When a life-size skeleton dressed as the Grim Reaper first appeared on a street altar in Tepito, Mexico City, in 2001, many passersby instinctively crossed themselves. The figure was La Santa Muerte, a popular saint shrouded in mystery and controversy who was previously known, if anything, as a figure of domestic devotion: someone to whom prayers could be addressed, but in the privacy of the home.
She personifies death itself and is often depicted holding a scythe or a globe. And since the early 2000s, its popularity has constantly spread by Mexico and America, Europe and beyond.
The idea and image of death becoming holy is both inconceivable and magnetic. His association with drug traffickers and criminal rituals makes many people distrust the skeletal figure. La Santa Muerte also faces an important opposition of the Catholic Churchwhich condemns their veneration as heretical and morally dangerous. High figures of the Church like Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera In Mexico they have publicly denounced their devotion, warning that it promotes superstition and goes against Christian values.
Consolation beyond institutions
This criticism highlights a deep tension between official religion and popular devotion. Many Mexicans who feel abandoned by government and ecclesiastical institutions welcome it as a source of hope. In fact, according to my research, La Santa Muerte represents strength, protection and comfort for her devotees, who include prisoners, police, sex workers, LGBTQ+ people, migrants, the working class and other less vulnerable groups. Despite its fearsome appearance, it offers a type of care that is often denied elsewhere.
As an anthropologist who has studied La Santa Muerte in Mexico, I believe her power reflects a paradoxical Mexican conception of death, not only as a symbol of fear, but as an intimate part of daily life that has become a symbol of resilience and resistance in the midst of the country’s chronic violence.
Death and the State
In my recent book, The intimacy of imagesI examine how devotion to La Santa Muerte in Oaxaca, the state famous for its Day of the Dead traditionis based on Mexico’s traditional and often playful relationship with the image of death.
Altar to Santa Muerte in the Tepito neighborhood.
Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, I discovered how the prayers, offerings, and promises people make to you are part of a desire to find solutions to everyday problems such as illness, economic hardship, and protection from harm. Its frequent representation in images such as altars, tattoos and artistic productions also reflects an evolution in the social understanding of death, which has long been an omnipresent symbol of culture, the identity and power of the Mexican State.
After the Mexican Revolution at the beginning of the 20th century, death as a symbol of the new nation was popularized by artists such as José Guadalupe Posada, especially through The Catrinathe caricature of the dandy skeleton, which is often associated with the Day of the Dead. While death and its personification were once part of an ethic of celebration and courage in the face of the inevitable end of existence, they have now become disturbing reminders of the growing insecurity and violence in Mexico.
This transformation, and the role the skeletal saint plays in providing protection in this dangerous context, reflects Mexico’s widespread descent into turmoil. In the 2000 national elections, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was overthrown after 71 years of uninterrupted government. The election of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in its place meant the fracture of the informal alliances between the State and the criminal networks that had previously repressed crime through patronage systems.
In 2006, the newly elected president of the PAN, Felipe Calderón, launched a militarized war against crime, after years of evolution of these first criminal networks until they became ruthless organizations.
In the decades since, cartel violence has skyrocketed, civilian deaths and femicides have intensified and state institutions have been accused of direct complicity or of refusing to intervene. The disappearance in 2014 of 43 students in Iguala, a case that revealed the degree of collusion between the State and criminal organizations and which remains unresolved, only crystallized public indignation. This rampant violence continues until today.
Since the start of the drug war in Mexico in 2006, it is estimated that 460,000 people have been murdered and More than 128,000 are officially listed as missing in the countrywhich is approximately one in every 1,140 people. In hard-hit states such as Guerrero and Jalisco, that proportion is likely to be much higher, highlighting the geographic inequality of violence and disappearances across the country.
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president, who took office in October 2024, has vowed to dismantle organized crime. However, the violence and the generalized perception of insecurity among the population they persist.
A violent mirror
For most devotees, La Santa Muerte is not an ally of criminals, despite the fact that it is used by groups linked to cartels. Instead, it is one of the few forms of help left in the midst of a terrifying social reality. It offers no illusion that the situation of political dysfunction or rampant violence will improve, only presence and protection. Its image reflects a brutal truth: survival is no longer guaranteed by a State whose Ties to cartels run deep.
This political and spiritual void is reflected in the rise of other lay figures of devotion, such as popular saints such as Jesus Malverdeother more official ones like Saint Jude Thaddeuseither even devotion to the devil.
However, La Santa Muerte is different. She is death personified, the end of life, the ultimate judge and a symbol of shared mortality, regardless of status, race or gender. As one devotee told me: “If you open us, you will find the same bones”. La Santa Muerte is also imbued with the care and love of her followers. Some address her as a relative, an aunt, or a revered mother who embodies maternal protection and a type of strength more commonly associated with the masculine. As many say: “She’s a bitch.”
Patroness of a country where death lurks
In a country where State protection is scarce and the boundaries between authorities and cartels are blurred, La Santa Muerte represents the people and also protects its believers through miraculous protection. Her followers flock to her because, as they say, only death can protect them from death.
Given the vulnerability of its devotees and the unconditional trust they place in their skeletal saint, it is more than simple folklore. She is the patron saint of many in a country where death lurks. He is a figure of personal comfort and collective resilience. And, above all, it is a mirror that reflects a society in crisis and mired in violence, and a people seeking meaning, dignity and protection against all of this.
