{"id":12118,"date":"2021-03-23T18:12:07","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T00:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12118"},"modified":"2021-03-23T18:12:45","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T00:12:45","slug":"and-even-wicca-a-historical-study-of-santa-muerte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12118","title":{"rendered":"“And even Wicca”: A Historical Study of Santa Muerte"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>An anthropologist and a historian examine the development of the cult of Santa Muerte (Holy Death) in this article, “Syncretic Santa Muerte: Holy Death and Religious Bricolage,” which currently is a free download.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Bricolage” is a term beloved by scholars of new religious movements. It means building something with available materials in a do-it-yourself fashion \u2014 a little of this and a little of that. For its history in academic writing, see Wikipedia.<\/a><\/p>\n

The authors write,<\/p>\n

Firstly, taking an ethno-archaeological, anthropological and historical viewpoint, we argue that Santa Muerte accreted from the meeting of two distinct conceptions of death during the colonial era, when Spanish colonizers brought Christianity to Latin America to convert Indigenous people, and with it the figure of the Grim Reaper which represented death. . . .<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The nearest supermarket has candles for Our Lady of Guadalupe, Santo Ni\u00f1o de Atocha, etc., but no Santa Muerte. I wonder how long it will take before “our distributor” (they blame everything on “our distributor”) has them in stock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An anthropologist and a historian examine the development of the cult of Santa Muerte (Holy Death) in this article, “Syncretic Santa Muerte: Holy Death and Religious Bricolage,” which currently is a free download. “Bricolage” is a term beloved by scholars of new religious movements. It means building something with available materials in a do-it-yourself fashion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,256,96,41,299,5],"class_list":["post-12118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-catholicism","tag-death","tag-mexico","tag-pagan-studies","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-39s","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10886,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10886","url_meta":{"origin":12118,"position":0},"title":"Catholic Church Struggles with De Facto Polytheism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"This is an old story, but it erupts in new forms. Polytheistic-style devotion keeps irrupting in the Roman Catholic Church, much to the concern of the hierarchs. From The Catholic Herald (UK): \"The Church\u2019s life-and-death struggle with Santa Muerte: The Church in the Americas is sounding the alarm over a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Catholicism\"","block_context":{"text":"Catholicism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=catholicism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/santa-Muerte.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4032,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4032","url_meta":{"origin":12118,"position":1},"title":"Adding New Gods","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"P. Sufenas Virius Lupus wonders about how new gods are added to polytheist pantheons. Something that will often happen, particularly with reconstructionist-based practitioners, is that further research into a particular deity and their connections leads to \"new-to-me\" or various other re-discovered deities that are then taken into one's personal pantheon.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":648,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=648","url_meta":{"origin":12118,"position":2},"title":"The encylopedic mind of J.\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The encylopedic mind of J. Gordon MeltonThe Los Angeles Times interviews J. Gordon Melton, a major figure in the study of new religious movements.It's often said of academics, but for J. Gordon Melton it's true: He really does have an encyclopedic mind.After all, Melton is the author of the Encyclopedia\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7671,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7671","url_meta":{"origin":12118,"position":3},"title":"The Complicated History of Santa Claus and American Christmas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Ah, Christmas traditions. So complicated, so misunderstood. Take Santa Claus, American version. Not a survival of colonial New Amsterdam except in a literary sense, he was pretty well invented by the prolific writer Washington Irving in the early 19th century. And he was connected with Dec. 6th, St. Nicholas' Day,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Yule\"","block_context":{"text":"Yule","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=yule"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9563,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9563","url_meta":{"origin":12118,"position":4},"title":"The “Salem-Santa Fe” Mystery Solved","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 31, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A month ago I blogged how astonished M. and I were to see that Kakawa, the Santa Fe-based chocolate house, was about to open a new store in Salem, Mass. Imagine our surprise to see this storefront on Essex Street next to the [Peabody-Essex] museum: Kakawa is coming! Sure, I\u2019d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"chocolate\"","block_context":{"text":"chocolate","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=chocolate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/kakawa-santa-fe.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/kakawa-santa-fe.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/kakawa-santa-fe.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1136,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1136","url_meta":{"origin":12118,"position":5},"title":"Church v. State, Mexican style","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A crackdown on the cult of El Santo Muerte:It is particularly popular with Mexico's powerful drugs traffickers, a link which may explain why, protected by soldiers, municipal workers in Nuevo Laredo last week used back hoes to tear down the shrines lining a road just across the border from Laredo,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Mexico\"","block_context":{"text":"Mexico","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=mexico"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12118"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12124,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12118\/revisions\/12124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}