeron the other.Others are on folded newsprint, like the SantsimaMuerte prayer.Theprayersthemselves generally follow the same form: the invocation ofthe source of power, the request for a favor, and a final benediction.Ritualinstructions may be tacked on the end. Many recommend sayinga few Our Fathers. The prayer to the Hand of the Badger a maleprayer for love- instructs the lovelorn fellow to recite the prayeronTuesdaysand Fridays,at midnight, calling out the name of the desiredwoman three times. Some oraciones call for a specific product say,"Congo Powder" conveniently availablefrom the same company thatpublishes the oracin.The production value of the oraciones varies. The image on thefront may be a photo, print, or line drawing. Drawings range fromcrude sketches to carefullydrawn renderings; photos can be clearlyre-produced or murkyand tantalizinglyout of focus. There may be severaldifferent styles of the same prayer,with different artwork, either fromdifferent publishers or in different editions of the prayerby the samepublisher.At one point in 1996, shortages in the usual colored card-stock led to the printing of oraciones on cheap newsprint (papel revolu-cionario, according to Santiago). Within a few months, the shortagehad eased and printerswere using the colored cardstockagain. In 1997,Citrun Nueve started experimenting with a glossy white paper, calledpapel canadiense,striving for a more sophisticated- ooking product.As a collector of oraciones, I always look for the magic booth (orbooths) in the public market of Mexican towns. Once there, I linger asinconspicuously as possible, observing the action and the display.Even-tually I ask to see the oraciones, and flip through them looking for new


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412 * Journal of the Southwestor rare ones. During this search, I often have to step aside so the ven-dor can retrieve a specific one for a customer. People usually buy a sin-gle oracin, to address a specific problem. The vendor may suggest aparticularone, or one may have been recommended to the buyer bysomeone else a friend, perhaps, or a specialist. If buyers need anyother materials candles, herbs, incense, whatever they can buy themthere or at one of the other booths in the market specializing in suchparaphernalia.The oraciones contain pleas for all the things people want: love,luck, health, wealth, power, protection- the list goes on. The numberof oraciones in my collection offering domination over the will of oth-ers indicates that many people desire such control. It perhaps goeswithout saying that the spiritsinvoked to grant domination over othersare generally not approved Catholic saints. They are more likely to bethe souls of such beings as JuanMinero, Don Diego Duende, SantiagoMulato, Rosita Alvarez, or the Poderoso Monicato. Like SantsimaMuerte, these spirits are asked to torment Fulano, to keep him fromeating, resting, or sleeping, until he comes crawling, utterlyhumiliated,to your feet.Mexicans aren't the only ones using these kinds of oraciones;peoplein other Latin American countries use them as well. Angelina Pollak-Eltz notes the existence of similar prayer cards in Venezuela, knownthere as ensalmes,and states, "Ensalmes are usually orally transmitted.Today, however, many printed prayersto the saints, to Maria Lionza,and to spiritscan be bought in the 'perfumeras.'Indications are givenon how to use them, and what ritual has to accompany them in orderto be effective. This is proof of the commercialization of magic rites.Furthermore, the intervention of an 'ensalmista' is no longer necessary,as anybody can use the spell in the prescribedway."6In Colombia, "el nmero de oraciones y conjuros en los campos ypueblos colombianos, es casi inagotable. En las plazasde mercado ven-den las oraciones en hojas sueltas y a precios muy elevados, pues con-sideran que quien tenga la oracin debe guardarlaen secreto, ya quetiene en su poder un gran tesoro."7 Other authors note the use of ora-ciones in Peru and Argentina.8As is suggested by their use throughout Latin America, the practiceof using these magical oraciones originated in Spain. Gonzalo AguirreBeltrn, the great Mexican anthropologist, states that colonial Spanishwomen of mixed race ("las mulatas blancas de Cadiz") brought ora-


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Santsima Muerte -fr 413

ciones to Mexico.9 Oraciones were widely used in colonial Mexico;Noemi Quezada discusses the role of ensalmadores, specialists whoused oraciones for healing during the colonial era, in spite of repeatedattempts by the Mexican version of the Spanish Inquisition to ban suchpractices.10According to Diana Ceballos Gmez, ensalmadores also


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414 < Journal of the Southwestplayed an important role in what is now Colombia; she agrees with theSpanish origin of the practice,and sees in it a possible Arabicorigin de-rived from the curative use of verses of the Koran.11

Fortunately for historians, the Mexican Inquisition kept fairly goodrecords of the activities of the people they punished. In fact, scholarshave relied on those records to learn most of what we know about sor-cery in colonial Mexico. From them we learn that sorcerers were triedby the Holy Office in Mexico City as early as 1536. In that year, in-quisitors tried a Puerto Rican cowherder named Elvira Jimnez forteaching a Mexican widow how to use incantations to procure anotherhusband.12 This early example of the Inquisition's work poignantly il-lustrates the Holy Office's ineffectiveness in quashing love magic. In-cantations to get a husband or keep him, or renderhim stupid remainamong the most common forms of magic used in Mexico today.)Spanishcolonists succeeded in smuggling magical texts into colonialMexico, in spite of attempts by customs agents to find and confiscatesuch materials.In 1540, a gentleman named Pedro Ruiz Caldern wastried by the Inquisition for necromancy,the art of divination by contactwith the spiritsof the dead. Recently arrivedin Mexico, Caldern had"publiclyannounced that he had a command of black magic . . . (and)had an extensive librarycollected in Europe from which he drew his in-cantations and spells."13Many such books of magic spells were circulating throughout Eu-rope at the time. Cirac Estoapan, in his study of the trialsof sorcerersby the Inquisition in Spain, describes a wide selection of prohibitedbooks containing conjuros, spells and prayers to various beings. De-scribingone such book, he states, "En todo el manuscrito, como en lasdems obras de este gnero, anda mezclado el romance con el latn, laletra con los smbolos, lo inmundo con lo santo y el paganismo groseroy bajo con el judaismo y cristianismo."14Such books, with their spellsand procedures, are still in print and available today in Mexico andother Latin Americancountries, as well as in Tucson. Vendors of magicgoods often carry a selection of these manuals, with brightly coloredcovers and names like Magia Roja, Magia Verde,El LibroInfernal, andEl Libro de San Cipriano.xsI have seen the Libro de San Cipriano, the Book of Saint Cyprian,perhaps more frequently than the others. This book purports to con-tain the secret knowledge of Cyprian of Antioch, who later becameSaint Cyprian. Cyprian was born sometime in the third century after


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Santsima Muerte < 415Christ and died early in the fourth century, around 304 C.E. A well-educated Mediterranean ellow, Cyprian"studiedphilosophy at Athens,the occult sciences in Phrygia, the secrets of divination in Chaldea, andthe art of casting spells in Egypt."16Cyprian,in fact, specialized in lovemagic. He was expert in the use of necromantic spells to subjugate thewill of marriedwomen for adulterous purposes.17We are told that Cyp-rian's conversion to Christianityresulted from his inability to seduce aparticularwoman, Justina,who resisted Cyprian's magical power by in-voking the greater power of God. After this failure, Cyprian "burnedhis magic books, embraced Christianity,and lived ascetically,"eventu-ally becoming a bishop and dying a martyr.18As it happens, though, Cyprian'sknowledge of sorcery was not for-ever lost. The introduction to the Libro de San Cipriano informs usthat in the year 1001 a monk named Jonas Sufurino lived in the Ger-man monastery of Brooken. We are told that Jonas, the librarianof themonastery, spent many years studying the esoteric texts hidden awayinthe library,until one night he decided to pursue the ultimate knowl-edge of the dark arts. That night, on a stormy mountaintop, Luciferhimself delivered a copy of Cyprian's book of spells to Jonas, who inturn released it to the world. Or, at least, so goes the legend.19In any event, Cyprian's legendary spells had a lasting impact onMediterraneanmagic. At about the same time as Jonas Sufurino's rev-elation on the mountaintop (the eleventh century C.E.), sorcerers inEgypt were using the so-called Spell of Cyprianof Antioch, which likeother "binding" spells of the ancient world, was designed to "over-power the mind and body of the victim, the client's intended lover."Cyprian's spell called on the powers that be to "(fill) her from the toe-nails of her feet to the hair of her head with desire and longing and lust,as her mind is distracted, her senses go numb, and her ears areringing.She must not eat or drink, slumber or sleep."20A few centuries later, erotic domination spells similar to Cyprian'swere common in medieval Spain. In her article on medieval Spanishlove magic, Maria Helena Snchez Ortega describeswandering sorcer-esses who were hired by the women of Spainto solve problems of love.These sorceresses used incantations invocations of spirits to attract alover and make him stay. If a man had left a woman, she might also usecertain spells to "avenge his neglect."21As Snchez Ortega makesclear,women used these spells for survivalas much as for romance: "the desired (man's) presence basicallymeant


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416 > Journal of the Southwest

the support of someone who would help the women overcome life'sdifficulties in a society controlled by men economically as well as reli-giously. . . . Isolated in society, (the single woman) risked falling intothe category of witch. . . . The sorceresses and their clients, therefore,were deeply invested in winning over and retaining the man who . . .could ward off poverty and social marginalization."22


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Santsima Muerte < 417Snchez Ortega is talking about medieval Spain, but could just aseasily be discussing Mexico- or any number of countries in the pres-ent day. A side-by-side reading of these medieval Spanish oracioneswith those of contemporary Mexico drives the point home. Both havethe same tone, the same intent, and in some cases even the same word-ing. The medieval Spanish oraciones described by Snchez Ortega liveagain every time a Mexican woman recites oraciones to Santa Barbara,Santa Marta Enamorada, or the Anima Sola to bring back a wander-ing man.In fact, the Oracin de la Anima Sola, the Lonely Soul of Purgatory,whose existence in medieval Spain is noted by both Snchez Ortegaand Cirac Estoapan,23s one of the more common oraciones in Mex-ico today. Its disturbing words echo back to Spain, and further, to an-cient Mediterraneanbinding spells:"Anima Sola . . . por las entraasdela virgen Maria ... te pido que me metas en el corazn de ... lo trigas[sic] a mis pies manso y humilde. ... Si estuviese en casa de otra per-sona mi voz llegue a sus oidos a perturbarlo,no le dejes tener sosiegoni tranquilidad."24And, what Snchez Ortega calls "the well-known refrain . . 'So thathe can neither eat nor drink,'"25which we recognize from the EgyptianSpell of Cyprian,still echoes today throughout much of LatinAmerica.It is heard, for instance, when Venezuelan women recite the Oracindel Tabaco, using the smoke of a cigar to call the spiritsof SantaMarta,Santa Elena, and San Cipriano, along with the peculiarlyVenezuelanspiritof MaraLionza, "paraque me le partasel corazn a fulano, y nome le dejes tranquilidad,ni paracomer, ni beber, ni dormir con mujer. . . hasta no venir en donde m manso y humilde a mis pies."26It isheard again in Peru, where the Oracin a Santa Elena contains thesame language,27and in Colombia, where Santa Elena is again invoked:"le rezan con vehemencia las mujeres casadas que sufren las ausenciatotal o parcialdel marido."28And on the U.S. -Mexico border in Nogales, Sonora, in 1997, Ibought the same Oracin a Santa Elena, containing the same ancientMediterranean curse of erotic domination used for centuries by aban-doned women. I read the words and wondered: how many other ritualtexts of such antiquity remain so alive in the present day?Thecabdriverdidn't know wherewe were,soIgot out and started hik-ing the loop roads of the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico,


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418 < Journal of the Southwestwandering past the strange buildings and monuments rising from arollingfield of black ava on the southside of MexicoCity. I had come thatday, uninvited and unannounced, to meet Noemi Quezada, thegreatethnologistand historianof colonial lovemagic. At last Ifound her build-ing, and stated my case at the ront desk. Oh no, said the receptionist, hedoctora is in conference odayand leavesthecountrytomorrow.As I stoodponderingthisturn of events,a woman on a pay phone caught my eyeandpointed urgentlyat anotherwoman walking hurriedlypast us. It was her.Shewas, infact, leaving the next day or Ecuador,and yes,shehad onlya few minutes between essions,but sheinvited me to tag along and askedme why I had come. I describedmy search or the origins of SantsimaMuerte, and my attempts to read the Inquisition documents in the Na-tional Archive. I had read her 1974 article, ccOracionesmgicas en lacolonia," in whichshe listed the oraciones mentioned in the Inquisitionrecords,and had noticed that Santsima Muerte was not on the list. Wasshe quite sure that Santsima Muerte was not mentioned in the docu-ments7.Tes,shesaid, Fm quitesure. For a few moments,we discussedotherpossible ourcesof information, and then she had togo. Is thereanythingelse?she asked.Ah, yes, I stuttered. Could shepossibly ign my copyof herlatest book?

So who is Santsima Muerte? We recognize her prayer("don't giveFulano a single tranquil moment . . . torment him so he alwaysthinksof me") as a variant on the familiar Mediterranean refrain of love anddomination, one of the Greatest Hits of the millennia. But where didthe connection with Death, with the skeleton in the robe, come from?Did it come from Spain? Probably not, at least not directly.WhileSantsima Muerte's prayershares certain features with medievalSpanishoraciones, it does not appear in either Snchez Ortega's or Cirac Es-toapan's discussions. FranciscoRodrguez Marn, in his 1927 study ofSpanishoraciones imported to the colonial New World,makes no men-tion of her.29And, as Quezada confirmed, Santsima Muerte isn't men-tioned in the Mexican Inquisition records from the colonial era, whileso many other imported Spanish prayersare.30Furthermore, SantsimaMuerte, popular to the point of overkill inmodern Mexico, is not mentioned in reports from other Latin Ameri-can countries colonized by Spain. In Venezuela, for example, Pollak-Eltz describes the contents of a typicalperfumerawithout mentioninganything like Santsima Muerte. It would be virtually impossible to


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Santsima Muerte > 419write a similardescription of the magic stores in Mexico without men-tioning the figure of Santsima Muerte.We do, however, find a practicesimilarin the cult of San la Muertein Argentina.This cult revolves around tiny statues of skeletons, usuallyholding scythes, often carved from human bone. Also known as SantoEsqueleto and Seor de la Muerte, the image is used for the same pur-poses as Santsima Muerte in Mexico: for protection from enemies, forgeneral success in love, and to avenge neglect by a scornful lover.31Theprayers o San la Muerte maybe orallytransmitted,32 andwrittenor, lesscommonly, mechanically printed.33They often contain the familiar an-guage of domination, asking that the victim of the spell be made crazywith lust and come crawlingin tears to the feet of the supplicant.34How to explainthis parallel?The content of the Argentinianpracticecertainly seems similar to that of Santsima Muerte in Mexico. Theyboth invoke Holy Death and seem to be based on the same Mediter-ranean ritual texts of domination. But do they reflect a common im-ported practice of invoking Holy Death, or did two separate popula-tions have the same idea? I don't know. If Santsima Muerte wereconnected geographicallywith San la Muerte that is, if the practiceofinvoking Holy Death were spreaduniformlyacross Latin AmericafromMexico down to Argentina I would favor the "common Spanish an-cestor" theory, especially since the text of the prayeritself is so similarin both. As it is, though, I lean toward the "convergent evolution"idea, where two separate communities both, for whatever reason, de-cided to assimilate the image of Death with imported Spanish prayersof domination.So if the Spanishdid not bring the prayerof SantsimaMuerte withthem, why did the Mexicans concoct it?We know that many indigenous groups in pre-Hispanic Mexico hadsome form of cult of death or of the dead. The exact content andmeaning of these cults is not known for sure, but "la persistencia yabundanciade figurasrelacionadascon la muerte en los cdices nahoas,mixteos y mayas,los ideogramasformadas con crneos, costillasy hue-sos, nos llevan a la conclusin de haber sido sumamente extenso elculto que los indigenas prehispnicasde Mxico guardaronal Seor delos Muertos."33Anyone who has visited the Anthropology Museum inMexico City probably remembers the striking sculpture of Coatlicue,mother of all Nahua gods, the great creator/destroyer, wearing herdecorative garlandof skulls.36


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420 * Journal of the SouthwestOf course, the Spanish also brought images of skeletons to Mexico.Carlos Navarrete, in researching the Mexican cult to San PascualitoRey (a sacred figure of a skeleton in Chiapas), assembled a list of influ-ential Spanish ideas about death which may have affected the devel-opment of that particularcult.37Medieval Europeans developed manyfrighteningimages of skeletons as, confronted by plague, they expressedtheir fear of death and, inspired by Christian theology, they worriedabout their ultimate salvation. William Schurz notes the tendency ofthe colonial Spaniardsto dwell on death "with morbid insistence."38So Mexicans had a variety of local and imported ideas and imagesfrom which to fashion their beliefs about death. And, if I may general-ize, I have observed in Mexico a certain fascination with death and awillingness to look at it head on. As evidence I would mention every-thing from the frequent use of skeletal imagery in art and popular cul-ture to the stunning photo spreads of accident and murder victims intabloids and crime magazines. For whateverreason, death is a commonmotif in Mexico. In the words of Octavio Paz, "Parael habitante deNueva York,Paris o Londres, la muerte es la palabraque jamsse pro-nuncia porque quema los labios. El mexicano, en cambio, la frecuenta,la burla, la acaricia,duerme con ella, la festeja, es uno de sus juguetesfavoritosy su amor ms permanente."39Beyond merely becoming friendlywith death, some Mexicans havealso chosen to venerate her. I mentioned one example earlier:San Pas-cualito Rey, the miraculous skeleton image in Chiapas.40 also recentlyfound another sacred skeleton, known simply as Santa Muerte, in thetown of Santa Ana, Michoacn. Visitors to the church of Santa Anaworship the small carved skeleton and fill its niche with offerings. In-terestingly, Santsima Muerte candles burn by the niche and pendantsof SantsimaMuerte adorn the image's forehead, wrist, and feet.So, in my efforts to explain the roots of Santsima Muerte in Mex-ico, I have no shortage of skeletal imagery to turn to, both in indige-nous and colonial culture, both in colonial and modern times. Theactual origin of the specific image and prayer of Santsima Muerte,however, remainsa mystery.Serge Gruzinski, in his book Guerra de las Imgenes,notes a sourcedescribing an image of Santa Muerte in 1797. "Vayamosa las llanurasestepariasdel Norte," writes Gruzinski, "a San Luis de la Paz, en 1797.De nuevo, reina el silencio de la noche. Una treintena de indios seencierran en su capilla, beben peyotl, enciendan las velas al revs, ha-


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Santsima Muerte < 42 1

cen bailar a unos muecos . . . , golpean las cruces con velas de cera;atan con una cuerda mojada una figurade la Santa Muerte y amenazancon azotarlay quemarla si cno hace el milagro' de concederles lo quereclaman."41Another source places the origin of the prayerto Santsima Muertein the eighteenth century, as part of a campaign to make death lessthreatening: uFue en el siglo XVIII cuando se trat de quitarle lo te-


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422 < Journal of the Southwestrrorficoparadarle el aspecto de amabilidad vindola sin miedo y confe, ejemplo de esto es la oracin titulada a la Santa Muerte."42And, back in the realm of popular legend, a special edition of theMexican magazine MundoEsotrico ecently featured Santsima Muerteon its cover, describing her as one of the "most controversial" imagesof Mexican magic and telling her story thus: In 1800, in Cordoba,Veracruz,a local sorcerer had a vision of the figure of Death in a dream.When he awoke, he shook off the frightening dream and went to hisconsultorio, that is, his office and consulting room, where he wasstunned to find that the same image of Death had appeared on theroof. In fear,he ran to a nearbychurch and asked the priest to come seethe image, but the priest refused, saying the image was proof that thesorcerer had been practicingblackmagic. Over the next few weeks, theimage gradually faded, but the sorcerer began to have propheticdreams,wherein Death spoke to him. In the final dream Death orderedhim to make an image of her and to burn red candles to her, promisingall of her devotees a painless death. "As," concludes the Mundo Eso-tricoarticle, "es como dio inicio el culto a esta imagen que ha cauti-vado a miles de personas."43The Oracin a la Santsima Muerte shows up in many twentieth-century works on the anthropology of Mexico. In 1947, Frances Toormentioned it in her Treasuryof Mexican Folkways,noting the existenceof "various (prayers)addressed to Holy Death . . . they beg that theperson they want be given no peace until he is at the supplicant'sside."44Aguirre Beltrn, in his fieldwork in Cuijla in 1948-49, alsonoted the existence of prayers o SantsimaMuerte, and may have beenthe first to record the current format of the oraciones: "La mayoradeellas estn impresas en cartones de colores amarillo, rojo y verde, ytienen en el anverso la imagen de un santo y en el reverso la oracin."45Isabel Kelly found the prayer to Santsima Muerte used in lovemagic in the Laguna area of northern Mexico in the 1950s. CarlosNavarrete collected prayers to Santsima Muerte in Chiapas in the1960s, and Marcela Olavarrieta,in the 1970s, reports the use of theSantsima Muerte oracin for erotic magic in the Tuxtla Mountains, anarea of Veracruz famed for sorcery.46Marade la Luz Bernal,in her generallyanecdotal book Mitosy magosmexicanos,describes SantsimaMuerte love magic in the 1970s, warningthat "los doctos en el conocimiento del sobrenaturalhan consideradoilcito este tipo de magia, ya que existe el peligro de causarun terribledao a terceras personas. . . . Todo aquello que se promete a


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Santsima Muerte < 423la muerte, debe cumplirse. Faltar a una promesa es exponer la vidamisma."47She goes on to describe the actual use of the image by groups ofwomen who gather to do their "trabajos negros." Dressed in black,kneeling before the image of Santsima Muerte with candles in theirhands, they sing their "terriblelitany":

SantsimaMuerte, tortralo.SantsimaMuerte, desespralo.SantsimaMuerte, angstialo.SantsimaMuerte, mortifcalo . . .(fulano de tal) ... torturado ests(fulano de tal) . . . desesperado est.48

So, to summarize, the Oracin a la Santsima Muerte combines thegraphic representationof Death with the ancient erotic spells and invo-cations of spirits popular in medieval Spain and around the Mediter-ranean.When the Spanish introduced these spells to the New World,they were received by an indigenous culture alreadyfamiliarwith bothlove magic49and the graphic representation of Death. Did the Spanishbring the Oracin de la Santsima Muerte with them? I don't think so.I think the oracin was invented later,when the potent image of Deathwas added to a new version of the standard imported ritual text oferotic domination, to achieve an age-old goal: to bring back a wander-ing man.But, as we shall see, Santsima Muerte has outgrown her role as aspecialistin love magic, to become an all-purpose magical figure, virtu-ally unlimited in her powers.Judith Rodrguez de Caal leaned on the counter of her hole-in-the-wall religiousprint shop n downtown MexicoCity and ponderedtheimage of Santsima Muerte. Well,shesaid, it'sfor protection,and for as-sistance,and for a good death. I remarkedon the changeI had perceivedin Santsima Muerte's reputation. Oh yes,Judith said. When I was achamaca (little kid), Santsima Muerte was usedfor black magic. Butnow,everyoneasksor her!Theycall her La Nia, or La Nia Blanca.Ju-dith shruggedand smiled wryly,as if to say, Whatwill theythink of next?In 1995, when I first went to the Mercado Sonora in Mexico City,Santsima Muerte was everywhere. Rows of molded plastic statues ofher image, from two to sixteen inches high, lined the tables of the mer-


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424 + Journal of the Southwestchants. Posters and pendants of her hung on display. I easily boughtseveral different versions of her printed oracin. I also found her imagefor sale at the Basilica de la Virgen de Guadalupe, the main pilgrimagecenter of Mexico and one of the largest in the world. Every illegal ven-dor crowding the plaza had a few pendants and medals of SantsimaMuerte dangling amidst the Guadalupes. Now, with each succeedingvisit to Mexico, I have watched Santsima Muerte become more visible,more prominent, evolving from an expediter of love magic to a all-purpose figure of protection and power.So is she good or evil? It depends on whom you talk to. By 1997,vendors in the Mercado Sonora were advising me that whether Muerteis good or evil depends on the color of the robe she wears, a new the-ory which has led to new product lines of Muertes dressed in robes ofvarious colors. Santiago Bastida, the vendor and printer of oraciones,explained that under the new color system each color of SantsimaMuerte has a different purpose. A black Muerte continues to be a fear-ful image, one used for evil works such as killing one's enemies. A redMuerte fulfills the old role of attracting a lover. Green and goldMuertes bring money, and a blue Muerte, he explained, is for "tran-quilizing people." "Like who," I asked, bewildered. "Like a violentspouse," he said.But it is the white Muerte whose influence has grown the most. Farfrom a figure of evil, the Hermana Blanca or Nia Blanca or simplyLa Blanca is a benevolent spirit offering protection to her devotees.So benign is the white Santsima Muerte that she has become accepted,if perhapsnot welcomed, in some Catholic churches. Indeed, as I wan-dered through the arcade of religious statuary stores behind the Na-tional Cathedral in Mexico City, most of which sell a very traditionalselection of Catholic statues, I was surprisedto see an image of San-tsima Muerte on the shelf in one of them. The salesgirlconfirmed thatit was Santsima Muerte, and yes, it is approved of by the Church, aslong as it is the white form, La Blanca. In fact, she said, a local chapelhad ordered a statue of La Blanca "this tall," she demonstrated, hold-ing her hand about four feet off the ground. What's La Blanca for? Forgood luck, the salesgirlsaid.One popular magic book, Brujera a la Mexicana, is also participat-ing in the attempt to salvage Santsima Muerte's reputation with theOracin a el Dolor de Santsima Muerte. The prayerbemoans the useof Santsima Muerte by the enemies of God, who persuade innocentwomen to use the image for evil ends: "Oh Santsima Muerte, Usted


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Santsima Muerte < 425que en silencio soporta la pena de ver mancillado su Sacratsimoy Ce-lestial nombre, que los enemigos de Dios utilizan con fines malvolos yperjudiciales,por favorayude con su Celestial Poder a todas las mujeresque han tenido la desdicha de caer en las garrasde los enemigos deDios."50Another admirer of Santsima Muerte, a vendor in the MercadoSonora, explains Santsima Muerte's good side and her specific abilityto assist Mexican women by bringing back family members who havegone to the United States to work:

Tenemos a la SantsimaMuerte, que se le adora bastante en losnegocios y en las casas. Se le adora porque ella ayuda como unaproteccin, para que nos protejamosde las envidias,de la maldad,de la mala voluntad que nos rodea.Nosotros le llamamos la Hermana Blanca, no se le ve contemor, sino con adoracin, porque hace muchos milagros, sobretodo cuando queremos que vuelva una persona ausente, porejemplo, un hijo. Tenemos hijos que se van a ganar un centavofuera de la ciudad de Mxico, que se van de bracerosa los EstadosUnidos. Ese problema lo vemos casi a diario. Cuando no se va elhijo, se va la esposa, se va la hija o se va la hermana, qu s yo.Paraque regrese, por medio de oraciones se invoca al espritu dela Santsima Muerte y al espritu de "fulano de tal," el que se fue,y luego se regresa.51Still, in spite of this recent movement to accentuate SantsimaMuerte's positive works, she remains a dualistic force, capable of greatevil, to the extent that some recommend not messing with her at all.Claudio V. de la Cruz, in his Recetario de magia blanca (Recipe Bookof White Magic), offers the following warning: "Vela de la SantaMuerte: Por favor nunca use esta vela ya que solo le acarrearmuymalos ratos a su vida y un karmaque muy difcilmente podr borrar enesta vida."52If you do decide to invoke SantsimaMuerte, you must be prepared,according to Maria TeresaSepulveda,who describes the prayerto San-tsima Muerte, along with other common prayersof domination, andsays: "Muchas de estas oraciones se consideran 'malas' porque en ellasse invoca el diablo y a los espritus infernales;antes de emplearlas, elusuario debe de estar 'preparado' corporal y anmicamente, es decir,debe guardarabstinenciasexualy estardecidido a entregarsu alma a losseres invocados, a cambio del deseo solicitado."53


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426 > Journal of the SouthwestCertainly, ome Mexicanshaveput SantsimaMuerte to some un-seemlyuses.AdolfoConstanzo, he leaderof the bandof "narcosatni-cos"who committed he famousMatamorosdrugmurders f the late1980s,apparentlyound her useful.EdwardHumes,in his book on theepisode,exhibits omephotosof theparaphernaliaollected romCon-stanzo'sranch.There,amongthe skulls,saints,dolls,anddaggers, itsa statueof SantsimaMuerte.54In his book Beliefs nd HolyPlaces,JimGriffithnotes the presenceof SantsimaMuerte and other dominationprayersn Sonora:"Sus-pectingthat theseprintedcardsmight relateto anotherrecent arrivalon the border the drug trade I sent copiesof them to ArturoCa-rrilloStrong."Strongcontacted one of his connectionsin the drugtrade,who recognizedthe prayers nd confirmed hat "men involvedin the drug trade know better than to askGod, the Virgin,and thesaints orhelp. . . . Theyturn, rather, o the devil,who looks more fa-vorablyon that sortof activity."55


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Santsima Muerte > 427So we see that Santsima Muerte is a multifaceted image, an imagethat changes to meet the needs of whomever is using it at the time.Interestingly,some vendors in the Mercado Sonora have recently initi-ated SantsimaMuerte into Santera, the Afro-Cuban religion makingstrong inroads in Mexico and the United States. Followers of this reli-gion commonly identify certain Catholic saints with the orisha,deitiesof the Santerapantheon, and several of the Mercado Sonora vendorswho sell the paraphernaliaof Santera rituals told me they identify San-tsima Muerte with Oy, the orisha who is "duea de la puerta del ce-menterio y diosa de las tempestades. . . . Adems es la que domina a losmuertos."56Followers of a Mexican spiritualistreligion known as EspiritualismoTrinitarioMariano have also incorporatedSantsimaMuerte the whiteform into their pantheon, as La Hermana Blanca. Silvia Ortiz Ech-niz participatedin a pilgrimage to one of this church's sacred sites nearMexico City,where the mediums of the church channeled various heal-ing spirits. SantsimaMuerte made her appearanceto complain aboutthe blasphemies she has been subjected to, and to express her plan toreclaim her God-given role as the purveyor of ultimate justice to all.57As mentioned previously, the image of Santsima Muerte has alsobecome attached to the cult of SantaMuerte in SantaAna, Michoacn.In this case, one suspects that the priest, who has alreadymade accom-modations for the worship of Santa Muerte, is less than pleased to seethe image of Santsima Muerte so long considered an icon of blackmagic dangling from the statue in the church.In sum, I believe I have witnessed growth and change in the devo-tion to Santsima Muerte, a devotion whose epicenter is Mexico Citybut whose influence reaches north to the border of the United Statesand across that border via emigration and commerce. This kind ofmovement takes time, and changes in the center such as the recentinvention of the kinder,gentler Hermana Blanca are not immediatelyapparentin the outlying areas. Certainly, I have seen nothing like theHermana Blanca in Nogales, where Santsima Muerte is still a ratherdark, intimidating figure of love magic and domination.As we have seen, though, Santsima Muerte is a flexible image. In-voked by abandoned wives, she brings ancient Mediterranean lovemagic into modern times. Invoked by criminals, she offers protectionand power over one's enemies. Invoked by merchants, she brings mon-etary success. Invoked by battered wives, she pacifies angry husbands.Invoked by mothers of sons gone away,she bringsthem home. Invoked


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428 -fr Journal of the Southwestby Mexican followersof Santera, he mergeswith the Afro-Cubangoddess Oy. Invokedby Catholicsas La HermanaBlanca, he offerschurchsanctioned at least n someinstances)uckandprotection.And now, as she establishesher unearthlypresence n the UnitedStates,wherethe recently-immigratedr the simplycuriouscan lift herfrom the supermarkethelf andexperimentwith herpower,what willher role be?Onlytimewilltell. 429Jesus Christ the Conqueror, who on the cross was conquered,conquer Fulano so that he may be conquered here with me in thename of the Lord if you are a ferocious animal meek as a lamb,meek as the flower of the rosemary; you have to come; breadyouate and of it you gave to me, and by the strongest word whichyou gave to me, I want you to bring me Fulano; may he be hu-miliated, subdued at my feet to complete what he has promisedme. Most Holy Death, I beseech you affectionately that as Im-mortal God formed you with your great power over all mortalseven placing them in the celestial sphere where we enjoy a glori-ous day without night for all of eternity and in the name of theFather, the Son and the Holy Ghost I beg and plead for you todeign to be my protector and grant me the wishes I ask up to thelast day, hour and moment in which your Divine Majesty ordersme brought before your presence, Amen.JACULATORIA (Short fervent prayer)Death beloved of my heart don't leave me without your protectionand don't give Fulano a single tranquil moment; disturb him ateverymoment, mortifyand torment him so he always hinksof me.Praythree Our Fathers.The container of Holy Death SpiritualIncense that I bought in Tuc-son, made by the Indio Poderoso firm of Chicago, translatesthe prayeras follows:PRAYERTO THE HOLY DEATHOh! Conquering JesusChrist, that in the cross were defeated, likeyou would tame a ferocious animal, tame the soul of (name).Tame as a lamb and tame as a rosemary flower he shall come tokneel before me and obey my every command. Holy Death, Iplea of your immortal powers that God has given you towardsmortals, place us in a celestial sphere where we'll enjoy dayswith-out nights for all eternity. In the name of the Father, the Son andthe Holy Spirit, I plea for your protection. Grant all our wishesuntil the last day,hour and moment that your Divine Majestyor-ders us to appearbefore You. Amen.


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430 < Journal of the SouthwestNOTES

1. Unless otherwise noted, all conversations occurred in Spanish.All trans-lations of conversations and written texts are my own.2. "Fulano" and "fulano de tal," the equivalent of "so-and-so," or "fill inthe blank," appear frequently in Mexican oraciones. "Fulana" is the femaleversion.3. Oracin de la Sta. Muerte, no date. The complete text of the Oracin dela Sta. Muerte, along with translations,is included as an appendix.4. The prayeron the back of the candle is the usual one, but the image isslightly different. Instead of a globe and scale, the robed skeleton carriesa skullin her left hand and holds her right hand up, palm forward, in an enigmaticgesture. A similarimage appearson the container of Santsima Muerte spiritualincense produced by the Indio Poderoso Company of Chicago. Where did thisdifferent U.S. version come from?5. Quezada (1975) describes the magical use of the hummingbird {chupa-rrosa)in love magic by the Aztecs, a practice readilyabsorbed into colonial lifeand still very much alive today. The Oracin de la Chuparrosa is one of themore common printed oraciones, a lovely combination of Aztec and Spanishmagical practices.6. Pollak-Eltz 1982: 192.

7. Ocampo Lpez 1989: 247. Translation: "The number of oraciones andspells in the cities and countryside is nearly inexhaustible. Single-sheet ora-ciones are sold in the marketplaces,at very elevated prices, and it is believedthat whoever owns an oracin should guard it carefully,since they have a greattreasurein their possession."8. See Frisancho Pineda (1986) for examples in Peru and Coluccio (1986)for Argentina.See also Taussig (1997) for interesting examplesfrom Venezuela.9. Aguirre Beltrn 1958: 200.10. Quezada 1989: 101.11. Ceballos Gmez 1994: 74.12. Greenleafl962: 112.13. Greenleafl962: 118.14. Cirac Estoapan 1942: 33-34. Translation: "Throughout this manu-script, as in the other works of this type, romance and Latin languages aremixed, as are letters and symbols, the impure with the holy, and base paganismwith Judaismand Christianity."15. Ocampo Lpez (1989: 248) states that "Las fuentes originariasde lasoraciones son antiguos libros de magiaque circularonprofusamente en Europahasta mediados del siglo XIX y que hoy son editados popularmente en casi to-dos los pases americanos." Translation: "The original sources of these prayersare ancient books of magic which circulated widely in Europe until the mid-

nineteenth century, and which are published today for a popular audience inmost American countries."See also Taussig (1987) for a discussion of the role of these magic books incolonial Colombia. The photo of a Putumayo herbalist's stall on p. 271, re-


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Santsima Muerte < 431markablysimilar to a typical Mexican herbalist's stall, shows several of thesemagic books for sale, including the Libro de San Cipriano.16. Englebert 1994: 366.17. Flint 1991:233-34.18. Engelbert 1994: 366.19. Libro de San Cipriano, tesorodel hechicero,n.d.: pp. 8-9.20. Meyer and Smith 1994: 148.21. Snchez Ortega 1991:61.22. Snchez Ortega 1991: 61.23. Cirac Estoapan 1942: 133.

24. Oracin del Anima Sola spell card, n.d. Translation:"Anima Sola ... bythe entrails of the Virgin Mary,I askthat you insert me into the heart of (fill inthe blank), and bring him to my feet, meek and humble. . . . If he's in the homeof another, let my voice reach his ears and disturb him, let him have no peaceor tranquility."25. Snchez Ortega 1991: 74.26. Pollak-Eltz 1972: 113-14. Translation: "rend the heart of Fulano, andgive him no peace, neither to eat nor drink nor sleep with a woman . . . untilhe comes to me, meek and humble, to my feet." This prayer s another nice ex-ample of the melding of native practices (divination with tobacco) with im-ported ones.27. Frisancho Pineda 1986: 36.28. Ocampo Lpez 1989: 215. "Marriedwomen suffering from the partialor total absence of their husband prayto her with vehemence."29. Rodrguez Marn 1927.30. Quezada 1974.31. Paris1988: 65-71.32. Paris 1988: 67.33. Coluccio 1983: 391.34. Coluccio 1983: 395.35. Mendoza 194: 91. Translation: "the persistence and abundance of fig-ures related to death in the Nahua, Mixtee, and Maya codices, the ideogramsformed of skulls, ribs, and bones, lead us to the conclusion that the pre-Hispanic indigenous cult to the Lord of the Dead must have been quiteextensive."36. Adela Fernndez (1983: 109) conflates Coatlicue with "Tonatzin (ourvenerated mother)" who later, of course, transmogrified into the Virgin ofGuadalupe, whom I choose to view as Santsima Muerte's nicer, fleshiersistergoddess.37. Navarrete 1982: pull-out timeline.38. Schurz 1964: 83.39. Octavio Paz in Navarrete 1982: 11. Translation: "For the inhabitant of

New York, Paris,or London, 'death' is the word never spoken because it burnsthe lips. The Mexican, in contrast, spends time with it, makes fun of it, caressesit, sleeps with it, throws parties for it; it is one of his favorite toys and his mostabiding love."


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432 > Journal of the Southwest40. Navarrete 1982.41. Gruzinski 1995: 192. Translation:"Let us go to the steppe-like plainsof the North, to San Luis de la Paz, in 1797. The silence of night reigns onceagain. Thirty Indians are enclosed in their chapel, drinking peyote, lightingcandles backwards,making little dolls dance . . . , they strike at crucifixes withwax candles; they tie up a figure of Santa Muerte with wet cord and threatenit with lashings if it doesn't 'perform the miracle' of granting them what theydemand."42. Reyes 1989: 22-23. Translation: "It was in the eighteenth century thatthe attempt was made to make [death] less terrifying,to give it the appearance

of kindness, to be seen without fear but with faith, an example of this effort be-ing the prayerdedicated to Santa Muerte."43. Mundo Esotrico 1997 (10): 5. Translation: "Thus began the cult tothis image, which has captivated thousands of people."44. Toor 1947: 144.45. Aguirre Beltran 1958: 233. Translation: "Most of them are printed onyellow, red, and green cardstock. They carry the image of a saint on one sideand a prayeron the other."46. Kelly 1965: 107; Navarrete 1968: 52; Olavarrieta197: 116.47. Bernal 1982: 25. Translation: "The experts in the knowledge of the su-pernaturalhave considered this type of magic illicit, since one can cause terribleharm to third parties. . . . Whoever makes a promise to Death must not fail tokeep it, for to do so is to risk life itself."48. Bernal 1982: 27. Translation: "Most Holy Death, torture him. MostHoly Death, make him desperate. Most Holy Death, fill him with anguish.Most Holy Death, mortify him . . . Fulano, tortured you are. ... Fulano, des-perate you are."49. See Quezada (1975) for examples of pre-Hispanic love magic.50. Escobedo Cordero 1994: 166. Translation: "Oh, Most Holy Death,you who in silence bear the shame of seeing your Most Sacred and Celestialname stained, which the enemies of God use toward malevolent and harmfulends, please use your Celestial Power to help all of the women who have hadthe misfortune of falling into the claws of these enemies of God."51. Snchez Loeza 1994: 136. Translation: "We have Santsima Muerte,who is much adored in businesses and houses. She is adored because she servesas a protection, so we are protected from envy, evil, and the bad will that sur-rounds us."We call her the 'White Sister,' we don't regardher with fear but with ado-ration, because she has performed many miracles, above all when we want anabsent person to return, for example, a son. We have sons who go to earn apenny outside of Mexico City, who go as laborers to the United States. We seethis problem almost daily. If it's not the son who's gone, it's the wife, or adaughter or sister, whatever. To make them return, we use prayersto invokethe spirit of Santsima Muerte and the spirito fulano de tal, the one who left,and then they return."


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Santsima Muerte < 43352. De la Cruz n.d.: 67. Translation:Candle f Holy Death:Pleaseneveruse thiscandle,as only bad resultswill occur in yourlife, andyou will incurkarmahatwillbeverydifficult o erase n this lifetime."53. Sepulveda 983: 178. Translation:Manyof theseprayers re consid-ered 'bad' because heyinvokethe devil and the infernal pirits;beforeusingthem,the usermust be 'prepared,' hysicallyndspiritually;hatis, she shouldmaintain exualabstinence nd beready o deliverher soul to the invoked pir-its, in exchange or the favorrequested."54. Humes1991:plates.55. Griffith1992: 65.56. EditorialPanapo1990: 60. Translation:guardian f the door to thecemeteryand the goddessof storms. . . Alsoshe who dominates he dead."57. OrtizEchniz,Silvia,n Navarro nd Storm 1994:222-23.

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434 * Journal of the SouthwestDe la Cruz, Claudio V.n.d. Recetario de magia blanca. Mxico: Mina Editores.Editorial Panapo1990 La Santera: la religin Lucum o Yorubaen Amrica latina.Caracas:Edi oral Panapo.Englebert, Omer1994 TheLivesof theSaints. New York: Barnes and Noble.Escobedo Cordero, Antonio1994 Brujera a la mexicana. Mxico: Proculmex.xtasisCorp.1973 Amor manico.New York: xtasisCorp.Fernndez, Adela1983 Pre-Hispanic Godsof Mexico.Mxico: Panorama Editorial.Flint, Valeria I. J.199 1 TheRise of Magic in EarlyMedievalEurope.Princeton: Prince-ton University Press.FrisanchoPineda, David1986 Curanderismoy brujera en la costaperuana. Lima: SandozPeru.Greenleaf, RichardE.1962 Zumrraga and the Mexican Inquisition 1536-1543. Wash-ington, D.C.: Academy of American FranciscanHistory.1969 TheMexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century. Albuquer-que: University of New Mexico Press.Griffith,JamesS.1992 Beliefsand Holy Places:A Spiritual Geography f the PimeriaAlta. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Gruzinski, Serge1995 Laguerra de las imgenes:de Cristbal Coln a cBladeRun-ner' (1492-2019). Mxico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica.Humes, Edward1991 Buried Secrets:A True Story of Serial Murder, Black Magic,and Drug Running on the U.S. Border.New York: Dutton.Kelly,Isabel1965 Folk Practices in North Mexico:Birth Customs,FolkMedicine,and Spiritualism in the Laguna Zone. Austin: University ofTexas Press.Lea, Henry Charles1922 The Inquisition in the SpanishDependencies.London: Mac-Millan & Co.


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santisima muerte_on the origin and devlopment of a mexican occult image

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