Santa Muerte worship spreads beyond Mexico

The discovery in El Salvador of a shrine to Santa Muerte, a female deity associated with the underworld, shows how the new religious movement has become popular among criminal groups outside Mexico.

On July 31, the Salvadoran Public Prosecutor’s Office reported finding a Santa Muerte altar in a bar in the town of San Miguel, east of the capital San Salvador, during a search operation against the bar’s owners, who were accused of sexual exploitation.

During the operation, authorities arrested two individuals and seized $10,000 in cash.

Another such case occurred in mid-July in Guatemala, where the attorney general’s office reported that an altar honoring Santa Muerte and San Simón was found during a search of a house in the Santa Fe neighborhood of Guatemala City as part of a police operation against extortion.

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Santa Muerte, both a female deity and a new religious movement of the same name, was first worshipped in Mexico. She has become one of the most popular religious figures among drug traffickers and criminal groups in the country, as well as other communities that have nothing to do with crime.

Criminal followers of the religion see Santa Muerte as their patroness and protector, similar to the Virgin Mary, the Christian figure. However, those who pray to Santa Muerte ask for the death of their enemies, and for protection.

Santa Muerte has expanded significantly in the past two decades. Andrew Chestnut, an expert in Latin American history and religious studies, estimates that about 12 million people consider themselves followers of Santa Muerte in countries such as Mexico, the United States, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

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While the veneration of Santa Muerte by Mexican drug traffickers is not a new phenomenon, the discovery of an altar in El Salvador underscores the popularity of the religion in other criminal underworlds in Latin America.

In Mexico, the veneration of Santa Muerte is popular in areas such as the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City, the birthplace of the La Union Tepito criminal organization, and in Culiácan, Sinaloa, home to the Sinaloa Cartel..

The spread of Santa Muerte to other parts of Latin America is facilitated by the already existing practice of alternative religions among criminal groups in the region. This is a product of the convergence of indigenous and Catholic belief systems, which are common in Latin American communities.

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Other examples of new religions or quasi-religious figures popular within criminal subcultures include Santeria, practiced by some criminal gangs in the Caribbean, and the veneration of popular saints and figures such as San Simón, a Mayan deity now revered by criminals because of his reputation as a trickster, Jesus Malverde, a folk hero known as the narco-saint, or San Judas Tadeo (Saint Judas), who was popular among the Colombian cartels in the 1980s and is still revered in parts of Mexico.

Santa Muerte’s popularity was also fueled by the cultural exchange created by the sometimes overstated presence of Mexican cartels in Latin America, Chestnut told InSight Crime.

“The expansion of Santa Muerte into neighboring countries and throughout most of the Americas is due to the great cultural influence of Mexico and to those at the forefront of exporting Santa Muerte: the cartels themselves,” he said.

The violence brought about by organized crime in parts of Latin America likely also contributed to the spread of Santa Muerte, the Saint of Death.

“It is not surprising that the cult of Santa Muerte would grow and flourish in times of so much death. Many people turn to Santa Muerte as protection against possible impending death or to wish death upon enemies,” Chestnut said.

Main image: An altar to Santa Muerte found by authorities in El Salvador. Source: Office of the Attorney General of the Republic of El Salvador.

Images in text: Santa Muerte shrine and statues in Culiácan, Sinaloa. Credit: Parker Asmann and Victoria Dittmar.