SANTA MUERTE: THE HISTORY, RITUAL, AND MAGIC OF OUR LADY OF THE HOLY DEATH - TRACEY ROLLINS

I’ve been thinking a lot about Santa Muerte for whatever reason and it looks like the longest, most in-depth english book on the subject is a book called DEVOTED TO DEATH. I ordered that one since the Seattle public library doesn’t have it but in the meantime I read the Santa Muerte book that the SPL does  keep on hand. I wrote something else about Santa Muerte so I won’t get to deep into what I like about her (though I do think her appeal is pretty obvious).The first part of the book, the more interesting part to me, traces the roots of Santa Muerte in a few different directions. First it looks at the Aztec connect. Honestly, before reading this book, this was the only predecessor to S.M. that I’d considered (despite her obvious physical similarity to the Grim Reaper). Living in Mexico it’s hard not to see the Aztec connection to everything quintessentially Mexican. I’ve found that, generally, folks in Mexico (or at least Mexico City) are quick to point these connections out. And like it’s easy to see the Aztec Goddess Tonantzin smuggled by syncretism into the Virgin of Guadalupe (quickly, she’s standing on the moon and has the stars in her robe, the black rope around her hand is an Aztec fertility symbol, the Nahuatl word that is used to describe them both is “coatlaxopeuh” “she who crushes the serpent”, the current V. of G. shrine is in the location of the destroyed Tonatzin shrine, etc.) you can also see a lot of Aztec culture, specifically the underworld goddess Mictecacihuatl, in S.M.. All that stuff is endlessly fascinating to me but the the other couple chapters in this vein were more surprising. There are European folk traditions that Rollin sees in S.M., such as the Danse Macabre or La Parca that it never occurred to me to connect to S. M. since she always struck me as so pre-hispanic. Likewise, I hadn’t thought enough about the fact that, despite being an immortal skeleton, she is very much a woman. Rollin does a good job connect her to other female death goddess like Kali and showing why her being feminine is essential to her nature. The second half of the book was less interesting to me since it’s a practice guide to her worship. It was interesting to learn the difference between the 7 different colored votive candles and to learn about how to clean the statutes (something I’d seen preformed on the streets dozens of times but never had I seen a breakdown of the process). However, I do think she’s wrong, or at least off base about a few things. First, she really seems to minimize tobacco as an offering, often mentioning how much it smells or how you should only burn it outside or how you can give her tobacco in the form of a tincture or a non-lit cigarette. In my personal experience tobacco is a major gift to S.M. and leaving a lit cigarette at her shrine is basically the least you can do. Likewise, she never mentions marijuana which is a major aspect of her worship. Leaving her joints or blowing smoke in her face is incredibly common and gets no mention in the book. Finally, it seems weird to me to render the prayers in English. Can she be worshipped in English? This might seem like a silly thing for me  in particular to bring up since I don’t speak Spanish well enough to read the Spanish language scholarship on this, but if you’re interested in something so much that you are worshiping it, does it not behove you to learn the language of 99% of its devotees? This is not to say that I’m not interested in reading translations of rosaries and prayers, I very much am, but this book is not presenting itself as scholarship, it is very clearly a practical guide to influencing S.M. to intervene on your behalf. Either way, very interesting, I remain fascinated by the subject. 9 bones.