In Mexico City, in the tough Tepito neighborhood, where poverty, corruption and violence are daily realities, there is a beloved "saint" who understands and forgives the frailties of all human flesh. Her domain is a labyrinth of grimy streets lined with auto body shops and humble mom-and-pop stores. From her perch behind a glassencased altar adorned with candles, decayed flowers and shot glasses of tequila, she watches scruffy curs pick through garbage while a constant stream of pilgrims lays offerings at her feet. To Roman Catholic Church officials, the skeletal woman in the long, flowing robes is an evil figure, a grisly embodiment of satanic purposes. But to the desperately poor and overlooked residents of Tepito she is a popfolk idol and often a last, best hope for answering unanswered prayers.
She is La Santa Muerte, "Saint Death," or as others call her, "La Santisima Muerte," "Sacred Death." Her petitioners are prostitutes, drug dealers and murderers, as well as multitudes of ordinary housewives, taxi drivers and street vendors hoping to cure a sick child or pay the rent or simply make it through another day without getting robbed or kidnapped or shot.
Over the past 20 years, her following has grown so large and so rapidly that in some parts of Mexico she is becoming a rival in popular affection to the Virgen de Guadalupe, the manifestation of the Virgin Mary that for nearly half a millennium has been the reigning symbol of Mexican national identity. La Santa Muerte, the queen of secret desires and furtive causes, is the Virgin's grinning, postNAFTA counterpart.
"She is a Virgen de Guadalupe in negative: That which one can't ask of the Virgen, one can ask of her," says Homero Aridjis, a poet, novelist and former diplomat who recently published a short story collection about La Santa Muerte's mysterious and increasingly firm grip on the Mexican soul.
On a recent morning, as this seething capital subsided from rush-hour insanity into mere pandemonium, the scene was lively at No. 12 Alfareros St. in the heart of Tepito. While La Santa Muerte now commands a national following, and images of her can be found throughout Mexico and other parts of Latin America, the Tepito shrine has drawn particular attention as the Mexican mass media have caught on to the growing phenomenon. Outside the tent-like structure surrounding the lifesize statue of the saint, a morning chill still hung in the air. But inside, scores of votive candles gave off an eerie warmth, while orchids, roses and other flowers exuded a sickly-sweet perfume.
One by one, the faithful came trickling in to pay tribute to La Santa Muerte, as they do at practically every hour of the day and night in Tepito. Cars pulled up and men hopped out bearing candles, cash, chocolates, apples, bottles of liquor and armloads of fresh-cut flowers. Mothers held their infant daughters up to La Santa Muerte's hollow gaze and begged for her blessing. Wrinkled old women and macho young men in spiky hair took turns kneeling on a small wooden prayer chair, murmuring fervent requests.
Although La Santa Muerte is disdained and barely recognized by the Catholic Church, she's one of a number of unofficial folk "saints" who've been taken to heart by the Mexican people in the centuries since the Spanish conquest. Death cults and death worship have deep roots in Mexico's preColumbian past, and in Mexican culture death doesn't carry the morbid taint that it does in other societies. And while La Santa Muerte embodies a certain fatalism about life's inevitable end, her all-too-human form makes ordinary Mexicans feel that, in some mysterious way, she is like one of them, that she feels their sufferings right down to her bones.
"I worship her a lot. I love her a lot," said Jose Luis, a regular supplicant at the saint's shrine who lifted his shirt and showed off a Santa Muerte tattoo, which he had engraved on his back eight years ago as thanks for favors received.
"In my poor house, I have an altar to her," he continued. "More than anything she has given me tranquillity, health. She's 'muy milagrosa'" very miraculous. Inside a small storefront to the rear of the altar, Enriqueta Romero, 58, who built the shrine about three years ago and now acts as its principal caretaker, tried to explain the source of La Santa Muerte's soaring popularity. Dona Queta, as she is known, said that her aunt had taught her to admire and worship the folk saint. Today she sells a variety of Santa Muerte-related products, including incense, candles and statues, along with hamburgers and other snacks, and regales visitors with endless anecdotes of the saint's preternatural powers.
"The only thing that matters is the faith," Dona Queta insisted, dismissing a reporter's suggestion that the saint is particularly revered by people living on the wrong side of the law. "It doesn't matter if they (worshipers) are good or bad, or where they live." It is certainly true that La Santa Muerte is a kind of equalopportunity icon. It is said that she makes no distinction between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. Whatever your wish or grievance, you need only say a prayer or purchase the appropriate color-coded candle and offer it to La Santa Muerte.
"If ... today you are going to sell drugs or you are going to kidnap somebody, you ask her (La Santa Muerte) for help so you can commit crimes safely," author Aridjis says with a rueful laugh. "You see some very innocent people praying and making offerings, and some very tough people as well." Children ask La Santa Muerte for help with their schoolwork. Some mothers pray to the saint to protect their kids from crime, or from the predations of the notoriously corrupt police. Other parents plead with the saint to keep their children from joining street gangs.
"Narcotraficantes," the country's powerful drug lords, may ask La Santa Muerte for aid in destroying their rivals. Aridjis says the cult is particularly extensive among Mexican prison inmates.
Traditionally, the heaviest visitor turnout in Tepito falls on the first day of each month, when the street around the shrine is closed to traffic and hundreds, if not thousands of the faithful bring images, religious medallions and other objects for the saint to bless, while services are performed in front of the altar.
But even on an ordinary weekday the visitor flow is virtually nonstop. Alejandra Cordero Mendez, 25, came to the shrine a few days ago with her two infant daughters, Carla and Irbe. Mendez said she has turned to La Santa Muerte "for many things," including help during a difficult childbirth. She had vowed to return to the altar if the saint helped her give birth, and was doing so that day, lighting a white candle.
