ARTICLES

People Close to Death

The Cult of La Santa Muerte in Tijuana

BY ALFREDO ORTEGA-TRILLO

On an abandoned road between Tijuana and Tecate, near the Rodriguez Dam, there is a tiny shrine made of concrete blocks painted pale pink, with a simple two-slope roof. In front is a small dirt patio formed by cinderblocks stacked four high. A Peruvian peppertree and two rose bushes are the extent of the landscaping. The plants look green when the driver of a water truck soaks them with a gush of water.

"'When you remember, water it,' they told me. And frequently I remember," says the water-truck driver, directing another gush of water from a hose he is holding with both hands.

"And who told you that?" I ask.

"A lady."

The man is in a rush, and he leaves in a hurry in his water truck. It is a sunny day, dusty and dry. The warm breeze carries the crooning voice of Pedro Infante coming from a radio playing in a nearby coconut stand. The chapel's door is open, and inside there are flower vases and long candles.

At first glance, the metal gate that protects the altar prevents the revered image from being seen. There are cigars, cigarettes and matchboxes on the gate's joints. Farther inside, somebody has left an unopened can of beer. Little by little, as the eyes adjust to the light, what looks in silhouette like a statue of the Blessed Virgin becomes the skull-faced La Santa Muerte -- "The Holy Death." In her bony right hand the robed figure bears a scythe, in her left an hourglass. From her wrists and extended arms hang white and silver necklaces and bracelets.

"Her Holiness Death," a woman who has arrived in a 2004 Sentra corrects me.

"Why Holiness?

"Because she liberated my husband from a kidnapping phone threat we received, and in the end they took a friend instead."

Originally from Mazatlán and not yet 30 years old, the woman has a rebellious beauty. She is accompanied by a younger woman and a child who looks about seven years old.

"Why don't you pray to God directly, or to the Virgin Mary?"

"I got tired of asking."

"What were you asking for?"

"Vengeance for having been betrayed."

And there it is, the biggest draw to the cult of La Santa Muerte: one can pray for vengeance. There are prayers within the cult to ask for the protection of your home, your health and obtaining work, but more than half of the prayers are directed at requesting something bad for another person. Generally, the prayers begin by exalting the empress of darkness before making the request. Here is one short prayer of the cult: Dear beloved Death / do not leave me without your protection / and do not leave (include name of a person) at peace for a moment / Bother him every instant / and make him restless so that he/she will always think of me / Amen.

And here is another: I want you to make it so that (insert the name) / can't eat on a table / can't sit on a chair/ nor have peacefulness. / I wish that you force him to give himself up and humiliate him in front of me/ come to my feet / and never ever leave me.

The manual of procedures from which these requests are made includes minute descriptions of the steps that must be followed to obtain the desired result. Candles, knives, dolls and strings are favored objects incorporated in these rituals.

With an air of contempt, the woman who had previously explained the purpose of her petitions to La Santa Muerte turns toward the image and in a quiet voice says, "She granted my request."

"How were you initiated into this cult?"

From her purse she takes out a black figurine that fits in her hand. "Two years ago they gave this to me. And even though I had lost it, one day it appeared again in my purse."

I reach toward it with my hand, and she backs off.

"You can't touch her!"

She enters the small chapel, lights a candle that she places at the feet of the image, and prays three Our Fathers. The other woman does the same. The child stays with me, staring at the scene.

Both women get in the car. The rebellious beauty looks straight at me from behind the wheel. Her lips tighten with a smile and before she takes off in the car I hear her say, "I would give her my soul if I could."

Lucio Véjar is the owner of the coconut stand nearby and his white whiskers go up and down as he speaks with the scarce customers that pass by during the week.

As I sip the coconut water with a straw, he explains that it was a lady from the El Florido neighborhood in eastern Tijuana who had the shrine built on federal land next to the road. He says the women said she dreamed that La Santa Muerte had asked her to build the chapel at the edge of the dam in memory of all those who had drowned.

"The truck drivers that go by," I ask Véjar, "are they visitors of the image?"

He shakes his head, "No, the truck drivers are Guadalupanos" -- devotees of the Virgin of Guadalupe. "The ones who come are people who drive late model cars."

A police officer in charge of patrolling the area says he hasn't seen anything out of the ordinary, except for what happened one night. "It was past midnight. I was on my shift, and I saw the candles lit. I approached to see what it was, and I saw a group of persons sitting on chairs."

"Did you see anything strange?"

"No. It looked to me like they were praying, and I left."

Some insist on giving the cult of La Santa Muerte a picturesque Mexican twist. They say it originates from as far back as Mexico's pre-Hispanic ancestry. But the image of La Santa Muerte does not wear huaraches (sandals) or a taparrabo (a type of loin cloth) or indigenous ornaments. Instead she wears a long robe to the heels, a Greek-style tunic. The scythe and hourglass she bears are not pre-Conquest either. The likely beginnings of this strange cult were in the 1950s, when stamp-sized images started to circulate in the Mercado Sonora in Mexico City. The worshipers of the cult of La Santa Muerte were people close to death: police officers, trash pickers, and prostitutes. What is known is that they prayed with Catholic prayers, as they still do, and they set up altars with a glass of water, flowers, and a candle.

Currently one of the main breeding grounds of the cult is located in the Reclusorio Norte prison in Mexico City, where young inmates choose her as their "God-Mother," says a guard, who says he's terrified by the proliferation of "sanctuaries" dedicated to the "white girl" that are appearing in the cells.

Someone who has taken advantage of the situation is the false priest David Romo, who established the first chapel to La Santa Muerte on September 7, 2001 in Mexico City. Married and the father of five children, Romo named himself as the Prime Archbishop of the "Traditional Mexico-USA Catholic Apostolic Church, Sacred Heart and San Felipe de Jesús Missionaries." He is in charge of the National Sanctuary of La Santa Muerte located in Mexico City in Colonia Carranza. Recently Romo attained some fame in Latin America by marrying the controversial Cuban actress Niurka Marcos to her lover Bobby Larios.

Romo's cult now has a dozen more shrines in the north of Mexico City. The phenomenon is about to take him to Los Angeles and New York, where interest is high. The cult is now offering a four-year course to about 20 men between the ages of 15 and 40, with plans to ordain them as priests or "committed lay persons" to La Santa Muerte.

The cult has spawned the cottage industry of publishing recipes, formulas, rites, and prayers invented to satisfy the demand created by this superstition of the people. On the internet, one can find the sale of objects used in the cult, courses on "The Magic of La Santa Muerte" (10 lessons for $10), requests for donations, the sale of stamps, images and a multitude of accessories, candles and even dresses of different colors. Because this doll, like Barbie, dresses up in different colors, depending on the needs of the devotees: in black for protection against enemies, in red in order to bring harmony, in white in order to give them peace and health, and in purple to give them freedom.

In Mexico City at the Mercado Sonora, La Santa Muerte is sold more than any other image, comments María del Refugio, an employee of one of the stores there.

At the Maya arcade in downtown Tijuana, two stores owned by the same family sell images of La Santa Muerte. One of these images sits next to a sculpture of Pope John Paul II and another of the Virgin of Guadalupe, flanked by a Malverde and a bust of Juan Soldado -- the local folk saint who was killed in 1938 for a crime his devotees say he didn't commit -- that scrutinizes the scene from a wall bracket. A few steps away there is another establishment with the name "La Providencia," where no images or figures of La Santa Muerte exist.

Asked why, the store's attendant answers, "We are Catholic and don't deal with those things," he says. "In order to make money, some will sell their soul to the devil, and then sell evil as if it were caramel."

TOP