RT Article
T1 Syncretic Santa Muerte: Holy Death and Religious Bricolage
JF Religions
VO 12
IS 3
A1 Kingsbury, Kate 1980-
A1 Chesnut, R. Andrew
LA English
PB MDPI
YR 2021
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1753206111
AB In this article, we trace the syncretic origins and development of the new religious movement centered on the Mexican folk saint of death, Santa Muerte. We explore how she was born of the syncretic association of the Spanish Catholic Grim Reapress and Pre-Columbian Indigenous thanatologies in the colonial era. Through further religious bricolage in the post-colony, we describe how as the new religious movement rapidly expanded it integrated elements of other religious traditions, namely Afro-Cuban Santeria and Palo Mayombe, New Age beliefs and practices, and even Wicca. In contrast to much of the Eurocentric scholarship on Santa Muerte, we posit that both the Skeleton Saint’s origins and contemporary devotional framework cannot be comprehended without considering the significant influence of Indigenous death deities who formed part of holistic ontologies that starkly contrasted with the dualistic absolutism of European Catholicism in which life and death were viewed as stark polarities. We also demonstrate how across time the liminal power of death as a supernatural female figure has proved especially appealing to marginalized socioeconomic groups.
K1 Latinx
K1 Mexico
K1 Palo Mayombe
K1 Santa Muerte
K1 Santeria
K1 Death
K1 Liminality
K1 Religion
K1 syncretic
DO 10.3390/rel12030220